Abstract
This chapter explores the creative process of translating a series of images into a live artwork, performed by two professional dancers. The process is documented in an introduction written by the artist and a transcribed conversation between the visual artist and dancers. These provide an insight into intersemiotic translation from the perspective of the makers and performers. Including first hand experiences of those translating and performing the material, the descriptions probe the process of translation that incorporates collaboration, embodiment and improvisation.
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Notes
- 1.
A statue from the West pediment of the Parthenon (438BC–432BC) held as part of the collection at the British Museum.
- 2.
Throughout the text I have intentionally used terms that relate to both dance movements and speech. Here ‘phrase’ is used to describe the sequence of movements that form each pose. Throughout the process the sequences were continually modified which built up a vocabulary of phrases.
- 3.
In this context the term ‘fluency’ refers to the flow of movement.
References
Bakhtin, M.M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Butler, Judith. 1988. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40 (4): 519–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893.
García, Ofelia, and Wei Li. 2014. Translanguaging, Language, Bilingualism and Education. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Li, Wei. 2011. “Moment Analysis and Translanguaging Space: Discursive Construction of Identities by Multilingual Chinese Youth in Britain.” Journal of Pagmatics 43 (5):1222–35.
Phelan, James. 1996. Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Fiona Lake for her support, ideas and advice. Thank you to Ruby and Amy for their valuable contributions.
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McCartney, E. (2019). Movement as Translation: Dancers in Dialogue. In: Campbell, M., Vidal, R. (eds) Translating across Sensory and Linguistic Borders. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97244-2_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97244-2_13
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