Anthony Scott
Dada, Robert Hill and RoseLee Goldberg
Author RoseLee
Goldburg correlates a complex evolution of the performing arts in chapter three
which highlights a focus on the term Dada. Like a cross bred grape vine
producing a hybrid intertwined in a complex visual, much like the painting by
Marcel Janco on page 59. This image Cabaret
Voltaire (p. 50) was displayed at the peak of its short lived days of “only
five months” (p. 63). One of the two founders of “Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in
1916”, Hugo Ball, during its peak wrote that it was becoming “a playground for
crazy emotions.” (p. 56). The club filled with a variety of exiles through diaspora
due to the war, where writers, poets, painters and artist expressed rejection
to the bourgeois, thus forming an anti-art and cultural protest. As a result, perhaps
inspired by some from past Expressionist and Futurist, and thus forming a hybrid
termed Dada. Ball for one, quotes that his “strongest impression” of theatre
was Frank Wedekind. (p. 51) Wedekind (noted by Goldburg on page 58 as “the German
Expressionist”) was known for his “provocative performances” (p. 50), yet “Wedekind
viewed with extreme disfavour any attempts to align his works with
Expressionism”, as he claimed he used these “techniques” prior to its new popularity
(p. 52). In addition, after “Ball and Huelsenbeck had coined…” “…Dada,” which “Ball said” “it is a sign
for foolish naivete”, he gives favor for his later writings of “words-in-freedom”
(p. 62) to Futurist Marinetti. During Ball’s tour with “the Flamingo” in Switzerland,
he corresponded with “Marinetti, the leader of Futurist.”
(p. 55)
(p. 55)
This (cross-bred)
combination of cultures, styles and expressions, branched off (the grape vine)
which one may perhaps view as (hybrid) in some cases, with different approaches
and agendas, internationally, and simultaneously in some cases. “Grosz and
Heartfield” became “increasingly political”, Tzara, perhaps radically,
continued his pursuit in his version of anthology, and Huelsenbeck left his involvement,
perhaps beating his drum on the way, became a “psycho-analyst” (p. 63) which to
me is not as crazy as the “anti-painter” Francis Picabia with “his drunken
state”, a challenge to fight “Jack Johnson”, and “raving obscenities” in New
York as his form of protest.
(p. 73)
(p. 73)
As I see it, the Cabaret
Voltaire is perhaps the main stem of the (grape vine) in Goldburg’s chapter
three as to the form of Dada, with newly formed hybrid branches and past events
as a focus, I am intrigued with the 1919 “first live photomontage” produced by
Erwin Piscator (p. 70). Only three years later, “August 1922” (p. 181) as
written by author Robert Hill, Marcus Gravey’s photo on “Seventh avenue in
Harlem” appeared. (p. 182) Gravey’s photo was not pulled off a complex collage,
or cropped from Janco’s Cabaret Voltaire
painting, yet an intertwined complexity was what Gravey’s photo, along with
others, eventually represented as a whole. A population of “African Americans”,
“foreign-born blacks from Cuba,” “Virgin Islands”, “Portuguese Atlantic islands”,
“Cape Verde”, “Azores”, and a majority from “West Indians” to which lived in
Harlem. (p. 195) In addition, unified internationally with other countries such
as Jamaica and Ethiopia. As a whole, the visual effect may be a complex Dada
form of representation, but let’s not take our focus off the ship in the “Black
Atlantic”, for its cargo is cultural traditions and performance.
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