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Mainly:        [Dada - 1911]
            

On this page:  {Dada and All that}
               {Dada Performance Questions}
               {DaDa Performance Links}

                 soap operas, etc  - prob linked in from TV ???



Dada and All that

     I'm sure that if i wasn't a member 
     of "U2" [, a rock band,], then i 
     wouldn't be up here hosting this.
              -- one of the musicians of "U2"
                 at some v. glitzy Hollywood thing.

So, here it is - the long awaited article!

(am i ready? Of course!  no. wait. wait! oh, never
 mind here it is (holds fav dancing dolphin's towel
 and begins stroking it, actually sucking on one
 edge of it)

(at this point "The Major" comes up and says:

    "Alright. That's enough of that. This 
     is getting too silly. Start again!"
)

START AGAIN

...(opening image. Possibly black screen onto which
    slowly come the letters in black)...


............

    dada     

............


....(fade to 1/2 shot of host)...

Dada. 

Dada - the simplest, most ordinary words that a baby speaks,
and yet it gave rise to one of the unusual art movements ever to
spring out of the great, Western Tradition. How was it that such
a simple, common word should give rise to not only what came to be
regarded most influential concepts in modern art?

As tradition holds, the group of artists, writers, musicians,
and other "Bohemians" gathered in Zurich, Switzerland at the
close of World War I opened a dictionary and jabbed a finger
in landing on "dada".

Other traditions say that it was chosen after some discussion as
being quite appropriately "baby talk" and a fairly common word in
every language around the world as "a baby's first word". In fact,
this is pretty much true - in languages that don't use the hard
"D" the word "ba-ba" or "pa-pa" with an equivalently hard sound
is usually associated with a baby's first word. And, inevitably
sociologists might say, it's interpreted by adults as the baby
calling out the name of their father. 

These early origins asside, what happened was World War I.

The so-called, "first world war", or at the time "The Great War",
or as it dragged on "The War to End all Wars".  Would that that 
were true. 

But even prior to that time the human race had turned a corner.

... (fade from the host, to a slightly foggy screen)...

... (photo of the Eifel tower slowly comes into focus
     as it does so, the last few minutes of Offenbach's
     Orpheus Overture about 6:30 - 6:37 come up
     the Words:  "Paris, 1899" come up, holds, and then
     slowly fades, the "CanCan" portion of the Overture) 
     begins - street scenes b&w of Paris).

(host, voice over)

Paris, the turn of the century. Fin'd'cycle' - End of the 
century. All ready for a new one. A new century; a new
beginning.  For the first time in over 30 years the world 
was at peace. And everyone knew it. It was the modern age. 
The telegraph now spanned the atlantic, Britain was already 
building a world wide telecommunications network, the telphone, 
electricity, electricity, and of course the steam engine. 

...(Debusy's "La Mer", Track 5)....

Signs of what was quickly being termed "modernism" were everywhere,
how people dressed, what they did. How they worked 

...(including pictures of tractors, factories, etc)...

A time of peace. A few problems still, of course. But with the
march of progress even these would disappear. Boundaries between
countries - now refered to as "nations" a term that had popped 
up earlier in the 18th century. 

But, this was 1899. You didn't even need a passport to go from
one country to the other. Often "travel papers" or a "letter of
introduction" were enough to get you into any place in the world.
The Forbidden City of China, Imperial Russia, ... (etc) ...

Even America was emerging from a hundred years of isolation. 

Tourism was a world event. Modern ocean liners made all of the
continents accessible. Telegraph lines carried news from every
part of the globe. Even the "Dark Continent" of Africa wasn't
so dark any more, the European nations began to carve out 
territories to be brought into the light of day, to bring
all of the gifts of civilistion to it: Education, Medicine,
Culture. 

...(pictures of missionaries, hospitals, etc)...

...(Satie: Ballet Realistique)...

Treuly this was the beginnig of the long awaited "Golden Age".
But.

It wasn't going to last.

The world was once again in competition. And this didn't 
just "sneak up" on people, the signs were all about. New
terriories and new technologies went hand in hand to create
the real possibilities of colonialism. And while almost all
of the world agreed on the inhumanity of slavery, the idea
of "civilising" the poor unfortunates in was the only human
thing to do. 

...(image of Darwin, Lineus, Mendel)...

After all Darwin's theory told us that there was always 
a struggle for survival, and there were simply those that 
weren't fit to survive. 

...(images of the Dodo, dinosaur drawings, etc)...

The newly found first bones of dinosaurs told us that: 
There were ages gone by, where entire eco-systems had 
vanished virtually over night.

...(images of the hottentots, american indians, laplanders)...

And of course it was clear that if man wasn't to join these
mass extinctions that technology, culture, and progress were
the only things to stop the backward slide into oblivion.

Of course with the modern advent of "nations", many of the
small almost in-consequential principalities, kingdoms, 
and regions were quickly amalgamated into the nations. The
1800's had shown that the only way to survive was to be part
of a nation. A nation with armies, navies, and industries at
the ready to protect the boundaries; the land. The people.
A nation of people. That had to unite to survive - lesson
that had been grizzelly learned in America in the bloodiest
of all wars: A civil war. 

And into this newly emerging inter-national scene came the
first glimmerings of what was to come. 

But. 

What about art?

Here the first ones to "see it" were the writers and thinkers
of the time. These included visonaries such as Jules Vernes
and H.G. Welles whose visions weren't limited by the here and
now. And these visions inspired others who had already been
examining the social strata of the world. 

Notable were the play-writes; and chief among them was Ibsen.

One would hardly expect a revolution from the colourfull 
post-card world of Norway but none-the-less it came. And
if there was one thing that theatre was: A mirror of social
commentary on the world as it is. 

It's almost as if "actors" who simply "put on a face" or
"dress up" - pretending, etc and the plays that they produced
were somehow stired by change. And if Ibsen begat Shaw and
others, and Women's Rights were becoming "problematic" for
the modern world - then what of territorialism?
                                nationalism?
                                racism?

And no where was this more clear than in Germany, at the very 
heart of Europe - the crossroads of culture, history, humanity.
The new ideas that were coming out of France in art, history,
writing, philosophy - in all areas of thought were spuring 
growth around the world. France had suffered greatly during
the absurdity of the reign of Napolean the Third, nephew of
Napolean the first. And the agressions between Prussia, Germany,
Austria, the Ottoman Empire, China, Japan and of course England.
And what England had - a global empire on which quite literally
the sun never set - others wanted as well. 

And out of Germany came an embrionic form of theatre - the
theatre of the absurd. But, even that came from France. In the
form of 'pataphysics. The brain child of -[Alfred Jarry]- in the best
evolutionary tradition of modern thought. 

Everywhere "modernism" and the "bourgeiose" were sprouting up,
even Marx's ideas were outgrowths of studying that tribe human.

So, into this "best of all new worlds" came Jarry and others who
weren't completely taken in by the "promise of the new". And with
the almost prophetic writings of Verenes and Welles - neither of
which was completely neutral towards the supposed inevitability
of the "golden new age" came this idea that all that was modern
was not necessarily good. Later, writers, artists, musicians
would all acknowledge that the break through works of Jarry had
inspired them. 


          ***** Back to TALKY STYLE *****

So, obviously i'll leave that for you to discover for yourself.

In Germany the playwrights began to write into their plays little
hints that Germany and England were building up larger and 
larger fleets of ships. Now what could that mean?

And then the war came.

And went.

And leaving scars that simply could not heal. 

Europe - the gleaming beacon of the highest aspirations,
         dreams and achievements of the human race had
         been racked from one end to the other. And
what had been accomplished?  Nothing.

Even the Allies' chief general, Foche had noted: 

    The Treaty of Versallies is nothring more
    than a temporary cease fire; in 20 years
    time, France and Germany will again be 
    at war.  -- definitely:  NOT an exact quote


      [Dada - 1911]

So, we have the stage set:

   The War to End all Wars - no real changes in boundaries,
                             colonies, etc -- well, what
   ever could be gotten from German - blamed for the war,
   etc. -- all fertile, bitter ground for the 
           Corporal who would be King; ie, Hitler.
           (aka "Schikelgruber").

So, the absrudist was about the only way to respond (well,
not really) - and that would be called "dada" (nice catch phrase)

Eugeinio Montale (Italy)

Dada (Switzerland)

Satie, et alisquam (France)

etc, etc, etc.....(more later, gotta go do "beck and call stuff")





-^_6


Dada Performance Questions

in no particular order..

Who beneifits? Who thinks?
Many years ago, i chanced to be a a friend's friends' house
and the two elderly men were studying fish. Thinking them to
be fishermen (ie, "those that seek that which wiggles thru water
to be eaten not drunken"), i attempted to engage them in a
conversation. As it turns out they were only interested in some
piscatorial problem; odd it seemed to me - that is, in a bit 
of arcand knowledge for its own sake.

In the same way, if you get a group of artists (of the visual
sort for this story) together and start talking about the
problems of authentication, auotographic vs allographic works
of art, and so forth - to most other people it seems all so
odd. After all, musicians playing the Ravel or the Stowkovski
arrangement of Modest Musorgski's "Pictures at an Exhibition"
do not enter into the heat of the discussion. More often 
comparing "translations" (or as they are want to put it 
"transcriptions" - i'm not at all clear of the distinction(S))
from the original piano work. 

Regardless, the point of this study, is that one man's fish
is another person's useless bicycle (even if it IS on a 
tuesday; alghouth, probably NOT on Tuesday Weld's bicycle).

So, enjoy; or go watch one of those game shows or something
like re-runs of something that i don't watch; one many's
Seinfeld is another man's Friends - but, neither is anyone's
Moe, Larry, and Curly (joe or not or otherwise just a chmimp).

something will go here sometime mabye soon...
Of course, while int he technology of the time, the things
like the telephone, telegraphy, printing press (lithographic
reproductions of photorgraphs/wood cuts/etc, mainly), and of
course the photograph, phonograph and such. 

And at the same time (much like that little bit of wittlingly
whineing music that occurs in the works of satie, milhaud,
and cotrane (to say nothing of stravinski, or jarry)) must 
have been completely revelatory when confounded by the 
unblievable depths beyond MERE MECHANCIAL INVENTION:

  Maxwell's equations of beutfiul form that would soon 
            give rise to a totally un-exepcted thing
            to be called 'radio' (mainly because that was what it was going to be)

  Darwin's theory at one and the same time destroyed who
           we were, and unified ALL life on earth. and if
           he did that
                       then what of Freud?

  then in Russia (czar or bolshevik - take your choice)
       Mendelev's theory uniting all chemistry,
       Tsilikovski sketching multi-stage rockets, space stations, and baes on the moon

  and then there was in 1905 that crazy patent clerk who
      told time to stand in line and take a number, so
      to Newton and 
Galileo must have known it was coming: after all light
is as a lamp unto our feet when we have lost our faith.

and the fin d'cicle' didn't stop even for that which rolls.

and finally it must have hit them all (i'd say about either
a quarter to eight or 3/4's until 1918) that all that 
id gilded is not ego alone on an open road surrounded
by the mongolfier's paper products; and no where was either
jasper johns, jim dine, or betsey belshey to be found.

But, then it turned out to only be the dream of the text
not yet performed. (and it was STILL wednesday) AND they're
still arguing over orange juice not being available due to the
freeze, which *still* doesn't make sense.

fortunately, the siren sounded again, the box fan continued
to fan (med setting) and the pace of the music changed
but that was all in the past tense....

  it was (the then now) the power of Russel & Whitehead's
  principia maths, maxwell's equations, and einstein's 
  cute little equation 
  - that's what caused the Crow
  to complain?
             (fortunately, Jess (or was it Jim; i forget) 
  escaped turned into a bull, and and then flew into a rage,
  which from high over head, was far from the land of our
  dreams, but not of hope.

what ever goes here will be something different or not
         

almost isn't is or even was.
nobody had their damned tail lights on
they were just sitting their. no red lights

   ohhhh, like i just say...

somebody is looking out for me [ie, GOD or the Revelations's well of souls,,,

Soap Opera ?

  soap operas, etc  - prob linked in from TV ???

the hamond organ\

    samuel barber
    ives - variations on america

hmmmm Bach's tocatta and fuge

  rap x organ (??) --->  ?????


-^_6

DaDa Performance Links

these papers were or will be rescued from the directory:

   the artist t 2001 / text / papers / or hold or something.



-^_6



Dada by Clark & Essary...










  


   www.tbshumorstudy.com

and curiously:  http://www.tbshunorstudy.com/