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Picasso, Schlemmer and beyond: Scenography and costume design from a critical disability studies lens
Abstract
This article proposes a joint reading of the scenography and costume designs of Cubist artist Pablo Picasso and Bauhaus member Oskar Schlemmer, arguing that they share a common project of re-articulating the body and its movements that echoes contemporary concerns about how notions of normalcy govern the relationships between bodies and space. We propose that Picasso’s ballet Parade (1917) and Schlemmer’s Das Triadische Ballett (1922) can be productively read through the prism of critical disability studies (CDS), specifically in relation to Rosemarie Garland-Thompson’s feminist disability studies and her key concept of misfitting, enriched through the perspective of ecological affordances, as understood by James Gibson. This approach proposes to see disability from an ecological perspective that foregrounds the relationship between the body and space, as well as the affordances that are created and re-negotiated in the process of moving. By connecting Picasso and Schlemmer with CDS, this article puts forward a novel hermeneutic line from the artists’ work to the practice of contemporary artists Marco Donnarumma and Sandie Yi who share a relational conception of body, space and costume when designing in the field of crip couture, dance and AI prosthesis. This article proposes a CDS lens through which to re-evaluate the stage work of Schlemmer and Picasso, and their connection to contemporary artists’ interests, in order to open new paths of experimentation for contemporary artists and designers, as well as suggestive conceptual tools for both CDS and costume design scholars.
... The montage technique was born in the field of movies, which refers to the purposeful arrangement of different video materials according to the content, meaning, form, etc. [11][12]. The application of montage in clothing design is to communicate one's ideas through standing cuts, using textile samples, collages, sketches and notes and modern design sketches for stacking, and then the combination of colors, fabrics, popular elements, etc., which strongly reflects the designer's aesthetics [13][14][15][16]. On the one hand, using the integration of montage techniques, that is, the characteristics of one plus one is greater than two, the elements are stacked and spliced in the process of clothing creation, which is mainly embodied in the graphic design of the effect drawing and inspiration version [17][18]. ...
In modern clothing design, quilting as a means of emphasizing pattern decoration and enriching fabric texture form, its application has presented a diversified and diversified trend. This paper utilizes the montage technique in the process of designing patchwork clothing. The cultural elements of quilted clothing are being innovated through the use of the unique creative art technique of montage. Patchwork clothing design and montage techniques are cross-analyzed to explore the commonality of the two in creative techniques and artistic expression. In order to objectively measure the design effect, AHP is used to determine the weights of the indicators, and then TOPSIS is used for the comprehensive evaluation, which is constructed into a comprehensive evaluation model of quilted apparel design integrating the montage technique. The design evaluation results were achieved by combining the consistency test of the model and the hierarchical total ranking. According to the hierarchical analysis method, the weights of the secondary indicators are calculated, and practicality (25.46%), comfort (20.96%), and functionality (15.37%) rank in the top three, which have a greater impact on the effect of quilting garment design incorporating the montage technique. When the two techniques are applied to apparel design, the understanding and application of practicality, comfort, and functionality should be deepened.
... More research could be applied to the psychological and emotional aspects of Picasso's works to align with the man and examine how his life experiences influenced his creations (Troughton & Casanovas, 2023). ...
This review article adopts an interdisciplinary approach in analyzing Picasso’s synesthetic experiences and a transformative glaze on his artwork. It integrates and analyses the methods from different disciplines through Art Historical Analysis. It explores Picasso’s paintings in various phases and investigates possible synesthetic perception by observing patterns of colors, forms, and compositions. Neuroscientific Approaches are incorporated to explain how the sensory input of the receiver could have triggered a cross-modal effect in Picasso’s work by exploring the concepts of synesthesia. Psychological interpretation explores the psychological theory of feeling and investigates how Picasso’s feeling processes are associated with synesthetic feeling and his creative decision-making processes. This article includes a literature review that explains the purpose of positioning Picasso’s synesthetic artwork in the broader context of synesthesia and the theories of art. Due to this kind of multidisciplinary approach adopted in work, the richness of Picasso’s synesthetic imagination can be examined more profoundly, and the interactions between experience, feeling, or even mood of the artist with their art can be reconstructed in detail. In this context, synthesizing findings from the multi-disciplinary literature, this paper offers a novel insight into Picasso’s synesthetic imagination and a holistic understanding of artistic innovation.
This study explored the portrayal of illness and disability in Kuwaiti author Kulthoum Dashti’s memoir Almost Faded: Rheumatoid Arthritis Journey specifically focusing on how health-based thematic categorizations intersect with perceptions of the external world. Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-2015) software program, a corpus specific to the novel was analyzed, retrieving thematic categories and contrasting them with the psychologically validated lexica. The analysis revealed the author’s strong authenticity in narrating her journey with arthritis, characterized by heavy use of function words contributing to reflective tone. Additionally, the marginal confidence and low emotional tone in the narrative reflected the author’s intention to share experiences without asserting authority, while social, temporal, and spatial references centralized the lack of familial support and accurate depictions of locations, shaping the narrative’s structure. This case study contributes to understanding how illness and disability are portrayed in Kuwaiti literature, shedding light on the psychological dimensions embedded within the disability narrative.
This editorial summarizes the content of Issue 8.2 of Studies in Costume & Performance . Taking the theme of ‘Costume Connections’, in response to the Critical Costume conference held online in November 2022 which took this same theme, the issue presents a dynamic collection of items. Approximately half of the issue is devoted to research originating and developed from the conference presentations, but the balance represents new practice-oriented research endeavours. The conference questioned how costume establishes connections, receiving diverse responses from global scholars, artists and practitioners. Contributors delve into the multifaceted nature of connections formed by and with costumes, emphasizing their dynamic, non-linear and collaborative essence. Sub-themes emerge; research on historically informed costume and performance practices, the impact of digital technologies on design, how costumes can be used to destabilize norms and provoke critical thinking in practitioners and audiences, and the sociocultural dimensions of costume. The issue concludes with reflections on the societal and performative implications of costumes, marking a transition for the journal’s editorial team and expressing gratitude for the contributions of outgoing member Donatella Barbieri. Overall, the contributions underscore the pivotal role of costumes in fostering networks of experiences, practices and ideas within the realms of storytelling, performance and creative expression.
This essay looks at the seminal work of Bauhaus practitioners Wassily Kandinksy and Oskar Schlemmer in terms of their multidisciplinary approach to the performing arts, and the dance in particular. Whilst their contribution has been widely recognized in terms of a cross-pollination of ideas from the fine arts to the performing arts, this essay also addresses the influence that compositional methods, based on techniques derived from figural drawing, as well as the study of form and geometry, might have had in their choreographic practice. I argue that despite stylistic similarities, these works present a divergent approach to the question of a geometrized motion design, which Schlemmer called ‘mathematics in motion’. I discuss the concept of ‘abstract dance’ promoted by Kandinsky, in terms of a visualistic method, where movement is rendered both as a succession of still images and as an imaginary process. Schlemmer, on the other hand, promoted a synthesis of abstract and physical, as part of a model for live performance known as ‘balletic mathematics’. I expand on this distinction in terms of a differential sense schematic approach to movement, one being visual, the other proprioceptive. Landmark works produced by these artists during the Bauhaus years (1922-1933) are called upon as case studies, including Kandinsky’s Dance Curves (after Gret Palucca), and Schlemmer’s renowned Stäbetanz.
Bauhaus experiments in stage and theater design took place both on and off the premises, frequently in the context of costume parties and other festivities. Such efforts re-created the human body-literally and symbolically, onstage and off-in the shape of the doll, a creature embodying both empathy and estrangement and flourishing in the realm of photography. Anonymous and androgynous, Bauhaus dolls engaged with abstraction both individually and in groups; they blurred distinctions between performers and spectators and increasingly exemplified the bond between gender and mass culture to provide models of subjectivity and spectatorship for the Weimar Republic.
Marionettes have inspired dance productions for centuries. In the early twentieth century, choreographers used the figure of the puppet to negotiate tensions between modern mechanization, national folk traditions, and expressive human movement. Modernism's dancing marionettes leap across national borders and genres of dance to appear in Michel Fokine's Petrouchka (1911), the Marionette Dance (1916) of Japanese-born modern dancer Ito Michio, and Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer's Das Triadische Ballett (Triadic Ballet, 1922). All were influenced by modernist marionette theories that referenced Heinrich von Kleist and Gordon Craig. Ballet, modern, and avant-garde dance are often considered separate trajectories in modernism, but their use of the dancing marionette demonstrates a common impulse to explore the relation between machine and human movements.
While spending some time during the winter of 1801 in M., one evening in the public gardens I chanced upon Herr C, who had been recently engaged as the leading dancer at the opera house and who had found exceptional success with the public there.
I mentioned how surprised I had been to notice him on several occasions attending a marionette theatre that had been set up in the local market place, which entertained the masses with short dramatic burlesques interspersed with song and dance.
He assured me that the performance of these puppets was a source of great pleasure to him, and he made it quite clear that a dancer who wished to improve himself could learn a great deal from observing them.
Because his remarks were obviously not to be taken lightly, I sat down with him so that we might discuss his reasons for such a remarkable statement.
The period during and following World War I in Germany reconceptualized the physical function of bodies to emphasize activity over structure, as visible in the prosthetic appendages worn by amputees returning from war to be reintegrated into society. Such manipulation of the human form is critical to the dramaturgy of the drama and dance works explored here, which deconstructed bodies in order to reconstitute the identity of the performers. This article moves from the engineering of social function in Bertolt Brecht's A Man's a Man, in which a narrative of altered personality is primarily reflected in the dialogue's metaphors of physical damage and reconstitution, to a progressive reliance on the body as a medium of dramaturgy in the manipulation of physical identity in Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet and Kurt Jooss' The Green Table. By considering the shift in medical approaches to prosthesis and the treatment of onstage bodies to reflect the same changing values from multiple vantage points, the culturally and historically specific medium of the body thus offers an opportunity to think of not only medicine and performance together, but also drama and dance in their engagement with the contemporary body.
A theory of microactivist affordances: Disability, disorientations, and improvisations