!VAR HAGENDOORN

Dogma 2005

Some years ago I formulated a DOGME 95 inspired list of commandments for creating a dance performance. The DOGME 95 site appears to be down, but you can also find the original ten commandments here. Here's a 8.5Mb pdf scan of the original (?) document as distributed by Lars von Trier on March 22, 1995 at a conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of cinema in Paris.

The original commandments always reminded me of Oulipo, whose members created all kinds of constraints for writing.

However DOGME 95 can also be seen as a partial deconstruction of some of the implicit rules in film making, partial because there are obviously numerous other rules that can be broken. (E.g. should the camera frame the face of the person who is speaking?). And a deconstruction would not formulate a new set of rules, but question the existing rules. However an "applied deconstruction" would necessarily involve various implicit rules of its own.

The list below grew out of the observation that in dance (and theatre) productions that use recorded instead of live music, the music appears to be in the air. It just starts for no other reason than that the show starts. For this reason it is still rule number 1.

1. Music is not in the air. If there is to be music it is to be played live or, when recorded music is used the dancers are to control the sound system.

2. There is to be a democracy of talent. Everyone is a dancer.

3. There is to be a democracy of movement. No movements are either privileged or banned.

4. Mime and all forms of pretending and representational theatre or dance are forbidden.

5. Dance can take place anywhere and anytime. It may last a few seconds or several hours.

6. There is to be no deus ex machina. If there is to be stage lighting it is to be controlled by the dancers. If there are to be video or slide projections they too will have to be controlled by the dancers. Images do not appear out of nowhere.

7. Only found objects are allowed as stage props. There has to be a reason for their presence. Stage props which are there only for aesthetic reasons or to facilitate the unfolding of the choreography are not acceptable.

8. There is to be no written document explaining narrative structure, individual scenes or describing the piece as a whole or any ideas invested in it. Any narrative should exist only in the dance.

9. The choreographer must take credit no matter how dreadful the piece that results from applying these rules.

I once saw a BBC documentary on DOGME 95, the first few minutes of which illustrated the 10 principles of the vow of chastity quite well, by taking a scene and then adding each rule, one by one.