Choreographics: Dance in Post-War American Poetry

Dance remains one of the most overlooked art forms, despite its vast history, and is still frequently left out of discourse concerning the artistic innovation and advancement of the post-war American avant-garde. Through my study of the works of Charles Olson, Frank O’Hara, and Jackson Mac Low, however, I will argue that dance was of signal importance to avant-garde experiment and invention of this period, undergoing its own metamorphoses of aesthetic styles and practices, and providing important inspiration to the poets as they carved out their own literary revolutions.
Through both close readings of poems written by each of the poets, as well as contextualising their respective poetic projects within the artistic collaborative communities that they operated within (Black Mountain College; The New York School; The Judson Dance Theatre and Fluxus), this thesis explores the influence dance had on the formal and aesthetic organisation on the work of each poet. In each case, ‘dance’ is understood as an art form that operates with the dual functions of ‘choreography’, that is, a form of ‘dancing writing’, or notation, on one hand; and on the other hand, performance, as the live event of ‘realising’ choreography through movement.
By further situating each poet in relation to their dance contemporaries – Charles Olson with Merce Cunningham; Frank O’Hara with George Balanchine; Jackson Mac Low with Simone Forti – this thesis reveals what I term a ‘poetics of dance’ in which verse is organised to emulate the dynamic qualities and structures of dance, and a ‘choreographic poetics’, in which poetry is produced according to the compositional and structural processes of dance choreography, across the works of these poets.