Dada is Dada but what can be Dada?

Dada is art. Dada is the embrace of the absence of logic. Dada throws away reason. Nonsense. Nonsense. Some would say no sense. Dada has no sense. Logic? No.

The Dada movement began in the early 20th century in Switzerland after the influences of World War I. Dadaism embraced the lack of logic and sense and focused on irrationalities and intuitions. The movement was focused in art, theater, poetry, literature, sound poems, manifestos and more.

One of the main artists of the Dadaism movement is French artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp was and still is considered by many to be one of the most important artists of the early 20th century due to not only his Dadaism art, but his futuristic pieces as well! Shown below are some examples of his work.

                           This piece of art is Duchamp's "Fountain" which is actually a urinal!

     This next piece is nothing more than a bicycle wheel and stool. Found objects that he proclaimed  as art!

Another important artist of the Dadaism movement is German artist and architect Johannes Baader. His main medium of Dada art was through the making of visual collages and things of that nature. Check some of this stuff out!

A very influential Dada poet of the time is a man by the name of Tristan Tzara. Bellow is poem titled "To Make a Dadaist Poem".

To Make A Dadist Poem

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are--an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

You can see the embrace of the lack of logic in the piece above.

''Dada doubts everything. Dada is an armadillo. Everything is Dada, too. Beware of Dada. Anti-dadaism is a disease: selfkleptomania, man's normal condition, is Dada. But the real dadas are against Dada.''  - Tristan Tzara.

Tzara wasn't only a very influential poet. He was also the self proclaimed "leader of Dada". He was also responsible for writing many Dadaistic plays.


Below is a 10 minute video containing a lot of interesting facts about Dada.

The video starts with a staccato of the word Dada repeated many times with a long string of Dadaistic images.  The starting of the video definitely sets itself up to be a Dada video.

Below is a modern rendition of a Dada sound poem. One would defiantly need to listen to this poem to understand its Dadaistic nature.

Below is another Dada sound poem.

The Dada movement may have been short lived and highly criticized, but like all art, it became a wonderful refuge for many artists with a need to express their feelings, thoughts, and emotions. Though the Dada movement is considered long dead by many people, there are still a few true "Dada" artists today.

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Malcolm Nichols

Theatre History II

2/19/13

Elevator Stages, Treadmills, Trap doors, oh my!

            The 19^th century was full of theatrical technology innovations. The change from backdrops to box sets, from low to detail to immensely realistic scenery, the innovation of gas lighting, trap doors in the floor, stages that moved up and down and much more. The type of show that was performed began to change, which forced a change in the way scenery had to be designed.

            Steele MacKaye designed the elevator stage in the late 1800s. He was frustrated with the restrictions that many sets laid out in front of him. As a director and playwright, he was tired of being locked into a set location, or be unable to change scenery on a large scale to facilitate the change in locations in the play.

            Steele’s answer to his problem was the creation of the elevator stage. The elevator stage is two stages, one on top of the other on a counterweight system. When the lower stage was at house level, the upper stage would be above on another level, being prepared for the next scene. When the upper stage was lowered down to house level, the lower stage would be at a basement level where it was being prepared for the next scene.  It would take about 40 seconds from the time the curtain closed to the time the curtain opened with the new set upon it.

           

The creation of the elevator stage didn’t receive the type of hype and craze that Steele wanted. It was a wonderful idea, but at the time it wasn’t cost efficient enough.  The amount of money and manpower that went into the construction and implementation of the elevator stage was considered to not be worth it at the time.

            The advance of modern technology has made the idea of the elevator stage even less needed. Nowadays we have the ability to move enormous scenery on and off stage with the use of castors, hydraulic systems, fly rails, and more. 

            Around the same time as the elevator stage is being built, the use of treadmills and moving panoramas is implemented as well. A treadmill was built into the floor with a rotating diorama behind the horse. This effect was used for things such as horse races on stage, stampedes, and more. The painted backdrop that was the norm evolved into the moving background we call the diorama.

            Treadmill on stage. 

 Another innovation of the 19th century was the widespread use of trap doors in the stage. Though these had been used and seen before. The 19th century was when they truly began to take off. Most trapdoors in the stage floor were used for the purpose of special effects. But some directors used them to build stairs into, giving the realistic effect that the actor was walking down into a basement or lower level. The following video goes backstage in study of the trap door. 

Until the 19th century, many scenic designs consisted of a painted backdrop in the background, with realistic scenery and props in the foreground. This was considered the "right way" to do theatre.

 As the way theater was performed change, so did the way it was designed. Because of the shift, the "Box set" came to be. A box set is the idea that the stage is box, and the proscenium in the side of the box that we have ripped off and as audience members are able to see the life of the actors. The box set comes in many different sizes. It can be small, it can be large.  It can be filled with beautiful scenery or left blank. Even though the box set may seem constricting,  it is actually a very versatile design concept. 

Previous to the 1800's, the main sources of lighting in the theater came from candles and kerosene lamps. In the days of Shakespeare,  theatre was performed in the light of day.  English innovator F.A. Windsor had something to say about that. In 1804, he patented the use of gas lighting. And where did he decide to use it first? The theatre. The Lyceum Theatre in London to be exact. With this innovation came the ability to control the brightness of the light, as well as the placement.  

19th century was a revolutionary year for technical theater. The technology advanced, the ideas changed, the way performances were thought of changed, and many more things. The 19th century was a major building block for what we have today.