Kinesic-postural modal manifestations
a) This class of choreographic praxis is characterized by specific intentionality. It consists of kinesic figures and categories which are all aiming at the same thing: “establishing, maintaining or interrupting communication” (Greimas 1970). This class of kinesic facts is related more to the plan of enunciation, and in the Greimasian taxonomy, it implies several subclasses, each with its own particularities.
a.1) A class which establishes the correlation between a specific expression and a social content. Expression categories such as seated or standing, bowed head accompanied or unaccompanied by a smile, shaken or unshaken hand may designate, in certain contexts, a semantic categorization: superior vs. subordinate, young vs. old, man vs. woman (see Greimas 1970).
The preceding paragraph has already argued the inscribing of certain categories of movement in modal gestuality (subtype a.1): slow (immobile)/alert, vertical/horizontal, up/down. Here is another example, a sequence from the romantic ballet La Esmeralda. Frollo asks Quasimodo to kidnap the little “witch”. His left arm, stretched firmly, in a domineering attitude, above the distorted face of the hunchback, points to the girl’s hut. The dwarf’s hand, raised in perplexity or weak opposition, stops in the air, and defeated by the force of the imperative arm above, relapses resignedly. The polemic gestual and postural dialogue becomes readable through a vertical analysis of the choreographic drawing. The vertical manifests, semantically, a hierarchic relation lato sensu: that of social, moral and emotional dependency vs. authority (The clash of wills and structuring the authority relation – figures of the semantic content – overdetermines the vertical distribution of the corresponding figures of expression). Thus, the decisive role in constituting the signification of the ensemble belongs particularly to two “metonymic” actors, as Greimas (1970) designated them; empowered through a rhetorical mandate, they functionally undertake the actantial prerogatives of the protagonists: the prelate’s arm – firmly and imperatively stretched – and Quasimodo’s hand, eventually lowered and subjected. To the opposition up/low from the level of expression, there corresponds, on the semantic level, the opposition authority/dependence.
a.2) Certain categories of expression, embedded in oppositions such as prospectivity/ retrospectivity or openness/closing (of the movements of the arms), may send to a specific semantic dissociation between the desire and denial to communicate (Greimas 1970). Esmeralda’s dance, for example, exploits this spatial symbolism. To Frollo’s advancement, Esmeralda responds with a succession of backwards steps. After this polemic “dialogue”, essentially spatial, Esmeralda approaches Phoebus’s scarf, which Frollo intentionally allowed to fall. Her gestures are typical for a romantic type of kinesics: she kneels in front of the scarf, embraces it, wraps it around her neck, and then heads towards the execution spot. The series of forward and backward steps transposes the passionate dynamics of a romantic and tragic story. Similarly, the gestual dialogue between Frollo and Quasimodo, performed from the unequal positions of authority and, respectively, subordination, ends when, through his posture, the first one marks his withdrawal from the communication situation. The distant look turned away and the rigid, closed posture (with the hands joined in the middle) dismiss the interlocutor. In a similar way, at the end of the second act from La Bayadère, Nikyia walks around the stage, her arms stretched, calling for help; but the heads turn indifferently the other way, the refusal being final.
a.3) The proxemic categories (near/far, face to face/back to back etc.) are also correlated to some specific semantic categories (acceptance/refusal to communicate, euphoria/dysphoria) (see Greimas 1970). Generalizing one of Edward. T. Hall’s remarks, we may say that the respective positions of the individuals are relevant for a certain structuring of the semantic plan; more precisely, they reveal the nature of the relationships between individuals and their feelings (Hall 1971: 151).
In the history of society dance, the proxemic opposition near/far is able to describe a long process of evolution not only of dance, but also of mentality: an encoding of mores through historically varying norms of proper conduct, a dynamics of the collective imaginary and, in relation to the first two, a modification of aesthetic taste. The standards of allowed behaviour change along with mentality. A series of behaviours, initially tabooed, tend to shift towards the zone of the permissible, if not even further into the ordinary. Thus, the history of dance provides good examples for what the loosening of decency norms over time means. There has been a certain democratization of taste over time. At least in the area of society dance, elitism is seriously competed by the tendency to assimilate and legitimate certain plebeian, even badly reputed formulas. (It is needless to recall here the tense past of tango, which did not however hinder it from making its way into the fashionable saloons of the “crazy years” and from being regarded, nowadays, as a classic beauty, despite its retro zest).
Regarding the distance between dance partners, the opposition near/far has had, for a long time, in terms of choreographic expression, the connotation promiscuous/decent, at the semantic level of evaluating behaviours. From court dance to Argentine tango and even later, diminishing the distance between the dance partners reflects the progressive emancipation of manners, so that the dichotomy near/far, at the level of expression, no longer sends necessarily to the semantic opposition decency/indecency. In this respect, we would find it useful to resort to the taxonomy of the “four distances” (public/social/personal/intimate), proposed by Hall (1971:147-158). Generally, mixed pair dances evoke an “erotic interaction” (see Martin, in Collier et al., 1995: 175), a nuance which Greek traditional dance avoids through the use of connecting objects (handkerchief, kerchief, branches etc.) (see also Delavaud-Roux 1995; Bourcier 1994). Similarly, in a court dance like the minuet, the distance between partners is rather “personal”[6], of the type “near” or “far”, in Hall’s taxonomy (1971). The “intimate” distance between dance partners may be found even in the forms of 19th century society dance. (Even waltz, a society dance predominating during the 19th century, was blamed, in the beginning, for the “unbecoming” closeness between partners). The “shock” of tango at the beginning of the 20th century was a result not only of the “intimate” distance, but more of its “near” version, the distance of the “erotic act and of fighting” (Hall 1971: 147). In tango, the partners’ posture accounts for its perception not only as a dance, but also as a “metaphor” of eroticism (Martin, in Collier et al., 1995: 173). It ignores, as of its occurrence, the “cultural norm” (J. M. Taylor, ap. Martin 1995: 176), and eventually outlives it, as we may still see today, when fashionable usages are infinitely more tolerant with the distance taboo.
Therefore, particularly in dance, proxemic categories such as near/far are suitable for a semiological analysis; they are correlated with semantic categories related to the nature of the relationships and feelings of the dance partners, as Hall (1971) observed, before mentioned. The dynamic space of interpersonal relationships is connected to territoriality, a symbolic projection of man in the surrounding space. Thus, topic participates, like a coordinate of the choreographic expression, to the proper segmentation of the semantic content.
b) Like other modal categories, those polarized through the oppositions consent/refusal, denial/affirmation, interdiction/authorization may constitute “autonomous gestual microcodes, which function without the help of speaking or mimetic gestual statements” [our transl.] (Greimas 1970). Thus, at Frollo’s initiative to close the dialogue, Quasimodo’s reaction is, finally, consent: a movement of the head, a nod. Similarly, in La Bayadère (Act II), on the occasion of the engagement ceremony, there is a “dialogue” between rivals. Wounded by a snake, Nikiya, the bayadère, points accusingly at princess Gamzatti. Guilty, the latter admits, with a proud arching of the neck, after that preventing warrior Solor to help the dying woman; the stretched index finger performs a gestual expression correlated with interdiction as a semantic figure[7].
Attributive kinesic-postural configurations
The signification of attributive gestuality corresponds to certain inner attitudes and states, such as fear, anger, joy, sadness, etc. (see Greimas 1970). The subject of such a gestual statement is, at the same time, the subject of the enunciation, which represents a mark of attributive gestuality. The statement is not objectified, but remains a “soliloquy” about the protagonist himself, as long as the “implicit verb” is of the nature of “to be”, and not “to do”. Thus constituted, such a statement is “attributive”, “qualifying”, not “predicative”; even deictic gestuality is attributive (Ibidem).
With its double orientation (ascendant/descendant), the vertical is suitable for the “semic” categorization of an “attributive” discourse. In the ballet Spartacus, the solo of Phrygia from Act I, vertically transcribes the mean of emotions by alternating downward movements (kneeling, squatting, bending the knees, bending the back, lowering the arms or only the hands) and upward movements (standing on tiptoes, raising one’s arms, movements of the torso or of the whole body). The movements correspond to a semantism polarized between the range of ascending attitudes (revolt, prayer, hope) and that of descending thymic (despair, panic, resignation). Alternating the extremes is repeated in an exhaustive manner. Here, circular dance is a visual metaphor: running in circles, a hopeless situation. The scene ends with a gesture of invocation and then of abandonment: standing on tiptoes, Phrygia raises her hands towards the sky and then slowly lowers them, as she kneels on one knee. She hides her face with her arms. For several seconds, she freezes in this posture of exhausted retirement. The expression configures a kinesic soliloquy. The subject of the enunciation, Phyrgia is, at the same time, the subject of the choreographic statement – a purely lyrical one.
After the gladiators’ scene – entertainment in the Patricians’ feast – Spartacus’s solo is also a lyrical or attributive discourse. It contains gestures correlated semantically with different emotions, feelings, attitudes, such as fury, regret, repentance. Not once, the expression manifests contradictory semantism. For instance, in a sequence, Spartacus’s arms are crossed, and his hands cover his face, so that the palms of the hands face outwards, towards the other – possibly, an unseen double of the character, so that the soliloquy becomes a tense dialogue with himself – or towards us, the audience. It’s a sequence of defence and (self)blaming, at the same time: covering the face and uncovering the palms. The roles of the “metonymic actors” (Greimas 1970) – polemically distributed – betray inner turmoil. According to Greimas (1970), the kinesic “attributive” content coincides with that of “phrase-words” or “interjections” (Ibidem). Greimas thus confirms the semantic-syntactic role which Jakobson attributes to interjection. It is not an element of a phrase, but the equivalent of a full phrase (Jakobson 1963: 215; Jakobson 1971-1985). Therefore, this kinesic category cannot produce so-called objective statements – – statements about the world or man’s deeds (see Greimas 1970 ) –, but only (sequences of) subjective discourse. Spartacus’s lament – shaking the head, the torso, the arms – illustrates Greimas’s remark, just above-mentioned. Gestures are here correlated with an “interjectional” semantism of emotion.
Mimetic kinesic-postural configurations
We may illustrate this category through choreographic iconism, on which ritual drama relies to a great extent. Also, through the evocative aspect of tango, in which Waldo Frank (1917) saw the object, par excellence, of an “anthropology of dance and esire”. The symmetrical positioning of dancers, their closeness, the series of steps, the configuration of the pair – as a “swallow’s tail”, with their legs “plaited” and their profiles close –, the entire kinesic-postural dialogue evokes, in tango, a passionate plot.
Ludic kinesic-postural configurations
Greimas illustrates this category through dance. However, we should highlight the fact that through its functional and expressive complexity, dance means more than purely ludic manifestation. Without being exclusively characteristic of dance, other aspects of gestuality, already mentioned (modal, attributive, mimetic), may as well contribute to expressing the choreographic idea.