Steve Paxton's Goldberg Variations and the Angel of History

Abstract

Using Paxton's Goldberg Variations—an improvised dance performed between 1986 and 1992 to pianist Glenn Gould's celebrated recordings of Bach's music—Burt investigates the problems of live performances long since passed into memory and videotape. Burt's intention is to help imagine another way of writing about performance that acknowledges the value of all those qualities within dance performances that cannot be fixed and are gradually destroyed through rehearsal; yet, paradoxically, without these very qualities, performance could not exist.

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