Escapebody: the paranoiac-critical method as dance practice

Abstract:

This article discusses the reference to the paranoiac-critical method of Salvador Dalí, the notorious surrealist painter, for a contemporary dance practice. To this end, it develops an approach to the nexuses of intelligibility of the Tragic Philosophy, especially in the psychoanalytic solution, showing how unconscious motives, captured through events perceived in the body, can drive the dramaturgical construction in contemporary dance through a tragic myth based on the paranoiac-critical method, in this article, elucidating the event in the light of Achilles’ weeping in Homer’s Iliad.

Keywords:
Body; Unconscious; Paranoiac-Critical Method; Dance; Drive.

Resumo:

O presente artigo discute a referência ao método paranoico-crítico do pintor Salvador Dalí, notório pintor surrealista, para uma prática de dança contemporânea. Para isso, desenvolve uma aproximação aos nexos de inteligibilidade da Filosofia Trágica, sobretudo na solução psicanalítica. Mostra-se como os motivos inconscientes, captados através de acontecimentos percebidos no corpo, podem impulsionar a construção dramatúrgica em dança contemporânea a partir de um mito trágico, baseado no referido método, aqui com a elucidação do acontecimento defronte ao choro de Aquiles na Ilíada, obra de Homero.

Palavras-chave:
Corpo; Inconsciente; Método Paranoico-Crítico; Dança; Impulso

Résumé:

Cet article traite de la référence à la méthode paranoïaque-critique de Salvador Dalí, le célèbre peintre surréaliste, dans le cadre d'une pratique de danse contemporaine. Pour ce faire, il développe une approche des nexus d'intelligibilité de la Philosophie Tragique, notamment dans la solution psychanalytique. En montrant comment les motifs inconscients, saisis à travers les événements perçus dans le corps, peuvent conduire la construction dramaturgique en danse contemporaine à partir d'un mythe tragique fondé sur la méthode susmentionnée, ici avec l'élucidation de l'événement face au cri d'Achille dans l'Iliade d'Homère.

Mots-clés:
Corps; Inconscient; Méthode Paranoïaque-Critique; Danse; Impulsion

Introduction to the paranoiac-critical method

[…] ¿cómo negarse al uso de ciencias tales como el psicoanálisis, ciencia de ‘los delirios genialmente sistematizados’ (sin que en ese caso comporte el menor sentido peyorativo, por supuesto)? ¿Cómo, me pregunto yo, no discernir la presencia del mecanismo paranoico en él fenómeno extraordinariamente determinante de la elección ‘experimental’ que preludia las investigaciones de las ciencias naturales? ¿Cómo, insisto, no actuaría, en el caso que nos ocupa, ese mecanismo, cuando el estudio de las particularidades delirantes paranoicas nos hace asistir a un cambio esencial del mundo-objetivo, cambio que se presenta como súbito, y que absorbe, por su poder asociativo instantáneo, toda nuestra atención y afectividad, las cuales quedan irresistiblemente fijadas en un ‘determinado’ número de hechos y objetivos, en detrimento y exclusión de todo el resto? (Dalí, 1983, p. 149 and 152).

Salvador Dalí’s quote, excerpted from his 1983 work, reflects a latent concern about the intersection between psychoanalysis and scientific research. Dalí wonders about the relevance of psychoanalysis as a science capable of deciphering the “ingeniously systematized delirium” (Dali, 1983, p. 149, free translation), emphasizing the importance of not attributing pejorative connotations to this approach. His initial reflection serves as an intriguing starting point, shedding light on the complex interactions between the reality of the human mind, artistic creativity, and the scientific domain. In order to establish connections between Salvador Dalí’s researching attitude and artistic production, Santos (2010), in the final considerations of their work, conjectures how the paranoiac-critical method, devised by the painter, may have played a crucial role in his turn of focus to the unconscious, motivated by his appropriation of psychoanalysis as a theoretical foundation for the formulation of his creative method, as we can see:

Dalí worked tirelessly throughout his life. From the ruined buildings, personal chaos, and rocks eaten by Mediterranean winds, he collected signifiers as if collecting garbage to then recycle and reprint them in his works of art. A life of reconstructions and creations. If his world collapsed after being thrown out of his paternal home, Dalí tried to rebuild it next to Gala.

[…] we can say that Dalí was a tireless master builder, as, instead of resigning himself to the suffering imposed by his reality, he did something else with it and, thus, he was able to enter and establish himself in the social bond as an artist and not as a madman. Contrary to the label of madness that people might want to impute to him, he himself would always say: ‘The only difference between a madman and Dalí is that Dalí is not mad at all!’ That is, he distanced himself from madness not because he did not suffer real anguish, but because he transformed it into art (Santos, 2010, p. 82-83, free translation).

By taking the unconscious desire and making it tangible through the paranoiac-critical method, the artist systematically associates the images to obsessive or paranoid ideas. Having more of a revealing than an inventing attitude. Accordingly, the body plays a role in revealing the sacrifices of the ego. Ramírez (2002) underscores this Freudian root of systematization of delirium in the work of art:

El método paranoico-crítico, sistematizado desde 1929, parte de la tradición psicoanalítica freudiana, pero la supera en muchos aspectos. ‘L’Âne Purri’ es el primer artículo en el que Dalí define claramente su posición intelectual madura y plenamente surrealista. ‘Yo creo -dice en él- que está próximo el momento en el que por un proceso de carácter paranoico y activo del pensamiento, será posible (simultáneamente al automatismo y otros estados pasivos) sistematizar la confusión y contribuir al descrédito total del mundo de la realidad’¹. Se pretende, pues, dejar atrás las técnicas de la escritura automática que implicaban una cierta supeditación del resultado estético (artístico o literario) a un dictado interior enigmático y sorpresivo, para sustituirlas por procedimientos que permitan la objetivación del delirio. Dicho de otra manera: la voluntad consciente y racional no intenta ‘corregir’ la visión paranoica, sino imponerla al mundo, materializarla. Se trata de una exaltación de los fantasmas y de los mecanismos sustitutorios del inconsciente. La mente analítica interviene, más que para elucidarlos, para representarlos. Gracias a un proceso ‘netamente paranoico’ es posible para Dalí obtener o reconocer imágenes dobles o múltiples, es decir, representaciones de un objeto que, ‘sin la menor modificación figurativa o anatómica, sea al mismo tiempo la representación de otro objeto absolutamente diferente’².

For this paranoid-revealing intention, we investigated the systematization outlined in the book El mito trágico del ‘Angelus’ de Millet, by Salvador Dalí (1983). This book was originally conceived to create a surrealist aesthetic of forms, a path that Dalí followed so as to give reality his ambiguous perception of form, allowing for it to acquire more than one meaning depending on the observer’s perspective, in addition to making sense of its contextual understanding.

Transposed into a bodily practice, this concept can be applied jointly by means of work devices of rehearsal and forms of representation, in which the body becomes the perpetual protagonist of the world’s pains³, recovering images, discursive objects and dreams experienced intimately through the affections of anguish, surprise and horror, describing and analyzing them in the constitutive elements of the method. The first stage consists in describing the initial delirium phenomenon and the secondary phenomena resulting from the obsessive image contained in the first. The second stage addresses the phenomenological relations between the first paranoid evidence and the paranoiac-critical activity, exercised on the secondary phenomena. Finally, the third stage is dedicated to the formulation and analysis of the myth, that is, the manifesto informing the subject’s process, work and life.

After this presentation of the book’s content, the perspective of adapting the paranoiac-critical method to the body arises through the reference to the porous body, contained in Ferracini and Puccetti (2011), which provides a conception of body as open and receptive to the influences of the setting, social interactions, and lived experiences. In this context, the porous body is one that is not closed on itself, but allows itself to be permeated and affected by what is around it, including other persons, spaces and times. This notion of porosity of the body is related to the idea of a relational presence, in which the body’s role is not limited to an individual expression, but is constituted through the interactions and relations established with the setting and with the people involved in the scenic process. The objective is to create a materiality of the very action of the encounter, where presence is built in the poetic relation and interaction of multiple bodies in a relationship of potency and differentiation of the self. We suggest exploring an experience based on language and interaction with the other as a means of promoting this ambiguous object. This perspective does not exclude the presence of the intrinsic motivation, confusion, or delirium that are captured by the paranoiac-critical activity in the body and, subsequently, represented within the scope of artistic discourse.

Parallel to the discussion presented here, we have the complex approach to the issue of the impossibility of adequately representing an ambiguous object in the artistic context, especially during the surrealist period. Crane (2019) undertakes a speculative exercise on cinema, about sixty years after the conception of the paranoiac-critical method, exploring the application of the method to the technology of digitally-built objects, leveraging their multidimensional possibilities through 3D manipulation. In this context, she argues the idea of representation of double objects and the critical objectification of signifiers, which results in the attribution of multiple meanings, all based on conscious paranoiac-critical activity.

Differently from the previous context, in which the game unfolded between the paranoid-critical subject and their creation on a more or less manipulable support, our current approach seeks, through a porous body, to establish the paranoid-critical subject as an integral part of the intricate game of relationships with other subjects. These are directly involved and amalgamated in the artistic phenomenon, regardless of the moment of the artistic experience in which they act, either as protagonists and/or members of the audience.

In this context, the body, which was previously perceived as excessively realistic, gains an ambiguous status similar to that of the multidimensional object artificially built by Crane (2019). In trying to objectify this representation that emerges from the body, considered as the abode of the will, Schopenhauer seems to offer a point of connection that turns to the body and, in this complex and apparently paradoxical relationship, becomes a link of intelligibility that can be analyzed in a methodological approach that does not deny the character of knowledge to that which transcends the purely rational domain. According to Schopenhauer (2005), the Will is the ultimate reality, a blind and irrational force that underlies all existence. It is the inner essence of everything, not only of living beings, but also of inanimate objects. The “objectivity of the will” (Schopenhauer, 2001) refers to how the Will is manifested in the world as objects and phenomena. Thus, the body is the most immediate objectification of the Will. He argues that our own body is the only object we know not only externally, as representation, but also internally, as Will.

As pointed out by Silva and Roble (2022), this highlights the importance of Schopenhauer’s Will and Representation in the articulation with concepts of a tragic philosophy, in which the body embodies this field of passage between these two instances, playing a fundamental role in the exploration of the complex dynamics of the human experience.

In the conscious perception provided by the paranoiac-critical method, we propose the correlation between dance and the perception of latent, potentially unconscious states. The efforts aimed at reconciling this relation between deliriant and rational movements occur through a method in which the unconscious phenomenon is perceived in the body of the subject implicated with their desire.

In a more in-depth look into the structure of the paranoiac-critical method, we have the formation of a catalytic tragic myth through the observation and description of the initial delirium phenomenon, of the secondary delirium phenomena, which reverberate the initial delirium phenomenon, and of the phenomenological analysis of deliria that supports the formulation of the tragic myth in question. As documented by Salvador Dalí in his 1983 book (p. 25-26), the initial delirium phenomenon is an event of June 1932 that profoundly impacted him, although, at the time, he could not discern a justifiable reason for this episode. At that moment, Dalí experienced a breathtaking vision of The Angelus, an oil painting by French painter Jean-François Millet, an artist who represented a significant benchmark for his artistic style and who had already been the object of study and appreciation by Dalí himself. On that particular day, with profound astonishment, Dalí witnessed in his mind the reproduction of the work in minute detail, a representation that corresponded fully to all the information he could recall from the painting, which he had observed as a child.

Figure 1
MILLET, Jean-François (1814-1875). The Angelus (1857-1859). Source : Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Available at: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/langelus-345. Accessed Jan 29, 2024.

Dalí readily shares his vision with those around him. However, due to the apparently disjointed nature of his thinking at that time, his protoanalysis is not readily recognized and worthy of some credit on the part of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, on an intimate and deep level, he realizes that everything he would later develop through his method was already, in some form, present in that inaugural experience.

After that seminal experience, Salvador Dalí undergoes six other moments, characterized by secondary delirium phenomena. In each of these encounters with the obsessive idea of The Angelus, in various contexts of reality, he describes this experience as if an antenna captured the signal of obsession and directed it to his entire body. The secondary delirium events, minutely detailed by Dalí in his book entitled El Mito Trágico del “Angelus” de Millet, include:

1st - While playing near the beach, Dalí set up structures with stones that evoked carnal consistency and human figures, especially the couple from Millet’s The Angelus painting. The larger and more naturalistic female figure resembled a praying mantis, resonating the shape of the head depicted in the painting;

2nd - In a meadow with dense vegetation, after swimming in the sea, Dalí collides with a fisherman, while avoiding crickets and insects that infested the field, and notices a sense of mirroring between them. This event gives rise to two impressions: one due to the violent collision and the other related to a landscape that resembles The Angelus painting, causing him anguish;

3rd - In a dream about Gala in a museum of insects at twilight, Dalí associates shadows of sculptures with The Angelus and the scene culminates with Dalí sodomizing Gala aggressively, while listening to the crickets chirping;

4th - Dalí is disturbed when considering submerging The Angelus painting in various liquids as part of a surrealist experimental fantasy, realizing that the man in the painting is the one who was submerged;

5th - During a car ride in Port de la Selva, Dalí comes across a set of wineglasses with the stereotypical representation of the couple in The Angelus, which evokes in him a distressing image of a chicken with chicks that, in turn, in the composition of the colors, reminds him of a twilight sensation;

6th - Upon finding a fragment of cherry postcards, Dalí briefly confuses these realistic images with his The Angelus postcard, experiencing a visual hallucination along with anguish.

Through these narratives, we highlight the recurrent presence of a latent obsessive image in Dalí’s mind, which emerges and gives meaning to his surroundings. As Ramírez (2002) points out, all of Salvador Dalí’s work, after the application of the paranoiac-critical method to his first delirium episode, seems to involve an underlying thesis.

[…] toda la lectura daliniana de El Angelus de Millet (1859) reposa en una fusión del complejo de Edipo con el canibalismo ancestral de la mantis, tan arcaico que es casi fósil o mineral. Como es sabido, Dalí identificó la figura femenina de este célebre cuadro con la devoradora del macho, pulsión transferida al hijo con la ‘complicidad’ del hombre que devora (como Saturno) a su descendencia masculina.

Throughout his oeuvre, Dalí undertakes a detailed study, characterized by him as phenomenological, which relates his deliriant experiences with The Angelus to historical and artistic references, natural and geopolitical phenomena, all connected to his own myth of origin. During this phenomenological examination, Dalí analyzes the dream in the museum with Gala, identifying the deep fear of sex that haunted him. In his conclusion, Dalí (1983, p. 84) states that “Siempre había pensado que el destino del macho de la mantis ilustraba mi proprio caso frente al amor.” Another indication of the resurgence of the Oedipus complex is Dalí’s fixation on describing a dark, rectangular mass located under the peasant’s feet in Millet’s painting. Dalí interprets this element as the coffin of the couple’s dead child, covered in paint. Subsequently, X-ray tests carried out in the Louvre Museum laboratories confirmed the presence of the rectangular mass of paint at the place indicated by Dalí, although it was not possible to determine precisely what was covered. Gala’s opinion on this finding adds legitimacy to the argument presented by Dalí in his book on paranoiac-critical activity, suggesting that: “Si ese resultado constituyera una prueba, sería maravilloso; pero si todo el libro no fuera más que una pura construcción del espíritu, ¡entonces sería sublime!” (Dalí, 1983, p. 15; 18).

As for Dalí’s obsession with the dead child in the painting, Ramírez (2002, p. 18) suggests that this may fill a historical gap in relation to his own origin, relating the child to the image of a decomposing hedgehog. Just as Dalí obsessively interprets elements in his paintings, Ramírez associates this fixation on the decaying organism as Dalí’s way of connecting with his brother who died before his birth, with whom he shares the name Salvador⁴. This image disturbed Dalí’s infant sleep, and his curiosity to penetrate the skin of the worm-infested hedgehog evoked in him a combination of revulsion and fascination, as presented above.

The atavism of the desiring subject

Thus far, we have explored how the paranoiac-critical method operates by questioning reason and valuing delirium, madness and desire as components of the interpretation of reality, transforming the Dalinian subject’s real into a perspective incorporated into ordinary reality. This method displaces the fetish of modern rationality and converts it, in psychoanalytic terms, into an artistic object.

In Santos (2010), we can see Dalí’s development of the paranoiac-critical method as a method of artistic expression and a lifestyle, which aligns with Freud’s analysis that a healthy subject is able to transition between two positions, the neurotized and the psychotized, while seeking their integration into the prevailing culture:

At the end of this text on the loss of reality, Freud indicates that a ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’ behavior would combine certain characteristics of both reactions, ideally speaking, that is, the subject would repudiate reality as little as a neurosis, but then they would strive, as happens in a psychosis, to effect an alteration of this reality through an active process of creation on it. Thus, the so-called ‘normal’ subject would continue in the social bond without confining themself in their narcissism as occurs in psychoses or severe neuroses.

Having briefly addressed the Freudian texts, we see how much Dali was inspired by psychoanalysis for the creation of his paranoiac-critical method of knowledge of reality. According to Dalí, the application of his method presupposes an active attitude about the reality that is intended to be modified, that is, he rejects reality in order to be able to rebuild it on new bases. The application of this method in Dalí’s pictorial work is visibly perceivable, that is, he “incites” us to look at reality in the same manner as a paranoid, that is, always seeing something else. Similarly, perhaps, to what Freud idealized as normality, the artist from Figueres did not resign himself to succumbing under the wreckage of the subjective catastrophe that had befallen him due to his expulsion from his paternal home. Beyond reading the Freudian texts and focusing on the studies of science, Dalí also undertook a rigorous review of techniques used by classical artists, thus revisiting the old to create something novel. His intention was clear: he wanted to reinvent himself (Santos, 2010, p. 42; 43, free translation).

In addition, when exploring his deliria in relation to the The Angelus painting, we can see in Dalí (1983) the approximation to the concept of fetish, when it is considered an artistic object. Through the ego’s defense mechanisms, this approach enhances artistic practice, emphasizing the body as a focus, while still keeping in consideration the importance of desire:

[…] Acabamos de decir que el problema argumental del Angelus se resuelve oníricamente. Esto es reconocible por medio de los elementos de ‘condensación’, “sustitución” y ‘desplazamiento’ que permiten y hacen posible la existencia implícita para esa tela de un amplio argumento de fases consecutivas muy diferenciadas “contenidas” en una imagen instantánea, y esa imagen puede conocerse visualmente de un solo golpe, siendo excepcionalmente sencilla y aparentemente desprovista de la más mínima acción (Dalí, 1983, p. 127).

The three fundamental concepts used by Dalí - condensation, substitution and displacement - in relation to the artistic object The Angelus will be related to the corresponding concepts in Freud. Dalí is based on Freud’s psychoanalytic philosophy and is strongly influenced by his work, as previously demonstrated, which justifies this approach.

In condensation, Roudinesco and Plon (1998) say that this is an essential process of the unconscious, with several ideas fused into a single image, which often occurs in dreams, resulting in the conscious manifest content. In the context of the paranoiac-critical method, condensation can be a useful concept in interpreting paranoid phenomena related to specific images.

As for the second term, we will opt for the concept of sublimation instead of substitution, since even Freud preferred sublimation to substitution, as can be seen:

[…] Instead of using the Hegelian notion of Aufhebung (sublation, substitution), which designates the very movement of dialectics in its capacity to convert the negative into being, Sigmund Freud adopted the more Nietzschean term sublimation, derived from German romanticism, to define a principle of aesthetic elevation common to all men, but with which, in his view, only creators and artists were fully endowed. (Roudinesco; Plon, 1998, p. 734, free translation).

Thus, sublimation implies a transformation towards a different state, composed of something that is known, although not entirely understandable. In the Freudian context, sublimation, as explained by Roudinesco and Plon (1998, p. 734), refers to the arts, which, despite not having an obvious connection with sexuality or pleasure, channel the sexual drive to the artistic object in question, which is socially valued in culture.

The term displacement, as defined by Roudinesco and Plon (1998), refers to an unconscious psychic process, widely theorized by Sigmund Freud in the context of dream analysis. Displacement involves transforming primordial elements of a latent content into secondary details of a content manifested by means of shifting associations. Therefore, Dalí’s experiences, which range from his childhood memories to his reactions to elements in the artwork and in real life, exemplify the functioning of these three concepts underlying the paranoiac-critical method.

In the conclusion of his experimentation project, which is based on the conscious analysis of manifest content rooted in the unconscious, accessed through dream interpretation and free association in his art, Dalí (1983, p. 148) reminds us that “[…] La realidad estaría, en el presente caso, únicamente ‘en relación’ con los fenómenos delirantes paranoicos y con el ejercicio consciente de la actividad paranoico-crítica sobre esos fenómenos;”. The author defends an approach to reality that is not limited to the realistic perspective, introducing new nuances in the experimentation of the arts.

Sacrificial rite in dance

El guión ‘secreto’ más trastornador para aquel que se atreva con el film más ambicioso (Dalí, 1983, p. 7).

After presenting the origin and schematization of the paranoiac-critical method according to Dalí, we examine the subject implicated with Desire through the body and dance. We have addressed the motivations of the path of the artist-researcher in this methodology, in the construction of dance performances based on attraction to the triggering theme of surprise, horror, anguish and inspiration when reading the Iliad (2015), defending the idea⁵ that the death of Patroclus is the rite of sacrifice, as it had been offered by Achilles to Kléos⁶, in a paranoid-critical sense of interpretation. This idea arising from the application of the paranoiac-critical methodology served as an initial delirium phenomenon. The secondary delirium phenomena arising from the empirical structuring in the method were:

1st - Biblical myth of the sacrifice of Isaac and of the scapegoat, associated through psychoanalytic regression to moments of biblical studies as a child;

2nd - The self-sacrifice of Ci, urban guerrilla, in the film Macunaíma (1969);

3rd - Identification of the death drive present in previous scenic works by the same artist, namely Carência (2009), Condição#01 - MUNDO NOVO (2011), Imanência nas Selfies de Narcisos Solitários (2018) and Eco chegou na festa e trouxe a breja (2021).

Through this structuring made while the rehearsals were taking place, that is, without a causal relation, but rather a relation of feedback between paranoiac-critical activity and empirical experimentation, we also made use of arguments from a logic that bases the displaced, condensed and/or sublimated contents, of these delirium phenomena that substantiate the choices of practices that sustained the circles of repetition around this theme of sacrifice, contained in the initial sacrificial paranoia and unfolded in the secondary delirium phenomena. The development of practical devices for embodiments in rehearsals and in the performance, resulting from this experience, were the mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone. In this sense, the spectacular performance itself was part of this pursuit of a manifesto of the shadows and their driving forces, in conjunction with the formulation of a tragic myth arising from the paranoiac-critical analysis of the initial delirium phenomenon, invited to form a dancing duet with reason⁷.

Figure 2
Photos by Gabi Perissinoto. Image from the performance Body Expiatório, open rehearsal at NanoCirco. Mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone on stage. Source: Photography by Rafá Barzagli. Personal archive Dec 10, 2022.

Understanding the mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone as a bodily state that permeates the development of the work, we assume this concept in friction with the experience, both being molded and molding. The agent images emerged through free associations, through the representation of a lifeless organic body in contact with the earth, a body in the process of decomposition that is inclined to return to its inorganic and mineral condition, devoid of soul and emptiness. This inclination sought to reflect the death drive, addressed here as the drive underlying the compulsion for repetition, in which the living body seeks a state of nonlife, as we see in Roudinesco and Plon (1998, p. 631, free translation):

[…] Unconscious in origin and therefore difficult to control, this compulsion leads the subject to place themself repetitively in painful situations, replicas of old experiences. Even if one cannot eliminate any trace of libidinal satisfaction from this process, which contributes to making it difficult to observe in a pure state, the simple pleasure principle cannot explain it.

[…] The establishment of a relation between these observations and the philosophical observation that life is inevitably preceded by a state of nonlife led Freud to the hypothesis that there is a drive whose purpose, as he expressed in An Outline of Psychoanalysis, ‘is to return what is alive to the inorganic state’. The death drive became, thus, the drive prototype, as the drive specificity lies in this regressive movement back to a previous state.

With this notion of compulsion, the repetition that leads a process that can be alienating and/or implicated with the desire of the subject, the mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone translated this tendency to regression to a previous state, elucidated through the free association that constitutes the tragic myth of the research, namely: decomposing body - body killed in battle - sacrificed body - people serving the demand of others - toxic mud in abundance that rolls, heavily/slowly/violently, from failed dams - mud body of the manguebeat manifesto - mangue - satellite antenna embedded in the mud (iconography of the manguebeat manifesto) - death and life - sadomasochistic relationship - absence - exhaustion - emptiness.

All these unfolded images of the mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone through the free association technique led the proponent eye to identify the physical actions in the bodies of those involved in the project so they could access this state through their experiences.

Artistic and laboratory choices proved potent in tangentially addressing desire through free associations. We can never guarantee that unconscious elements were effectively employed, but consistently with the paranoiac-critical method we can dare suppose that a potent array of condensations and displacements paraded before us and that such matter was a precious artistic resource for the bodies, similarly to the drive triggers mobilized by Dali in painting.

Sacrificed Desire

Thus, we proceed to a critical analysis, which attributes the synthesis of the idea of sacrifice, obtained through this theoretical and practical work, with the adoption of the premises of pure dance (Laban, 1978), and contemporary dance (Louppe, 2012). The adoption of these premises will guide the analysis of a practice based on the response to the impulses captured through the paranoiac-critical methodology, providing a more consolidated and close discussion ground for the evaluation of this synthesis based on these two established concepts. This categorization of dance can facilitate understanding the relationship between the paranoiac-critical method as a means of capturing events in the body, transforming it into a catalyst for actions originating from artistic perspectives directly linked to the corprotagonista [protagonist body] and symbolic themes, often addressed in scenic dance.

Since the introduction of his book The Mastery of Movement on the Stage, published in 1950, Laban has discussed the concept of pure dance. In this context, pure dance is defined as an artistic form that is not subordinated to any other category of artistic object, being itself the main reference for creation, interpretation and appreciation. The execution of body movements in a given space and time is the essence of pure dance. Laban emphasizes the autonomy of dance by relating it to the history of the exploration of human movement, from religious rituals to labor, as technical systems that evolved to produce movements aimed initially at social gatherings and celebrations and, later, at the stage. He illustrates this premise by discussing the biblical passage from Genesis in which Eve picks the apple, and in interpreting this scene demonstrates the independence of dance from other artistic elements:

[…] Pure dance has no descriptive story. It is often impossible to outline the content of a dance in words, although one can always describe the movement. In pure dance, spectators could not know that a quick grabbing movement in the air would be expressing avidity or any other emotion related to the apple; they would simply see the quick grab and experience its meaning through the interplay of rhythms and forms that, in dance, tell their own story, a frequent occurrence in a world of values and desires that are not logically defined.

Movement, in pure dance, does not need to adapt to characters, actions, times and situations, […] In it, the inner drive for movement creates its own patterns of style and pursuit of intangible and basically indescribable values (Laban, 1978, p. 23, free translation).

Based on this kinetic autonomy, which emerges from the pursuit of intangible values and is driven by unconscious manifestations in the body, we introduce the concept of contemporary dance, as presented in the book Poetics of Contemporary Dance, by Laurence Louppe (2012), as an update of the modern concept of pure dance. Within this context, contemporary dance is defined as an artistic phenomenon that belongs to the field of performing arts, arising from the influences of modern dance and constantly seeking new forms of bodily expression, challenging pre-existing conventions in both dance and art in general.

Louppe highlights essential elements of contemporary dance, such as improvisation, experimentation and interdisciplinarity, which characterize it as an art form in constant evolution, open to innovative influences and expressions. The work also highlights how contemporary dance disregards the traditional view of a body that simply represents something, transforming it into a present and dynamic articulation between the subject, the object and the tool of this experience that involves both the audience and the artists.

The context in which Louppe developed his work during the 1990s, involving roundtable discussions and informal conversations between artists and audience after shows, illustrates how contemporary dance transcends the simple act of representation and becomes a means of interaction and communication between different agents involved in the artistic experience. This revolutionary concept challenges the traditional boundaries of dance and art, paving the way for a more dynamic and inclusive approach to physical expression and artistic creativity, as we can see:

Now this power to say the present of the world and to subtract it from its invisibility, contemporary dance owes it to an extraordinary set of theoretical and practical tools, implemented since the beginning of the century. Ignoring it, taking it in its epiphany, as a spontaneous emergence of artistic invention, means hiding two important elements. First, an immense fund of work: body work, dance work to reveal the body’s imagery and give it legibility. Then, a no less important fund of thought, a thought that is not parasitic on any other knowledge, elaborated over the century […], and which constitutes in our eyes one of the major figures of the epistemological rupture that impacted the set of currents of thought of our time, both in the humanities and in political and philosophical approaches.[…] This rupture intends, as we will see, that the body, and especially the body in motion, be, at the same time, subject, object and tool of its own knowledge, and it is through it that another perception and another consciousness of the world can emerge (Louppe, 2012, p. 21, free translation).

Although apparently antagonistic, the two concepts, pure dance and contemporary dance, show a certain complementarity in the idea that the body in movement, in the Western performing arts, enjoys creative autonomy and protagonism in the processes for production of an artistic work. In the eagerness to attribute meaning to this Labanian phenomenon of pure dance, found by postmodern artists of contemporary dance immersed in constant innovations and epistemological ruptures, the mode of dialogue and the experience shared between all people who present a work of art of this nature is found in the elaboration of the thought ordering aesthetic choices.

This interdisciplinary and experimental dance, with approximations to the field of the unconscious, is consistent with the concept of monster of Buiati (2023, p. 2; 3), used as a practical-theoretical operator that plays a destabilizing function in creative processes in dance, in a specific territory of production in contact with the Freudian uncanny. It seeks to explore the monster as something that inhabits us and that can be stimulated, provoked, harassed, identified and known to be danced. The author also mentions that monsters always inhabit borderline areas and would be a kind of catalyst that causes a blurring of borders: cultural, aesthetic and political borders.

Establishing these premises for further analysis, we will lead this work to an interpretation through the paranoiac-critical method of a corprotagonista of the world’s pains embodied in Achilles, in the Iliad. The weaving of a tragic hero as a project of a complex and possible man, contemporaneously updated in dance and captured by paranoiac-critical activity, is analytically related to what the Greek considered the pinnacle of Hellenistic values. The killer who dances on the battlefield is the same one who seeks redemption for himself and his peers through his tears. According to Monsacré (2018, p. 223):

Achilles embodies all of the main heroic qualities that are accorded singly to other heroes. He is beauty, strength, and excellence all at the same time. If, in a certain way, the Iliad exalts human energy during times of misfortune, it is not surprising that Achilles embodies, by himself, almost all of the suffering in the poem. “Achilles is among the Homeric figures who experiences the most pain. And it is important to make clear that the ‘eternally striving youth,’ with the radiance of his power and beauty, is also for us, on the threshold of Western culture, the figure who felt the most pain, a figure who is capable of great suffering,” writes Walter Schadewaldt. And while the Iliad is indeed the story of Achilles’ anger, it is also the song of his sorrow.

We outline the figure of Achilles, as portrayed in the Homeric epic, highlighting him as an archetype representing Greek virtue, whose characteristics include the combination of beauty, strength and excellence. However, this analysis reveals the complexity of this hero who, despite his remarkable qualities, is not exempt from suffering and pain, eminent aspects in the Greek epic narrative. Notably, we argue that Achilles sacrifices loved ones, indirectly and directly, and himself for the sake of the ideal war he wishes to wage, in line with a constant description present in Homeric works that underscore his physical and moral abilities. Although his background and life horizon are strongly linked to the military context, Achilles is, paradoxically, a dancer, who with beautiful and irascible dexterity causes death in combat. This epic narrative could culminate in no other way than the death of Achilles himself, in a sacrifice for the conquest of Kléos, the eternal glory.

I see myself in Achilles in the pursuit of sacrificing myself ethically, in my fortuitous encounter with the art of contemporary dance and with all the ideas that lead me to the enjoyment of death, in the idea of sacrifice displaced and converted into an act of pure dance, experienced through intangible elements, in an artistic sublimation act. In this area, we have managed to bring through the paranoiac-critical method, which very much resembles an analytical discourse, the events that haunt me (subject body), affected by affections not always comfortable (tool body), making them moveable form through the articulation of the created devices, mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone, based on the previous experience in contact with the method (object body) in contemporary dance. The very creation of performances, as a result of the technical devices arising from this event captured in paranoiac-critical activity, already triggers an approximation to the monster concept mentioned with the tragic myth, being an inherent part of the score of the scenic composition and of the artistic ethics guided by manifestations of desire, helping to understand its presence and the role that the myth plays (Bertin, 2016, p. 51 apud Buiati, 2023, p. 16).

Conclusions of a delirant body

In conclusion, the relationship between psychoanalysis and art has been explored by several artists throughout history, and the paranoiac-critical method developed by Salvador Dalí, initially applied to paintings and sculptures, exhibits affinities with psychoanalytic premises that can be successfully adapted to contemporary dance practice. This method provides an innovative approach to explore the expressive and creative potential of the dancing body, standing out due to the emphasis on the physical experimentation and on the nonlinearity of the creative process.

After an extensive literature review, we managed to build intelligibility links by interrelating concepts from transdisciplinary fields, starting with Dalí’s surrealist painting and the elaboration of his research methodology based on the psychoanalytic premises of condensation, displacement and sublimation, concatenated with the compulsion to repeat practices of the dancing body, with analogies to the porous body (Ferracini; Puccetti, 2011), a reference in the search for events observed in the body itself as effects of the Schopenhauerian Will and of the Freudian Desire in the interpretations of phenomena understood as part of the paranoiac-critical method. The link between delirium and reality is established as the artistic fetish object gains notoriety through the sublimatory act that is characteristic of the arts. We could establish devices that are characteristic of artistic creation with references in the experience (mud body and dance of death or dancing on one’s tombstone), bringing originality and basing the analysis on the concepts of pure dance (Laban, 1978) and contemporary dance (Louppe, 2012), consolidated in the metiê of dance.

The character Achilles, who embodies explicit bellicose, violent, and vulnerable qualities, played a key role in the construction of a subjectivity that aligns with the unconscious elements that drive the artist-researcher’s accidental choices and practices, as observed and constructed by the method. The confrontation between this repetition of conservative tendencies and contemporary and disruptive themes provides an important tool for dialogue and enables the construction of powerful structures from the fragments of a psyche formed in the violent devastation of this already established subjectivity. In the context of paranoiac-critical analysis, we can say that the successful adaptation of this method to contemporary dance practice translates into an artistic ethics that embraces choice and doubt, exploring unconscious chaos through the desiring paranoid imagination.

Notes

• 1
  Salvador Dalí, “L’Âne Pourri”. Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution, núm. 1, [1930], p. 9.
• 2
  Salvador Dalí, “L’Âne Pourri”. Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution, núm. 1, [1930], p. 10.
• 3
  Ambiguity inspired by the title of Sandro Borelli’s master’s degree dissertation, resulting from academic studies at GPFEM-FEF/UNICAMP. Read in: BORELLI, S. CORPO - PROTAGONISTA PERPÉTUO DAS DORES DO MUNDO. Repositório da Produção Científica e Intelectual da Unicamp, 2019.
• 4
  In his master’s degree study, Cláudio de Souza Limeira provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of Salvador Dalí, connecting his obsession with death to his relationship with his deceased ideal brother. According to Limeira (2012, p. 45, free translation): “It is interesting to note that, when we read the explanation about his trauma, we are suddenly led to relate it to psychoanalytic theory. Dalí (1968), when talking about himself, seems to explain, in a surprisingly clear manner, the weight of the phallus in paranoia. This passage also contains evidence that Dalí assumed this position of his dead brother. The name Salvador was the name given to his brother who died, still very young, before his birth. This circumstance led his parents to project double doses of affection on him, thus contributing to the formation of his egocentric and extravagant personality. But, on the other hand, it made him see himself as the ghost of his dead brother. That is why from a very early age he was obsessed with death, one of the themes present in almost all his works.”
• 5
  Here I refer to the reader in the first-person, as the impressions and expressions arising from the paranoiac-critical activity were collected through the first author of this article. It is impossible for the co-author of this article to be able to corroborate my account about this.
• 6
  Greek word meaning glory. Designated as Daemon, spirits that manifest in specific circumstances and that, in the relation with events, end up influencing them. The Daemon of Kléos manifested itself with greater incidence on the battlefields, during the death of warriors who sought it.
• 7
  Using the resource for translation between practice and writing of the UNICAMP Interdisciplinary Center for Theatrical Research (LUME), I apply the corprotagonista neologism, highlighting the reference to the body as a place of agency of the Schopenhauerian Will and of the Freudian Desire, observed through events related to delirium phenomena, in addition to referring to the prior scenic experience in Sandro Borelli’s master’s degree research. See BORELLI, S.; ROBLE, O. J. Corpo: protagonista perpétuo das dores do mundo. 2019. Master’s dissertation.
• Availability of research data: The laboratory proofs, obtained through videographic recording of the performance Body Expiatório (2023), the result of this research, are available at: https://youtu.be/QZ3ds6NpDI4
• This original paper, translated by Roberto Cândido (Tikinet Edição Ltda.), is also published in Portuguese in this issue of the journal.

References

• BORELLI, Sandro. Corpo - protagonista perpétuo das dores do mundo 2019. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação Física) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2019.
• BUIATI, Marcos Katu. Monstruosidades, Corpo e Criação: Estratégias para se dançar com o infamiliar. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 13, n. 3, p. e128243, 2023.
• CRANE, Cristina. Paranoia en movimiento: la posibilidad del método paranoico-crítico en la cinematografía gracias a la era digital. Razón Crítica, n. 6, p. 61-87, 2019.
• DALÍ, Salvador. O. El mito tragico del ‘Angelus’ de Millet 2. ed. Barcelona: Tusquets, 1983.
• FERRACINI, Renato; PUCCETTI, Ricardo. Presença em Acontecimentos. Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença, Porto Alegre, v. 1, n. 2, p. 360-369, jul. 2011.
• HOMERO. A Ilíada 25. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2015.
• LABAN, Rudolf. Domínio do movimento / Rudolf Laban: ed. organizada por Lisa Ullmann. São Paulo: Summus, 1978.
• LIMEIRA, Claudio de Souza. Psicanálise e surrealismo: uma análise lacaniana do método paranóico-crítico de Salvador Dalí. 2012. Dissertação (Mestrado em Psicologia) - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 2012.
• LOUPPE, Laurence. Poética da Dança Contemporânea Lisboa: Orfeu Negro, 2012.
• MONSACRÉ, Hélène. The Tears of Achilles. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies 2018. Disponível em: https://chs.harvard.edu/book/monsacre-helene-the-tears-of-achilles/ Acesso em: 17 set. 2023.
  » https://chs.harvard.edu/book/monsacre-helene-the-tears-of-achilles/
• RAMÍREZ, Juan Antonio. Dalí: lo crudo y lo podrido. Madrid: Machado Libros, 2002.
• ROUDINESCO, Elisabeth; PLON, Michel. Dicionário de psicanálise Tradução Vera Ribeiro e Lucy Magalhães. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1998.
• SANTOS, Vanisa Maria da Gama Moret. O efeito do estranho na obra de Salvador Dali 2010. Dissertação (Mestrado em Psicanálise) - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicanálise, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2010.
• SCHOPENHAUER, Arthur. Metafísica do belo São Paulo: Unesp, 2001.
• SCHOPENHAUER, Arthur. O mundo como vontade e como representação São Paulo: Unesp, 2005.
• SILVA, Fidel Machado de Castro; ROBLE, Odilon José (Org.). Essencialmente Sanguíneo: Textos sobre esporte, dança e filosofia do impulso. Curitiba: CRV, 2022.

• Editor in charge: Rossana Della Costa

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  03 Feb 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  29 Sept 2023
• Accepted
  06 Jan 2024