Emanuel Gat - Choreographic Mechanism/s

Emanuel Gat offers a radical perspective. He views movement material as interchangeable “building blocks,” while the identity of the work lies in its choreographic organization—the “score” or the architecture of the performance. Gat emphasizes the central role of the dancers in constructing these building blocks—the material, as individuals who bring their own embodied knowledge and presence into a process based on interactions: action and response among them. The final result, the composition, depends entirely on such organizational mechanisms that he constructs. He compares choreography to a football match: the rules are clear, yet each performance, like each game, unfolds uniquely and distinctlyץ.

In response, Dr. Lior Avizoor reflects on the paradox between the concept of choreography as a fixed essence and the ever-changing corporeal materials of the dancers. She focuses on the core question of choreographic identity, what makes a dance work “the same work”, because, according to Gat, the dancers generate the movement, but not the work itself. Avizoor describes the philosophical debate in dance theory surrounding the question of replacing a dancer without altering the work. She argues that this paradox, between particularity and abstraction, individual bodies and overarching mechanisms, lies at the heart of contemporary discourse in dance.