"There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything"
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Tharp’s jab lands because it sounds like studio talk: practical, impatient, a little merciless. “Postmodernism” isn’t attacked as an idea so much as as a vibe machine, a label that floats above the work and starts dictating how the work should be received. Calling it “kind of silly” is a dancer-choreographer’s way of puncturing inflated discourse. If you make things with bodies, time, and sweat, you tend to distrust movements that are named more cleanly than they’re practiced.
The real knife is linguistic: postmodernism “destroys a perfectly good word.” Tharp frames the debate as collateral damage. “Modern” once pointed to a specific aesthetic and historical rupture (in dance: contraction and release, abstraction, rebellion against ballet’s courtly codes). Once “post-” arrives, “modern” becomes merely a before-and-after marker, a vacated category. The subtext is about authority: who gets to name eras, and what happens when naming becomes a substitute for noticing.
There’s also an artist’s allergy to academic time stamps. “Modern… now no longer means anything” isn’t only complaint; it’s a warning about attention. When every new gesture is declared “post,” the culture forgets how to describe what’s actually onstage. Tharp’s intent reads as defensive on behalf of craft and lineage: keep the vocabulary tethered to felt differences, not fashionable prefixes. In a field where innovation is constant and memory is short, she’s arguing that language should clarify the work, not blur it into an endless succession of “afters.”
The real knife is linguistic: postmodernism “destroys a perfectly good word.” Tharp frames the debate as collateral damage. “Modern” once pointed to a specific aesthetic and historical rupture (in dance: contraction and release, abstraction, rebellion against ballet’s courtly codes). Once “post-” arrives, “modern” becomes merely a before-and-after marker, a vacated category. The subtext is about authority: who gets to name eras, and what happens when naming becomes a substitute for noticing.
There’s also an artist’s allergy to academic time stamps. “Modern… now no longer means anything” isn’t only complaint; it’s a warning about attention. When every new gesture is declared “post,” the culture forgets how to describe what’s actually onstage. Tharp’s intent reads as defensive on behalf of craft and lineage: keep the vocabulary tethered to felt differences, not fashionable prefixes. In a field where innovation is constant and memory is short, she’s arguing that language should clarify the work, not blur it into an endless succession of “afters.”
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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