2017 Winner: Performing the Everyday: The Postmodern Aesthetics of Yvonne Rainer's Trio A

Project Information
Performing the Everyday: The Postmodern Aesthetics of Yvonne Rainer's Trio A
Arts
HAVC 100A
This paper examines the postmodern qualities of Yvonne Rainer’s 1978 solo performance of Trio A. I set up Rainer’s piece within the tumultuous social and political context of the 1960s and ‘70s in order to understand its importance as a reflection of and response to the emerging values of democracy and participation in this historical era. Turning to the significance of performance art as embodied practice, I then analyze the choreography of Trio A employing mundane movements drawn from the everyday in order to dissolve the barrier between art and life, democratizing the idea of art. Its reduced aesthetic starkly counters the body language and display of modern dance, and echoes the unspectacular, object-like presence of Minimalist sculptures. By analyzing these groundbreaking aesthetics of Trio A in the tumultuous political and social context of the 1960s and ‘70s, I aim to situate this piece as a critical milestone in the emergence of postmodernism. Through appropriating banal daily movements into the realm of performance art, Rainer defamiliarizes what is accepted as normal and leaves her viewers in a state of uncertainty, marking Trio A as a fundamentally postmodern piece.
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Students
  • Sophia Jeanne Dimatteo (Merrill)
Mentors