Self Psychology and the Modern Dance Choreographer

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SELF AND SYSTEMS
Self Psychology and the Modern
Dance Choreographer
Carol M. Press
Department of Theater and Dance, University of California, Santa Barbara,
California, USA
Theory andresearchmethodology of self psychology are integratedwiththe experiences
of modern dance choreographers to investigate the importance of creativity, art mak-
ing, and aesthetics in mental health and our everyday lives. Empathy, as aesthetically
based, is explored to understand the capacity of the arts to unite us in our humanity.
Connections between aesthetic development, creativity, and infant patterns of learning
are drawn. The influence of sensual and exploration/assertion motivational systems
upon the contemporary choreographer are highlighted, leading to an understanding
of the selfobject function of sensation and movement for the dance artist. Through an
examination of the moment to moment ritualized experiences of studio work, the cre-
ative process in making dances is discussed. Ultimately understanding creativity and
aesthetically based empathy inform our delineation of mental health and the need for
aesthetic experience in everyday life.
Key words: Heinz Kohut; self psychology; creativity; modern dance; choreography; em-
pathy; aesthetics; Daniel Stern; intersubjectivity; subjectivity; procedural knowledge;
beauty; ugliness; selfobject function; motivational systems; forward-edge strivings; Paul
Taylor; now moments; Ellen Dissanayake
I hold that unless psychoanalysis can sooner or
later apply the lessons it learns in the laboratory of
the clinical setting to the broader arena of human
pursuits—to art, religion, philosophy, anthropol-
ogy, and, above all, to history—it will not have
made the contributions that society has a right to
expect from it . . . I am deeply convinced, however,
that . . . psychoanalysis can live up to its potential-
ities and become an important aid to mankind in
its struggle for survival. . . . I am convinced that
psychoanalysis . . . is capable of employing its re-
search tools in the investigations of man’s activities
in the cultural and social fields, and that it will make
contributions of great significance which will assist
man in his attempt to gain control over his social
and historical destiny. (Kohut, 1980: 536–537).
I came to self psychology an artist—a
modern dance choreographer, teacher, and
Address for correspondence: Carol M. Press, EdD, Department of
Theater and Dance, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa
Barbara, CA 93106-7060. Voice: +805-403-7330; fax: +805-893-7029.
[email protected], [email protected]
researcher—embedded in an artistic frame-
work that stood on the belief that the relations
between experiences of self and culture were
the bedrock of creativity. My engagement of
this framework provided a scaffold for my cre-
ative work, but I wanted more. I wanted to
explore what experiences of “self” meant and,
consequently, to develop a working vocabulary
as a researcher and teacher to articulate such
experiences and to support creativity further in
myself and others. I wanted to use new vocab-
ulary as a guide to new questions regarding art
making. I came to self psychology searching, an
investigation fueled by creative play. I was en-
couraged by Kohut’s (1977) own written com-
mitment to creative process: “Ideals are guides,
not gods. If they become gods, they stifle man’s
playful creativeness; they impede the activities
of the sector of the human spirit that points
most meaningfully into the future” (p. 312).
Kohut’s image was of a psychologist apply-
ing the theories of self psychology to the broader
Self and Systems: Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1159: 218–228 (2009).
doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04354.x
C
2009 New York Academy of Sciences.
218
Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 219
arena of human pursuits. I, however, am not a
psychologist and approached the intersection
of self psychology and the arts from a different
perspective. Consequently, I have attempted to
bring art to self psychology as well as bring-
ing self psychology to art. Therapists are con-
fronted with pathology, with people in pain,
and search to help. In writing that concentrates
on descriptions of pathology and interactions
to alleviate suffering, far less is written directly
describing what is health. As an artist, I came
with the premise that creativity embraced what
was the finest of human kind, exemplifying our
greatest potentials for health. I wanted to de-
scribe possibilities for understanding connec-
tions between creativity, self-development, and
mental health with greater depth. Self psychol-
ogy was a treasure trove for me, requiring ex-
cavation of what was there but not necessar-
ily emphasized. Within this cross-pollination I
have searched for what is compelling within
each field in understanding the human pull,
the human need, for aesthetic creative experi-
ence. I outline here concepts from my work,
pointing out additional references should you
wish to investigate further.
Empathy
Self psychology’s most essential compelling
concept, from Kohut’s original conceptions
through the many evolutions that have sprung
forth in self psychology, is empathy. Kohut went
to great length to be clear that empathy is not
sympathy or intuition, even though those ex-
periences may be nourished by empathy. Em-
pathy in its most elemental form is an act of
imagination. Kohut (1959/1978) emphasized
empathy as a neutral term meaning “vicari-
ous introspection” (p. 206) and “the capacity to
think and feel oneself into the inner life of an-
other person” (Kohut, 1984: 82), which could
be used for ill or good:
Introspection and empathy should be looked at as
informers of appropriate action. . . . These pur-
poses can be of kindness, and these purposes can
be of utter hostility. If you want to hurt somebody,
and you want to know where his vulnerable spot
is, you have to know him before you can put in
the right dig. . . . When the Nazis attached sirens
to their dive bombers, they knew with fiendish em-
pathy how people on the ground would react to
that with destructive anxiety. This was correct em-
pathy, but not for friendly purposes. Certainly we
assume on the whole that when a mother deals with
her child, and when an analyst deals with his pa-
tient, correct empathy will inform her appropriate
maternal and his appropriate therapeutic analytic
action. So (empathy) is an informer of appropriate
action, whatever the intentions may be. (Kohut,
1981/1991: 529–530)
Empathy as an informer of appropriate ac-
tion for a therapist represented for Kohut
(1959/1978) the mode of observation, the core
research methodology, which defined the field
of psychoanalysis, differentiating self psychol-
ogy from sciences that require extrospection as
the basic mode of inquiry. Within this mode of
observation was the potential for appropriate
action on the side of therapists to empathically
engage their patients, create empathic environ-
ments, and establish trust. Such an empathic
bond between patient and clinician was essen-
tial for therapeutic change.
Significantly, Kohut (1977) viewed the infant
as being hardwired to “expect” an empathic
responsive environment filled with appropriate
actions from caregivers, with “the same un-
questioning certitude as the respiratory appa-
ratus of the newborn infant may be said to
‘expect’ oxygen to be contained in the sur-
rounding atmosphere” (p. 85). As the baby de-
velops frominfancy onward, what constitutes as
an appropriate empathic response must be de-
velopmentally situated. In Kohut’s (1984) final
book How Does Analysis Cure? he begins to pos-
tulate a developmental line of empathy. Where
at first, touch might be absolutely necessary for
the infant to experience empathic response, a
smile from afar might suffice as the child devel-
ops, depending upon the circumstances. What
occurs is “a low form of empathy, a body-
close form of empathy, expressed in holding
and touching and smelling, is now expressed
only in facial expressions and perhaps later in
220 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
words, ‘I’mproud of you’” (Kohut, 1981/1991,
p. 533).
Within all developmental stages, empathic
action is impeded if one loses oneself psycho-
logically into the other’s reality. Psychological
merger is not empathy. As a matter of fact, it
is the opposite. If one loses oneself in another’s
reality, one has no basis, no leg to stand on we
might say, no perchfromwhichto imaginatively
peer into another’s reality. Kohut (1987) com-
pared this necessary stance to the partaking of
theater:
This is not a total giving up of one’s personality.
It is a temporary, controlled merging with another
personality in the same way as in an artistic experi-
ence, let us say in the theater, when one immerses
oneself in the tragedies of Shakespeare. The un-
derstanding comes by reason of the reverberations
from our own early experiences to the experiences
of the patient; they meet, as it were, halfway. (271)
Implicit in Kohut’s writing, we see a contem-
porary self-psychological perspective of empa-
thy as always occurring within a relational ma-
trix. In the essay “Selfhood and the Dance of
Empathy,” Jan Rieveschl and Michael Cowan
(2003) highlight that “one can never entirely
think and feel oneself into the subjective ex-
perience of another because the empathic lis-
tener inescapably contributes to the joint con-
struction of emerging meanings. . . . [D]espite
people’s effort to go where another is, they
never entirely leave their own selves behind”
(p. 118). Indeed, they conceive of “empathy
as a transactional or relational process, that
is an interpersonal event, a dance wherein
meaning is mutually created” (p. 118). Empa-
thy from this perspective is always relational
and intersubjective. “If relationship is a dance,
the back-and-forth movement of influencing
and being influenced, then empathic attune-
ment choreographs it creatively. . . . Evolved
empathic communication is an exquisite mu-
tual feedback process, the dance that is hu-
man discourse at its best” (p. 111, 128). This
empathic relational matrix is the foundation
of the creating and partaking of aesthetics
and art.
Aesthetics
We experience, develop, and engage empa-
thy aesthetically. By aesthetics I mean the qual-
itative sensory experiences of life that form
and informour emotional existence. These aes-
thetic qualities are cross-modal, encompassing
the senses of touch, sound, taste, and vision, and
formthe basis of artistic pleasure as creator and
spectator.
Daniel Stern (1985) in his book The Interper-
sonal World of the Infant argues that infants expe-
rience life in terms of “shapes, intensities, and
temporal patterns” (p. 51), which ultimately
formthe aesthetic foundation of all art forms—
space, shape, time, and energy (see also Beebe
& Lachmann, 2002). Stern adds to this mix
the experience of “vitality affects,”, which are
“elusive qualities . . . captured by dynamic ki-
netic terms, such as ‘surging,’ ‘fading away,’
‘fleeting,’ ‘explosive,’ ‘crescendo, ‘decrescendo,
‘bursting,’ ‘drawnout,’ andso on” (p. 54), which
can be accompanied by an experience of a
“rush.” Stern directly identifies the connections
between this global cross-modal world of shape,
time, energy, and vitality affects and the adult
world of art:
Abstract dance and music are examples par ex-
cellence of the expressiveness of vitality affects. . . .
The choreographer is most often trying to express a
way of feeling, not a specific content of feeling. . . .
Like dance for the adult, the social world expe-
rienced by the infant is primarily one of vitality
affects before it is a world of formal acts. It is also
analogous to the physic world of amodal percep-
tion, which is primarily one of abstractable quali-
ties of shape, number, intensity level, not a world
of things seen, heard, or touched. (56–57)
Stern goes further to highlight that, be-
yond the direct experience, the organizing
of these experiences promote subjectivity and
creativity:
These are the basic elements of early subjective ex-
perience. . . . Infants are not lost at sea in a wash of
abstractable qualities of experience. They are grad-
ually and systematically ordering these elements
of experience to identify self-invariant and other-
invariant constellations. . . .
Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 221
This global subjective world of emerging organi-
zation is and remains the fundamental domain of
human subjectivity. . . . [I]t is the ultimate reser-
voir that can be dipped into for all creative expe-
rience. . . . That domain alone is concerned with
the coming-into-being of organization that is at the
heart of creating and learning. (67)
These aesthetic experiences do not evolve
in isolation but within a relational matrix.
An early recognizable form is “baby talk,”
which demonstrates cross-modal aesthetic and
empathic responsiveness between mother and
baby. Ellen Dissanayake (2000), in her book
ART and Intimacy, elaborates:
From the first weeks, in all cultures, human moth-
ers (and even other adults) behave differently with
infants than with adults or even older children. In
most cases a mother’s vocalizations to the baby
and her facial expressions, gestures, and head and
body movements are exaggerated—made clear
and rhythmic. Babies in turn respond with cor-
responding sounds, expressions, and movements of
their own, and over the first months a mutual mul-
timedia ritual performance emerges and develops.
Exquisitely satisfying to both participants, it inun-
dates both mother and baby with a special pleasure
that is all the more powerful because it is not just
felt alone . . . but is mirrored or shared. (77)
Dissanayake discusses the significance for
our aesthetic enjoyment of art:
We respond cross-modally and emotionally to the
swoop and exuberance of a dance movement, the
sense of hesitation or resignation and defeat in an
actor’s gesture, or the thick guttural innuendo in
a jazz singer’s voice, usually before recognizing or
assigning symbolic “meaning” to the dance style or
the spoken or sung words. (147)
According to Stern, language for the baby
developmentally draws such cross-modal ex-
perience into the background. Stern (1985)
presents the image of a baby enjoying a patch of
sunlight prior to language development: “The
infant will experience the intensity, warmth,
shape, brightness, pleasure, and other amodal
aspects of the patch. The fact that it is yellow
light is not primary” (p. 176). Language, how-
ever, highlights symbolic representation, which
separates the more cross-modal global experi-
ence. Stern explains: “Language forces a space
between interpersonal experience as lived and
as represented” (p. 182). For the baby:
Someone will enter the room and say, “Oh look at
the yellow sunlight!” Words in this case separate out
precisely those properties that anchor the experi-
ence to a single modality of sensation. By binding
it to words, they isolate the experience from the
amodal flux in which it was originally experienced.
Language can thus fracture amodal global experi-
ence. A discontinuity in experience is introduced.
(176)
Art brings forth what is primal to our ex-
istence and our intersubjective relations from
birth onward—our aesthetic experience of be-
ing in the world. This commonality binds us
together as humans. Even though such experi-
ences may slide into the background, art and
creativity connect us to ourselves and to each
other. Within the relational empathic matrix,
we develop our aesthetic preferences. Our aes-
thetic likes anddislikes translate into our subjec-
tive sense of beauty and ugliness [see Hagman
(2005) for an extensive psychoanalytic investi-
gation of beauty, ugliness, creativity, art, and
clinical work]. In art making, these preferences
evolve into “aesthetic signatures” [see Press
(2002: 105–106) for elaboration of aesthetic sig-
natures in dance], which distinguish an artist’s
work.
Aesthetics and empathic relations are com-
mingled from birth. In everyday life our aes-
thetic preferences become part of our pro-
cedural memory and knowledge. According
to Frank Lachmann (2004), in his talk “On
the Co-construction of Empathy,” procedural
memory derives through interactions between
parent and baby, such as “cross-modal transfer,
rhythm coordination, state sharing in terms of
action, feeling, or proprioception.” The aes-
thetic dance between caregiver and infant cre-
ates and informs our way of being in the
world.
These procedural memories are noncon-
scious but not repressed. Consequently, and
quite fortunately, we do not have to relearn how
to tie our shoes but we have a distinct aesthetic
quality to our shoe tying that is recognizable as
222 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
ours. Through procedural memory and knowl-
edge, we enter all relationships with procedu-
ral interaction, implicit relational knowing. The
cross-modal coming-into-organization experi-
enced by the infant now takes adult form as
we organize and navigate through relationships
in adult life, seeking those we mesh with aes-
thetically. According to Rieveschl and Cowan
(2003) “When two people talk, they quickly
and unconsciously negotiate a physical, cog-
nitive, and affective choreography, which con-
textualizes and conditions the verbal content
of their communication. . . . Authentic con-
versations are not conducted, but cocreated”
(p. 125).
Lachmann (2004), acknowledging the in-
fluence of the Boston Change Process Study
Group (Stern et al., 1998), highlights several in-
terpersonal interactions as procedurally based:
“how to relate to a baby, how to flirt, how to
have fun, howto dance, howto enter the subjec-
tive state of another person and how to signal
one’s readiness to respond to another person
entering our private life; as actions that are in
part organized on a procedural level.” These
actions are indeed organized on an aesthetic
level and are the basis for empathic relations.
Steven Knoblach (2000), in his book The
Musical Edge of Therapeutic Dialogue, describes
this aesthetic empathic exchange between him-
self and his patients through the use of tone,
pitch, rhythm, and improvisational turn tak-
ing. Lachmann (2001), in his article Words
and Music, acknowledges the important ex-
istence of such aesthetic co-constructed dia-
logues within the therapeutic situation:
As we listen to music or to the associations of
analysands, our accompanying rhythms are likely
to alter, as we mold our rhythms to the rhythms
of the other and they mold their rhythms to ours.
In this rhythmic interaction, our own repertoire of
rhythms will increase. The beat of our music and
that of our analysands can be coordinated or syn-
copated, but, one hopes, we do not get too far off
the beat. (174)
In Gilbert Rose’s (2004) book Between Couch
and Piano: Music, Art, Psychoanalysis and Neuro-
science, we hear a patient, a musician, describe
his interaction with a therapist, which indeed is
“off the beat”:
I can’t locate him as a person and feel like it’s a
space of theatre (the theatre of therapist and pa-
tient) . . . I imagined him on stage as a musician. I
believe I would be really put off.. . .
It all reminds me of the feeling I get (and other
musicians, too) when I play chamber music with
a new person. He/she may be a great musician,
but if the chemistry isn’t right and the energy and
sound colors don’t match, it just doesn’t work.
I think what bothered me most was a lack of smooth
transition between this guy’s silences and his talk-
ing. The language—the sound—did not meet the
silence. So I wasn’t able to perceive an organic
rhythm of breath etc.—and the silence (and the
talking) didn’t mean much. The silences seemed
empty and the sounds forced, that is, not enough
tension or too much. (9–10)
Such aesthetic empathic attunement pulls us
to art as creator and spectator. We are nour-
ished by a greater understanding of ourselves
and culture.
Creativity for the Modern
Dance Choreographer
Creativity requires that artists aesthetically
engage their chosen mediums while respond-
ing to sense of self, audience, and cultural com-
munity. For the performing artist, direct inter-
action with audience is intensified. The cre-
ative process is not necessarily a direct one but
an intersubjective exchange between creator
and medium. However, Kohut (1976/1978,
p. 816–823) and self psychologist George Hag-
man (2005, p. 73–79) each delineated three
phases of creative engagement. Kohut looked
at a precreative time, a time of frantic cre-
ativity and original thought, and a time of
quiet work. Hagman expanded these phases
into a more textured intersubjective dialectic
with inspiration and self-crisis, aesthetic reso-
nance, transmuting externalization. [See Press
(2002, pp. 91–104) for an extensive discussion
of Kohut, Hagman, phases of creativity, and the
Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 223
modern dance choreographer.] The choreog-
rapher navigating through such phases engages
an aesthetic self-empathy and intersubjective
dialogue with the medium.
Fortitude and courage are the mainstays.
The creative process requires the strength of
psychological stability to risk the unknown, to
come to what is unexpected, and to interact
withthe evolutionof thought, feeling, andform.
Choreographer Merce Cunningham puts it
distinctly:
You have to love dancing to stick to it. . . . it gives
you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away,
no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in
museums, no poems to be printed and sold, noth-
ing but that single fleeting moment when you feel
alive. . . . it is not for unsteady souls. (Cunningham
in Brown et al., 1998: 90)
“The moment when you feel alive,” captures
the poignancy of authenticity and the transfor-
mation of that which is nebulous into some-
thing that speaks of the relational aesthetic
empathic matrix. How to traverse phases of
creativity so that poignancy, authenticity, and
transformation guide? Within self psychology
are several concepts that I find particularly
useful to discuss creative engagement and pro-
cesses as a dancer: selfobject function, sensual
motivational system, exploratory/assertive mo-
tivational system, forward-edge strivings, and
“now” moments.
Selfobject Function, Movement,
and the Choreographer
Something functions as a selfobject when
one’s experience of self-cohesion and whole-
ness is confirmed. For the dancer, movement
and the creation of an external form—the art
work—serve vital selfobject functions. In gen-
eral I choreograph and perform my own solos.
Many choreographers choreograph on other
dancers, and those dancers also serve signifi-
cant selfobject functions. But for all choreog-
raphers, movement grounds us in the art form
for movement is the mediumthat draws us, that
compels us to create. We establish a relationship
with movement, and in so doing we establish
a self-empathic relationship with ourselves, for
we (or our dancers) create the movement. I use
several choreographers to illustrate this inter-
subjective relation between themselves and the
medium of movement.
Kenneth King
There are many formidable challenges to
making dances. First and foremost it’s the ac-
tion of dancing that completes my own sense
of being. . . . I’m a tall, lean, slim person and
I like that feeling, the body being light and
unimpeded. I like to move full out, very ex-
pansively and rapidly. I’ve devised a lot of arm
and spine movements that are all my own, so
the body coils, twists, bounds, spins, spirals, gy-
rates, dips, bounces, curves. . . . But the most
important thing is to find out how one dances
for one’s self. (King in Kreemer, 1987: 154,
157)
Dan Wagoner
I am absolutely absorbed with movement.
I love movement. And I trust movement. So
all of my dances begin with movement, and
the basic problem or idea is always a move-
ment problem. As I make movement choices, I
dance them over and over, turn them around,
add on—explore in as many directions as pos-
sible and then trust the movement will lead me
somewhere interesting. (Wagoner in Kreemer,
1987: 31)
Twyla Tharp
When I started working, I wanted to go to
a place where I felt I had a right to be, where
I wasn’t taking somebody else’s material . . . I
was getting to something that was so pure and
nonderivative . . . that I could call it my own
and start from there. In terms of the invention
of movement, it’s a matter of honesty. It may
have been an illusion, but nonetheless it drove
224 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
me to do a lot of work in the studio. (Tharp in
Perron, 2001: 48)
Motivational Systems
and the Choreographer
Joe Lichtenberg (1989) in Psychoanalysis and
Motivation defines five motivational systems: the
need for regulation of physiological require-
ments, the need for attachment/affiliation,
the need for exploration/assertion, the need
for antagonism/withdrawal, and the need
for sensual/sexual response (see also Licht-
enberg et al., 1992, 1996). Both exploration/
assertion and sensual motivational systems
hold significant experiences for the dancer/
choreographer.
Movement is grounded in the sensation of
bodily experience. When we watch a great
baseball pitcher throwing a ball at 90 miles per
hour or a dancer spinning across a stage, we
are excited by their visceral display. Dancers
learn to heighten their awareness and focus of
sensation and to use the kinesthetic for explo-
ration and expression through their art form.
The selfobject function of movement begins
and ends with sensation. According to early
modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller (Fuller in
Brown et al., 1998):
What is the dance? It is motion.
What is motion? The expression of sensation.
What is sensation? The reaction in the human body
produced by an impression or an idea perceived by
the mind. (17)
Choreographer Alwin Nikolais (Nikolais in
Brown et al., 1998) describes this as a sensitivity
to motion, the qualitative experience connected
to movement:
So in the final analysis the dancer is a specialist
in the sensitivity to, the perception and the skilled
execution of motion. Not movement but rather the
qualified itinerary en route. The difference may
be made even clearer by giving the example of
two men walking from Hunter College to 42nd
and Broadway. One man may accomplish it to-
tally unaware of and imperceptive to the trip, hav-
ing his mind solely on the arrival. He has simply
moved from one location to another. The other
may, bright-eyed and bright-brained, observe and
sense all thru (sic) which he passes. He has more
than moved—he is in motion. (118)
Sensation moves us. Sensation is at the
core of the selfobject function of movement
for the choreographer. Without words, for
choreographer, performer, and spectator, a
kinesthetic empathy takes us to aesthetic ex-
perience, informed by our early interactions,
woven into our development throughout our
lives. Such a sensual qualitative motivation
is associated with all the arts. Dissanayake
(2000) reminds us, “First and foremost . . . the
arts are things that people do with their bodies”
(178).
Motivation for exploration, self-assertion, ef-
ficacy, and vitality allows the choreographer
to take sensuality, motion, movement and
create art. Lichtenberg (1989) discusses such
motivation:
Problem solving by exploration and assertion to-
gether triggers the pleasure that comes froma sense
of efficacy and competence . . . Looked at in this
way, the exploratory and assertive activity of in-
fants would not be to seek stimuli as such, but to
experience the particular affective sense of alive-
ness of the aroused exploratory state. Competence
would then be a measure of infants’ ability to or-
ganize and regulate their activity to produce a new
version of the desired state. (126, 136)
So infants experience pleasure and vitality
from the competence and efficacy that comes
from exploration and assertion. In “Art and the
Self of the Artist,” Charles Kligerman (1980)
claims that the motivation to create is “an in-
nate intrinsic joy in creating, related to what has
been termed ‘functional’ pleasure. This is per-
haps the most important factor, but the one we
know least about” (p. 378). I maintain that this
joy is the vitality that comes from exploration,
assertion, efficacy, and competency. This cap-
tures the doing of art making, the focus and vi-
tality that enrich creative aesthetic experience.
Such joy, or the promise of the joy to come, may
serve to sustain the artist through the phases
Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 225
of creative engagement when uncertainty lurks
until the final creation emerges.
The Selfobject Function of Form
The doing of the art making brings forth
form, the art work. The process and the final
product both serve vital selfobject functions for
the modern dance choreographer. Art making
is inherently an intersubjective enterprise be-
tween artist, medium, and art work. Choreog-
rapher Dan Wagoner (Wagoner in Kreemer,
1987) poignantly describes his relationship to
movement, problem solving, the creation of his
dances, and their power to reinforce meaning
and cohesion in his life:
I’m really trying to get something across to myself.
Choosing a problem that’s to be solved by move-
ment, exploring the problem as deeply as I can,
and from this making movement choices that are
finally put together as a dance, gives me a structure
within which to dance and live. . . . As this chain
of activity fills the years, it becomes a history or
record of a life. . . . This is the only way I can judge
if a dance works. If it becomes a strong part of my
life, then I feel it works. (28, 31, 32)
Forward-Edge Strivings
Connections to joy, exploration, assertion, ef-
ficacy, vitality, combined with the capacity of
art making to serve selfobject functions, helps
explain motivation for artists who are in de-
spair, who appear to turn to art making to gain
much needed cohesion. Whether in despair or
not, all artists search for what Marian Tolpin
(2002), in “Doing Psychoanalysis of Normal
Development: Forward Edge Transferences,"
identifies as forward-edge strivings “that de-
rive their force and momentumfromstill-viable
tendrils of healthy childhood motivations, striv-
ings, expectations, and hopes of getting what
is needed” (p. 168). In his autobiography, Pri-
vate Domain, modern dance choreographer Paul
Taylor describes his fall from grace as a per-
former and his rebirth through an intensifica-
tion of his energies as a choreographer [see
Press (2002, 2005) for extensive discussions re-
garding Taylor and self psychology]. After 20
years of touring and 6 years of amphetamine
addiction, Taylor must come to grips that his
body as performer is failing him. Additionally,
he has bleeding ulcers and does not know that
he has contracted hepatitis. During the pre-
miere of his dance American Genesis in 1973, he
collapses on stage. His life as a performer comes
to an end; Taylor calls it his “death in Brooklyn”
(p. 329).
Taylor ultimately makes a choice. His
forward-edge strivings come forward and with
them he finds the hope to continue and to re-
define his life through a greater focus as chore-
ographer. Out of the ashes of despair, Taylor
(1988) finds joy in his art making: “Dances were
no longer made out of necessity or to prove any-
thing . . . the strongest reason was that the act of
making dances brought me happiness” (p. 359).
Taylor understands that his work comes from
deep within himself:
Strangely enough, the best places that new dances
take me can usually be traced back to things in
the past that have already left an imprint and are
being revisited, continuations of paths or patterns
that started in childhood, or maybe even much
earlier, and which repeat themselves in different
forms without me realizing it until later. (360)
Ultimately, his forward-edge strivings have
taken hold of him and led him out of despair:
Today it’s the dance making that brings excitement.
The rehearsing in itself is everything and is its own
reward. Even seeing the completed dances for the
first time onstage isn’t as thrilling as working in the
studio. (360)
Studio Experience and “Moments”
Taylor highlights “working in the studio.”
The ritual of spending time in the studio can
be the lifeline to art making for choreographers.
Each day choreographers enter their studios,
and movement somehow evolves—the miracle
of creativity sustained by the selfobject function
of a special space and ritual. In Private Domain
226 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Taylor (1988) describes such a relationship with
his studio:
The studio needs no changes, is already more than
a place to dance in, is brighter than its own white-
ness, bigger than its dimensions, more real than
truth or reason. No studio can keep its mental
health in conditions of complete reality. Let other
dance studios be demented—ours will stay one of
the sane ones that dream. On entering it, especially
when its empty and quiet, you can see it for what
it is—an illusionary place, a crenellated castle keep
of smiles and sunbeams, a dreamchamber, and this
despite its aroma of perspiration and the sadness of
baggy leotards. (163–164)
As a choreographer, I depend upon the self-
object function provided me through the ritual
of entering a special space, the studio, know-
ing that at least the day before I was successful
in discovering some movement. The journey
in the studio is an intersubjective dialogue be-
tween myself (composed of all my personal and
cultural experiences) and my medium. I search
for moments of meaning through movement,
moments that feel authentic and filled with
potential. I liken these experiences to Daniel
Stern’s (2004) descriptions of “moments” in his
book The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Ev-
eryday Life [see Press (2006), for an extensive
discussion of “moments” and choreographic
process].
For Stern (2004):
A present moment . . . composes a short emotional
“lived story”. . . . The duration of a present mo-
ment is the duration of a phrase. . . . It is the basic
building block of psychological meaningful subjec-
tive experiences that extend in time. (xv, 42, 44)
He emphasizes that our “lived story” is ex-
perienced in the “now”: “We are subjectively
alive and conscious only now. Now is when we
directly live our lives. . . . The only time of raw
subjective reality, or phenomenal experience,
is the present moment” (p. 3). A “present mo-
ment” becomes a “nowmoment” when “highly
charged with immediately impending conse-
quences . . . heavy with presentness and the
need to act” (p. 151). When this happens the
possibility arises for a:
Moment of opportunity, when events demand ac-
tion. . . . Events have come together in this moment
and the moment enters awareness such that action
must be taken, now, to alter one’s destiny—be it
for the next minute or a lifetime. . . . It is a small
window of becoming and opportunity. (7)
Through such moments, “moments of meet-
ing” may evolve in which individuals have a
“shared feeling voyage” (p. 172).
When choreographing I enter into the studio
and work to be present in my body. I move and
explore phrases of movement withinthe present
moment that feel significant to me, waiting to
experience “now moments” charged with po-
tential, urging me to explore further. I take hold
of those moments, moving forward through
“moments of opportunity” to take my chore-
ographic design further. Ultimately I search
for “moments of meeting” between myself and
my medium, between myself and audience, be-
tween mediumand audience. Sometimes in the
process I feel frustration and am filled with
doubt and questions. Where will this process
take me? Anywhere? Does this feel right to-
day? Can this not be easier? The process is al-
ways challenging, but the prospect of fulfillment
and cohesion urge me on. I ground the process
in the experience of moments, the moment to
moment experience of moving through space,
and believe that my forward edge will take me
somewhere where authenticity is prominent in
my life and relations.
I describe through the telling of a dream I
had:
Many years ago, on the eve before I was to meet
my newtherapist, I had a dreamthat I was walking
through the countryside. A gentle soothing breeze
was blowing. I was dressed in drab nondescript
clothing. I came across a farmhouse and a lovely
young woman had placed upon an outside clothes-
line many leotards. The breeze had dried them.
They were ready for wear. In my dream I watched
the motion of the leotards as they danced through
the air, a symphony of rhythm. The following day I
told my newtherapist of my dreamand I associated
to the words in a Bob Dylan song, “The answer my
friend is blowing in the wind.” I knew the answer
to my life, the answer to my struggle, was blowing
in the wind. The task of my life was how to don
Press: Self Psychology and Choreographer 227
the leotards, to work through the psychological is-
sues that blocked my embracing them; who I am
in my inner core is most easily experienced and
transmitted through the aesthetic and procedural
knowledge expressed within my dance. . . . The
basic premise of my dream, of my life, has never
changed. My need to feel and to evolve develop-
mentally who I am aesthetically, and in so doing
to feel an empathic tie with myself and others, to
participate in a co-constructed world of empathy,
is ongoing.” (Press & Hagman, in press)
Social Destiny, Historical
Destiny, and Art
Kohut had faith that self psychology would
assist humankind in gaining control over their
social and historical destiny by exploration in
the broader arena of human pursuits, such
as art. [See Hagman (2006: June–July) and
Kindler et al., (in press) for journal issues dedi-
cated to such investigative endeavors.] The arts
connect us to our profound human need for
aesthetically based empathy, exploration, asser-
tion, sensuality, vitality, and moments of mean-
ingful exchange. Beauty is found in anything
that is poignantly authentic. Kohut (1987) be-
lieved mental health was based upon a capacity
to give shape and formto authenticity construc-
tively within one’s life: “The success of analysis
is not to create people who cannot have strong
feelings, who cannot be passionate, who can-
not fly off in a rage or be violent, but to en-
able them to choose when, where and how to
express their strong feelings” (p. 165). Artists
attempt this throughout their work. Hopefully,
individuals are nourished through the partak-
ing of art and search within their own lives for
the dance of aesthetically based empathy and
expression.
Ellen Dissanayake (1988), in What Is Art For?,
emphasizes this vital aesthetic function:
Our world and our selves have fragmented to a
degree unimaginable in earlier human history, and
if there is to be any coherence at all in our lives, it
is up to us to put it there. To this extent, we are all
called upon to be artists—to shape, find significant
aspects of, impose meaning upon, discern, or state
what is special about our experience. Response to
the mystery of life becomes a personal aesthetic
gesture. (190)
Words help frame ideas, but ultimately self
psychology is not a psychology of objective
truths but a psychology dedicated to exploring
the seeds and development of human experi-
ence. Within this development is the foundation
of our aesthetic relational matrix, born out of
empathy and shared implicitly throughout our
daily life. Art gives form to the experience of
this aesthetic matrix and informs our struggles
and joys as we embody our social and historical
destiny.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
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