The turn of the
twentieth century was a tumultuous time in history. Man found himself in the
midst of rapid technological advances, coupled with radical changes in both political
policies and spiritual beliefs. From these changes we find the parturition of
the “Avant-Garde” movement. Although the Avant-Garde movement was represented
throughout Europe, the Futurism movement embodied the true meaning of
“Avant-Garde”. In the following paper I will illustrate what the Avant-Garde
movement was and prove why Futurism exemplified its attributes.
The term “Avant-Garde” is a French term from "advance
guard" or "vanguard". It refers to people or works that are
experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and
politics (Dictionary.com). The operative term is experimental. To experiment is
to journey into the unknown. Experimentation can only be measured after the
event (Roose-Evans 1). Traditional conventions of theater were being challenged
by the Futurist, where directors, such as Meyerhold, cared more about form and
movement and cared less about the literary content of the play (Roose-Evans 21).
Innovations in how the actors were introduced were apparent in plays, such as Victory over the sun, where atonal
music, a breakdown of language and elaborate geometrical costumes were
introduced (Papadakēs 77). Avant-Garde implies more than just a style, it
involves a way of thinking. Artists were accompanied by manifestos. These
manifestos, such as the one formulated by Pratella, would encourage artists to
experiment with new ways and to incorporate different art forms together in a
variety of new ways (Goldberg 17). Finally, Avant-Garde must be timely,
satirizing and gaining strength from the air of unrest of the present state of
affairs.
Avant-Garde is experimental. Marinetti felt that nothing
was taboo when it came to getting a response from the audience. “Futurists must
teach all authors and performers to despise the audience” he insisted.
Marinetti even suggested such strategies as double booking the auditorium or
coating the seats with glue to enrage his audiences (Goldberg 16). Not all
experiments were as devious as this.
In an attempt to create a new form of theater unique to
the proletariat class, the idea of open air spectaculars became popular after
the revolution of 1917. Amongst these re-enacted events, none were as spectacular
as Meyerhold’s production of The storming
of the Winter Palace in 1920. Over one hundred thousand audience members
witness Meyerhold’s creation. With over eight thousand performers and an
orchestra of five hundred, Meyerhold re-created the whole event on the very
grounds of the palace (Roose-Evans 27).
The Avant-Garde movement found advances in experimental
instruments. Luigi Russolo introduced the world to his noise machines. Russolo
produced wooden boxes, roughly three feet tall that would produce sounds
ranging from the sounds of trams to explosions. According to Russolo, his noise
boxes were capable of delivering upwards to thirty thousand unique sounds (Goldberg
21).
Avant-Garde has an agenda. Marinetti wanted the world to
know what Futurism stood for in no uncertain terms. He did this by publishing
his Futurist manifesto. His manifesto, a formal statement expressing the aims
and plans of a group or organization (Dictionary.com), encouraged elaborate
performances, experimentation and improvisation. Marinetti continued to produce
his blueprints for Futurist theater throughout the course of the movement (Goldberg
17).
Not only were there manifestos for the Futurist theater
but in the world of Futurist music as well. The
Art of Noises is a Futurist manifesto, written by Luigi Russolo in 1913.
Russolo’s manifesto discusses how machine has become a viable form of music. He
discussed that through the introduction of machines during the industrial
revolution that ‘noise was born’. He argued for a more precise definition of
what noise is and that music and machines paralleled each other (Goldberg 21).
In the world of the Avant-Garde who is to say that a
manifesto even needs to be written? During the time of the Futurist movement
Vsevolod Meyerhold introduced a system of actor training which he called
Biomechanics (Law 1). Biomechanics consisted of exercises, or etudes, which
taught three attributes being balance, rhythmic awareness and responsiveness.
The set exercises, at first, were strictly taught. Once the actor mastered the
movement only then could he change it to fit his own tempo or mood (Leach 82-83).
Avant-Garde must be timely. On February 20th,
1909 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the first Futurist manifesto in the
French daily, Le Figaro. The
manifesto attacked the established painting and literary schools of the time.
This is considered to be the start of the Futurist movement (Goldberg 11). In
1909 Marinetti produced his play Poupees
electriques at the Teatro Alfieri in Turin, Austria. At this time, Italy
was in political unrest with Austria. Using this tension to his advantage,
Marinetti intentionally opens the play in the border city of Turin. At the
performance Marinetti expounds his hate for tradition and praises militarism
and war. The Austrian officials took note of the upstarts and the Futurists
reputation as civic agitators were firmly cemented. The Austrian consulate
officially complained to the Italian government, thus ensuring the watchful eye
of the government over subsequent Futurist performances (Goldberg 13). If
Marinetti did not pick this place and time for the performance to occur, he
would not have received the response he was soliciting.
Before Marinetti released his manifesto, he spent time in
Paris. At that time Marinetti was exposed to many artists, writers and
performers of the time. One of these artists was Alfred Jarry. Alfred Jarry
produced a play entitled Ubu Roi
(Goldberg 11). “Merdre!” was the first word uttered on stage by the strangely
garbed, masked main character of the story. From this singular excremental
exclamation, Jarry would cement his place in the Futurist movement. The
audience was in an uproar and it took nearly twenty minutes for the performance
to resume (Beaumont 9). At this time, France was not as we would like to
romanticize it as a nation of singing and dancing. It was a time of deep social
unrest where the upper and lower class were deeply divided. Even after the
passing of a bill in 1892 that discouraged the exploitation of the working
class there was still much abuse. To make matters worse, in 1894 a man named
Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly accused of spying for the Germans. The Jewish
captain for the French army was the center of a national schism. Defenders of
the wrongfully accused and jailed Dreyfus, known as the Dreyfusards, stood for
justice and human rights. In the time that led up to world war one the theater
was terribly commercialized. Catering to the troubled and oppressed middle
class, theater was reduced to giving the audience simple plots filled with
gaudy costumes and forced laughter (Schumacher 3-6). If it were not for this
climate in France at the time Jarry’s Ubu
Roi would never had made the impact that it had at that moment in France’s
history.
As illustrated, Avant-Garde is not simply being
outrageous or doing something that no one at the time is doing. Although the
term “Avant-Garde” is kicked around today to explain everything from electronic
accordion players to the new “Old Navy” commercial, the Futurist movement of
the early twentieth century was far from simply being different. Innovation and
experimentation is only the beginning of Avant-Garde. Without the backing of an
ideology, coupled with timely response, we are left with the husk of cliché. Avant-Garde is the vehicle for the message.
Works
Cited:
Beaumont,
Keith. Jarry, Ubu Roi. Wolfeboro:
Grant & Cutler, 1987. Print.
Dictionary.com.
Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. Web. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
Goldberg,
RoseLee. Performance Art: From Futurism
to the Present. 3rd Edition. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2011. Print.
Law,
Alma H., and Mel Gordon. Meyerhold,
Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Actor Training in Revolutionary Russia.
Jefferson: McFarland, 1996. Print.
Leach,
Robert. Makers of Modern Theatre: An
Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Papadakēs,
A. Malevich. New York: Academy
Editions, 1989. Print.
Roose-Evans,
James. Experimental Theatre: From
Stanislavsky to Peter Brook. 4th Edition. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Print.
Schumacher,
Claude. Alfred Jarry and Guillaume
Apollinaire. New York: Grove Press, 1985. Print.
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