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Duration: 13.5 minutes

Music: “Nel cor piu non mi sento” composed by Nicolo Paganini, performed by Salvatore Accardo

Performers: Libby Allsberry, Melissa Bloch, Lauren Ducharme, Daytona Frey, Jenna Giorgio,

Natalie Griffith, Leah Ives, Christie Jenuwine, Emily Kahn, Dominique Melissinos

Costume Designer: George Bacon

I am interested in a physical embodiment and movement analysis of Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti’s (1475-1564) creative influences in posing the human form. POSED is a modern dance resulting from physical and biblical research of Michelangelo’s figures in the frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in an effort to determine his merit as a choreographer. Michelangelo painted people in a choreographed fashion expressing muscular tension and perceived motion, much like a dance utilizes human bodies as architecture in space to convey specific kinesthetic responses. Analytically, Michelangelo was choreographing his subjects to convey discernible biblical narratives and obtain specific physical reactions from his viewers and should be credited.

Research for POSED has taken place over the course of ten months. The main objective behind the dance was to accurately depict Michelangelo’s kinesthetic intent by breathing life and 3-dimensionality into his figures. I traveled to Rome and Florence and performed a chronological research investigation of Michelangelo’s artistic development by visiting museums, churches, and sites containing creative influences. Once I had gained an extensive understanding of how Michelangelo learned to pose his figures, I was able to translate that historical information into a choreographic structure. Congruently, by studying the physicality and musculature of Michelangelo’s figures, I could investigate improvised movements of the human body that

triggered the appropriate muscle groups Michelangelo featured in his figure’s postures.

I based the overall theoretical framework for POSED on four areas of analysis: 1. Site-specific research 2. A historical data document containing factual dissections of each represented Sistine Chapel fresco 3. Weekly meetings with theologian, Ralph Williams, to analyze Biblical relevance, historical accuracy, and ideological conflict 4. Dance research placing the physical postures in a historical context. I devised an in-depth comparative analysis of the physical characteristics behind the poses Michelangelo chose for his subjects, how they relate to dance, how they accurately depict biblical history, and the degree of creative individuality Michelangelo expressed. I chose five panels of the Sistine Chapel ceiling to inspire the choreography and sections for the final dance. I brought the panels into motion by actually posing my dancers as Michelangelo’s

subjects, giving them dynamic, anatomical reference, and life. POSED represents my choreographic vision of the perceived movements Michelangelo’s figures may have endured.

Research findings revealed that Michelangelo’s creative influences consisted of many different elements: Greek and Roman sculpture, architecture, paintings, human anatomy, and his teacher, Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494). In regards to functionality, Michelangelo’s figures are deceptively anatomic. Through physical embodiment of Michelangelo’s figures it was discovered that he enhanced, foreshortened, and elongated parts of the human body to achieve the kinesthetic response he desired from his viewers. Many of the poses Michelangelo conceived of are not attainable by the living human form and that information provided for unexpected and challenging choreographic adjustments in the creation of the dance.
 

POSED was supported by grants from the University of Michigan Dance Department and the University of Michigan International Institute.
 

Condivi, Ascanio. The Life of Michelangelo. Penn State Press, Copyright 1999.
 

Gilbert, Creighton. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo.Copyright 1980
 

Keller, Werner. The Bible As History. Copyright 1980 by Hodder and Stroughton
 

King, Ross. Michelangelo & The Pope’s Ceiling. Copyright 2003. (pg. 82,83, 86,130-132, 160-161, 233-234, 291-294).
 

Neret, Guilles. Michelangelo. Copyright 2001 by TASCHEN GmbH. (pg. 13, 8).
 

Ottman, Klaus. The Essential Michelangelo, Copyright 2000 The Wonderland Press (pgs. 19, 24, 34).
 

Paintings of Michelangelo, The. Phaidon Edition. 1939, Oxford University Press.

Web Gallery of Art, Sistine Chapel Frescos, http://www.wga.hu/
 

Ralph Williams, Professor, University of Michigan, English Language and Literature