Performance/Dance and Objects

 I'm trying to work out- my approach to performance and I've found an interesting intersection of Minimalism and Dance- 

Sites of Subjectivity: Robert Morris, Minimalism, and Dance Author(s): Virginia Spivey

This article in the "Dance Research Journal" outlines a connection between Robert Morris and Yvonne Rainer. The idea of Minimal Sculpture's connection to Dance. 

"She relied instead on interruption and repetition, devices she had used before, to break the flow of

the piece. As Rainer explained, "both factors were to produce a 'chunky' continuity,

repetition making the eye jump back and forth in time and possibly establishing more strongly the differences in the movement material... Interruption would also function

to disrupt the continuity and prevent prolonged involvement with any one image."

Viewers were thus denied the power of the extended gaze and forcedt o focus attention on other components of the dance, such as the interaction between body and object, or the body's movement itself. 

Morris linked his use of objects to determine dance sequences to his methodology in making sculpture:

“Finding ways to get the body moving--and having this movement be generated by the manipulation of objects so that the resultant movement became the dance was the challenge... pace the comparable a priori methods involved in construction to generate my sculptural objects of the early 1960s. This new structural armature opened up the making for me on both fronts-i.e., a kind of automation that foreclosed the expression involved in the toe (dance),or adding a 'expression' pointing little more on the left (sculpture) offered a new freedom. “

Thus, for Morris, objects used as props helped him solve the problem of intentionality in artistic-decision making. Accordingly, he believed the process of art-making no longer to be a conscious individual undertaking the interaction between artist and materials could yield a final product without any visible trace of the artist's presence.