A Colourful World of Bodily Expression

The Dancers Collection of Milein Cosman (1921–2017) impresses by its shere extent, and particularly by the diversity of global dance cultures it represents. It comprises hundreds of drawings dating from the late 1940s till the end of the 20th century, and unites a vast assemblage of classic, modern, experimental and folk-dance traditions. Two things particularly stand out about the present collection: Cosman’s virtuosic ability to capture movement as well as her egalitarian artistic approach towards the objects of her drawings.

The collection as a whole, over the course of five decades, beautifully documents Cosman’s sincere interest in movement and the masterly perfection of her skills. The development of a brisk but refined style and technique, enabled Cosman to depict moments of motion in real time, often drawing almost blindly from within the darkness of the auditorium or backstage area.

Throughout the collection however, Cosman's interest in traditional global folk- and stage dances is notable. A large number of drawings show dances from the Asia-Pacific region, especially Indonesia, India, Japan and China and portray famous dancers and performers such as Uday Shankar (1900–1977), Ram Gopal (1912-2003) and many others.

For instance, in a number of sketches of the famous dancer of Indian Kathakali, Kottakal Sivaraman (1936-2010), in his performance of the mythological king Rugmangadan, Cosman accurately depicts the traditional voluminous costume and thereby suggests the distinct pacing character of the dance and its focus on expressive gestural work using the hands.

Costumes in many of Cosman’s dance drawings thus allow us to immediately contextualise the dance forms within their respective cultural backgrounds. Cosman’s artistic orientation however, isn’t driven by a gauche notion of the otherness of foreign cultures, but rather integrates diverse cultural contexts into her overall representations of dance. Above all, Cosman appears astounded, fascinated and intrigued by the diversity of the human body’s boundless repertoire of expressive movement and is driven to capture this in all its forms.

In this way, and despite the significantly different cultural settings, the drawings of Åkesson (discussed above), Sivaraman, Ananda Shivaram (1916-2001), another famous dancer of the Indian Kathakali, surprise with their aesthetic similarity rather than difference.

Cosman’s artistic approach, her impressive, but also astonishingly simple and straightforward representations of movement, lack an overtly critical or political perspective. Her disregard of power structures—inherent in every process of bodily representation—can appear naïve, if not ignorant, particularly in the light of today’s heightened sensitivity and discourse about gender-, racial- and cultural discriminations.

However, it shouldn’t be overlooked, that Cosman’s oeuvre nevertheless does entail critical potential. While visual representations of the performing body all too easily and too often replicate a discriminatory view, albeit sometimes an unconscious one, Cosman’s depictions of cultures that are foreign to her persuade through her manifestly egalitarian standpoint. Her drawings are always appreciative and respectful and no spark of exoticist voyeurism or judgment contaminates her oeuvre.

More even than her technical mastery, it is the authenticity and the authority of Cosman’s artistic vision that appear to be the foundation of the radiant and touching quality of this impressive collection. The exuberant abundance contained in the collection represents a truly extraordinary and intimate testimony to the diverse beauty of human bodily expression.