Introduction

Mark Franko’s position as a seminal figure in Dance Studies and his continuing importance in the field are well known. Less familiar is Mark’s work as a dancer and choreographer, which began in the 1960s when he joined Paul Sanasardo’s company. Mark’s critique is an antidote to modernism’s destruction of the past, as is his theorizing, more broadly, on the role of time in dance. Mark originally made Le Marbre Tremble at the invitation of Francois Soulages. Mark speaks about the relationship between dance and the visual arts in several of the essays in Choreographing Discourses. Franko’s entire oeuvre follows this cautionary remark, which reminds us that if the trace’s drift is a matter of its essential relationship to the deployment of force, it is also crucial to remember that the deployment of force is essentially a matter of politics.