People as Institutions - what does it mean?

When the idea of people as institutions came up in the December 1st skype chat I was intrigued.  What does this mean?  What are the implications?  We were discussing whether or not it was ethical to name a person in our written work with whom we had a negative interaction with professionally.  

What are we doing when we name people? 

Personal responsibility is important.  Acknowledging who your reader is may be important.  (Will they or won't they know who I am naming?  In the instance of Martha Graham, more likely they will know.  In the instance of someone I have worked for in Montreal, perhaps not as likely). A question I had was, when deciding to name someone or something in your writing, what information will it add to what you are communicating?  If it doesn't add anything, maybe not so important to name.  But then I had this question of whether the name could be important at a later juncture, to some future discussion.  In other words, when Graham began we can assume that it was not evident how important she would be to future discussions, to provide context and so on.  

I thought about ethics in the context of a blog post I wrote a while ago, where I named the school I studied at.  My experience there was both good and not good.  Every couple weeks I think about editing out the school's name, but then I think, what if it is useful for the bigger conversation - locally, nationally, internationally? -  to name where my experience took place and provide a context for my reflections.   I need to take agency for what I learned and what I say about that learning.... so why not just say the name?  In the bigger discussion, how can things change or develop if we don't talk about them?  And how do we change or develop things if we treat them like they are immovable?  

Which brings us to (drum roll) people as institutions.  One of the most provocative (yet somehow completely sensible) positions I've come across regarding instituting ideas/movements in dance is that of Peter Boneham.  Peter did and didn't develop a contemporary technique.  It's not a technique because it's not trademarked, it's not called 'Boneham Technique', and there aren't a slew of people hosted at international workshops teaching it.  It shares many of the qualities of a 'dance technique': specificity of approach, clear point of view, values, principles, resulting aesthetic.... and share none of the ones that make it immovable.  Peter was effusive about how, if a technical approach to dance stopped questioning what it was doing and if those questions didn't somehow impact the form, it was dead (not useful anymore).  The field is in flux, he as an artist and person is changing, invariably the approach transforms as well. (Told you it was sensible.  He is a logical man.)  He is also generous:  claiming no ownership over the principles that shape his approach and the resulting forms.  And it's not that his ideas aren't something to brag about: my experience working with his approach was like being one of the people in Plato's cave looking at the dancing shadows and then all of sudden someone tells you to turn around and check out the sun.  It took my technique from zero to hero.  It is still something that informs how I work when I step in the studio. 

I recently decided to undertake dance technique teaching certification, and returned to a conversation with a close colleague and friend about the impact of instituting dance technique.  It really is problematic because it sets us on a path of associating movements to certain artists, and makes it challenging for that movement then to be used by others.  No one can do a 'pleading' without evoking Martha Graham.  Pleadings are an institution.  Graham is an institution.  She developed movements, created exercises for them, those exercises are fixed ('turns around the back' will always fucking be 'turns around the back' ), and laid out a progression for class.  New generations breath life into the forms by offering their perspective, but mostly it stays the same.  And that's fine.  It's great.  That's the idea.  But now we have this problem of do we or don't we teach this decades old style in professional dance schools.  How does learning this technique serve the dancer of today?  Based on what is happening in dance today?  How do we honour what happened before without earmarking so much space that we haven't got enough to assess where we're going? 
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Should we name people, if we do so as a result of an unfavourable experience?  No idea.  You can check out my second blog though, where I name the dance school where I trained pre-professionally. Maybe you have some thoughts about what I said, or how I said it, or have something to add.  I am interested in conversation.  My blog is not an institution.  It's a moveable thing.