Tanja Liedtke passed away in 2007, after being hit by a truck. In May, a mere 3 months before her death she was appointed Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company. Liedtke is said to have created a ‘fresh innovative language for dance in Australia and beyond’, her constant intent to keep modern dance modern was one of the factors that led to her being appointed one of the youngest Artistic Directors. She managed to provide Australian contemporary dance with a fresh outlook on dance, and choreographed ‘rich, powerful and compelling art’. Her death has impacted the contemporary dance industry as they have lost a powerful voice, but her work and innovative ideas will be remembered and will remain as an influence for many generations of dancers
Analyzing part one of “Water,” “...the question is not whether human bodies are obsolete, but how they can be redesigned, and how such incorporations of technologies change the stories we tell and dance about ‘being human’ in the twenty-first century” (Birringer, p. 92). Zooming in on certain parts of the body and only being able to see the upper body part of the female dancer bodies is a liberty Keone and Mari Madrid are able to experiment with. The camera begins in the water with Mari Madrid, her hands scooping water out from the river while she wears a loose upper half white and lower half khaki dress. By 0:22 the camera frames the river and greenery in the background; Mari and two female dancers enter the frame, their backs to the camera lens. Once in the water the three female dancers use their upper body, crouching forward and using their arms they move from near kinesphere to far up.
Margaret Bourke-White was born on June 24,1904, to Joseph and Minnie White in Bronx, New York. As a young child Margaret was brought into this world as one of the white’s three offspring. Her father was an engineer who valued photography and all that it could capture; whereas, her mother defied stereotypes and became one of the few women ,during that time, to have an education. Graduating from Plainfield High School in Union City, Bourke disregarded her photographic interests and attended Columbia university to study herpetology. There was a brief lapse in time where Bourke showed no interest in photography after her father’s passing in 1922.
There have been several talks this week, but Janet Mock’s talk was by far the most inspiring. In this short paper, I will give a brief biography of Janet Mock, discuss the talk, and give some of my thoughts/opinions. Amy Richter introduces Janet Mock as the New York Times bestselling author of Redefining Realness and the host of a weekly MSNBC TV series about culture. After her book, she became more famous and a role model for many. Amy states that Janet’s story became well known after her appearance in 2011 Marie Claire.
In the biography, “Stepping It Up,” by Editor, Anthony, a young dancer with the love for music, grew stronger in his pathway of music as he gradually conquer his fear of public humiliation. The young hip-hop dancer started off in fifth grade as a boy with the fear of public humiliation after he discovered that society don’t always accept his talent of dancing. Instead during his school year, those who voluntarily chooses to dance with the girls in the special events, like parades and carnivals, would be treated diverse and different from the others. This finding causes irrational fear as well as an enteral struggle to gradually form and build up inside Anthony as he slowly matures toward eight grade. That is when Anthony realizes that in order to grow stronger in his path of dancing, he must seek and face his fear to truly conquer it.
Dance is a language, a way of communicating and knowing, through body movements by the use of time, space and force. Dance is the only language that visually allows the audience to feel and understand a situation. Dancers express themselves in different dance forms. In modern dance the dancer allows his/her emotions to express their feelings about a situation. In the 1900’s, modern dance began to develop as a rebellion against classical ballet, mainly in the United States, central Europe and Germany.
Riefenstahl often danced barefoot and without props or scenery to enhance the audience’s use of imagination. Riefenstahl was considerably influenced by the expressionist movement and her dance style reflected that of the change in culture. In 1925, Leni Riefenstahl participated in the film “Ways to Strength and Beauty” a product of Körperkultur or ‘The Cult of the Body’, an ideology of the time that emphasized the value of physical health, fitness and beauty. This stemmed from a vision of the rejuvenation of Germany and a strong fatherland. The film amplified Riefenstahl’s appearance as an attractive woman who displayed qualities of strength and physical beauty.
In her article, Embodying Difference, Jane Desmond argues that dance offers important insights into the ways moving bodies articulate cultural meanings and social identities. In other words, she explains the importance of studying the body’s movement as a way of understanding culture and society. She has two main arguments. First, she argues for the importance of the continually changing relational constitutions of cultural forms. Desmond further explains that the key to shedding light on the unequal distribution of power and goods that shape social relations are the concepts of cultural resistance, appropriation, and cultural imperialism (49).
In this essay, I will discuss how the film is about film itself. The notions of gaze will also be analysed, through a discussion of voyeurism and Jeff and Lisa’s relationship. This brilliant film about watching the neighbours simultaneously represents a self-reflexive film about the cinema and filmmaking. “[…] Jeff embodies the activity and passivity of both the film maker and the spectator; the director creates and waits, while the viewer
A dance film, on the other hand, employs dance as a main character with a more pivotal role in the transformation of the protagonist. Thus, in Shall We Dansu?, because it is an active force in the narrative with human-like characteristics, such as being shrouded in shame, ballroom dance becomes an initiator of intimacy. In Salsa and DanceSport, McMains explains Mexican-American Giselle Fernandez’s need for a creation of an alter ego despite already being
Secondly, the basic scale of mainstream film productions is anthropomorphic. Thus, the body is to be gazed upon. As Mulvey says there is “a fascination with likeness and recognition” (836) of the form, which is the second of the presented author’s points; put in her words there is a “to-be-looked-at-ness” (837) prescribed to women. To elaborate, the aspect with evaluating such an implementation is that it contracts a woman`s role to a sexual level; and leaves scopophilia (the sexual excitement one gets from looking or being looked at, without the inclusion of genital areas, as studied by Freud) as a result. In the instance of Psycho, we are presented with numerous examples of Marion`s poorly dressed body, which culminates in the shower scene and is before that accompanied with Norman`s obsession with her.
“Artworks have ‘aboutness’ and demand interpretation” (Barrett 71). This statement creates a foundation for writing, specifically about dance, as each dance piece is always about something, no matter how simple it appears to be. As I began to write about dance I knew not only to provide a description of the piece, but utilize the description as evidence as I develop a possible meaning. Additionally he explains, “There can be different, competing, and contradictory interpretations of the same artwork” (Barrett 73). When I would begin to develop an explanation from the description I provided, I had to remind myself that my interpretation was only one view of the dance and I should not try to provide one comprehensive interpretation for the
The construction of a self-conscious female gaze is the prime objective of feminist theatres everywhere. British feminist theatre practice as elsewhere is an attempt made by women to claim their rightful space in the creative realm of theatre that was deliberately denied to them by patriarchy. The public gaze on women was always the male gaze, one that always wished to see women as objects. It was an ideological position that patriarchy sanctioned as the normal way of looking at women. Women were always the secondary sexual objects for the gratification of male sexual fantasies.
The term ‘physical theatre’ is tough to define briefly, but is most commonly explained as a performance wherein the narrative is portrayed through physical means and verbal narration, if at all present, is relegated to a minimal position. ‘Physical theatre’ is not to be confused with dance, though it may have similar characteristics. It can almost be seen as a midway between dance and theatre. ‘Physical theatre’ encompasses features from both art forms. I will be discussing how ‘physical theatre’ originated from these two art forms, as well as its development over the last three decades, by referring to the philosophies, training, rehearsal and staging methods of contemporary physical theatre companies from different parts of the world.
ד’’בס Alessandra Adina 20 December 2014 Margaret Araneo Theories of Theatre A Comparison of Yeats’ and Phelan’s Ideas Regarding the Transformative Quality of Art as a Means of Elucidating Aspects of the Human Condition (1500-2000) Both William Butler Yeats and Peggy Phelan believe that art should move towards an understanding of the human condition through its potential for the transformative. Their ideas on how this transformative quality is achieved differ, but are not mutually exclusive: Yeats focuses on the value of symbolism on stage, while Abramovic champions the intersubjective experience as a vehicle for the creation of transformative art. This essay will compare their ideas, as expressed through Yeats’ and Phelan’s respective essays, “The Tragic Theatre” and “Marina Abramovic: Witnessing Shadows”.
