Category: Art

Judson Laipply

I know this isn’t high art, but Judson Laipply’s “Evolution of Dance” video on Youtube has over 90 MILLION hits. They say that the dance Revelations by Alvin Ailey has been seen by more people than any other dance on the planet. But I’m pretty sure more people have now seen Judson Laipply’s history of dance — ironic, isn’t it? 

I actually enjoyed watching it myself, and went to his website to check him out. I found that he is actually a motivational speaker. He describes himself as a cross between Anthony Robbins and Robin Williams…. I enjoyed his description of how he came up with the idea. You can read the whole thing on his site. The short version is:

“I had already begun to explore the understanding that life is change. I felt that this was a first step to creating the life you want by understanding the simple idea that life is change. So I wanted to do something to make sure that message stuck in the minds of my audience. I milled this over in my head for about 6-9 months when I was finally hit with the idea of how much dancing had changed. I began to think about how funny it would be to visually see all of the dances and thus the idea was born.”

In case you haven’t yet seen it: here is Jud’s Evolution of Dance.

I have had a number of discussion recently about the European acceptance of change in the arts, and an American pull towards a bizarre, hopeless, ‘preservation’ of the arts. I appreciate that this man understands that dance – as a field – reflects an ongoing, unstoppable, change. I think it’s funny, too, that his first name is Judson. For the uninitiated, or uneducated, I recommend a pilgrimage to the Judson Memorial Church. Or at least a few minutes reading up about it – maybe here.

I actually wrote this post in April and posted it on Bourgeon. But it doesn’t really belong there. Bourgeon is not supposed to be a site for random me-ness. It’s hard to get material regularly, though, what with having a job, training, dancing, etc… so I had posted it simply to get some fresh material up. 

If you haven’t been to bourgeon, please check it out. If you are an artist of any sort, and would like to publish something on bourgeon, please contact me. I’d love to hear about it. 

Blaming others for violence

I have been thinking about my choreographic project… how to choreograph something about non-violence….

I was chatting with a colleague at work and she told me about her trip to Israel with her mother. Her mom had gotten ill, and they had taken a pilgrimage. When I was a young teenager my grandparents took my family with them to Israel for a week.

We went to a place called Yad Vashem (which Fani is reminding me means ‘hand of god’.) Yad Vashem is Israel’s Holocaust Museum/Memorial. The last room I was in was a large dim room, with a candle burning in the ground. When I left the room, it was back into the bright middle-east sunlight. My grandfather was on the far side of a small open plaza. It was the only time I saw him cry.


image of Yad Vashem

He fled Germany in the late thirties, and met my grandmother – who had fled Austria – in New York city. He lost many friends, and some family. 

He felt so bad for surviving.

I told my colleague this, and we also talked about the woman who cut my hair last week – who was Palestinian. I felt this flare of  embarrassment when I identified myself as jewish to the hairdresser.

We need to stop blaming other people for violence. It’s important that we accept the challenge of opposing violence. I’m still not sure how to go about it, but I think a way for me to address non-violence would be to create some dance that asks us (the dancers) to stop blaming others for violence.

 

How Sweet it is to Die for One’s Homeland

I remember when I first read the following poem, by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918.) Owen spent the entirety of his ‘adult’ life fighting in World War I, and died in the final days.

This poem describes being in a gas attack, and watching a friend die in front of him. The phrase Dulce Et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori translates roughly as, ‘How sweet and just it is to die for the motherland.’

Dulce Et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devils sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro Patria Mori.


image of Owen and his regiment