She was treated to an MGM beauty makeover, complete with ultraviolet light freckle-removing treatment, capped teeth, and a curly, more feminine hairstyle. MGM made no secret of the fact that her voice was dubbed. At MGM, however, Powell had full control of her choreography and was given a studio in which to rehearse; she also dubbed her own tap steps.
Sacrificing control over you body for fame and bein "free"
By 1840, the minstrel show, a blackface act of songs, fast-talking repartee in Negro dialects and shuffle-and-wing tap dancing became the most popular form of entertainment in America. From the minstrel show, the tap act inherited the walk-around finale, with dances that included competitive sections in a performance that combined songs, jokes, and specialty dances.
The beginnings of Vaudville
ut no matter the contest, all challenge dances necessitate the ability to look, listen, copy, creatively modify, and further perfect whatever has come before. As they said at the Hoofer's Club in Harlem in the 1930s, where tap dancers gathered to practice their steps and compete: "Thou Shalt Not Copy Anyone's Steps— Exactly!"
How had tap been codified today? Has it lost it's relevance?
Mimicry is necessary for the mastery of form.
Were Dunn and Glover battling or learning?
human differences between us withfear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it,and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if wethink it is subordinate.”32
I think this is a powerful line
Striving to be antiracist in jazz dance requiresthe humility to admit when ideas and actions are racist, and a willingness toself-correct through intentionality and sustained effort.
So you are racist if you don't know?
eeper investigation into who and what was left out when history was writ-ten, and also offers insight into why jazz dance is such an enigma today.
I remember last class talking about the mending and translation of the outside view of dance versus the internal view of dance? How much responsibility does a person have to educate another person? How does intersectionality play a role in the discussion of dance?
“explodes outwardfrom the hips,” and the emphasis on a propulsive rhythm or “swing” qualityin the movement.
I agree
Which specific influences foundtheir way into jazz dance?
I like that the author is asking this question as a lot of people just say African dance when there is so many different countries that live inside of Africa that deserve distinct identites.
The African Origins of anAmerican Art Form
In 200-250 words, provide context for the texts to the best of your ability (think about when, where, and who these texts were written for, and why) and then briefly summarize the main points or arguments of both texts.
I prefer“real” locations because they bring an essence to the dance that can never be duplicated on stage
I like this quote a lot
vann E. Siebens
In Evann E. Siebens's chapter, he mentions some technical and philosophical aspects of dance film that, in his experience, are particularly important for dancers new to cinematography to note. Which of these aspects seems most important to you to keep in mind as you begin to use cameras to frame bodies in motion?
Historically, the devaluation of musical theater dance revealsracial and gender biases as well as an ideahzation of artisticindependence from audience desire or market forces thatfails upon inspection in concert dance, in which choreogra-phen collaborate, compromise, and contend with capitahsm,albeit not quite as exphcidy as in the for-profit world ofBroadway
This is the argument.
cholars critique those whopractice without learning the history of the form's roots inAfrican American culture or show a commitment to Blackhberation in the present
that's fair
hip-hop (popping, locking, etc.) with musical theater'sballet/tap/theatrical jazz tiifecta and contemporary commercial dance
as if the genre keeps borrowing and adding
In the next breath, however, he stated thathe wished he had the funds for trap doors for his own company - pointing to the fact that Broadway constraints can alsobe opportunities to expand creativity (Mattingly 1998)
The author shows many examples of criticism, that then turn into the norm as people get more used to certain ideas
high art
What is this notion of high art these people are seeking?
An uncomfortable part of musical theater dance's history is how the AIDSepidemic, which decimated the Broadway community byclaiming thousands of gay men's lives in the 1980s and 1990s,resulted in an opening for women choreographers and directors.
This is an interesting revelation.
here's the Beat?" dancers portray a thinly veiled and mocking take on the Nicholas Brothen, portraying them as havinglost the Africanist core of tap's waist-down rhythms by adopting an acrobatic, ftdl-bodied "jazz tap"
There is a lot of critique of anything anyone does.
Black, but "masculine," a departure from the Hne oftap-dancing chorus girls in the musicals of yor
Intresting how it shows gender as well
Dancecritics scomed what they saw as theatrical jazz's amalgamation of influences, for them synonymous with inauthenticityand lack of originafity.
Musical Theatre can't catch a break
Dance critics andother tastemakers long viewed the Broadway stage as an artistically inferior space, even though the boundary line betweenthe "art" of concert dance and the "entertainment" of musical theater dance has always been blurry.
WHAT?
Audiovisual and choreographic means are used to create rhythm, express a story and convey emotion, thus creating a linear continuum of time experienced in visual media, in which actions and movement expression play a significant role.
emphasis of audio visiual
The unvarnished Negro,whose ancestors patterned their eroticcustoms after those observedin the animal kingdom, seesnothing controversialin the sexualact, either heterosexualor homosexua
This line said by the scientist makes the argument that Tennessee William makes about naturalism as it poses the argument that homosexuality and heterosexuality are both common in nature. The scientist continues his rant by saying how many black ancestors have engaged in these activities of years. This is also further implied in the show as Cliff and Paul almost have sex in the woods, a more natural setting to engage in the act. However, the scientist how white homophobia are offensive to their culture. It is interesting to make this separation of black homosexuality and white homosexuality, as it feels like black homosexuals had to fight for their right to be gay and black at the same time. With white people going as far as to make the same arguments of homophobia, but applying them to race, so then no matter what, black people have to fight twice as harder to be accepted.
Making the same argument as Tennesse Williams about how natural homosexuals are.
Sorry. I do have a boyfriend.But when he saw you, you being a brother and all,he just freakedout. I could never be with a black man, you know.But every once inawhile I need a little taste. You know what I'm talking about. A taste. Why don't)'OU keep my nwnberi Be my taste. Keepthe numbe
This is reminiscent of Ed's behavior in Torch Song Trilogy, where he would sleep with Arnold, but would never think about being in a relationship with him. However, this is rooted in racism as it the "problem" seems to be that he was the character was sleeping with a black man. If the boyfriend caught the guy being promiscuous with a white man, then the reaction would have not been negative. The fact he refers to sleeping with a black man as a "taste" is dehumanizing as it presents black men as people who can only be loved by white people. Torch Song Trilogy presents the same issues as the Performer also considered what he was doing an act of love. The situations brings up the "cake or death" argument because white people hold so much privilege over that by being with a white person it would also make the boss privileged in away. The attempts to "get out" of black gay culture to attempt to succeed in the world.
AUL: Don't. Cliffi I lo,-eyou. Cliff.I love you. ·cupp: Love?You can't fall in love with a guy.Get away from me. Go awayf Justleave me alone!
This sounds like a class concept
But you, Cliff.Youare such a disappointment to me. They can takeyou out of Shantyt?wn, but they can't take Shantytown out of you. Trying tocorrup_ta good ~hlte boy like Paul with your perverted ways. I thought youwere ~fferent, Cbff. I ~on't see ~ow I could recommend you for the Booker T.W~hmgton Scholarsh_1pafter this. It will break my heart to tell your mother.
I have many thoughts about this
The project acknowledges that documen-tary travels beyond the nation-state and that its global impacts are undeniable, butthe local, grounded, and specific ways participatory media cultures coalesce arounddocumentary within the borders of the nation-state are the primary focus.
A Move and Elahe's A Move and Stranger With a Camera does this well
ortraying African American history in an entirestate, the topic was distilled to “personal stories of the desegrega-tion of one town’s high school.
Be specific
ys in which media texts, the strategies used todistribute them and their communication strat-egies connect local grassroots groups workingtowards social justice
He had people particaped with the people who were activists
focused on the documentary history of the United States, attemptsto create a more solid foundation for discussions of documentary and social changeby paying close attention to the kind of small-scale organizing that often gets lostin studies focused on global documentary.
Being more specific about the history. Does not always have to be globally, but individual
certain non-gay cultural forms,such as the musical, or grand opera, or pop music, or women’s day-time TV, provide a liberation far more complete than gay politics canoffer, since the latter aspires only to improve the world and does notalter your situation in it or your subjection to it
This is an interesting perspective that people feel as though gayness is something that does not improve upon the world. Like there is no benefit to being gay in the sense fo productivity as comapred to other identies and cultures
. I think this also attributes to what we were talking about in the context of Darwinism in the sense of how they technically don't contribute to it because they are not producing any children.
Would this be the justifcation for why so many homosexual men married women because at least they could contrubute to society, while also reciving an heir to pass on all of their wealth to the next generation. Was their a sense of duty and fufillment that came with it, even if they were not sexually attracted to their wives. This also reminds me of how gay men sought purpsoe through learning about the world like the Greeks, as they did not identify with these terms and were just guys who casually enaged in sexual activites with men.
It is better able tocapture the kaleidoscopic range and breadth of gay subjectivity
This is especially true when it comes to unidentified gay figures in films like Rebecca and Sebastian which takes gay subjectivity further by making them unable to even what the person looks like as the audience is meant to fill in that part. I think what the author is talking about is how gay men want more agency in how they interpret films because their feeling seems more universal in the wider scope of the world at large. They want to be included in the way they think like everyone else to relate to more people beyond just gay people. It connects them to more people in that way.
ndrew Sullivan is quite right, in a sense: public culture haschanged, and homo sex u al ity now is much more fully integrated intoit. That certainly makes a big difference, and it makes traditional gaymale culture at least look a lot less relevan
Even so, everything has to come from somewhere.
which in-voked the righteous ness of love, equality, and community but withoutreference to any specific group, were massively popular in gay discos
Sometimes you don't want to be called out specifically, they just want to live
ersonal queerness into total,global queerness
The thing is even with queerness you need to find people who accept you, you won't always be accepted right away. No one had to fight to be straight, it was always there and left alone. There is no straight culture that was being coined before gay culture.
Mr. Taberski takes listeners on a drive up to Mr. Simmons’s gated home for what he half-seriouslycalls a “stakeout.” “I don’t want him to feel like I’m invading his privacy,” Mr. Taberski says. “On the other hand, I’mRichard’s friend
He is acting parasocial and desperate. Staking out of a persons house is stalking.
He takes a moment to note that Mr. Simmons’s gender identity is nobody’s business but his own,then forges right ahead.
Bro is nissing the whole point. Just because you are aware does not mean you should do it anyways.
ike the suggestion that his physical decline has made Mr.Simmons depressed, or that he’s grieving the deaths of his dogs
I know that he is a celebrity, but why should anyone care? How does this effect anyones day to day life?
is laced with a certain crueltythat, like the antiwoman and antigay humor, gives one occasional pauseamid the chuckles
What is this?
etic mode: emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmicqualities, descriptive passages, and formal organization. Thismode bears a close proximity to experimental, personal, andavant-garde filmmaking.
Island in between
Expository mode: emphasizes voice over commentary, a problem/solution structure, an argumentative logic, and evidentiaryediting. This is the mode that most people associate withdocumentary in general
The Sailing doc one
articipatory mode: emphasizes the interaction betweenfilmmaker and subject. Filming takes place by means ofinterviews or other forms of even more direct involvement, suchas conversations or provocations. This mode is often coupledwith archival footage to examine historical issues
A move
omatic Symptom
start here
Other dances were entirely social, for pleasure,amusement and humour.
Very prominent in western culture
“primitive”
It seems like all anthropologist that are white like to use that word. If they want to appropriate the culture, why would they call them privatives?
Hopi cosmologyand to human artistic endeavor generally: a search fororder in the natural world, the relationship of art andritual, and the linkage of individual creative acts to be-liefs about primal acts of creation.
Even the author goes out of the way to call them primal.
As Susan Sontag argues, “meaning isnever monogamous.”
How does that apply to the Hopi themselves? Do you think that they all have different reasons they partake in the Snake Dance?
“an awareness of other cultures’ bound-aries and contexts” as one way of respecting “the sym-bols, acts or materials sacred to others.
co-existence
Will appropriation andneoprimitivism necessarily continue to naturalize theentrenched self/other dichotomy? Yes, many scholarsargue, if the discussion is framed in terms of Euro-American needs and values.
How to Euro-Americans get out of the mindset that not everything is for them? It goes back to the notion that what is not aesthetically pleasing to one culture can be to another culture. Instead the Euro-Americans really like Native dances, however they are viewing them in a way where that is sexualizing and demeaning to the Native culture (change to the name). This kind of does back to least class with my question of how we coexist with different cultures, but now its more of how do we let cultures have their own individuality?
exoticism
That is only from the colonizer perspective? What if they are not dancing is a provocative way? What other dance is seen as provocative when they might not be?
The first eight days of thenine-day ceremonial were traditionally private, reflect-ing the widespread Pueblo ambivalence towardsstrangers in cosmic or tribal space and the possible in-troduction of evil accompanying their presence.
Then how would many archaeologist know about it if it is so hidden?
Anthropologist J. WalterFewkes described the Snake Dance as “an elaborateprayer for rain, in which the reptiles are gathered fromthe fields, intrusted with the prayers of the people, andthen given their liberty to bear these petitions to thedivinities who can bring the blessing of copious rainsto the parched and arid farms of the Hopi.
From a non-indigenous perspective, how does their perspective differ?