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From my colleague Craig Perrier
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Angela Linker, Educator
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1980s-1990s
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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
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Throughout my childhood and teenage years, my mother and I frequently drove into the city of Detroit to attend an event or performance at one of the many beautiful cultural institutions. Scattered throughout the downtown area, theaters and art galleries stand out against the backdrop of urban decay. She always found the perfect artistic experience to highlight something I was studying in school, or to show me the endless possibilities of creative expression. She required that we dress up, which often meant that we had to go shopping in preparation for our outing; so many fun memories. Since it was usually just the two of us, she taught me all the best places in the city to park, and how to look “tough” when we walked down the street to our destination. I remember wondering why we needed to look tough, not yet having lost the trust of humanity that accompanies childhood innocence.
It was during these excursions that I developed a love for the city. I love the way it smells. I love the way the buildings remind me of a time that I can only read about in history books or stories. I love how it embraces its gritty reputation without apology. I love how the neighborhoods reflect the immigration of a variety of cultures who have shared their traditions and celebrations that we honor and enjoy. I love that coexisting amid the urban decay there are these inspirational pockets of hope – all having one thing in common: they pull people in from the suburbs. Even if just for the day, these centers of humanity pull in those whose families fled generations ago for what they thought would be a better life. A safer life, some would argue.
During one particular outing to Detroit, my mother shared her excitement that we were going to see a dance company. It was too early in the season for The Nutcracker; I wondered with anticipation who we would see. I wish I could recall, with certainty, which theater we visited that day – they are all such pillars of beauty standing as beacons – pockets of hope – throughout the city.
When the curtain opened and the dancers appeared everything else faded away. If you’ve ever read a book more than once or have seen the same movie or performance multiple times, then perhaps you’ve had that experience of seeing the story or the characters differently – either because you’ve changed or you’ve had an experience that has provided a new perspective through which you now see. Up to this point I had seen many ballet productions; I could anticipate an arabesque or predict the pattern in a pas de deux. I had never seen a dance performance as powerful as this. I had nothing to which it could compare. I was mesmerized. It was a ballet that simultaneously adhered to the rules and broke the rules. The performance stepped outside of the box just enough to call attention to the unique, modern way of telling a story through movement.
At moments the dancers floated across the stage like one might expect while watching Swan Lake; however, the most captivating sequences were the ones when the dancers used their bodies to create movements that told the story of a struggle – one with historical context and current-day relevance. Every muscle taut, exposed legs, bare torsos, and bodies that broke the typical mold that one might expect from a professional ballet company. Strong arms and legs carried the burden of the story of injustice and heartbreak. Strong arms and legs moved with determination toward freedom and equality.
This moment, my humanities moment – experiencing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, forever changed the way I view an artistic production. My new expectation was that a creative director would have the courage enough to take a risk, break the mold, and show a conscious effort to create something that makes the audience stop and consider another perspective.
It always fascinated me that we travelled into the city to have our ideas challenged, to have our curiosity piqued, and to have our emotions stirred. Reflecting back on these experiences, I am grateful for my mother who created opportunities to have my preconceptions challenged and my ideas transformed.
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Perspectives
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perspectives
African American History
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Arts
Cultural Awareness
Curiosity
Dance
Detroit, MI
Modern Dance
Mothers & Daughters
Urban Decay
Urban Revival
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I heard about Humanities Moments through my English class at Mountain Heights Academy.
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Becky Krusi, 18 years old senior at Mountain Heights Academy; full time dance student in the Professional Training Division at Ballet West Academy
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February 2019
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“Swan Lake” by Ballet West, lead performance by Beckanne Sisk
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<p>Sitting on the red velvet seats at the stunning Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City, I was so ready to see the ballet Swan Lake for the first time. Not only was I watching one of my favorite ballets, none other than Beckanne Sisk herself was performing, a principal with Ballet West Academy and a gorgeous dancer! Swan Lake is a timeless love story that mixes magic, tragedy, and romance all into four acts. It features Prince Siegfried and a lovely swan princess named Odette. Under the spell of a sorcerer, Odette spends her days as a swan swimming in a lake of tears and her nights in her beautiful human form. The couple quickly falls in love. But now the sorcerer has more tricks to play. This brings his daughter Odile into the picture. Confusion, forgiveness, and a happy ending with Siefried and Odette together forever round off the ballet. A single prima ballerina (a principal like Beckanne) plays both Odette and Odile. It is one of the most challenging roles a dancer can take on in her career.</p>
<p>When I saw Beckanne performing Odette and Odile, there was one single moment in time that has forever left an impact on my mind. To be completely honest, I don’t remember much from the three hour ballet! Going into it I thought the legendary 32 fouettes and wild turning would stick in my mind or the high controlled extensions of her legs, but in the end it was a seemingly simple movement that stuck with me. It was towards the end of the ballet and Beckanne was down-stage in the right corner and was turning around to run to her prince. She fearlessly placed her toe and went up into a fourth pique arabesque rounding the corner as she floated. Though this step may look quite simple, the years of training, the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making simple steps like this look easy is so great! It seems like there are over a hundred things to be thinking about when doing a pique arabesque, but Beckanne’s mind seemed to be free in that second. The way she held onto that moment and the power within the music, it was like a connection of everything coming together at the same time. I breathed with her. I felt suspended in time. I felt alive! I wanted to stay there forever and capture that feeling to put it in a bottle! In a way, that is just what my mind did. When I think back on this moment, I can actually feel what I felt then now.</p>
<p>I’m writing about this today because I wanted to share how a seemingly simple movement can be huge for someone! I have dedicated my life to ballet since I was 14. It is hard and it is painful, but nothing else makes me feel like how I feel when I’m in ballet class or performing something I’ve worked hard for. I’ve still got a ways to go, and you never stop working or improving. But since my experience here with Beckanne Sisk as Odette, I want to put in the work it takes to be that good so that I can reach someone's soul the way she touched mine. This is the beauty of ballet, and the reason we sacrifice so much to train. You need to be that good first in order to really affect someone. Think about any skills! It could be baking, sports, painting, music, etc. If you really want to leave an impact, you first have to put in the time it takes to be phenomenal then continue finessing from there. My passion is ballet, but it has become more than that to me. I’ve made these dreams become reality and that is continuously my goal.</p>
<p>I encourage you to be passionate and to stick to something you love! It could even be multiple things. But remember that you won’t love it everyday, and sometimes things can get unbearably hard! But never forget why you started in the first place. Beckanne Sisk reminded me that night of why I love ballet, because you can reach people’s spirits. It’s a different kind of communication rather than words, so it hits differently. It’s a language that I’ve spent years learning yet ironically you don’t have to know a thing about it to feel what Beckanne made me feel. Thank you for letting me share my humanities moment with you today.</p>
Title
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The Impact of a Seemingly Simple Movement
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impact-seemingly-simple-movement
Arts
Dance
Inspiration
Performance
Performing Arts
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Swan
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swan
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Graduate Student Residents 2020
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graduate-student-summer-residents-2020
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Through the Virtual Winter Residency
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George C. Berry, 26, MFA Candidate in Dance, University of Alabama
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December 2020
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Matthew Bourne's <em>Swan Lake</em>
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Matthew Bourne’s <em>Swan Lake</em> is a masterpiece that changed the way I view classical ballet as a queer person. Bourne’s reimagining of the classic story, <em>Swan Lake</em>, replaces all of the female swans with their male counterparts. Instead of classical white tutus, male swans are clad in only delicate feathery breeches, revealing their chiseled physiques to the audience. This juxtaposition of strength and fragility through costuming changes the traditional perception of the swans from classically romantic to sensuously carnal. As the Prince tentatively touches a male swan he foreshadows his inner struggle to accept the love he feels for him. This moment serves as a calling card for young gay male dancers to embrace who they are. <br /><br />Audiences are often not used to seeing the love between two men told through dance, and Matthew Bourne has seemingly shown us a beautiful, sensual love story. The way that Bourne weaves this story, carefully considering the accessibility and complexity, he establishes a new classic that has gained popularity among both the critics and the general public. Still, even as Bourne embraces the nuances of the inner struggle to find one’s identity, Bourne refused to attach the queer label to his work in an attempt to keep his story universal. Although this ballet was culturally received as supporting gay rights, Matthew Bourne has explicitly denied that this was his only intention. Instead of embracing the critics’ labelling of the work as the “Queer Swan Lake,” he pivots the narrative by announcing that the prince is not a gay man; he is just a Prince experiencing inner turmoil and the swan represents the freedom he seeks. <br /><br />My humanities moment is not Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake and the joy and identity I found within it, but instead is an interview created for TenduTV in 2011 entitled "Matthew Bourne: Refreshing the Classics and Winning Audiences Over," during which he renounced any gay readings of the work. I was so affected by this ballet that he created, that hearing him brush off the queerness that seemed so obvious in his work left my soul crushed. Bourne claimed that he doesn’t want his <em>Swan Lake</em> vision to be labeled as “just a gay story,” choosing instead to emphasize its universal appeal, and of course implying in the process that gay stories are only suitable for gay audiences. I, on the other hand, believe that identity-specific stories can be relatable, and that this story shares a universal message about wanting to be loved and cared for. I believe that the protagonist’s sexuality does not detract from the work’s appeal, instead it humanizes the gay community by showing their wants and struggles. <br /><br />Bourne’s decision to brush the queer influences in his work under the rug are supported by a long history of queer-erasure in dance culture more broadly. Ballet dancers, choreographers and critics have attempted to separate the art from queer culture for centuries, going back as far back as King Louis XIV and the form’s origins. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer of so many beloved ballets, including <em>The Nutcracker</em>, suffered from lifelong depression and may have committed suicide, in part because of the pain of having to live in the closet. Today, I have seen many companies comprised of mostly gay men steer away from being labeled a gay company for fear of being ostracized by a mainstream audience. Homosexual men who have given their lives to the craft of ballet long for proud representation, and it was a tragedy that Bourne chose to take this away from us, even as he so obviously put it on stage. <br /><br />As a young dancer, classical ballet training forced me to learn only heterosexual princely characters based on my appearance. I fought back against these assumptions through my gender non-conforming appearance, at which point I was discarded and my talent deemed wasted. This style of education failed to account for my desire for self-expression and creativity as a budding artist; they asked me only to imitate a masculine ideal that was not part of who I am. Just as the Prince in Bourne’s <em>Swan Lake</em> longs for reprieve from his mother’s quest to find him an acceptable bride, male ballet dancers seek freedom from their oppression from centuries-old values. <br /><br />The Prince in this story goes to the swan lake to hide himself from the world, just as I and countless others were forced to hide our sexuality for our own safety. I was forced to hide who I was from my parents, kids at school, and my dance teachers. Embracing my sexuality was not an option in the ballet school I attended, and in fact I was mocked for my appearance. When I came out, my dance teachers were the most repulsed by how I wanted to express my gender identity. In an industry that was built by queer people, they only embraced boys who fit their mold of who a “man” is in classical ballet. Recognizing the many queer influences in ballet history can help to bring us out of the shadows and into the increasingly diverse field of public opinion, allowing everyone to embrace our differences.<br /><br />Despite Bourne’s rejection of gay interpretations of his work, I believe the evidence for that meaning is too clear to deny. Bourne breaks heteronormative boundaries by choosing a man to play the swan that attempts to protect the Prince. I see two beautiful men embracing each other in a tender way that, yes, maybe shouldn’t have to be labeled as gay, but I clung to this break from tradition as a sign of romantic acceptance. While I agree that cultural traditions of heteronormativity handicap young minds, and that it is wrong to automatically label male intimacy, or anything a male does outside the macho sensibility, as feminine or gay, the romantic overtones of Bourne’s work are undeniable. I am not the only queer person to see it, as Dr. Kent G. Drummond states: “In a broader context, (Matthew Bourne) also forces a long-simmering relationship between homosexuality and dance out of the closet and into mainstream popular culture” (Drummond 2003). For these reasons, and many others, gay men - a group of individuals wanting to be accepted - still claim and cling to Bourne’s work even as he fails to return the embrace. <br /><br />Bourne’s <em>Swan Lake</em> was a catalyst for gay men wanting to dance as themselves in the ballet world, and the success of the work additionally proves that two men dancing together in a loving and intimate way can be beautiful and marketable. It is a shame that even after the work’s adoring reception, Bourne was afraid that his work would be seen one-dimensionally and that society lacked the open mind to receive all that he had created. My two-fold humanities moment is the moment of how this ballet changed me, and the moment when Bourne’s interview changed my views on this ballet. <br /><br />I hope that Bourne’s views on representation have changed as society has evolved. I was hurt by seeing someone fail to give credit to a community that needs uplifting. When leaders fail, the community has twice as much work to do. Although my thoughts on the work have shifted, I can speak to the normalization of two men tenderly embracing that Bourne inadvertently created with this ballet. The embrace between the Prince and Swan inspires me to create work that is defined by who I am; to embrace who we are and where society is going. Young gay boys dreaming of dancing professionally will continue to cling to this work, dreaming to one day experience this type of freedom. I believe that a future of gender equality is just beginning to peek over the horizon. <br /><br />Kent G. Drummond (2003). "The Queering of Swan Lake." <em>Journal of Homosexuality</em>, 45:2-4,235-255, DOI: 10.1300/J082v45n02_11
Title
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Not the Gay <em>Swan Lake</em>
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not-the-gay-swan-lake
Bourne, Matthew
Cultural Awareness
Dance
LGBTQ Rights
Queer Theory
Self-acceptance
Swan Lake
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Virgen del Carmen
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virgen-del-carmen
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Graduate Student Residents 2021
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graduate-student-residents-2021
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I will participate in the 2021 Summer Residency
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Fernando Alvear, 36, PhD Candidate in Philosophy and Graduate Instructor, University of Missouri
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July 16, 2013
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A religious festivity in Chile
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In the middle of the Atacama desert there’s a small village called La Tirana, with a regular population of around 1,200 inhabitants. The village has a few streets, some modest houses made of sun-dried bricks and tin roofs, a cemetery, and a small church. What’s interesting about this place is that each 16th of July, its population increases up to over 500,000 people, who gather in the biggest religious festivity in Chile, called “Fiesta de la Tirana.”
Eight years ago, while still living in Chile (my home country), I was invited to join one of these organized groups, called bailes, who visit this village as their annual pilgrimage. The bailes are composed by people from many different places, encompassing not only the north of Chile but also some of Bolivia and Perú. Its members usually come from challenged socioeconomic segments of the population. Their colorful dances and upbeat music have different origins: some dance moves are inspired by Inca’s worship of the sun and the Aymara’s veneration of the Pachamama. Some of their outfits incorporate elements of the clothes of old servants, miners, and enslaved peoples. The music that the bailes dance is a fusion between indigenous rhythms, African beats, Spanish music, and even classical music. During one week, the village is flooded with music, dance, and color.
The main goal of the bailes is to dance in front of the sacred image of the Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of Chile. The dance represents the bailes’s unique way to connect to the divinity. Believers ask God for protection and health, express their gratitude and devotion, and promise to come back, thus continuing the tradition.
As an outsider, it’s easy to see this practice merely as another case of religious syncretism. Given that the dances do not follow the strict guidelines of the roman rituals of the Catholic church, the practice has not always been accepted, and some have even claimed that it dangerously borders with idolatry. None of this matters to the people of the bailes, of course, who manage to keep alive a tradition that connects their inner spirituality with the divinity, through their community and culture.
What impressed me in my visit was the way the people of the bailes connect their everyday life with the pilgrimage, the dance, and their faith. Everyone has a reason to dance: some to give thanks for their newborn, some to pray for their projects and plans, some to make sense of the grief of the loss of a family member, others to request a better future for their loved ones. This led me to wonder about my own reasons for being there. Was I there to study them? Was I there as a tourist, to take pictures and to post them on social media? Beyond the lights of the spectacle, I learned that authentic religious experience is inseparable from authentic human experience. The more we learn about divinity, the more we learn about our own transcendence and significance. The closer we get to our reality, the closer we get to unravel the mystery of divinity.
The bailes’s faith and devotion showed me a deep sense of identity and authenticity, hard to find in our globalized culture. Far from alienating, religious faith seems to be for them a way of life that preserves their identity and culture, allowing spirituality and corporality to express each other on every dance move. I can only hope to live with that deep sense of reverence and respect to my culture as they do.
Title
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La Fiesta de La Tirana: Integrating Spirituality, Corporality, and Tradition
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la-fiesta-de-la-tirana
Chile
Cultural Identity
Dance
Faith
Pilgrimages
Religious Festivals