OR
Going back to find its origin.
I am finding this one of the hardest things to do? The layers upon layers of information and
knowledge that has built up over the years of ideas, theories, thoughts, new
technologies, programmes, gadgets, new
ideals, new worlds, new ways of seeing and doing things. All of these emerging ideas could make you
shut down your mind completely. Are we not
over complicating things for our thoughts? Aren’t we just modifying and changing or moving words around for changes
sake. Isn’t this all time consuming and
consuming us? Don’t most of us
eventually come up with the right solution, words, answers or stumble on an
idea at that needed moment in time just through process of experiencing life as
we evolve anyway? So what is the end
purpose of all this for you?
One example of stripping back to basics is currently being
shown in cookery programmes. We are being
encouraged to go back to using the basic ingredients and the simple way of
preparing food. They are taking us back
to when cooking a dish with pure ingredients and no modification to its
originality. It seems that too many
additions take away the purity and wholeness of the dish. This could be said of most things including
dance and teaching.
Another example is the social dance, Salsa, I believe it is becoming
a show piece?
Does fusing dance styles make the dance original? I think keeping the styles close to their
classic origins in form, keeps our culture of dance from becoming thrown into a
melting pot and loosing the pure identity of that style of dance. An example I’ve seen on YouTube video of an X
factor programme in India
showing a young couple dancing ‘Salsa’.
This was an incredible jaw dropping performance with many Ariel acrobatic
moves but only showing a few basic Salsa steps. In what way was this a Salsa
dance routine? The New York style Salsa seems to be heading in
this direction with more choreographed moves, it is rapidly becoming a show
pieces rather than a social dance compared to Cuban Salsa which seems to be
keeping to the purity of the origins and culture of the community dance.
It is a continuing debate with new emerging Salsa Dance
Teachers that have little or no training in dance. Let us all go back to being authentic to our
culture and true to our origins.
Do you have something you wish to strip back or go back to
find its origin or even simplify?
I think you've touched on something really interesting here Corinda. I think that fusing styles and cultures can be really exciting, especially in music and dance. Sometimes that most unlikely combinations produce really powerful and original pieces of work. But...I also think you are right in suggesting that we might be loosing something by not exploring art forms at their purest. Traditions may be lost, and perhaps levels of technique and excellence will fall. I've been thinking a bit about this myself, as I am planning on studying 'polymaths' for my professional inquiry. I had a chat with my old acting teacher the other day and she made me think quite carefully about this idea of 'achieving excellence'...she pointed out that historically it's been very rare for people to be really great at more than one thing. Is the modern tendency to spread ourselves too thinly?
ReplyDeleteStephanie, I think this may be a subject for my professional inquiry. Pure cultural traditions seem to be tampered with and we may loose some. Some time ago I worked on an Aboriginal dance project and I found the Aboriginal culture fascinating with its hundreds of tribal divisions and languages. It seems today's Australians are working with the Indigenous Australians to keep traditions alive! I'm passionate about cultural traditions. Truly great people only forcus on one thing. Some of the greatest artisist of our generation only focused on one thing; Fonteyn and Nureyev of the dance world. Although Shakespear and Leanardo da Vinci were regarded as Polymyths. You have a solid line of inquire with Polymyths. Today, I would think that life gets in the way of Art and we need to survive and therefore adapt. There seems so much more responsibilities. Are we not selfish enough to follow our hearts and passion?
ReplyDeleteCorinda this is a really good idea for your professional enquiry, and it also relates to my ideas about how many new choreographers try to 'shock' us with new ideas in order to be remembered, rather than to create something classic which the general public will enjoy more. Some artists can be very selfish in this way, choreographing more for themselves rather than a mixed target audience. This seems in the same area as your experiences with cuban dance, losing its origins and becoming more commercial.
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