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The finest dancer…
Despite having been blessed with natural talent in dancing and poetry, Hwang Jini (16th century's most famous gisaeng in Korean history) did not cease trying (to achieve perfection).
In order to prove to herself that her dance is the finest in the universe, she disobeyed the norms of a gisaeng (who are meant to serve and perform only to the nobles), she went to present herself on the street.
In no time, the street was packed like sardines. Gazes and cheers further promoted her already brimful ego…, until she encountered a scholar who openly criticised her dance as the worst dance of the century.
She was left dumbfounded. As a high-achiever, she believed he was the key to unravel her mistakes, such that she could strive to be the best. But he said no more.
After many days of sleepless nights, she finally understood.
The following day, she dropped all her makeup and accessories, dressed up in a common attire and started dancing on the street again.
(167 words)
“The beauty of fiction lies in the ambiguous nature of the truth.”
“When do we call it dance? It does in fact have something to do with consciousness, bodily consciousness and the way we form things . But then it needn’t have this kind of aesthetic form and still be dance.”
Pina Bausch, In Conversation with Jochen Schmidt, 1978
Opening scene from Nocturnal Animals (2016) by Tom Ford
Say you touched the boiling stove, would you move your hand away in slow motion?
Fascia is the largest connective tissue in the human body. It is in all of us from head to toes.
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“Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” While the evil queen could not stop asking her magic mirror for affirmation that she is the one and only fairest person in the entire universe, another fairest beauty is born. Likewise, one mountain is higher than another.
Traditionally, dancers are taught to polish the basics and master the tricks to the level of one needing null conscious effort. Today, everyone is a dancer. To dance is to perform movements. Moving is a movement and not moving is also a form of movement. While this makes no sense in the sense that movement is by legitimate definition, an act of moving, not moving means no movement right?
Or does it mean that what comes in the following seconds does not matter?
Venturing to move forward for the betterment of one’s interests (in any contexts), is no doubt in human nature. However, while happily aiming to move further up , moving backward or downward seems to have two outcomes , that are either or and both positive and negative. This is also the reason why no prerequisites are mandatory to anyone who wants to be a dancer.
(196 words)
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Wink : “Whenever I move to a new place, it’s like I am not here”
[But you are here]
Wink : “ It is like I am on the outside looking in”
How does a dancer dance? Do dancers dance based on what is in the mind or does the dance create what is in the mind? Since movement is a factor of what makes a dance, if dancers dance with the mind, isn't moving in the mind, regardless of movement or null movement also considered a form of dance?
Does null movement mean static? Perhaps. But they could be slightly different. Movement could be changed or redirected or converted, but static is just static, it is stationary. Can a dancer go from moving to static? Of course, one just has to move and stop right, easy. But how is this different from movement going to null movement? Is it the absence of an ingredient that flows or connects?
Why does any of this matter at all in the first place?
The perception of dance is rapidly ever changing. There are ample categories of dance and variations of movements vary and buttress from cultures to cultures. If everyone is a dancer, how do we level what is a profound dance and what is not? If not for dancing ‘disappears the instant you see a given movement’ said by Yvonne Rainer in an interview with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), would we be here straining our eyes reading whether zero, also meaning nothingness, is to be thought as trivial or not for dancers?
(260 words)
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Invented during the great depressions in 1920s, the movement consists of usually women sliding up and down the pole. Originally intended to please men, pole dancing has often been related to sexually arousing activity and this is evident from a prevalence of strip club businesses opened in the 1950s.
However today, more and more people have been educated and open enough to view pole dancing as a form of fitness and also as a sport and it has also become popular among all genders.
However, could pole dancing possibly be portrayed as part of an artistic practice? Why not, anyone may say as it is a dance, with added medium -- metal bar (usually in chrome or brass).
With a quick search in google on tricks and names of pole dancing moves, one could see that many are named after what is apparent in our everyday life, the mundane. Some of my favorite tricks are ‘butterfly’, ‘star’, ‘fish’ and ‘scorpion’. Similarly, many Chinese characters are derived from the silhouette of the particular subjects it has been put meaning into. Thus could we not claim that pole dancing is a language art, to be cleverly and creatively puzzled to produce infinite expressions to the world.
“𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑟𝑡. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑏𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚, 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑚𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦).
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Wink performing [inverted inside leg hang arch] on the pole
Something does not feel right..still?
(To be Continued)
