Our
meeting last week was so helpful. Thank you, Dr. Zamora for reading and
reflecting back. Your clarity about the points of theory that were crystalizing
gave me some real momentum.
Last week I
inadvertently began to create a theory around intuition in terms of LS. Dr. Zamora mentioned the feminizing of language
and we discussed how feminization thrusts language into the world of emotion,
silently and relentlessly rendering the language of women powerless, childish
and without rigor. (See feminist theory of Judith? Literature is political) This
week I continued the task of articulating a theory of intuition that restores
the rigor to a word that has woven its way through generations, across lineages
and historically embraced both feminine and masculine power. My job this week is to go back and bolster
with citings and clean up/ condense pedagogy work. Below is a link for a small part that I refined. Continuing on with that process. More to read next week.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xWBj729SJdbS9EmhiCiNkGtcXQh4oxTdY-5mCThNDIQ/edit?usp=sharing
I ended
our session together reflecting back to my original intention to work on a
thesis that integrated the work of Aristotle on crafting an argument using
three-pronged approach of ethos, pathos and logos. I had been working on a
theory that social media has thrust this generation, and when I say generation
I mean more the multigenerational group of people that communicate and receive
their news through social media simply liking the sentiments they agree with
and thumbs down for those they disagree with. Occasionally engaging in a
partisan political cock fight, one “friend” is unfriended and the battle for
the biggest, baddest emotional firestorm is back on. While this is a rapid-fire
way to share information and connect people globally, as a political science
undergrad I was drawn repeatedly to the work of Aristotle and the importance of
crafting an argument that integrated logos,
logic. Not an argument lacking in emotion, but emotion as a vehicle for
logos that provides the appropriate accentuation of the argument’s finer points
and connection with those the aerator is trying to reach. In other words, the
balance embodied by a “whole person.”
I think I
will try to find a way to ground each section of the book in a different
“school of rigor.”
For
example, Religions of the East. And document how these thoughts were
filing into the performing arts through downtown Manhattan in the 1970s.
Particularly through world music, dance and yoga. Highlight when Iyengar came
to NYC and Papa Ladji of West African drumming and dance. Grounding the “world”
sentiments of intuition in the
Performance study landscape. (see
article #3). Bolster my performance theory roots: (McKenzie)
Next
example: Psychology: Jung and his influence on the performing arts. "perception via the
unconscious": using sense-perception only as a starting point, to bring
forth ideas, images, possibilities, ways out of a blocked situation, by a
process that is mostly unconscious.
Philosophers: In his book Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes refers to
an intuition as a pre-existing knowledge gained through rational reasoning or
discovering truth through contemplation. This definition is commonly referred
to as rational
intuition.[22
· L. Mursell, James. "The
Function of Intuition in Descartes' Philosophy of Science". The
Philosophical Review. 4. 28. USA: Duke University Press. pp. 391–401.
Education
theory: educating
the whole child
I was
contemplating that the feminization of words empties out the logos secretly and
silently through the bottom and leaves it rooted in emotion or pathos. I think
the article I worked on this week for Dr. Nelson gets to the heart of the
matter and it the key to putting it all together. I feel obligated to report
that this reading has just left me loaded with rage. A rage that renders me
inarticulate and speechless. I am working through it by just writing whatever
comes to mind and am pushing through what feels like a very emotional and
childish first draft. Big emotions=little words. Words of a child. Small in
comparison to the emotion. This is the dynamic that oppression supports.
Questions to be addressed though my
thesis and an examination of the life of LS:
So, what
is it in the language of men that has been altered by feminized language? Do
women need to change their language? Do we speak in a passive voice and have to
engage in more active language? Or do we need to just say it louder have more
help from one another amplifying it? Or do we just have to bring focus to what
has already been there rendered silent and invisible?
This
week’s reading was an example of bringing focus to that which has been there
all along.
What are
the words that Lynn uses that render her “feminine.”
All of
these reflections unexpectedly dovetailed with an article I am working on for
Dr. Nelson entitled, The Women in Jazz.
The Ladies Step Out. At Last! A Look at the Female Side of Jazz Dance
Development, written in July of 1992 by, Judy Austin, for the magazine Dance Teacher Now. The article is one of
those bread crumbs you mentioned in class. Thank you, Judy Austin, you will be
cited for your work. You left a stash of nourishment for generations to come.
And grateful that the Performing Arts Library in NYC had scans of your article.
After
introducing two amazing female pioneers in the dance world whom set the
foundation for jazz dance to unfold, Austin highlights that in the 1940s it was
virtually impossible for a woman to land the role of choreographer/ director
for Broadway. Why? Because she wasn’t capable? No because she wasn’t allowed.
Passive language for the hard, cold sexist truth. And women had no choice but
to accept this truth and forge forward anyway. Women were not given the
opportunity to choreograph on Broadway because they were not seen as equals.
Agnes DeMille was an exception. She broke through the invisible wall and made
it to Broadway choreographing Oklahoma in 1942 and Carousel in 1945.
Austin’s
work brought to mind feminist scholar Judith Fetterley who examines the
phenomenon of the invisible female through the lens of literature. In her book,
The resisting reader: A feminist approach to American fiction, Fetterley
claims that sexist ideology in literature is political, yet postures as
apolitical. Fetterley believes that sexual politics are obscured behind a haze
of “universals” which render the female invisible when only the male half of
the story is told. She addresses the ways in which female readers have been
trained to approach literature through a male lens in a way that maintains the
patriarchal status quo[1].
Fetterley uses the concept of “immasculation,” to describe the idea that women
have been forced to identify against themselves and instead identify with male
characters or narrators. As a result, women have a dissociative experience as
they are taught to identify against themselves.
Austin
immediately sets things right beginning with life before Jack Cole and the
women that made his revolution possible. She presents a fabulous historic
lineage of the mothers of jazz dance. However, the implications of Austin’s
work penetrate far beyond the presentation of female facts. She establishes the female lineage as
legitimate individuals not just instruments of the men. She quietly corrects
the sequence of events, before the fathers there were the mothers.
The
direction I am heading for next week:
I think I
need an overarching performance studies theory in relationship to the Simonson
Technique/ Dance Space and its impact on the downtown dance world. Integrating
what I wrote about downtown, performance theory and filling out the dance space
piece of the history. This is why I need to write about DSI.
Judith
Fetterley’s work also applies and should be integrated into my overarching
theory.
For next
week:
This week
I started to synthesize and filter some of the theory I have been creating into
three phases of development within the life of LS. I have started three
documents but I am not yet ready to share. Will get these together hopefully
for next week. Also in these documents I am beginning to feed in chronological
information from the interviews I have summarized:
·
Early
Years
·
Woodshedding:
Adult beginners in Amsterdam, BAC (will explain & expand) begins to develop
the festival circuit.
·
Golden
years/ Dance Space: Becomes fully formed
[1]
Fetterley, J. (1978). The
resisting reader: A feminist approach to American fiction. London. Indiana
University Press.
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