reasons

to critique dead artforms ?

image complicity

Article in the Guardian about celebrity, weight, body image and buy-in... sort of answers the question about the prominence of weight obsession in a female-dominated field...

hmmm

whoopsie

Recently, I had a chat with a non-dancer dance afficionado after a performance..he was a bit perplexed at the overt gorgeousness of the dancers, (male too, but especially female) and the diaphanous dresses that would slip and pouf and expose ... ok, he had opera glasses, but still, his question "what's with all that blatant sexiness?" was a good one. Because the nudity and the sex appeal had very little to do with the piece, at least i think so, but the meanings were all so unclear i can't say for sure. Nice dancing though. Really nice. Sometimes to the music. Very bad film/video stuff at the end, but oh well. But the overall feeling after watching was kind of like reading a fashion mag or watching MTV...

I wonder about this... is our art form hypersexed? if it is, is it because of the choreographies or is it because of the audience being inundated by sex all the time that they know no other way of looking at a naked body? Does it matter? Sometimes i think our cultural theory is almost as much to blame, with all the talk of the body being rooted in sexuality, and not enough on a wider base of experience and perception. I think if we think more about how dance works for a viewer, the power of the sympathetic kinaesthetic response, there's room for more than just model-perfect "sexiness" on stage. On the flip side, you can get all into the power of beauty...and maybe that's something we need too...but it makes me wonder if for the majority of people, watching theatrical dance isn't all that far off from a peeler bar or the nicely turned ankle of a 19th century ballerina. And maybe that's fair enough, but it brings up the question of what kinds of work are being made - and more to the point, what kinds of work are being sold. Because sex sells, eh?

"Do Women Have to be Naked to Get into the Met Museum?"

A chance to revisit the guerrilla girls

sadly, much of what they said 20 (!!!) years ago hasn't changed in the visual art world and it sure hasn't changed in dance...
read more

2 for 1

i posted this on our other blog, but wanted to put it here too, because it seems quite relevant. It also uses the excellent Brit word: "shambollic"
Place Prize Rant

mutliplicity

I thought this was an interesting little look at how artists try and can hold different roles.

if your cup runneth over

I guess suing is an option...