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Category: Seminar 1: The Arts in New York City
The turning point and the importance of context
A few weeks in class, Prof. Natov shared an anecdote from her childhood. “I was ten years old and I realized my cousins were seven years old,” she said. “And I thought to myself, ‘they’re getting so old! And I was only ten!” This anecdote set up the classroom discussion about turning points. For Prof. Natov, viewing her cousins in a different light due to their age sets up “before” and “after” moments in her anecdote, the “before” implying that she had seen her cousins as much younger and the “after” in the realization that she, too, was getting older, and maybe even realizing that she was saying something that adults had to said to her at one point! Everyone in the class named three turning points in their life, and then Prof. Natov asked us two important questions: why were some moments turning points? Which moments did you want to know more about?
Ultimately her questions pointed to a larger lesson: the importance of creating context for your audience through the use of specific examples and details. These details and examples create a richer experience for your audience and, when a turning point occurs, creates the impact of such a moment.
Part II: Writing About Dance – Developing Your Skills of Observation
Note: Before proceeding, it’s strongly suggested that students read the posts “Memory Makes the Best Artist” and “Part I: Writing About Dance – General Guidelines.”
This activity combines several short exercises: two that were introduced in the previous post “Memory Makes the Best Artist” called “Notice and Focus” and “10 on 1,” and a parts of a new exercise called “The Method,” all of which were adapted from the book Writing Analytically (5th ed.) by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen. These activities develop the tools of observation and analysis that are critical to analyzing works of art. With practice, students benefit by expanding the tools (strategies) in their tool box (range of skills) that will help them in any course, subject, or discipline.
Keep reading for instructions and the relevant pages from Writing Analytically.
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Part I: Writing About Dance – Some General Guidelines
This post aims to give students a starting point for writing about dance and other forms of art by offering guidelines and practical tips to help students when beginning a project or when finding themselves “stuck.” Accompanying the guidelines are excerpts of writings by dance critics and historians to help students “see” the guidelines in action and therefore better understand the benefits of the information in the post. Most importantly, with practice, students will become comfortable enough to modify the guidelines, tips, and activities to use when writing regardless of the assignment, subject, or discipline.
- Be a generous and objective observer in addition to being a good audience member.
- Describe what you see using specific examples so that your reader understands what you saw.
- Explain cause and effect to your reader.
Keep reading for more information about these guidelines as well as practical examples and tips to help you in the course. Part II contains a specific activity to help you practice putting these guidelines into action.
Video Playlist: Choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009)
[videogallery id=”playlist_pina”]
Video Playlist: Choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009)
- Official Trailer for Pina (2011)
- “One Day Pina Asked” – clip of movie by late filmmaker Chantal Ackerman, “a singular look at the work of the remarkable choreographer Pina Bausch and her Wuppertal Tanztheater during a five-week European tour.
- Choreography for Stravinky’s The Rite of Spring
- DW-TV news clip about Pina Bausch after her death in 2009 – includes biography, clips of interviews of Bausch (translated into English), and offers brief explanations of the significance of her work and her legacy
- Soundtrack for Pina
Useful Links
- The Stake, “This Film Changed My Life.” Pina: A Film For Pina Bausch By Wim Wenders” – Highly recommended for the author’s analysis of Bausch’s work as well as the documentary itself, and provides a great model for analyzing dance and film
- Janice Ross, “Difficult Dances: The Choreography of Pina Bausch” (1999) – overview of Bausch’s choreography and critical reception written by Prof. Janice Ross, dance faculty at Stanford University
- Website for the film: Pina
- Watch Pina (Amazon): Pina
- A.O. Scott’s review of Pina for The New York Times
- Chris Wiegand, The Guardian (UK), “The sound of Pina Bausch”
- NPR: “Wim Wenders On ‘Pina’: A Dance Documentary In 3-D”
Prof. Natov: “Memory makes the best artist.”
During our last class, Prof. Natov asked the class to freewrite in response to a quote and/or her prompt, a time when you were disturbed at work. After people shared their work, she asked “what details from other people’s stories do you remember?” The details that people remembered ranged from descriptions (cold metal contraption) to colors (red/yellow) and even direct quotes – all from quickly-written stories told to the class. Prof. Natov’s statement from that afternoon, “Memory makes the best artist,” draws attention to the impact made by including specific details. To your audience, these specific details allow them to “see” what you saw or “hear” what someone said to you a long time ago – some details add texture, literally (fuzzy, soft, hard, sharp) and metaphorically in that the story takes on new layers as the audience shifts from their own perspective to yours.
(Similarly, the Brooklyn-based comedian John Hodgeman says “Specificity is the soul of narrative” in pretty much every episode of his podcast “Judge John Hodgman.” His podcast consists of two people presenting their side of a mutual conflict – about everyday things like furniture choices, whether or not to buy riding lawn mowers, etc. – to John Hodgman and he issues a ruling about what they can do to solve their conflict. As the guests tell their side of the story, they are very vague and he always interrupts to say fondly but sternly “SPECIFICITY IS THE SOUL OF NARRATIVE” so he can better understand them. It is VERY FUNNY so click here to listen: Judge John Hodgman)
Because we’ll be writing a lot this semester about ourselves and our responses to works of art viewed this semester, I thought that I’d share two activities from the book Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen (5th edition, 2009), which are called Notice and Focus and 10 on 1. The activities are easy to do (and remember) and hopefully they will help you with your work in the class.
Read the rest of this post for some brief descriptions of the activities as well as an embedded PDF of the relevant pages in Writing Analytically.