just a few words, before you take your well-deserve holidays
PAPER on DANCE
I have now read quite a few drafts for this paper, and thought it might be a good idea to remind you that you have resources you could use, to help you with the substance of your argument:
you can use the blog entries, yours or a friends (please acknowledge it in a footnote, though) to refresh your memory of the performances at the Joyce Theater
you can watch again some of the clips we saw in class. The DVD are in my mailbox, untouched so far, but at your disposal if you want to refresh your memory. You also have a document (I believe I sent it to you as an Email attachment) that gives you the exact references for each DVD and the samples I showed you.
I have left there also the copy of the magazine on mentoring artists, which features an interesting discussion about the encounter between a modern choreographer and a dancer from Africa (Togo). If you are looking for ideas about what distinguishes African Dance, this is a very useful piece.
More generally, I want to remind you (in case you hadn’t noticed it), that the new challenge in this paper is to write about the dancing body. You can do so as a careful, involved observer of dance as an artform, or from inside, as having danced yourself (if only once, at Alvin Ailey’s!), or as a combination of both. Wherever your argument takes you, remember to write about dance (and not just about ideas on dance…)
I ‘ll be available in my office on Tuesday between 3:45 and 5:15 if you have any questions about your paper or the final project.
Happy Thanksgiving.
EE