la reconnaissance et l'aspiration

la reconnaissance et l'aspiration, originally uploaded by crescentsi.

Via Flickr:
Here Jamari appears like a quixotic apparition; a feminine ideal or oracle, perhaps? Her balletic pose is probably born of "suffrage" more than graceful delicacy, but that is the nature of dance! I liked the presence of a costume designer in the photo, helping to create a meticulous illusion of beauty. As cosmetic as the theatre can be and as hard working as performers have to be, the stage continues to call us to "tread the boards" in order to perform a representational version of human experience.

Recently I am doing a lot of Bhangra dancing as well as Salsa, although Salsa seems to be gradually being shunned for the less elegant Kizomba, and I am becoming drawn more to the idea of the heartbeat as an intrinsic time-signature in both dance and music. Whereas the heartbeat is often used rythmically to denote romance in music. The presence of an enduring pulse seems more important today in dance and music than ever before.

How we ever got so romantic I don't know, but the ebb and flow of the heartbeat seems to echo through cities, reverberate in concert halls and pulse steadily through pop music. As a dancer, it should come as no surprise that my attention is often focused on my breath and heartbeat, however increasingly my timing is shaped by the response of my heart rate to the continuous flux of musical tempos.


Thank you to Jlior for letting me use her photo in this image.
:-)
Simon

jlior.deviantart.com/

Convenience isn't Everything

Interesting post from the Economist.com where author Andrew Keen argues that the Internet has contributed to greater inequality in society.

My response was originally posted in the comments section of the article.  I have pasted it below.

"I think Keen makes some compelling points. Particularly when you consider the increasing corporate nature of large Intenet companies. Even though IT can create jobs, usually there are more jobs lost than created, which is the appeal of IT in the workplace; it reduces staff. Intriguingly, when I first started using the Internet about 20 years ago, I was blown away by the creativity of users. However, today I get a potent sense of censorship, restrictions and cynical advertising/corporate enterpise. Even though there are a few opportunities for people via the Internet, largely and incrementaly the Internet, in my view, contributes more to global and societal inequality than it does to equality."