Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances, is a piece performed by the Houston ballet in 1981. The dancework explores the plight of innocent people in South America caught up in the persecution brought by Pinochet and the oppression due to the lack of adequate human rights. Bruce’s inspiration for this astounding dance piece was provoked by a letter sent to him from the widow of a Chilean folk singer who was murdered. Bruce was given a lot of Chilean folk music which he fell in love with. He was moved by the letter and when asked to do a production for the Chilean rights committee he devoted himself to it (Queensland Ballet, 2017).
Bruce successfully portrays the Chilean people during the military coup throughout the course of the Ghost Dances piece
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Vibrant Chilean music is played throughout this section to accompany the lively movements. It is made clear that there are three classes of civilians, upper, middle and lower classes which can be established by the dancer’s costumes. The lower class couple wore rags, the middle class wore casual clothing in that time which includes skirts, blouses, trousers and a dress shirt and the upper class couple were wearing a suit and a fancy red dress (Braban, 2017). Through the use of contrast movements and coming back to unison shows that even though each couple is from a different class they all still had situations in the military coup in common. The villagers perform a sequence of native dances that displays the Chilean community. The men display bold plies and straight after are thrown to the ground by the ghost dancers, marking their death and introducing a widow segment in which the women’s husbands have been killed and they are now widows. They execute the walking in a circle with the “arm on chest motif” which exhibits the women showing courage and strength after the death of their husbands. The ghost dancers then repeat the last section of the dance with the women. By the end of the section the women are lifted by the waist by the ghost dancers, symbolising being hung and killed, showing the pain and havoc that the Chilean women would have gone through when their fathers and husbands were stolen away and tortured. The drip sound returns signifying the blood that had been shed. This section is vital to the storyline and truly portrays the reality of what the Chilean people went through during these hard-hitting
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Grossman’s dance movements vary from one production to another. In the 1975 production ‘Higher’ the dance movements were mainly using the whole body. The piece went for 15 minutes and was explicit in its design so that the audience could clearly see and understand the intended message/s. This piece received many awards and is what got Grossman noticed and brought into the dancing world.
Desert Blood is based on a stereotypical context of the female commodization whereby Rubi, Ximena and Ivon try to fight against the patriarchy so that they can find their individual empowerment at deeper levels. In addition, Ximena and Ivon represent a network empowerment while Rubi represents organizational empowerment. Alba’s novel has given empowerment to the female characters where they manage to break the silence that surrounded the reality of Juarez femicide; this offers a long-awaited voice on the crime as well as the women that needed to speak-up. Alba shows that the women were considered almost worthless and were not considered as the tenable social construct which was maintained and established by the patriarchal
The themes explored in the novel illustrate a life of a peasant in Mexico during the post-revolution, important themes in the story are: lack of a father’s role model, death and revenge. Additionally, the author Juan Rulfo became an orphan after he lost
The work ‘Ghost Dances’ by Christopher Bruce was viewed on 26th August, 2011 to the Year 12 Dance class. The individual interpretation of the social/political or world issue/ comment the piece is attempting to make. Using direct examples from the performance, the use the choreographer has made of the movement and the non-movement components have been identified. Also the effectiveness of this piece has been evaluated. After Christopher Bruce received a letter from a widow of a Chilean folk singer who had been murdered the very inspirational and symbolic ‘Ghost Dances’ work came about.
In January 1889, Wavoka, a Paiute Indian, had a revelation during a total eclipse of the sun. It was the genesis of a religious movement that would become known as the Ghost Dance. It was this dance that the Indians believed would reunite them with friends and relatives in the ghost world. The legend states that after prayer and ceremony, the earth would shatter and let forth a great flood that would drown all the whites and enemy Indians, leaving the earth untouched and as it was before the settlers came to America. The religion prophesied the peaceful end of the westward expansion of whites and a return of the land to the Native Americans.
Edwidge Danticat's novel, The Farming of Bones is an epic portrayal of the relationship between Haitians and Dominicans under the rule of Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo leading up to the Slaughter of 1937. The novel revolves around a few main concepts, these being birth, death, identity, and place and displacement. Each of the aspects is represented by an inanimate object. Water, dreams, twins, and masks make up these representations. Symbolism is consistent throughout the novel and gives the clearly stated and unsophisticated language a deeper more complex meaning. While on the surface the novel is an easy read, the symbolism which is prominent throughout the novel complicates the audience's interpretation. The reader is left to look beyond the language and uncover the underlying themes of the novel. Through symbolism Danticat is able to use inanimate objects to represent each of her character's more deeply rooted problems. In order to prove this theory true, I will thoroughly examine the aforementioned symbolic devices and provide a clear interpretation of their significance in the novel.
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. “Silent Dancing.” Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000. 145-51.
The dancers did not seem defeated, but slightly emotionally disconnected. I felt like this signified the exhaustion that comes while waiting for the rain. There were several positions that were held in the first part of the dance. I also noticed that flicking motions were a motif in the dance, whether that be from their wrists or their ankles. Morgan Moore first showed this motif as she held her leg up in a tilted position and stared down at the sheet below her. She began to flick her wrists which not only reminded me of one who is flicking the rain off their fingertips, but it looked like a begging
The story explores many vital concepts accompanied by beautiful illustrations. I felt a strong sense of cultural understanding, spirituality and connection to family and land as though I was on this journey too. I could sense an underlying meaning in each dance, holding great importance to Bertie’s family and a strong connection to their culture. Pryor has attempted to fuse the then and now, by speaking of changes in the land, from a once spiritual gathering place, to a now busy town street where through food, they keep the culture alive (Pryor, 2010).
The dancers begin in unison in a large clump. They dance together with slow movements; reaching up with their arms straight and palms open. It is to be noted that when they stretch their arms up, they tilt their head and look up as well. Throughout the piece the dancers repeat this movement, which represents reaching and praying to God. The dancers are constantly reaching up, embodying their despair and their yearning for help. As the dance progresses, the dancers repeatedly break out of the clump in the center and do different movements and their own sequences. After this, they always go back to their clump and do synchronized movement. Their constant breaking away from the group symbolizes their continual want to be free, as well as their persistency. On the other hand, their constant going back to the group shows how African-Americans will always be joined together by their culture, prayer, and hardships. Additionally during the piece, multiple dancers will run up to another dancer and jump or hold onto them, and then they do a couple of movements together. This shows how they are reliant and dependent on each other, and how they need each other throughout their suffering. Lastly, Much of the movement in this section possesses the downward energy characteristic of African dance, which symbolizes a connection to the earth. The choices Ailey made choreographically communicates all
Every dance that is created by a choreographer has a meaning and or purpose behind it. The dance choreographed could be used to send a political, emotional, or a social message. Regardless of the message being sent, each dance created possesses a unique cultural and human significance. This essay will examine and analyze two dance works from history and give an insight into what each dance work provided to the society of its time.
The Ghost Dance; Ethnohistory and Revitalization. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc, 1989. Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood. “Sun Dance.”
The Theme shows itself most prominently in the second to the last paragraph. In this section El Capitán continues dancing on and on even though Eloísa is not longer present in his arms. Even in her absence the music continues to play and El Capitán continues to dance alone until La Mexicana joins him. The technique of imagery used to describe in detail the physical characteristics also expresses and fortifies the theme of unrequited love.
Steve Paxton: Speaking of Dance – Conversations with Contemporary Masters of American Modern Dance. Academic Internet Video. Directed by Douglas Rosenberg. Oregon: Alexander Street Press, 1996.
[6] Cohen, Selma Jeanne. International Encyclopedia of Dance: A Project of Dance Perspectives Foundation, Inc. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.