Moving Memory Play

When a child is first born, they develop the first memory of their life. When a child learns how to ride a bike, that memory is also implanted in their mind. And when a child first plays a sport they love, another memory is added to their mind. Thousands upon thousands of memories are remembered from almost every person. We never stop to think that, unfortunately, people have memory loss and that people lose precious memories and they can’t retrieve it back. This author, Tara Altebrando makes this the same for The Leaving, by whisking the reader off on a suspenseful and high staked journey where Scarlett Waters, Lucas Davis, Sarah Madson, Adam Acosta and Kristen Daley return with a blank mind and no memories of their past they left behind.

As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.

When the show actually began, it started with a digital green timer on the wall counting by the second, accompanied by Mr. Jones sitting at a desk with a desk lamp. He began to read a story as a single dancer in a pink long sleeved top danced beside him. This dancer was definitely the most memorable mover of the company due to her exquisite fluidity within her movement, as well as the desirable synchronization between her movements and the words of Mr. Jones’s voice throughout the piece. As the performance carried on, the other dancers performed various solos, duets, and quartets, of modern movement while Mr. Jones’s stories carried on.

Memories are a powerful force within people’s lives. They encourage, explain and expose the inner depths of an individual and the reason for who they are. Whether remembrances from past occurrences as children or teens or life altering decisions made regarding career and family, memories continue to have an influence on everyday life. They drive a person forward in current judgments and effects relationships with those surrounding. However, as time progresses memories alter. Either details are forgotten or translated differently than their original happening; memories are subjected to distortion. Consequently, the revision in which people remember recollections of their life’s history can influence the interpretation and their retellings. The correspondence between time and memories is often overlooked as parallel, but the interlocking connection contributes sustainably to everyday life, choices, behaviors and personal relationships. In her photographic series, Mutters Schuhe, Nina Röder explores how “subjectivity and perspective affect the retelling of memories” (Garrett, 2014) through the suggestion that emotions and time can trigger a rebirth of perspectives concerning memories.

Memories can in a way define who we are and how we progress through life. Memories can be a pathway to either follow the straight and narrow or to have us decide which fork of the road to take. Past memories can help to identify a person and can effect the future that follows. Through the journy of self discovery, Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow and Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory suggest one must relive past and present memories to find their true identity in the future.

In time people go through the aging process of forgetting. Some are unable to recall certain stories or a simple task. The Evans sisters showed the signs of mental impairment when trying to recall the name of a ship; their father served on. Hester wanted to share her father’s story about the

Jerome Robbins’s incredible dance history and background is what has left him ranked so highly in the musical theater industry today. From working to dazzle his audiences, Robbins can be held responsible for the industry’s serge in popularity over a short amount of time. It can be said by many that Robbins took a fresh approach to choreography to introduce to the world with a more energetic and dynamic performance to display. Robbins creative work elevated the role of dance in musical theatre, which was claimed to be the industry’s ‘Golden Era’.

On November 18, 2016, I attended an evening performance in Irmo, South Carolina by Parsons Dance Company at Harbison Theatre at 7:30 p.m. This New York City modern based dance company hosted six commissioning works at the Midland Technical College that were all choreographed by the artistic director David Parsons. The created six works were “Finding Center,” “Hand Dance,” Swing Shift,” Kind of Blue,” “Caught,” and “Nascimento.” Each of David Parsons works showed a distinction of athletic, energized, ensemble works that revealed the style of his choreography. Parsons Dance is renowned for creating and performing contemporary American dance that is accessible and enriching to diverse audiences.

On Friday October 14, 2016, at the Center for the Arts, George Mason, the “Analogy/Dora: Tramontane,” a dance choreographed by Bill T. Jones with Janet Wong and the Company, the first installment in a trilogy titled “The Analogy Trilogy,” bedazzled audience with an eccentric narration of a conversation between Bill T. Jones and Dora Amelan illustrated in a dance taking audience back into time during the start of World War II. Over the years, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has provided audiences through contemporary dance many creations and performances gaining them the recognition as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in modern dance.

For this project, I interviewed my dance teacher of 11 years, Amy Moretz. She is someone with great importance and meaning to me. During this interview, I learned a lot that I had not previously known about her.

Memory – what it is, how it works, and how it might be manipulated – has long been a subject of curious fascination. Remembering, the mind-boggling ability in which the human brain can conjure up very specific, very lucid, long-gone episodes from any given point on the timeline of our lives, is an astounding feat. Yet, along with our brain’s ability of remembrance comes also the concept of forgetting: interruptions of memory or “an inability of consciousness to make present to itself what it wants” (Honold, 1994, p. 2). There is a very close relationship between remembering and forgetting; in fact, the two come hand-in-hand. A close reading of Joshua Foer’s essay, “The End of Remembering”, and Susan Griffin’s piece, “Our Secret”, directs us

Despite the common belief that any individual can achieve any goal as long as they possess a strong work ethic, women still face structural barriers to career advancement.  In his article, “Breaking the Glass Slipper: Where Are the Female Choreographers?,” Michael Cooper (2016) highlights the lack of female choreographers in ballet companies around the world, a surprising reality given the predominance of female performers in this art form. Cooper (2016) hints at ways of understanding the problem, including the 19th-century traditions of classical ballet’s male-dominated canon, corporate structural impediments of large ballet companies, and a failure to capitalize on the gains of 20th- century female choreographers, which demonstrates the fallacy of a post-gender era initiated by Agnes de Mille, Bronislava Najinska, and Twyla Tharp. Additionally, Cooper (2016) points to a disjunction between the overwhelming preponderance of female instructors and students at ballet schools and the small number of recruits in major choreographic training programs such as New York Choreographic Institute, where males outnumber females four to one. While Cooper raises compelling points, his inquiry falls short of revealing the essential causes underlying the lack of female leadership in ballet.  The problem is amplified by the dearth of scholarly research on gender inequalities in dance leadership. Hence, it is difficult to determine why there have not been female leaders in classical ballet

Evaluating the published interviews with people from Muenster, who remembered their life 1945— 1948 (Dierig, 2012; Jakobi&Link, 1997), it becomes clear that there are significant and hidden difference concerning the approach and strategy to remember and to share or communicate memories and experiences. Therefore, the parti­cu­lar categories show particular attitudes of remembering:

On Friday Novemeber 18,, 2016, I came across the opportunity to see Parsons Dance Company perform in Harbison Theater at Midlands Technical College. Parsons Dance Company, founded by David Parson, is a modern based company resided in New York City. This company is very well known for creating and performing contemporary American Dance and enjoys reaching out to diverse audiences. Parsons Dance Company was founded in 1985 after being known for its energized, athletic, and ensemble work. In addition to David Parson’s artistic choice, the company has collaborated with a variety of iconic artists such as Billy Taylor, Donna Karan, and Alex Katz. Aside the background of the company, Parsons Dance offers summer workshops that last for four weeks along with open rehearsals, studio showcases, and open company classes. Within the performance of Friday night, there were six pieces of art performed known as “Finding Center”, “Hand Dance”, “Swing Shift”, “Kind of Blue”, “Caught”, and “Nascimento” that involved partner work, lighting, props, and costume changes.

My feelings about the group process was a little mix at first but, at the end I felt like we actually brought it together. Beginning of the group member were all over the place and had no direction, when we were able to take a breather in just think ideas started to flow. I felt like that took the communicator to make it happen. By reinsuring the other group members that everything will go smoothly if we just don’t overthink everything.