On February 10, we discussed Van der Leeuw's thoughts on Dance. He stated that all primitive art is considered religious, without any focus on a certain deity. Likewise, he wrote that culture is the movement of man through nature; an analogy I really like. Man's environment, upbringing, gender and race all interact to form his culture.
We spoke a good deal about the term "ecstasy" and how it is related to dance. To be in ecstasy was to be so overcome by something that a person is beside himself and experiencing the thing as if he were not himself. Dance contains reality, but is not reality.
We picked up this discussion again on February 15 and discussed the Greek interpretationo of ecstatic intoxication. In Plato's Phaedrus, a discussion on madness ensues, in which 4 types of madness are discussed and are seen as gifts inspired by the gods. Among these are: prophesy (Apollo), comfort from grieving/mystic rites (Dionysus), poetry/musical inspiration (Muses), love (Aphrodite). We compared Apollonian movement in dance, which was ordered and controlled to Dyonician dance, which was wild and sporadic. All of these types of madness were seen as good and could also be compared to ecstacy in dance. The body and the mind are so engrossed in the dance that the dancer forgets their self and gives into the madness.
No comments:
Post a Comment