Blog Post #7

I really enjoyed this weeks’ focus. The guided activity and the readings focused on dance. I am not a dancer, however I am enrolled in DANC200 this semester. Before this class, I never realized the importance of dance; I knew dance was entertaining and a form of expression but I didn’t realize the impact it can have on people’s lives. In the beginning of the semester, we had to define dance. I simply defined dance as an art form. However, I soon realized that dance has many aspects to it. We attended a dance event a few weeks ago that focused on preventing abuse to women. The women told a story through their dance and expressed their strength and power. I believe all of this relates to the assignments this week because I was able to understand what the Urban Bush Women (UBW) were trying to express through dance.

            When exploring the website, I focused on the UBW’s core values. I really believe that these core values were represented and expressed in every dance that I watched. The core values include: validating the individual, catalyzing for social change, building trust through process, entering community and co-creating stories, celebrating the movement and culture of the African Diaspora, and recognizing that place matters. The women in the group displayed pride in their heritage and similar to the dance group I witnessed for class, they expressed strength and power.

            I was extremely shocked when I watched “Batty Moves.” Compared to the dances that I had watched prior, this dance was very revealing and somewhat scandalous. The dance involved a lot of movements relating to the hips and butt and the outfits were somewhat revealing. However, after I read, “Memory Walking with Urban Bush’s Batty Moves,” I realized the meaning of the dance. I would not consider the dance to be vulgar because the point of the dance was for the women to embrace their bodies and take pride in them. The dance displayed the women’s strength. The author mentions, “Their costumes hinted at what they intended to do--- kick butts!” I also found it very interesting that each dancer “sang their versions of the song, sharing their African American heritage but also emphasizing their own identities to illustrate both individual and collective identities as women of the African Diaspora.” The author even mentions the significance of the dance and how it reminded her of the childhood games that she experienced in Ghana. When first viewing this dance, one might believe that it is vulgar and inappropriate, however upon further analysis, it genuinely has a lot of meaning. An interviewee said, “African people’s movements have often been described as “lewd and lascivious” by European Americans because we comfortably use pelvic movements in all sorts of dances from the sacred to the flirtatious to the boldly sensual. As African people in the United States, we developed an “in-your-face” approach to our desire to continue our movement traditions of the hips. We developed defiance and resistance to ideas of cultural domination and we carried it in our hips.”

            I also enjoyed reading, “Sexual Politics.” The first sentence really stuck out to me. It read, “Recent feminist scholarship tends to proceed on the assumption that history is really his story—an account of the past written by or about men.” However, modern and post modern dance are the only major art forms in which “the creators, the consolidators, and the second and third generation innovators have almost all been women.” Despite this fact, this might not necessarily be something to celebrate. The author includes, “The fact that it’s difficult to name a major male choreographer who isn’t also homosexual suggests that the art of dance has been, and to a large extent still is, shunned by heterosexual males who regard it as a womanly activity. However, this makes no sense to me. Dancers are considered good due to years of practice, not because of their gender. The author then focuses on the constraints placed on women in the past. Duncan danced without a corset in order to rebel against its meaning. The author mentions, “She rebelled not only against the corset per se, but also against everything it symbolized: the constraints—both physical and psychological—imposed upon women by Victorian Culture.” I believe this aspect of the reading ties in with the UBW. The UBW dance for a purpose. They tell stories when they dance and display their strength and power throughout their dances. Dance is more than what you’re wearing, it’s about the significance and importance of your movements and the stories and emotions that they evoke.

Blog Post #6

            This weeks’ lecture and reading focused on a highly debated and controversial topic in our society: homosexuality. The lecture focused on the debated question, “Are we born this way?” I have always found Lady Gaga’s song, “Born this Way,” to be extremely catchy. However, I did not realize the meaning behind the song until the completion of the lecture. Her song exemplifies the main political philosophy used in arguments today regarding marriage equality. Lady Gaga continually repeats the phrase “baby I was born this way.” Gaga is expressing the idea that people are born gay and they have no control over that. She then says, “There’s nothin’ wrong with lovin’ who you are,” and “Don’t hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you’re set,” in order to emphasize the point that no matter if you’re gay or straight, you should embrace and be happy with who you are. I think this song is so significant because Lady Gaga is a very popular figure in today’s society. Her words are inspiring to members of the LGBT community and her song raises awareness to heterosexuals that being gay is natural and there is no reason to discriminate against these people.

            The graphic novel, Fun Home, also focused on homosexuality. The novel begins by explaining the Bechdel family and who they are. From the outside, the Bechdel family seems like the perfect family. The family contains a husband, wife, and children, and they reside in a beautiful home. However, this is not exactly the case. The family is not extremely close, loving or affectionate. There are times throughout the novel that Alison mentions the distance between the family members. Alison states, “we ate together but otherwise were absorbed in our separate pursuits.” They were all very different and interested in different things in life. The family also owns a funeral home, which they call “fun home.” I believe this aspect makes the family a bit dark and mysterious.

            Towards the beginning of the novel, Alison mentions that her father is killed by a truck. However, it’s not clear whether it was an accident or whether he intentionally ran in front of the truck. Throughout the novel, I learned a lot about Alison and a lot about her father. The reader discovers that Alison is a lesbian. Alison’s father died shortly after she came out and throughout the novel, Alison worries that her coming out is what forced her father to kill himself. Alison struggled with her sexuality throughout her childhood and early teenage years. When she was younger, she was nicknamed “Butch” and she dressed in men’s clothing. She also cut her hair similar to a male. At this point, Alison was not comfortable in her own skin. However, she became comfortable with herself when she realized that she was a lesbian. When she told her parents, her father was not upset or mad. He mentioned, “At least you’re human, everyone should experiment.” At the time, Alison did not know that her father was gay. Alison’s father wrote her a letter that somewhat seemed as if he was trying to admit to her that he was gay. He didn’t confide in her and he wrote the letter as if she had already knew. His letter mentioned, “there have been a few times I thought I might have preferred to take a stand.” In his letter, it seems as if he is envious of Alison for coming out so easily. Alison was not ashamed of who she was and she embraced the fact that she was a lesbian. However, her father did not have that courage. Perhaps that’s the reason he killed himself; he lived in secrecy for so long and perhaps it was tearing him up inside.” When Alison tried to talk openly about it, her father was a bit reserved. However, he did mention boys/men that he had been with throughout his lifetime and he admitted, “When I was little, I really wanted to be a girl.. I’d dress up in girls clothes.” Because Alison and her father both dressed as the opposite gender as children, I believe this novel brings up the aspect of being “born this way.” I believe that the two were born gay and realized it at different points in their life. However, Alison had the courage to accept and embrace it while her father didn’t until it was too late. His homosexuality eventually caused his marriage to crumble. I believe her father’s death was intentional. Alison mentions a lot of warning signs throughout the novel such as the highlighted passages in novels, marginal notations in books, novels about death etc. I feel as if Alison’s father was not happy with who he was and wanted to escape the struggle that he faced in his life.  

Blog Post #5

            I thought the guided activity and the readings fit well together this week because they all focused on struggles and hardships, the importance of heritage, and the determination for a better life.

            The Los Hilos de la Vida activity really helped me understand the significance, purpose and interpretation of the many quilts displayed. As displayed in “Death Lives in the Desert” and “Mexican/American Dream,” the journey to travel across the border from Mexico to the United States is a difficult and sometimes impossible one. In “Death Lives in the Desert,” I noticed that the figure of death was a dominant figure. The figure caught my eye due to its size and its color. Compared to the other colors in the quilt, the figure is dark; the black color represents death. Luz Maria, the maker of the quilt, includes “about 36 people die in the desert every month. There in the desert, dreams die… The only winner is DEATH, who never leaves with empty hands. Similarly, “Mexican/American Dream” also incorporates figures of death. The river contains people drowning and skeletons in order to emphasize the difficulty of this journey. However, despite the difficult journey, the two quilts emphasize the Mexican’s perseverance and determination for a better life. Would you migrate to the United States if you knew that death was a large possibility? These women create these beautiful quilts by expressing their true feelings and emotions.

            “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” focuses on black women in the South. I believe this reading ties in with the guided activity because it displays the struggles of black women in the past and their expression and emotions through artwork. The quote about black women in the “Post-Reconstruction South” really stuck out to me. Black women were “exquisite butterflies trapped in an evil honey, toiling away their lives in an era, a century that did not acknowledge them except as the ‘mule of the world.’” Similar to the immigrants mentioned above, these women experienced an extremely difficult life but attempted to shine in order to better their life. The author then focuses on her mother. She discusses the difficulty of her mother’s life when mentioning “her day began before sunup and did not end until late at night,” and “there was never a moment for her to sit down, undisturbed, to unravel in her own private thoughts.” “Whatever shabby house [they] were forced to live in,” her mother would decorate the outside with beautiful flowers. Despite the darkness in her life, she embraced the good things. She maintained a positive outlook and displayed her strength. The quote that I believe expresses these ideas states, “Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength—in search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.” It’s a shame that these many talented and determined women from the past are considered “anonymous” in today’s society.

            “Ana’s Choice,” also ties in perfectly with the guided activity and other readings because it focuses on the migration of Mexican’s to the United States. Ana and her family decided to illegally travel to the United States due to extensive poverty and the hopes of a better life. The article explained the main struggles with immigration including family stage migration and mixed-status families. The article also focuses on the aspect of deportation. The author includes, “about 350,000 immigrants were deported from the U.S. in the first nine months of 2008.” These statistics and stories really helped me realize the struggle displayed in the quilts. Typically when discussing immigration, members of our society look at it as a bad thing. However, this article really opens your eyes to immigration reform. Immigrants “want and deserve more.”

            I actually read “Everyday Use” in high school and I was happy to read it again because this weeks activity and readings helped me understand the story in a new light. Quilts are important to one’s culture and heritage. Maggie understands the importance of the story behind the quilt instead of just focusing on the way the quilt looks. Similar to the quilts in the guided activity, these quilts displayed the struggles of family members in the past and the importance of understanding them.