Re: Raisons d'texture...

Darren Kelly (kelly@x4u2.desy.de)
Sat, 1 Nov 1997 01:17:28 +0100 (MET)

On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Dawn Stoppiello wrote:
> >from Julie Wilson-Bokowiec"- you don't DO THINGS to dancers - they can
> >make choices for themselves Part of the problem I think is that dancers
> >are still viewed as objects by both technologists and comp[osers -"
>
> Whose fault is this? I can only blame myself if I am being treated in a way
> that I don't feel good about. I think you might be right about dancers
> being veiwed as objects but whose responsibility is it to change that? You
> and I and others on this list are in fact setting an example! Pushing back
> the boundries! We ARE doing it! Good for us!

Dear Julie and Dawn,

Recently I was discussing dancers (nouns) with my MIDI musician mate
Stephan Reifenrath. He said: "Darren, you are not a dancer. A dancer is
someone I you can ask to do X, Y and Z, and they have the training and the
body to do it. You dance, but you aren't a dancer." Don't flame me for
having replied that this is a very European - if not German - way of
categorising things, this continent of nouns, and it reminded me how
incredibly boring I find the German soccer team (objects with fixed roles
if ever I've seen such), even if they do keep winning. As far as planning
a project with dancers is concerned, Stephan's remark is very interesting.

PLAYing devil's advocate, I said to him: "If someone asked me to
reel off a particular Schubert piece from sheet music I'm probably
not your best choice, but nobody in their right mind would say I'm
not a pianist." But as far as a music director planning a concert
is concerned, I'm NOT a pianist. I'm not a useful "object" in that
way.

Maybe you flexible, twisty, balanced, dancers should be proud to be such
wonderfully useful "objects",

Darren

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