This week's topic particularly resonates with me as I am both a professional ballet dancer with Los Angeles Ballet and a Communications student here at UCLA. My life and the path I have taken in my education and professional career seems similar to the bridge metaphor Vesna was using, and how working towards a third culture requires an active dialogue between humanists and scientists. I have found that there are actually many similarities between the professional ballet world and my experience with academia.
First of all, as artists the goal is to communicate with the audience through movement, and to make it look absolutely effortless. In my marketing class at UCLA, we have been learning how to communicate and brand a product seamlessly by knowing your audience demographic to be able to connect with them on an emotional level.
As Vesna mentions in her essay, the "two cultures" essay made famous by Snow refers to the divide between the sciences and the literary humanities and frequently what was originally analogized to science - art. As a metaphorical "bridge" between the two cultures present in my life, I have found there are also many similarities between art and the science/mathematics culture that can be found in ballet. For example, the work the corps de ballet does involves many aesthetically pleasing geometrical shape shifting patterns, that can be viewed from the balcony. The patterns the corps de ballet performs are not possible unless they follow these strict mathematical rules.
Physical movements in ballet are also reflections of mathematical equations. Below is a photo taken of me that the photographer realized fits perfectly into the Golden Spiral! Lots of artistic possibilities here.
Technology has also come to the forefront in ballet in the form of these awesome new pointe shoes that can electronically trace dancer's movements!
sources:
Snow, C. P. “Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.” Reading. 1959. New York: Cambridge UP, 1961. Print.
Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being in Between.” Leonardo 34.2 (2001): 121-25. Web.
Brooks, Katherine. "High-Tech Ballet Shoes Hypnotically Trace The Physical Movement Of Dancers' Feet." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
"These High-tech Ballet Shoes Visualize a Dancer's Movements as Works of Art." Tech Times RSS. 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
I really like how you chose to provide example for the similarities you see between the two cultures in your life. An issue I feel we have today that you covered is not being able to effectively address and communicate with one another about the purported divide between the arts and the sciences. I think that your commentary and images show perfectly why this division is not necessarily true and that there is actually a good amount of intersection between the two. I also like how you explained technology has come to enhance ballet, and I believe that this is the case for many modern forms of art. Would also be interesting to consider how the sciences have implemented practices of art to further improve its own foundations!
ReplyDeleteThe duality of mathematics in dance is really interesting, especially in the way in which the mathematic and formulaic music and body movements both combine to create a work that, despite this key involvement of math, is seen as something that is pure art and expression.
ReplyDeleteThe arduino-embedded pointe shoes are a great example of the blend of art and science in this third culture we learned about and discussed this week. I think you may be interested in some other wearable technologies like Behnaz Farahi's "Caress of the Gaze" (https://vimeo.com/138697237). The way in which this wearable moves has very fluid, dance-like movements which is an interesting contrast to the message of the piece, which is ultimately a critique of the (literal) male gaze. Lauren McCarthy's series of wearables (http://lauren-mccarthy.com/Tools-for-Improved-Social-Interacting) are also really interesting. My favorite, the Happiness Hat, makes a charade of smiling and I love the way in which it uses humor as a social critique. Another work that I find fascinating and beautiful is Bot and Dolly's "Box" (https://vimeo.com/75361102). This piece seamlessly integrates robotics, projection mapping, and software engineering to create a work that is fascinating in its duality of black-and-white geometries choreographed to be fluid and elegant.
I really like the pictures you include in this article. They tie very well with the theme of the week. The new pointe shoes are something I have never heard of and are extremely interesting.
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