bolster your courage

dream being into this world

rush departure not

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a Communication course on Media and Culture
UMass Amherst

Facebook commentary after viewing the video

The unreality of DayGlow’s Escape Reality tour provides reprieve to the 24/7 demands of the socially-wired digital world. Some of my students think I would enjoy the concert. It seems possible, although the behavior required to secure tickets does not appeal. Descriptions of the emotions raised by the keyboard-and-mouse competition carefully calibrated to the timing of a ticket release has all the characteristics of addiction. A fan, however, might just call it passion. To be sprayed with paint while mass dancing to great music at eardrum-blasting decibels: you’ve always dreamed of it, right? Most of the young adults taking this class could hardly imagine anything better. The encompassing sensory experience fundamentally connects them with their bodies and each other in a shared physical space and time: it is as far from online social interaction as you can get. I suppose DayGlowers may text or Tweet or update their Facebook statuses just to tweak their friends – haha, I’m here and you’re not! - but the point of DayGlow is to experience an entirely different way of being together.

It’s about Identity, Stupid!

In the final small group discussion with the teacher, one of the students in class made an identity claim about technology that encompassed everyone regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and (to a lesser but still relevant extent) socioeconomic class. “Technology,” Jamar said, “is what makes us normal.” Orienting to society via the specific types of technology known as social media defines the digital native and simultaneously signals a potent site of contest over the future. What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of person are you now? Although these questions were not asked overtly, they underscored the Red Pill/Blue Pill debate over the prominence of technology in student’s lives. While embracing what they like and accommodating to what they must, many members of this first generation of digital natives are also deeply concerned about what it all means.

Doing Collective Intelligence

In an example of what I call social metonymy, the students’ final team video projects expose individual ambiguity about their personal responsibility for choosing the reality that will define their lives. At the same time the two videos serve to represent this choice as an either/or dichotomy between the Blue Pill and the Red Pill.  In “DayGlow Makes Us Normal,” students blend a sharp knowledge of context with an unapologetic stance in support of ‘the blue pill’ – meaning an uncritical embrace of technology, particularly in terms of how it can be used to serve the needs of the self. These young people show us that they are doing their best to deal with everything; however surviving means sometimes choosing not to know in order to have the ‘escape’ that recharges them to be able to carry on. Dfoley explains:

…when Steph approached us and asked us to research deeper into DAYGLOW, ask questions and look into the three social relations, we as a class became defensive and responded first with a stern “NO!” and then eased out of the conversation with “What if we learn bad things?” We didn’t want to know how they targeted their audiences, what producers or distributors they went through, if they were in fact illegally using music or did they work with certain music industries and is the paint made in an un-ethical environment? At this moment, we didn’t want to know any of these answers; we didn’t want to know if the three social relations that applied to DAYGLOW were good or bad. Because the truth is, DAYGLOW was and is are [sic] escape, we leave all of our troubles at the door and it facilitates an environment that is blind to color or cultural difference but sees the common ground of the human race as a whole and understands that when we enter we all are in an agreement that we simply want to be. And enjoy the overpowering feeling of the love for life you feel as you live the music.

The other video is less ambiguous, showing more of the Red Pill approach through some critical juxtapositions that seem to ask  ”Do We Have to Be This Way?” If you enlarge the Facebook commentary photograph, you’ll see a student’s explanation about the DayGlow footage being replaced by activism by teenagers in Arizona regarding changes to the curriculum there. Taken as a package, the two videos provide a fairly transparent perspective on a particular demographic subset of the Millennial Generation. What isn’t necessarily evident in the videos is learning some students described about ethnic components of their identities:

Steph talked about the fact that many of us saw things in a “white way”. We never thought about seeing things this way but it was seemingly apparent that we did. Seeing in a “white way” is similar to the idea of heteronormativity. Heterosexuality is unconsciously perceived as the correct way to live and therefore heterosexual individuals are unfairly privileged in the same way that white individuals are solely because of their race. As Sgershlak said, many white college students do not think about the opportunities they are presented with because they have always been there. Many of them have not faced much adversity if any at all and this has influenced their perspective on the world. (Kim Delehanty)

Until I was 10 years old, I lived in Boston, where the lifestyle was much laid back. Many of my friends parents would often stay home, either unemployed, laid-off, or fired. There was never a real need to have a intellectual conversation with anyone, mainly because people around you did not complete much schooling. However upon moving to the suburbs, my identity changed in order to fit in with my surrounding environment. Conversations now stemmed to “what do you want to be when you grow up”, “what colleges do you plan on applying to”. Coming from a schooling system which did not produce many graduates, to one which produced more college graduates than Boston did high-school graduates, I would say my identity changed dramatically and maybe for the best. Being the most Americanized Hispanic, also meant when it came time to identify with relatives and family, my identity would also have to change, to incorporate an Hispanic culture which has not been present for several years. (Steve Baez)

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

I assigned the students in this 100-level course a nearly impossible task – to complete team video projects representing their understanding of how media and culture combine in their personally lived experience of college today. I wanted them to demonstrate to me that they understood the concept of articulation as it is used in communication theory.

With inadequate tools, little-to-no experience, and minimal guidance, they exceeded my expectations. We all wish the production values were higher but the meaning of these videos is the thoughtfulness with which these young people have illustrated the incredible tensions of being among the first human beings to live immersed in the digital age.

The intellectual prompt provided as an anchor for the course was obscure at first: “Digital Realities and Analog Living.” We also viewed the 1999 movie, The Matrix, for use as a guiding metaphor as well as an example of transmedia storytelling. The students composed individual videos for their midterm projects, absorbed my critique, and went to work to show me how it really is.

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Dance Performance
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Cassandra Jackman is hot. If you are into dance and you haven’t yet heard of her, you will – of this I am sure.

Watching with Untrained Eyes

I had to be coached not to clap at the wrong time, to be appropriately attentive. I was exposed to dance (mainly ballet) as a kid and didn’t get it. Enjoyed an Alvin Ailey show at some point and knew there was something going on but didn’t pursue it.  Wire Monkey got me excited a few years ago. Going in, all I knew about UMass’ annual “Alive with Dance” show is that each number was an original work by graduating dance majors. These seniors selected their topics a year in advance, did research, created the choreography, auditioned and selected dancers from among their peers, designed the set and chose the accompanying music.  I was unprepared for the quality of every performer and absolutely blown away by what I experienced as the collective intelligence of the troupe.

A Visceral Experience

The first three dances washed through me like emotion. Color, motion and sound swirled and merged seamlessly, one piece into another. This was not a fluke: return viewings on the 2^nd and 3^rd night elicited similar responses.  With each show I realized there was so much I had not taken in, either not noticed at all or not been able to retain in the glut of stimulation. On the first night, during the fourth number in the first half of the show, all of a sudden I discovered myself wondering, “Why is that (big black beautiful) man naked?” (He wasn’t actually!) It was not that I hadn’t been paying attention – I was taking in all that I could! It was the surprise of his appearance that rippled my perception at a level of imagery below words.  Everybody needs to see this, I thought to myself. Something is happening here.

The Strategic Use of Body

The fourth piece in the first half of the show, Lateralization by Cassandra Jackman, highlighted an African/African-American couple. For me, it signaled a dramatic shift in the storyline of the show.  Prior to this piece I had not yet noticed individual details of any of the dancers; it was as if I’d seen with soft eyes, taking in only the gestalt. Suddenly, a focal point emerged, casting the previous pieces into the realm of context. I began to marvel at how these young people had orchestrated their discrete works of art into a collective statement about empowerment, including even race relations and suggesting optimism for social change. Parallels and a narrative became apparent in the second half. I almost came out of my seat during the final, closing number when Cassandra, cast in one of her classmate’s pieces, kick-starts a wild profusion of creative resistance to the masks so many people seem resigned to wear. It is as if she throws the switch that changes the game.

Starting with a Silent Bang

The audience’s pre-show hubbub quieted immediately to the Orwellian announcement about emergency exits and prohibitions on the use of technology.  A soloist is illuminated as soon as the curtain opens and begins to move. I found myself waiting, as if expecting something else to happen, and then realize this is it: the show has begun. One dancer becomes three, music swells, a welter of emotions, red leotards, steady rhythm, perpetual motion, different threads of story, expressions of life’s cacophony of light and dark, the soloist isolated behind a scrim, a graceful sense of mourning followed by the emergence of joy. Layer upon layer unfolds but all I really see is pattern and distinction, no details no brown or white only coordinated bodies.

Then the rain begins. Gentle. Persistent. The second dance resonates with the season of spring, moistening and warming the hardened remains of winter, offering salve for wounds not yet healed.  “We walk through the shadows our hearts cast on our minds.” Unless, that is, you are one of the perky pink girls who follows in the third dance – seemingly untouched by pain. Light and carnival-like, an assembly line of frivolous, interchangeable white girls provides an airy release from the poignant plunge of reality.  Give us the Scott Joplin illusion of that happy era between the World Wars!

Lateralization enters a consciousness already stretched to the edges of emotional exertion.  The fourth dance evokes the show’s beginning but with a twist. Like the show’s first scene, the soloist begins in silence. However, in contrast with the brightly illuminated first dancer, Tara Brown is shrouded in shadow, the outline of her body tracing lines of quiet force into empty space. Complication emerges swiftly: two small non-symmetric groups appear in vibrant turn. Their bold blue and striped black-and-white costumes and compelling motions fade into peripheral vision once the couple appears. Soon, Cassandra’s bold embodiment fixes my gaze.

A Catalyst for Movement

I needed to watch the show three times to grasp its structure.  No doubt there are well-established logics for sequencing a dance program of individual works. I’ve since learned some details about the motivations for a few of the pieces: taken individually my read is hopefully recognizable as a viable interpretation of each choreographer’s intent, even if I failed to grasp the exact details of their visualizations. I wonder how they imagined the accumulated narrative, with each discrete piece aggregated into a whole story . . .

The five pieces in the second half of the show parallel the first half’s four parts in a few interesting ways. After intermission Sabra and Faded and Alive present a mix of a varied emotions much as Trouver la Lumiere did to open the first half of the show. Then, the third number in the second half, It’s All About Me, I Mean You, I Mean Me, provides a contemporary commentary on the ‘50’s rendition of the Roarin’ Twenties. These sassy dancers move nearly always in unison, perfect clockwork functionaries keeping up playful appearances despite the harsh and cynical backdrops from Barbara Kruger depicting the ironies of what it’s like to live now.

Gimme Five by Angela Bennett was the most complicated piece. It moved the mechanical behaviors of technological living to the foreground, almost as a counterpart to the sociocultural perspective offered in Jackman’s Lateralization. The psychological fluidity of Cassandra’s piece is counterpoised by Angela’s representation of rote, routine, automatic surrender and recovery.  We watch humans copy copy copy each other, if not in mimicry than still in lock-step: one behavior triggering a reciprocal response in unvarying repetition as if this is the most to which humans can aspire.  Yet something does change in the end, the push-pull of exclusion/inclusion and competing desires for belonging/autonomy moves the singularity of our human being through time, enabling re-orientation should one choose.

I am fascinated by how the first eight dances of the show can be understood as a repeating cycle. The first four pieces in the second half of the show reprise the first four pieces from the first half. Do humans need to witness repetition in order to recognize the social pattern? Once the pattern is realized, the stage is set for the dramatic action of the ninth and final dance.

Un-Masking One Reality to Create Another

A huge benefit of watching the show three times was increasing respect for the quality of all the dancers. Although my attention was riveted by a few at first, each viewing brought more of everyone’s talent into view. My appreciation for these young performers has continued to grow as I’ve sought to find the right words to express their accomplishment. These UMass Dance Majors have embraced art’s highest calling: to use illusion in service of illumination. They have achieved this by disciplining their bodies to perform at the very edge of courage.

The closing dance, Lasciere Me Eliminato, is dense with detail. Most of the dancers begin with masks, only three without. But I don’t notice this until the third time I watch, my eyes rapt in amazement of the sophisticated synchrony of syncopated motion on display from every dancer. There is a struggle. Something prevents forward motion. They reach in yearning and are hauled back as if shackled. “Going nowhere” – this phrase from the soundtrack. One dancer’s mask is removed, re-tied around an arm. Randomly (it seems) the dancers align in precise configuration, there is a slight pause, then WHAM! Cassandra’s triggering move sends an instantaneous ripple coursing with precision through the line, masks come off and all that shit gets wiped away. Free! Free at last! I can almost hear the refrain as the mood turns to peace: quiet, solemn, and graceful.

That a brown person was cast to dance-kick this new gear into motion is likely not pure coincidence. There are white dancers throwing off their masks too, choosing to refuse the current state of affairs. Meanwhile, the three originally unmasked dancers were all white. Were they pulling the strings before? A small percentage controlling the rest? I would have to see the show again to assess that hypothesis.

In the end, one of those unmasked dancers finds herself masked. Alone on stage, there is barely time to adjust before she sees from her new vantage point – and gasps.

Alive with Dance 2011: A Catalyst for Movement

1st Half:

Trouver la Lumiere by Shirah Burgey
Inner Shadows by Sierra Boyea
Ready . . . Again by Sarah Goddard
Lateralization by Cassandra Jackman

2nd Half:

Sabra by Hannah Katz
Faded and Alive by Jonalyn Bradshaw
It’s All About Me, I Mean You, I Mean Me by Emily Jacobson
“Gimme Five” by Angela Bennett
Lasciere Me Eliminato by Kayla Skerry

Popularity: 4% [?]