Ballet as a Ritual

We have been discussing ritual in class and it got me thinking about different types of ritual, some things that would not dawn on me to ritual. Like ballet, I never would of thought as ballet as a ritual but as we continued to talk about ritual structure, and I realized that ballet is very much a ritual. It is not only a performance but also an art form that takes much needed structure.  First comes practice, practice, practice, I myself am a dancer and I know from many hours of practice a dance cannot be learned right away.  We would work on a dance for a month or so before we would perform it.  You must get every step and move in sync with all the other dancers in the piece.  Once the dance is learned it can be performed, almost always there is a story that goes alone with the dance. Whether it is a very simple story about a little girl and her imagination or the complex story of Swan Lake. 

            Once the performance actually takes place there is very much ritual that goes into it.  First is a warm up which is very important to a dancer because if you do not warm up you could easily hurt yourself, just like any sport really.  After warm up there is the ritual of getting ready; you have to put your put stage makeup on and get your costume ready. And just the performance the instructor or director of the show will usually say a few inspiring word to excite the dancers. Then the show begins!! Creative expression is shown to it fullest with every dancer pouring their heart and soul into the dance. An art form with structured ritual at its finest.

        

Snow

Growing up in Lake Tahoe there is no way for you to avoid the wonders and reality of winter, in fact you come to love it.  Or at least I did, I love winter, as much as I love summer because you are not in school and you feel like you have the world at your finger tips, winter quietly captivating.  The snow mostly is what I love about winters in Tahoe, from building snowmen to sledding to skiing. But not the activities that come along with snow but the snow itself it so aesthetically please.  My absolute favor thing about snow is snowstorms, if you have ever stepped outside during a snowstorm you know what I mean.  The perfect snowstorm is so peaceful and quiet you can’t even hear the snow falling on the ground and yet it is so destructive at the same time.  And yes of course there are those raging snowstorms with high-speed winds or wet wet snow that is basically slush coming out of the sky. But there is something so incredibly breathe taking about a quiet peaceful storm. This to me is very outside the order and ordinary, usually when it is snowing most people are indoors keeping warm next to the fire, they have no idea that snow is anything more the frozen water in their driveways. It gives you this amazing feeling that is very hard to explain, the crisp clean cold air, the silence. The silence is what always gets me, that something so silence can be so destructive.  It can kill; avalanches, frostbite, hypothermia, and much more. Yet you would never know what hit you because it is not like other storms that are big spectacular events. The emotion of knowing that such a beautiful thing is so damaging, like a poisonous flower it may look beautiful but you would never want to touch it.  Snowstorms are aesthetically pleasing for the eye and the mind.

My Desk

If someone was to walk into my room they would not critique it on where every little item is placed or what color my bedspread is.  But for me when I was putting together my room every item has a place and reason to why it is there.  I did not realize it until we were talking about the act of make special in class, but the more I thought about it the more I discovered that my room is an act of me making special. 

My desk for instances it has essentials like my printer and pens and pencils, yet it has other items that there purely because I like them and they are important to me. I have an old record that I melted into bowl, now it holds all my pens, tacks, and tools, yet to me it is not just a bowl to put utensils in it is a special because I made it and I created something new out of something old. The posters above my desk are not just slapped on there because I wanted to fill up a blank wall.  I have a poster of Bob Marley and I remember when I was about 12 I went to a record store with my dad and bought this poster.  Now this is no ordinary poster, it is an actually poster from when Bob was on tour. So not only is special in that sense but it also special to me in that it is a memory I share with my dad.  I can also hear my dad saying do your homework Ally when I sit and do my homework.  I also have a poster of the tallest redwood and three pictures that I drew myself. The redwood poster reminds me what a beautiful place we live in and how lucky I am to be going to school here. The three drawings remind me to stay creative. I also have a mosaic frog above everything on the wall; I made this as well and gave it to my dad who told me to take it with me when I went to school.

 This is an act of making special to me because every single piece is important to me in one-way or another. Every item is unique in its own way and is placed there because of the significance it has to what I do when I am working at my desk. Whether it is schoolwork or artwork or just jotting down a note from a phone call, every item reminds of something significant or small little memory that makes me smile.

            

Dance as a Creative Expression

We all know that there are many many forms of creative expression. But one that really stands out to me is dance. For two reasons: one because I am dancer myself and I believe it’s a form of creative expression. And two because there are so many forms of it. Dance can be used to express yourself in so many ways; you can portray happy, sad, anger, any emotion really.  There are so many different types of dance those express different things. Ballet for example, the Nutcracker or Swan Lake, the dancers are telling the audience or viewers a story. Ballet originated during the Italian Renaissance as jesters in the courts in the 15^th century.  Anthropologically the story that is being told would describe the life and stories of that era. With the Nutcracker the story depicts the mind of a little girl, who finds Christmas to be an enchanting magical experience. This depicts the children stories that were being told at the when the ballet was first performed.  The music that is part of the ballet is an example of music of that era as well.  It expresses the culture and lifestyles that people lived, if you were able to see the ballet you were most likely upper class as it was a luxury.  Dance can be used as rituals for good crop or successful hunting. This describes how the people of the tribe that is performing a ritual live and what they believe. Their customs and traditions include dance, where this is not used for entertainment but it is still a form of creative expression. They are expressing that they want good hunting and they are asking the gods for good hunting. Creative expression can be expressed in so many ways dance is just one of them.