Because of the nature of partner dance, one dancer usually assumes a more dominant role. We know this because cultural conventions. Looking from a Derridean perspective, without considering the factors outside of the performance, we can see how dancers Melanie and Sasha create their own unique feminine style.
In this first clip, music, appearance, and movement coalesce to establish the pronounced female character of the work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7LaOeymYIo&feature=related. The immediate indication of the femaleness of this work is the music. Its instrumental softness is soothing like a mother’s lullaby. The dresses are reminiscent of conventional housewives and the cult of domesticity from which the Western ideals of femaleness derive. Their outfits are flowy and playful as they linger around each movement emphasizing their gracefulness. The dance itself is filled with lithe motions that would have a different resonance had a male performed them. It is important to understand how these artists create feminine qualities in their work before we can fully understand the implications of defying feminine conventions.
The juxtaposing of their collective work challenges stereotypical ideas of inherent femininity and reveals the importance of considering gender as a performance much like dance. In this second clip, a dance performed by Melanie and Sasha again, the meaning of gender is reformed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdsTQoN4WcQ. Gone are the pretty dresses, soft music, and gentle movements, and, for the most part, the female character that we were acquainted with in the first clip. The music is more dramatic and the movements are more powerful—I would be hard pressed to call this piece solely feminine.
Both pieces are have distinct ambiances for sure. This alludes to the idea that our habit of categorizing things as masculine and feminine fails to capture the true dynamic nature of behavior. Shakespeare was right was he wrote “They draw but what they see, know not the heart.”
You're intuiting Judith Butler's theory here (and before we even got to Butler!). It might be worth your time to return to this entry after you read her work on gender performativity. Gender performance implicates an audience in profound ways (i.e., your gender changes depending on who you are around, and so do the performances of those around you). Do the performances in these videos do the same thing, and if so, how and to what affect? Think: performer, text, audience. Then try to analyze the power dynamics among all three in relationship to gender and sexuality.
ReplyDeleteYour argument/analysis has a lot to do with mine, only in yours, the music as well as the style of the performance reflect the level of femininity being expressed. Music, in its own profound way, has the ability to create an ambiance that can indeed bring to the Western mind an image of either a man or a woman. Sasha and Melanie create this, but twist the commonly accepted notions of what "female music" is like, and what "male music" is like. I believe someone earlier blogged about it being odd that a girl likes metal music, like it would be looked upon as odd if a boy was listening to the Spice Girls on repeat. What we have created in the contemporary mindset is a fear of stepping across a certain boundary that may lead to unknown waters. I think you've touched upon a very important and hard-hitting theory using these two dancers. It is so important that their message shows that genres of music and dance never fall under just one categorical gender or gender preference.
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