Today we read Alonzo King's essay introducing his current season "Shadow Dispersing Clarity," (17, 19, 21). See http://www.linesballet.org/company/alonzo-king/ The essay was originally published in the Spring, 2011, Mission at Tenth, Vol. 2: The Hieroglyph Issue, a publication of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Homework is to identify an argument or several arguments and engage his views in a short essay. Tie this into, if you can, the film, Women Art Revolution. I think both King, choreographer, and Lynn Hershman Leeson, director, agree--how does art make us more authentically human? How does art make one visible, especially the women profiled in WAR?
How does art act as a vehicle for one's truth to both move and engage others, whom King says are just aspects of self?
If you do not want to combine the conversations, leave them separate, and respond separately to each in 250 words. See http://womenartrevolution.com/about_filmmakers.php
Before you start, visit the websites and read about the artists in question. Also read the essay, which I have given you.
Email these responses to me and paste here. I'd everyone to respond to at least one post.
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5 comments:
Sareth Chhoth
Professor Sabir
English 1B
30 October 2012
Alonzo King’s essay and Woman Art Revolution are similar because of their contents of their ideas. Their ideas are somewhat similar about their respective ideas about self-realization, including sex, age, race, etc. Each had a different idea about those things. Ultimately, the two ideas are similar about realizing one’s self through art.
Alonzo King believes that diversity is a tricky thing. King explains that everything in the world is different but it is the same through their essence, he states
Humans, plants, animals and gems seem so shockingly different from each other, yet in essence as the rishis of India have communicated and now scientists are echoing in—all things are created from the same essence, and the appearance of difference is only in the rate of vibration.
Different things should not matter such as race, age, sex, etc., that is the important message. The women in Women Art Revolution also believed that different gender should not matter when individuals are trying to discover one’s true self by expressing themselves through art. Some of the women expressed themselves through performance art. Similarly, King expressed his artwork by choreographing the ballet.
Another thing that the two have similar opinions on is about being an artist. The two believe that everyone can be an artist. If a person is trying to change something about them then that person is an artist. Being an artist is being involved in self-reform. King states that “ when any creative, child rearing parent, teacher, gardener, activist, cook thinks that they are not involved in art, they are fooling themselves.” The women in Women Art Revolution would agree with that, so in a sense we are all artist from doing the things we do in our everyday life.
Dung Le
English 1B
Professor Sabir
30 October 2012
Everything Art
Both Alonzo King and Lynn Hershman represent art. King represents it through ballad, while Hershman represents it through the embodiment of women. King focuses more on explaining the meaning of art and what defines it. Hershman on the other hand shows that both men and women can represent art. King states, “Everyone involves in self reform is some kind of artist,” which directly links with Hershman’s showcase of the reformation of women in society. Both men and women are artists.
King describes that dance, music, painting, architecture, agriculture, are all the same work, he says that these things are tools for humanity to express their art (King 17). Nowhere does he say that this is restricted to a certain sex, which supports Hershman’s idea that art should not be restricted to only men. The video Women Art Revolution shows that women are capable of being an artist, that they too can use the tools that King describes that artists use.
King states that “At a basic level art is the knowledge of how things are done. At its highest level the purpose of art is to awaken memory and break down the delusion that we are weak whining mortals, and remind us that we are gods” (19). Most people growing up know how society is, the men works and the women takes care of children, cooking and cleaning. But knowing how things work doesn’t make it right, some women want more than just being a house wife. Some wants to achieve that higher level of art, they want to be more than what people think and want them to be.
By learning and understand the definition and meaning of what art is, you realize that both men and women can become artists. Art not a person, it’s a tool use by humanity to express oneself. Both men and women are capable of using these tools ad by using these tools, they too are artists.
Rosetta Egan
Professor Sabir
English 1B
26 October 2012
Change Through Art
In his essay, Alonzo King postulates that people evolve, grow or become more themselves continuously throughout their lives. Women Art Revolution directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson, is a movie about the period of the late 1950’s through the 1970’s when a revival of the Women’s Liberation movement stimulated women artists to demand their rightful place in the history of art in the world, since women were essentially overlooked by art historians for recorded history. Growth and change is facilitated by art and art is everywhere. King explains: “[a]nd when any creative, child rearing parent, teacher, gardener, activist, cook [,] thinks that they are not involved in art, they are fooling themselves. Everyone involved in self-reform is some kind of artist.” (17). According to King: “[t]he principle expression of life is movement.” (19) The women in Leeson’s film expressed their creativity in performance art as well as the picketing of museums that refused to show the women’s art work. According to King, creativity is like a muscle and it must be used or exercised regularly otherwise it will atrophy.
One of the methods the women artists employed for personal growth was informal gatherings of small or large collections of women into Consciousness Raising groups. The women who attended these groups were there to discuss pertinent issues facing all women especially achieving equality in every aspect of their lives. Whatever the medium, the women were artists first and political activists second. King describes his dances as ”thought structures to be directly experienced” (21). So for some women performance art and videos were the media of choice and the creations were designed to shock and even alienate the audience in order to attract the most attention to their struggle for recognition. All artists struggle intensely to express their creativity because creativity is an innate drive that must be articulated to feel complete, and live up to one’s potential.
I agree with Le's suggestion that we are all artists engaged in the work of self development. However I disagree with your statement that "men works and the women takes care of children, cooking and cleaning". are you saying that men work and women do not? Cooking, cleaning and childcare is work and it can be very hard work.
Rosetta
Perhaps you mistook my intentions. What I’m trying to portray is the view that society see women as and how women wants to break that role that men wants them to be. My mom is a single parent and I completely understand how hard it is to take care of children. Dung Le.
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