Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Okay, full disclosure up front: I'm not broad-minded enough to understand a lot of what passes for original thought on modern college campuses. I eat at Chili's -- non-ironically.
So when I stumbled upon this piece in the University of New Mexico's Daily Lobo about a student delivering his senior thesis in the form of a dance performance addressing genocide, my reaction was a hybrid of bewilderment and amusement. Then, however, hearing in my head the voice of every sweet-tempered, perpetually optimistic woman in my family tree, I thought, "Hey, it's unorthodox, but at least he wants to address a serious issue." That thought evaporated as I kept reading:
[Aaron] Hooper said he was inspired to do a show about different forms of genocide after a series of suicides by boys who were bullied over the past couple years. Since then, he said the concept grew to be based on “big business” and how the government breaks down individual and clan identities.
“When I look at genocide, it can be an emotional destruction of a people,” he said. “What I was thinking of in my paper and everything is how can we analyze these major genocides that happen that I’m showcasing here, and see the similarities to what is happening in our own country.”
Got that? Darfur is the moral equivalent of feeling bad because you can't afford the stuff in the Restoration Hardware catalog.
The seats in the audience are not bolted to the floor, so Hooper had every other seat removed, so attendees have nobody to sit next to. The choreography is set primarily to Pink Floyd tracks, and as soon as the audience enters, they become emotionally involved in the performance. He said he’s had a few test audiences, a few members of which left because it was uncomfortable.
The purpose of creating this in this intimate space is to make the people in the audience feel a sense of isolation and to feel almost as uncomfortable as the person that is being discriminated against, Hooper said.
Mission accomplished, sir. I'm two states away and I'm uncomfortable reading about it.
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Sep '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
"A little wine, a little dance, a little Batman's head on a lance."
-- Jack Nicholson, The Joker.
Oct '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
The real question might be how this fellow will deal with a less than sterling endorsement of his efforts.
As a sidebar, the truly impressive musical productions from the Thirties which included dance made more sense on issues.
Interperative Genocidal Dance routines ? Lovely.
Please bear with one for a moment on this St. Salieri.
The last time one experienced that style of dialog was in an upscale art gallery from someone trying to represent a painting. The pure grandure of the pitch was well worth listening to despite the dog hanging on the wall. Nice try.
Edited on April 13, 2012 at 5:07amAug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Ah, but those were big-budget productions, produced by a large number of experienced professionals from a variety of different disciplines (dance, music, theatre, songwriting, drama, business, carpentry, etc...) working together to create a product intended to generate a profit.
This article is about a production that was conceived, written, choreographed, and produced by a solitary undergraduate student, in a single discipline (dance), presumably with almost no budget, intended not to turn a profit but instead intended to receive an academic credit towards a degree in dance.
One can hardly expect this student to create a product at the same level as the great musicals of the 1930s. That's an unfair standard.
Edited on April 13, 2012 at 5:33amMay '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
I keep trying to come up with a good joke about this, but it's just too stupid.
Feb '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Let's not forget the genocide that might result from eating too much chili!
Aug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
When I was in university, I made three student films.
They were 16mm black & white, made on next to no budget, with no facilities provided by the school other than the camera, the film, a tape recorder for non-synchronized sound, and a flatbed editing table. We got one roll (three minutes worth) of raw film stock, with subsequent rolls costing about $100 each.
Even though these films were objectively nowhere near the quality of the worst Hollywood blockbuster, I got A's on two of them.
The first film had a silly little plot, but it was in focus, the film was exposed properly, and I'd managed a couple of rudimentary in-camera special effects. I got an A.
The second film was a ghost story. I got an A on it, even though I have no training in parapsychology, folklore, or the occult, so it was probably terribly inaccurate.
The third one was about snowboarding. I DO know a lot about snowboarding. In order to get one shot I went backwards, downhill, on skis, while operating the camera. I only got a C because it wasn't "creative" enough.
Judging student art/media projects is tricky.
Feb '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
tabula rasa
Not true, Mr. Saint. Those thing is obviously about "roast beef sandwiches with mayo and spicy mustard." How embarrassing for you.
Oh, ho, Mr. Rasa, if that is even your real name! THAT would be true, but only if his attempted conceptualized choreography was emotional elongated by a symbiotic understanding between the imperialist nature of mustard (and it's obvious Germanic resonances), and the lateral movement of the development of preindustrial tomato farming, as reflected in the diogenetic mitigation of individual angst in the face of overwhelming sorrow with a Gallic sense of understatement (ie Mayo), which is instead palliated by the similarities between post-industrial neo-soviet realism in the use of tensile strength steel guitar strings as a macro-obviated restatement of the rhythmic undertones of Pink Floyd, which were not directly related to the limiting convergence of a necessary protean litmus test of the general populaces inability to conceptualize the dramatic potential of Sufi mysticism as exemplified in the writings of Anatole France and the comic strip Ziggy, to wit, they could therefore only be a ham sandwich. Please, stick to the material at hand, and do go all Derrida on me!
Feb '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
You do raise some interesting points, but the denigration of the arts are accomplished by this sort of silliness. His advisors should be the ones who get slapped in all of this - what sort of adults allow this to go on, but having sat and played through many a faculty music recital as a student and as a professional accompanist (not my day job thank heavens) his professors are likely just as awful at producing art and discussing it.
NOT that art need always be rational, but, it's the preening, quasi-psuedo- intellectual claptrap that accompanies the bad art, in the name of genocide, I find so grotesque. My word, there is a legitament debate about whether or not we should ever make any artistic attempt to grapple with the enorimity of something as awful as genocide, but to compare it to coporate America, and this flap-doodle...yet, God please also forgive the follies of my youth, ultimately I lay the blame at the feet of the faculty.
He should be graded on his ability to dance, and do something meaningful with that, but that's not an excuse for the other silliness.
Oct '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Misthiocracy
Ah, but those were big-budget productions, produced by a large number ofexperiencedprofessionals from a variety of different disciplines (dance, music, theatre, songwriting, drama, business, carpentry, etc...) working together to create a product intended to generate a profit.
This article is about a production that was conceived, written, choreographed, and produced by a solitary undergraduate student, in a single discipline (dance), presumably with almost no budget, intended not to turn a profit but instead intended to receive an academic credit towards a degree in dance.
One can hardly expect this student to create a product at the same level as the great musicals of the 1930s. That's an unfair standard. · 31 minutes ago
Edited 19 minutes ago
Point taken, however, if a student is to make a presentation in this manner should they not have availed themselves to previous success ?
Even when making a humanistic statement in production and drama, refer to those that tread the same ground before you.
Not to say a one man show cannot gain attention. He did not prepare well.
Jul '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
I am pretty sure that most of this comment thread could be considered bullying under most anti-bullying laws.
Oct '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
RE. Misthiocracy.
Take it Frankenweenie was not on your mind while making student film.
Put Tim Burton on the path, perhaps you missed your calling ?
Aug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
wilber forge Point taken, however, if a student is to make a presentation in this manner should they not have availed themselves to previous success ?
Even when making a humanistic statement in production and drama, refer to those that tread the same ground before you.
Not to say a one man show cannot gain attention. He did not prepare well.
I haven't seen this student's dance piece. I know nothing about dance as an academic subject. I have no knowledge about this kid's past academic achievements. As such, I have NO ability to judge whether this kid is any good, whether this particular piece is any good, or how well he prepared.
I can form opinions about the accuracy and validity of his political and philosophical positions, but he's not a philosophy or political science student.
This kid's thesis is for a credit towards an undergraduate dance degree, not a degree in philosophy or political science.
Also, I would be mortified if people on the Internet were making fun of me, by name, for one of my student projects, which they had never even seen, because they disagreed on the topic of the piece.
Feb '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
I cannot speak to dance, but in music there is no room for shoddy work in terms of performance: wrong notes, bad rhythm, poor tone color - you fail. Period. You can have all the fancy, swanky, post-critical theory program notes you want for your senior recital, but if you can't play the pieces you fail.
I have no problem considering the difference between what a new practitioner in the arts can achieve and a cadre of seasoned professionals, but a true university education is one of well roundedness, enlightenment, and rigor - that seems to be lacking (again largely if not solely his instructors fault), tragically in this conception, because it embraces something outside of only dance.
The problem is in original composition.
A student will likely emoulate the standard of craftsmanship and artistic vision he has had to study under.
His professors should be ashamed of themselves, but then I'm a high art, snobby-me-bob.
Misthiocracy
Ah, but those were big-budget productions, produced by a large number ofexperiencedprofessionals from a variety of different disciplines (dance, music, theatre, songwriting, drama, business, carpentry, etc...) ...
This article is about a production ...by a solitary undergraduate student, ...
Aug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
As a performer, and because he discussed the thesis with a newspaper reporter, he's probably considered a "public figure".
Feb '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
This is a student who is passionate about his art - hence he seeks a degree.
He has some aspiration to political thought.
He creates something new - no problem by me.
However, he is an adult, and he has created a piece of political art and released it to the world.
If it gets mocked, I can't feel bad about that, it is something we all risk.
For part of my life I've been a musical performer, you takes the breaks when you go into the public arena. If you go out with shoddy work you suffer and you deserve it (and I have at times). I agree we cannot judge his dancing, but we can judge what he has written and commented upon via the political/philosophical meaning of his art; if he didn't want to be open to ridicule, he shouldn't present in the public square, and he shouldn't so risibly mix lazy modern sophistry with his dance.
Honestly, I don't object to him, he's just doing his thing in an environment that encourages this sort of thing, it is the instructors and his sloppy thinking I object to so strongly.
Edited on April 13, 2012 at 6:43amJan '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
You're probably right.
That's why those laws are as stupid and self-indulgent as the dancing.
Aug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Even if I was an expert in dance, the article provides me with no information to judge the technical quality of this student's dance thesis.
Yes, I know that some test audience members left the show, but I don't know anything about the level of their dance knowledge, so I have no way to judge if I should trust their opinion about the piece.
Aug '10
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
That's a fair point. Also, I wonder if all the students in his class had their projects written up in the school newspaper, or if he went out of his way to generate publicity for his own project.
I guess I'm just not sure why I should be terribly concerned that one undergraduate dance student in New Mexico has an incorrect understanding of the definition of the word "genocide".
Edited on April 13, 2012 at 7:00amRe: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
Just browsing through the research presented at W&M's undergraduate honors research colloquium, I don't think I see anything at quite this level of oddity. I'm suddenly feeling very good about my honors thesis. Quite good indeed.
Aug '11
Re: Genocide Through Dance: A Senior Thesis
I'm enjoying the good clean fun being had here, but my own undergraduate work makes me sympathetic to Misthiocracy's point, though I can't even claim the mantle of creative endeavor. As an English major I was required to churn out vast amounts of critical commentary on, yes, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, and other lights of Western civilization. How the profs must have howled in the faculty lounge. What original thought could a 19-year-old Southern gal possibly add to the body of understanding on these authors? But I managed to competently rehash generally accepted ideas in papers of 6 pages or more in coherent English that conformed to reasonably rigorous stylistic standards. I got A's, and my professors probably got some entertainment much along the lines of what's going on here. Thankfully, my "productions" will never see the light of day again, much less be written up in the campus paper.