Writings 2018-2023
︎︎︎Dance, Sex, Labor, Aesthetics, and Social Positions.︎︎︎The Discovery of Lost Arts in the 20th Century.
︎︎︎Dance Being the Lost Art in the Eye of Hegel’s Aesthetics.
︎︎︎The Future of Movements in Mind.
︎︎︎Techniques of the Body and Cultural Relation.
︎︎︎The Strength of Bodies Through the Relationship and Rationale of Protesting.
Dance, Sex, Labor, Aesthetics, and Social Positions.
In the essay written by Barbara Browning She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act, in which Browning offers a rich and insightful examination of the complex relationship between dance, sex, and labor, and the ways in which these elements shape and are shaped by power and social norms. As the author rouse the question “is there a way to read through the romanticization of the scene, and think deeply about labor's movement is choreographic, but not ever merely aesthetic?” the essence and shift of dance bodies under social setting is very crucial and needed more consideration within the system. Since the nature of performing arts can already create controversy when publicized, thus there should be as much attention and conversation happening from the root and beginning of this industry, for example education and institute.
Not only should art institute, where most of the performer and people working in this field needs the matured system of relationship between their own body, sex, observation, labor, and choreography, but also more importantly and which is absent even in modern education, the general knowledge and intersectional relationship between a stage, performance, and assembly of audiences. However, the phenomenon of putting dancers in a vulnerable circumstance is occurring in some of the countries. Under this unmoral and discriminative environment, this chain reaction and cycle of abusing the bodies happens naturally, unavoidably, and automatically. The society, public, audiences, educators, pioneers in this field, performers, people and information surrounding performers, social orientation, and the environment itself can all do damage to the bodies. The result of guiding the dancers and public to an irretrievable situation is caused by the ignorance, chicanery, and reasonable misunderstanding, which some stances can be understood as benefit and development of the industry superficially but a hazard instead.
Dancers are already vulnerable as they are put in front of the public and showcasing themselves out there trying to annotate and do the justice to the choreography with sacrifices of their own bodies voluntarily and passionately. If the public can realize the perspective behind the scenes and interpreted the bodies not as sexual bodies on stage, the first reaction of judging and sexual gaze should be healed partially. The realization is truly in need in order to protect and cause favorable effect in the cycle. “
The self-moving unhealthy cycle of education for dancers’ world is not only toxic but dangerous. As Browning argues in the essay, “these connections have become explicit,” for example, China. The system of selecting dancers is already intolerable. Many young dancers are forced by the system to lose an unhealthy amount of weight and look in a certain way with aesthetic proportion, flexible feet, upright facial look, small heads, and thin limbs. It is undoubtably natural to cause the dancers themselves to identify themselves as sexual, materialized, and judgmentally bodies under this abusive system of education and selection. In this way, the result of public wouldn’t appreciate how much enjoyment and expression on stage, instead, more sexual bodies and labor with judgmental criticize would happens since it is much easier and obvious to judge a visual body then the inner ability and talent of a dancer. The unhealthy training and exhausted result of production will come eventually in the matter of course. The sexual and judgmental “robotic eyes” of evaluating is promoted and favored reasonably.
It is disappointing to know that this ridiculous cycle of harmful system in dance industry is valued in modern days of arts. Also, it is ridiculous and shameful for the educators, institutions, professionals, hierarchs, and spectators to silently poisoning the art form itself and the sacrificing individuals harmed by the system they are in with no other choices to burden the unmoral labor, abuse, and discrimination as a product on stage. The inappropriate examination from the public and the field itself put pressure on the whole community by putting the dancers in a vulnerable position in society even more in this modern technological world where social media and internet developed rapidly without us even realizing. We can’t see an artwork with the sacrifice of rationalizing unintellectual gaze both within and outside the industry. In conclusion, just as what Browning suggests in her passage, the partially desirable place and result for dance should because “dance training sensitizes one to quotidian choreographies within one's own culture, as well as another's.” In this sense, Browning’s emphasis on the value of dance as a tool for cultural and social analysis should be promoted and cooperated by the industry of public. By studying and practicing dance, we can gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which movement reflects and shapes cultural and social norms, power relations, and individual experiences.