Ballet Lab’s: Miracle was, if defined by a single word, “crazy.” This craziness wasn’t subtle either; it was a bombastic sequence of unearthly sounds and screams accompanied with ferociously spastic movement and action from the dancers. This craziness was perpetual, and the intense emotions and dramatic atmosphere that resulted was reliant on it. The crazy was good.
The meaning behind the piece was for the most part cult related. It delved into cult mentality and scrutinized it. It seemed to take on cult behavior from many eras, and many cultures. The first act seemed to symbolize cult behavior in ancient time, using costumes made from robes (possibly to signify ancient Greek or Roman culture). One notable and terrifying part of this act involved a human sacrifice, or at least that was what I thought it represented. They dragged one of the female dancers around the stage, and ignored her blood curdling screams, and writhing twisting motions of distress, eventually pushing her against a wall while she screamed (perhaps offering her to a god).
The second act seemed to take a more modern look at cult behavior. Modern clothing was worn (or not worn...) and new props were added, such as a spinning swinging PA monitor in the middle of the stage, long extension cords, and megaphones. Wooden clogs were also used, and I found little meaning in them, aside from the fact that they were so strange to dance in that it furthered the hysteric quality of the act.
The third act I took to be a futuristic look at cult mentality, or an examination of cult like behavior with media and pop culture, or both. The outfits they adorned were strange and “futuristic” looking. At one point, one of the female dancers had the line “save me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope…” which is an obvious reference to Star Wars the cult like following that had, and still has. This act became even crazier, with a scattered assortment of harmonicas and peculiar motions.
The last act was by far my favorite, and possibly the most meaningful. It involved two of the dancers “floating” above the air in a meditative position, holding on to canes, and seemingly defying gravity as the murmured nonsense speech under their breath. It seemed to represent a kind of nirvana, or ultimate state of being, which most extremist cults are usually trying to reach. The mumbled speech, I think represented the vagueness of enlightenment, as well as our separation from it. We could not understand what they were saying, and perhaps they were saying greatly important things that we could only understand had we achieved that level of being. This ending could have meant that the dancers, through these mass suicides and insane rituals had actually achieved the enlightenment they were pursuing. I think it’s more likely though that it represented a false sense of hope for the cult followers. Being that the audience knew the laws of gravity they knew that the floating, though very convincing, was a magic trick. It was very impressive, but to give in to a belief that they were truly floating, would be to believe something that didn’t actually happen. False hope and delusions, brought about by very convincing propaganda and magic tricks in real cults, are what perpetuate mass followings in the first place.
Tyler, I liked your response to the piece much more than I liked the piece itself. Much, much more.
ReplyDeleteI like your analysis of each of the segments, as they help shed some light on the symbolism, some of which I'm still trying to understand. Particularly for the last two portions, which weren't as obvious as the first two. I especially like what you have to say about the levitation trick, I never thought about it possibly representing false hope.
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