Ryan Swanson

Search for Beauty TR 6:00-7:15

*Assigned class book entry 1*

Self-Emptying

   In today's class, we examined quotes for the text involving the interaction between rituals and myths. Dance was existent before myth, and myth is the projection of ritual. I think it is interesting how dance has a certain power to increase the involvement of stories. Myth is something that many throughout time have used to guide their morals, desires, and lives. Showing myth through dance creates an interactive story that grabs the bystander and turns them into participants. Even if one does not take an active role in the motion and dance of the ritual, the experience itself is impossible not to be emotionally invested in on any level. 

   We also looked at a video of three women with makeup on making them look ghostly in white robes making very methodical, stiff movements. I feel that these women almost looked like they were attached to strings like a puppet or raised from the dead in the slowness of their movement. It almost seemed as if they are seeking something or calmly floating along with the pace of the wind. Drooping back and forth in this lazy yet tight movements. Professor Reddick mentioned that they seem as if their living their normal lives in a contemporary fashion. I enjoy this interpretation as it adds a sort of narrative to a piece that I just saw as pointless. 

   The other video we observed was that of a monk walking down a street slowly at the pace of a bell he was ringing. All the while their is a busy flow of traffic as people storm by. I felt as if myself, the consciousness I had sort of sunk away into a trance of observation. It originally felt like I was observing with my physical body but abruptly became an invisible observer inside the scene itself. This reminded me of the concept earlier described in class of "self-emptying."