I've been ranting a lot lately. Last week, it was conglomeration of dance mixed with the Puritans, sexuality and dudes that hit on me, because I'm a dancer. The result was this paper I wrote for my Aesthetics and Criticism class. Ta-da:
As a
kid, there was a certain type of sexy thrill I would get when looking through
the dictionary for naughty words. What really happened was I would flip through
the ‘S’ section of the dictionary till I hit the word ‘sex’, and, with pulses
racing, immediately slam the book without actually reading anything. This
was the same story with any anatomy books from my mother’s nursing school days.
I would get right up to the edge of actually understanding the something
about the body, I’d freak out, then I’d feel bad about it for the rest of my 12
year old existence, hoping nobody saw and nobody told my mom. What is it
about the body that makes people flinch when having it right in front of their
faces? This aversion has bled directly into my chosen art form: dance.
After I was more immersed in the world of dance, I was able to forget my
earlier repulsion/fascination of my human-ness, and embrace it through my work
with dance. But to those who aren’t as lucky as
I, the aversion carries on, and the body, sexuality, and dance are lumped
together on the old-timey wanted poster. ‘These things are threatening.
These things are alien. These things are wanted dead or… well, would we
have to touch those things to kill them off? Then no…. just ignore them.’
This is the general view of anything we do not understand.
Why is dance threatening? Dance, to those uninvolved in the art form, is surrounded by a cloak of “What the hell was that?” and peppered generously with stigma. There is a fear that all God-fearing, red-blooded, dyed-in-the-wool-American laymen (or women) have of the body, of dance, and of using the body to dance. This often leads to questions such as “You’re in school for dance? What are you going to do with that?” The question sounds innocent enough, but there behind the question seethes an excess of judgment. Of course after this initial question come the peanut gallery types with more questions/statements: “You’re in school for dance, huh? That sounds… fun”, or (my favorite) “You’re a dancer? Are you… ah… flexible?” Yes, I am a dancer, no I will not immediately have sex with you, just because I’m A. flexible, B. going to school for dance basically is pole dancing for loose change, or C. a ginormous floozy, because you KNOW that dancer’s aren’t smart enough to: get a real degree/understand that your BMW was given to you by your daddy/not end all their sentences like question (I call it valley-girl inflection disease). Plus, you lost your virginity to your high school cheerleader girlfriend… great story, guy. I’ll jump off my soapbox now, but when you think back to all the comments, all the snap judgments, and every single joke and innuendo thrown at you because you are a dancer, you’ll see that this happens, not just because you live on fraternity row, but because of the history behind America’s view of the body, sexuality, and dance.
I have a pet theory that I often pull out at social gatherings and perform party tricks with, which I use to explain the short sightedness of Americans in regards to art and, most specifically, dance. Ah, the noble and brave Puritans (I love their buckled shoes and ability to communicate with Squanto about how to best plant corn. No wait, that was the Pilgrims. Now my ancestors from the Mayflower are rolling in their graves.) These severe and austere people founded this country as a way to escape religious persecution. President Howard Taft best expressed the dark side of this noble grasp at freedom when he stated, “The Puritans came to this country to establish freedom of their religion, not the freedom of anybody else's religion." The Puritans were a modest and hardworking people, who hated everything fun, especially anything that had to do with body that wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible. The founder of Puritan ethics, John Calvin, prohibited a great many very frivolous and very fun amusements such as smiling and laughing (am I exaggerating? Yes and no. According to some stories I fell upon in my research a man was imprisoned for smiling during a baptism), and first among them was dancing. Sex researcher Aileen Goodson, Ph.D, stated that the Puritans were a religion that “considered the human body as inherently impure and depraved” and that they "had neither the time nor the inclination for frivolity. Their body guilt and shame became the law of the land, and this law was even more extreme in the United States than overseas." Galatians 5:21 says “those engaging in "revel-lings" shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Apparently, these people took themselves very seriously. Any slip into frivolity was a step away from God. George H. Smith specified: "Throughout its history, Christianity has been steadfastly not only anti-pleasure but pro-suffering… The puritan era was simply an extreme manifestation of what amounts to a deep-seated suspicion of pleasure of any sort. While sexual pleasures were the chief source of condemnation, the pleasure inhibition in Christianity was generalized to relate to many other areas."
The American spirit and mindset is rooted in the Puritan ideals and ethics. Yes, being American means we are a hard working, independent and egalitarian, but it also means that we are scared to death of the body and it’s capabilities. The body has had to overcome a great deal to be loved, and as far as I can see, we still have a far way to go. There is no separating ourselves from our bodies, no living as a brain in a glass jar on a shelf. Because it is it imperfect, and because it is natural and unconquered, we continue to loathe the ‘natural man’. Dance as an art form is also natural and unconquered, but most of all misunderstood, thus loathed because we don’t understand it perfectly. Maybe it’s not simply loathed, but it is misunderstood, even looked down on: “You’re a dance major? Oh, what are you going to do with that?” We don’t understand dance because we haven’t yet had time enough away from the roots of our Puritan ancestry to spend time loving it, seeing it, or experiencing it. And so the dance continues to loom in the dark, threatening passersby. I for one am all about getting it more out into the sunshine for some fresh air. After that, let’s flip through the dictionary, see those naughty words, and stop flinching. No one is going to tell your mom.
Why is dance threatening? Dance, to those uninvolved in the art form, is surrounded by a cloak of “What the hell was that?” and peppered generously with stigma. There is a fear that all God-fearing, red-blooded, dyed-in-the-wool-American laymen (or women) have of the body, of dance, and of using the body to dance. This often leads to questions such as “You’re in school for dance? What are you going to do with that?” The question sounds innocent enough, but there behind the question seethes an excess of judgment. Of course after this initial question come the peanut gallery types with more questions/statements: “You’re in school for dance, huh? That sounds… fun”, or (my favorite) “You’re a dancer? Are you… ah… flexible?” Yes, I am a dancer, no I will not immediately have sex with you, just because I’m A. flexible, B. going to school for dance basically is pole dancing for loose change, or C. a ginormous floozy, because you KNOW that dancer’s aren’t smart enough to: get a real degree/understand that your BMW was given to you by your daddy/not end all their sentences like question (I call it valley-girl inflection disease). Plus, you lost your virginity to your high school cheerleader girlfriend… great story, guy. I’ll jump off my soapbox now, but when you think back to all the comments, all the snap judgments, and every single joke and innuendo thrown at you because you are a dancer, you’ll see that this happens, not just because you live on fraternity row, but because of the history behind America’s view of the body, sexuality, and dance.
I have a pet theory that I often pull out at social gatherings and perform party tricks with, which I use to explain the short sightedness of Americans in regards to art and, most specifically, dance. Ah, the noble and brave Puritans (I love their buckled shoes and ability to communicate with Squanto about how to best plant corn. No wait, that was the Pilgrims. Now my ancestors from the Mayflower are rolling in their graves.) These severe and austere people founded this country as a way to escape religious persecution. President Howard Taft best expressed the dark side of this noble grasp at freedom when he stated, “The Puritans came to this country to establish freedom of their religion, not the freedom of anybody else's religion." The Puritans were a modest and hardworking people, who hated everything fun, especially anything that had to do with body that wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible. The founder of Puritan ethics, John Calvin, prohibited a great many very frivolous and very fun amusements such as smiling and laughing (am I exaggerating? Yes and no. According to some stories I fell upon in my research a man was imprisoned for smiling during a baptism), and first among them was dancing. Sex researcher Aileen Goodson, Ph.D, stated that the Puritans were a religion that “considered the human body as inherently impure and depraved” and that they "had neither the time nor the inclination for frivolity. Their body guilt and shame became the law of the land, and this law was even more extreme in the United States than overseas." Galatians 5:21 says “those engaging in "revel-lings" shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Apparently, these people took themselves very seriously. Any slip into frivolity was a step away from God. George H. Smith specified: "Throughout its history, Christianity has been steadfastly not only anti-pleasure but pro-suffering… The puritan era was simply an extreme manifestation of what amounts to a deep-seated suspicion of pleasure of any sort. While sexual pleasures were the chief source of condemnation, the pleasure inhibition in Christianity was generalized to relate to many other areas."
The American spirit and mindset is rooted in the Puritan ideals and ethics. Yes, being American means we are a hard working, independent and egalitarian, but it also means that we are scared to death of the body and it’s capabilities. The body has had to overcome a great deal to be loved, and as far as I can see, we still have a far way to go. There is no separating ourselves from our bodies, no living as a brain in a glass jar on a shelf. Because it is it imperfect, and because it is natural and unconquered, we continue to loathe the ‘natural man’. Dance as an art form is also natural and unconquered, but most of all misunderstood, thus loathed because we don’t understand it perfectly. Maybe it’s not simply loathed, but it is misunderstood, even looked down on: “You’re a dance major? Oh, what are you going to do with that?” We don’t understand dance because we haven’t yet had time enough away from the roots of our Puritan ancestry to spend time loving it, seeing it, or experiencing it. And so the dance continues to loom in the dark, threatening passersby. I for one am all about getting it more out into the sunshine for some fresh air. After that, let’s flip through the dictionary, see those naughty words, and stop flinching. No one is going to tell your mom.
(P.S. I sourced my historical info and quotes from this Humanism Site, by Joseph C. Sommer.)
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