Sean Lake - Sean Laughead's Spring 2021 Independent Project and Qualifying Process Research
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To Do |
Abstract - Pending
2nd Meeting - 5:00pm, Wednesday, February 23 Proposal - Due Friday, February 25 Active Viewing Videos - Soon! Next Meeting - TBD Showings - TBD Final Submission - Due Friday, April 30 |
Initial Points of Research
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Abstract
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Swan Lake
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The Dying Swan
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Derivative Works
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Music
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(in progress) Abstract
In my second-semester qualifying project, I plan to investigate the notions of "celebrity" imbued-upon and thread-into ballet - specifically using Swan Lake's Odette as a centering element. Utilizing experience in the studio and on stage, I want to breakdown questions revolving around what it means to be a #dancer, what ballet might inherently push in its own form, and the connection between enthusiast and performer. Using the character of Odette (alongside canon counterpart Odile and the tangentially-related Dying Swan), I hope to find and creatively engage with the idolization of the White ballet dancer/Swan. Looking into historical and contemporary studies of the intersections of dance, pop culture, and celebrity, I aim to devise a work that addresses the top-down effects of culture-making, specifically troubling its role in propagating narratives and as an instigator of cultural politics. In this likely video-based work, I will use original music based on Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky and Camille Saint-Saëns's scores that will be performed and composed in collaboration with long-time partner Dr. Andy Thierauf.
The Dying Swan
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1905
Mikhail Fokine, Choreography Camille Saint-Saëns, Music Anna Pavlova, Original Performer |
The Dying Swan
by Alfred Lord Tennyson I. The plain was grassy, wild and bare, Wide, wild, and open to the air, Which had built up everywhere An under-roof of doleful gray. With an inner voice the river ran, Adown it floated a dying swan, And loudly did lament. It was the middle of the day. Ever the weary wind went on, And took the reed-tops as it went. II. Some blue peaks in the distance rose, And white against the cold-white sky, Shone out their crowning snows. One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; Above in the wind was the swallow, Chasing itself at its own wild will, And far thro' the marish green and still The tangled water-courses slept, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. III. The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full and clear; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; As when a mighty people rejoice With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold, And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd Thro' the open gates of the city afar, To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star. And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, And the willow-branches hoar and dank, And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds, And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank, And the silvery marish-flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools among, Were flooded over with eddying song. Source: The Works Of Alfred Lord Tennyson Copyright 1893 London: Macmillan And Co. Toronto: The Copp Clark Co. Limited. from Litscape.com |
Anna and bff Jack
it me.
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Derivative Works (in Cinema)
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Black Swan |
Perfect BlueSatoshi Kon
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Musical Inspiration
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Swan (Odette's) Themeof Swan Lake fame
Tchaikovsky |
The Dying SwanSaint-Saëns
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Dancin' PoodlesKimbo Children's Music
(This track feels silly, but important, especially looking at ballet as a point of entry. It's about poodles, but perhaps poodles are the ornamental equivalent to generic dog breeds (swan::bird)) |
Solo Studies... Videos are (for the most part) not organized yet!
Active Viewings (Improvisations Whilst Watching)
- Swan Lake
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Swan Action
- Interpretive Dancing
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Primping, Pruning, Preening
- Skincare
- Tweezing - Shaving/Trimming - Nails |
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Starlet Reenactment
- Public/Private Space
- Dress-up - Nesting/Chilling - Dying (!) |
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"Anything that's being done right now in the kind of like imminent threat of death, especially as it gets into something that could be optional... is interesting. Because it makes you think, "Well, this is how much they thought about death, and they decided that it was worth the risk. And that in and of itself is a philosophical sort of fascinating thing. So to me, the tradition of ballet - just insisting that they must do this thing, even if some people get sick and die... I'm like, "That seems accurate." So, seeing them in the masks also kind of gives this nod to a sense of pressing on no matter what, and that certainly is a big narrative in ballet."
- Jack Ferver, "Dance and Stuff" Podcast Episode 191, February 12, 2021
- Jack Ferver, "Dance and Stuff" Podcast Episode 191, February 12, 2021
Selected Works Cited (slash.. ones that I'm looking into)
Burt, Ramsay. The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle, Sexualities. Routledge, 2007. Carter, Alexandra, and Janet O'Shea. The Routledge Dance Studies Reader. Routledge, 2010. Cohen, Selma Jeanne. Next Week, Swan Lake: Reflections on Dance and Dances. Wesleyan University Press, 1986. Fairfax, Edmund. The Styles of Eighteenth-Century Ballet. Scarecrow, 2003. Garafola, Lynn. Rethinking the Sylph: New Perspectives on the Romantic Ballet. Wesleyan University, 1997. Homans, Jennifer. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. Granta, 2011. ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF CELEBRITY STUDIES. ROUTLEDGE, 2020. Scholl, Tim. From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernisation of Ballet. Routledge, 2014. Siegel, Marcia B. Mirrors and Scrims The Life and Afterlife of Ballet. Wesleyan University Press, 2010. Stoneley, Peter. A Queer History of Ballet. Routledge, 2007. Volynskiĭ A. L., and Stanley J. Rabinowitz. Ballet's Magic Kingdom: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925. Yale University Press, 2010. Wiley, Roland John. The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov Choreographer of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. Clarendon Press, 1997. |
PDFs on Google Drive |
Further Research and Alternate Trajectories
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Woman as Colored Birds
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The Sylvie Vartan
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Idoldom as Corps de Cygnus
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Traditions of Japonisme
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Women as Colored Birds
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Black Swanobvi
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Red Sparrow |
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Canary Fairykind of sort of a bird
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Bluebird / Princess Florinatechnically not a bird, but if it quacks like a duck...
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Firebird |
Sylvie Vartan
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Cherchez l'idole
"During my fieldwork in Tokyo, a record company employee told me that the creation of idol-pop as a commercial genre in Japan was influenced by a 1963 French movie called Cherchez L’idole, which dramatized a couple’s search for a stolen diamond. In the story, a young man steals a diamond for his girlfriend and places it in an electric guitar as he enters a music shop while running from the police. He and his girlfriend are subsequently drawn into frustrating interactions with clerks and acquaintances as they return to the shop and try to regain the diamond. It turns out that there are five identical guitars, and they are reserved for popular bands. The story takes a complicated turn. This movie featured French pop stars of that time including Silvie Vartan, Charles Aznavour, and Johnny Hallyday, and there are scenes in which these personalities appear on stage and sing their songs. When the movie was released in Japan, its title was translated as Aidoru o sagase, or “In Search of an Idol.” The movie was a hit, and one of the featured teen idols, Silvie Vartan, was invited to Japan and became a celebrity. According to my informant, an employee of a record company that handled the release of Vartan’s song in Japan, this led a producer to create “idol-pop” as a new genre of pop music in Japan." (Aoyagi, 4-5) |
Idols as Corps de Cygnets
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孤独なバレリーナ
SKE48 performs Kodoku na Ballerina (soloist: Akari Suda) |
very superficial, biased, heavy-handed mini-documentary
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Traditions of Japonisme
Sylvie Vartan's Irrésistiblement
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AKB48's Labrador Retriever
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cover by The Eccentric Opera
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cover by Goose house
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