Pre Lecture Response
Yassmin’s take on movement and dance, primarily created by black people, describes it as an ‘intangible cultural heritage’. As I attempt to interpret this phrase, it seems as if her views lie in the inability to fully connect with movement as an art form due to a lack of discourse between the audience and the artist regarding its connoted historical roots.
Her Dance Documentation – ‘Labanotation of popping’ expands on this by referencing how the body can act as an instrument across cultures, through performance, and how the resulting dance has the ability to ‘represent a different culture than the one it is performing’. Her idea that this blurred recognition caused by our generation’s mash up of genres and creative heritage brings about implications of misrepresentation and a resulting loss of merit. She describes this obscurity as ‘bodies out of place’.
Cultural misuse and appropriation of ethnic minorities via their art-forms have been rife since before I can remember. Historically, to the best of my knowledge, music has constantly been diluted by corporations in order to turn a misguided idea of taboo, grounded in institutional racism, into a form deemed more representative for consumption. A particular example of this would be Motown and other forms of black music throughout the 20th century. Instead of being given an equal platform to that of their white counterparts, they were forced to sign their financial souls away to greedy white agents and labels. In context to Yassmin’s work however, this digression is my attempt to draw similarities between the erosion and theft of core elements of black music, camouflaged in pop music, to the inference she makes to the cultural invalidity of dance.
While I agree with her notion of cultural alienation, I can’t help but think that in today’s society the cross blending of culture has given rise to brilliant niche genres and some of the most interesting takes on art, dance and music. By addressing these issues would it limit our ability to fuse various artforms, thus inhibiting its inevitable evolution? Or is there a more graceful way in which these implications can be tackled, amalgamating genres whilst paying enough homage to satisfy centuries of racial inequality? I’m still not entirely sure I have correctly grasped her views however.
Post Lecture Response
Through the lens of Yassmin’s research, listening (as a bodily absorption of music) and the ways in which we categorise, remember and react to it is a matter of subjectivity. A personal response that differs with each individual. I strongly agree with this view. Its truth is impossible to deny when one considers the multitude of constituents that make up a human being. Influences, upbringing and intimate experiences that bestow us with varying personalities, opinions and tastes. This basis of opinion has enlightened my understanding of her work/ research that I was struggling to gauge beforehand. The apparent dislocation of cultural heritage can be largely down to the knowledge of an audience, as their limited comprehension of where certain music or dance has come from has the ability to affect their reaction to it.
Growing up in an environment heavily revolved around sound systems, Yassmin was exposed to the notion of inclusivity within music from an early age, further emphasising the power and influence community has on art (A thought that Jessica Ekomane, a previous practitioner, also touched on). These cultural experiences shaped the way in which she approached and consumed music and dance, in the same way our own experiences have shaped ours.
Much like a marching band, there is something powerful to the synchronicity in sound and movement that can captivate us in a single moment. If we relate this to any other context in which people have gathered to move with one another, we can bridge the gap between music, dance and its affect on social structures.
Her involvement in the LEGS 11 SOUND-SYSTEM demonstrates a pocket of culture where this is evident; born from the desire of people of African and Caribbean descent to create a safe space to engage and grow in without the stereotype of the media or other forms of propaganda. The British landscape throughout the 20th century was unwelcoming for black people. Sound System culture gave them an outlet to speak politically, dress how they wanted, share in their joys and woes and to move freely in the company of familiar faces, uninhibited by the constant reminder of their assumed inferiority to the white man. A place where they could relate to one another about their daily fight. While these safe spaces can start in the home, in many cases home can be a hostile environment, reinforcing the cruciality of safety in social spaces (e.g. community centres, church halls).
Her discourse has shown me that historical context can allow us to respond to art in a more appropriate way. The knowledge base of an audience can affect how they’ll react to the music. Yet an individuals inhibitions can limit the ways in which one decodes music in their unconscious or conscious response.
I realise now that it is not the cultural blending of art that she refers to, but how the understanding of cultural context can help artists and consumers alike feel more satisfied and connected to one another, whilst also bringing issues of social and racial disparity to the fore.
Reference list
FOSTER, Y. (2021). DANCE DOCUMENTATION – THE LABANOTATION OF POPPING. [online] Blackartistsmodernism.co.uk. Available at: http://www.blackartistsmodernism.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/05-Yassmin-V-Foster.jpg.
Stuart Hall Foundation. (n.d.). Yassmin V. Foster. [online] Available at: http://stuarthallfoundation.org/what-we-do/fellowships-and-scholarships/yassmin-v.-foster/ [Accessed 16 Jan. 2021].