It’s amazing how much resistance one can meet when breaking the rules in art. Even when the rules were made up a few centuries ago and were broken the same day they were established. Even if art is one of those fragile subjective areas where strict rules don’t bring anything good but build grey walls and hold back inspiration. Whenever someone mentions the word “artist” do you right away think of a tight-assed corporate employee wearing a suit and driving a…whatever-the-hell-these-guys-drive…? Hmm, I don’t think so. I rather imagine a man with a straw hat and lots of brushes in his hand, strolling through the fields in search for the perfect sun flower. You certainly recognized Mister Vincent Van Gogh. I might also think of the amazing Romanian tzambal (the Persian santur) player, Marius Mihalache and many actors, theatre and film makers but I’m not going there because that’s not what this post is about.
In Greek mythology, the nine muses are the ones who inspire the artists. However, I think the Greek gals should be changed from time to time since they hold their muse chairs for too long and they’re sort of…outdated. And I happen to also know who should get their place on Mount Olympus! I’m thinking, of course, of Rachel Brice and her Indigo crew! Whenever I see a video of these girls dancing I stop worrying about cancer, about the additives in food, about money and jobs and school and money again, about globalization and my identity crisis, about pollution, the technology and the distance that stole away our lives along with our ability to communicate. I start to love what’s happening with my life, with our lives, the good, easy stuff, but also the hardships because that’s what gives layers to life.
The way the Indigo girls dance – it’s all layered – Egyptian, cabaret, Syrian, Lebanese belly dancing, Persian, Indian, banjara, Flamenco, gipsy style, sometimes even hip hop, all sustained by yoga, Pilates and a lot of enthusiasm and good taste. Then all these new age mottos come to my mind:“love your body”, “always be open to change” blahblah.
I was complaining one day to a close friend of not being able to stick to something, a profession, for the rest of my life. She answered back, nonchalantly, that one should keep changing things, that we should have a whole rainbow of areas of interest at hand other than getting stuck doing one thing, like maniacs. Maniacs! That’s what we’ve become! What does specialization do for us? We are doctors in one area, but complete idiots in others.
Back to Tribal Fusion though, I get very upset when I hear such rash, uneducated judgments like “belly dancing is something degrading that belongs in the harem”, or “belly dancing is just performed for the pleasure of men”. Really? I thought that belly dancing, just like all the other dance forms and like all the art forms for that matter, are a form of expression, a way of getting closer to yourself. And what about that old Aristotelian “catharsis”, the ecstatic feeling that one reaches by watching art or by being involved in the making of it and that purifies and revitalizes the whole being? Is the owner of the harem the only one who can experience this “catharsis”? And if that was the general mentality at some point, in some remote city of the desert, should that still be the case now? Obviously not. But why do we still hear this kind of thinking? When will this hatred for the body end? Oh, Nietzsche, you would have really loved the Indigo girls…
“The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd. (…) I want to speak to the despisers of the body. It is their respect that begets their contempt. What is it that created respect and contempt and worth and will? The creative self created respect and contempt; it created pleasure and pain. The creative body created the spirit as a hand for its will. Even in your folly and contempt, you despisers of the body, you serve yourself. I say unto you: your self itself wants to die and turns away from life. It is no longer capable of what it would do above all else: to create beyond itself. That is what it would do above all else, that is its fervent wish.
But now it is too late for it to do this. (…)And that is why you are angry with life and the earth. An unconscious envy speaks out of the squint-eyed glance of your contempt.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things. – Van Gogh
that’s debatable. for example – if one understands well the art of killing insects during hot summers in Honduras that person can very well be ignorant of all other arts. that was my argument – specialization doesn’t necessarily bring maturity.
That’s a good point! But why not? To be specific, its a loose translation and can be interrupted in many ways. “If one is master of one thing”… I can’t say for sure what he means by “a thing”. A thing could very well be squashing bugs. Perhaps this thing he speaks of has more to do with a connection to the human spirit and mother nature. For example, an artist, a sheppard, or a blacksmith. Hitting bugs, or hitting metal. Simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean ignorance.
We weren’t talking of simplicity. This is pretty much my opinion on the matter as well. Specialization, however, is something else, especially given the connotation this term takes in contemporary times.
As with regards to Van Gogh’s “thing”, i don’t quite believe that he thought in terms of “mother earth” and “human spirit”. These expressions are given the meaning we’re used to by the new age movement which is fairly recent (post hippie kinda stuff). Most probably he is reffering to his own profession, painting (if we can even call it a profession for Van Gogh…”hobbie” is more like it since he didn’t really earn a living from it). Now, even if we are to consider this, the statement is still general and superficial. Given Van Gogh’s life, it’s not likely that he had a universal understanding of things. I like the guy’s work but he’s not someone I wish to emulate as a human.
Hi. Just passing by, and I wanted to say this is a very nice post. I couldn’t agree more regarding your comments about specialization. To me, the most essential passage on this topic comes from Marx and Engels’ The German Ideology, where Marx dreams of the society that “makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.” (And by the way, since I know this reference is controversial to some people, let me say I’m not trying to push communism here (or any political perspective), but when it comes to discussion of specialization – and what’s wrong with it – I think this is an important work.)
Regarding Rachel Brice… Yeah, she rocks!
And regarding the comment that “belly dancing is just performed for the pleasure of men”… Because I’ve been doing a blog in which I post and talk about a lot of dancing in which I also find the women pleasurable to watch, I’ve asked myself if I’m really watching for the aesthetic appreciation or just because I’m being a “dirty middle-aged man,” and the answer that always occurs to me is, why must one kind of enjoyment be exclusive of the other, and why must one kind discount the other?
And our society has funny attitudes about men who like to watch women dancing… Because, while it’s understood that men who like to watch women will be “pleased” by women’s dancing in a way that is supposed to discount the artistic value of the dancing, if a man really likes dancing for aesthetic reasons, people wonder if he’s gay. (And that kind of unfairly limits heterosexual men!)
Anyway, I’ve got to say, I enjoy many forms of dance, honestly, for both reasons.
Regarding Rachel Brice, I don’t really find her that attractive as a woman. I’m dazzled by the beauty of, say, some of my favorite bharatanatyam dancers, like Shobana or the late, great Padmini (back in the ’50s and ’60s). In belly dancing, I think Fifi Abdou is kind of sexy (though a lot of people consider her a bit overweight). Rachel Brice doesn’t really “do it” for me so much on that level, but I am amazed at the way she moves, and I think she is fascinating to watch. And she obviously has great taste in contemporary music too.
Thanks for the great comment!
I didn’t plunge into Marxism yet. Having immigrated from a country that belonged to the communist block not so long ago, I am a bit skeptical of the philosophy that gave birth to some great atrocities. I do realize, however, that this is just the way I conditioned myself to think about it and that Marxism itself didn’t torture people in prisons and didn’t make them prisoners in their own country. So I am looking forward to studying it.
About specialization – a friend pointed out the other day that my post about perfectionism seems to contradict what I wrote on specialization (or rather against it). Actually it doesn’t. I never wrote – or thought – that we can’t seek to be very good when doing the things that we do. My reaction was caused by the North American style of living. I am sick of drawing this parallel all the time, but I do have to say that in Europe there isn’t such a great number of people who are doctors in one field but complete imbeciles in all others.
I am convinced (and every day I live is shaped by this conviction) that we can (and should) do a million things (at once, if you like) if we are truly interested in all of them. There are 24 hours in a day and we only need to sleep for around 6-7. There is time for everything.
I was reading recently a book by an Islamic philosopher (Muhammad al-Farabi) who was commenting on the fact that by doing things without having a real calling for them we are taking away the position that someone else who is really interested in that domain could occupy. Therefore we end up messing the natural order of things and we become very unhappy.
Anyway, the argument was based on the fact that our role is predetermined by God so messing with our own natural inclinations also means that we are messing with God’s will. Which is not that strong of an argument…
Intuition, though, tells me that there is some truth in the abovesaid.
About bellydancing and the poor all-too-human guys who watch it for pleasure (sensual, aesthetic, whatever). I think it’s all fine. What I was reacting against was something else which I think can be best described by a deontological concept. I don’t think it’s ok to treat someone are “mere means”. I don’t think the dancer should be there in order to JUST procure the viewer some kind of pleasure. When people say that “belly dancing is for the pleasure of men” they usually mean that 1. the girls who are dancing are kinda forced to do it (by circumstances in their life or in the society) and 2. the guys who are watching don’t see the dancers as “ends in themselves” anymore, they just wait to receive the gratification (pleasure) treating them thus as objects.
North Americans are sooo confused when it comes to heterosexual men, gay men or whatever, it’s quite funny to watch. I think the general mistake is that they really try so hard to laber stuff. And once they found the right label there’s no way they’ll ever take it off! Who cares if someone’s gay or straight anyway?