Dance is an art. Every art form needs an inspiration to make it beautiful; without inspiration or meaning, there is nothing but a blank canvas. To some, a dancer is beautiful by virtue of her technique and experience. To me, it is the emotion and story behind her dancing. The challenge however, is honoring that muse while dancing, and not getting caught up in the chaos of the dance world. This happened to me; I lost my muse. Thankfully, I rediscovered it in a very stirring and poetic way.

I put my bags down on the floor that Saturday morning, expecting my regular class. I’d start off with some pliées, tendus and ab workouts, followed by choreography. But this class was different. We had a substitute teacher who took an unusual approach to class. She had us spread out across the room. Then she turned off all the lights and gave us one instruction: “As soon as the music starts,” she said, “just dance, dance like no one is watching, and dance for someone, dance and remember why you started dancing.” As soon as I began dancing, the power of the exercise overwhelmed me. I let the music and movements take control. Suddenly, I felt transported, and soon after, I began to cry. It was such a beautiful moment, nobody could see you, no judgment, just yourself and your movements. I was transported. I did not understand why I cried in the middle of a warm-up. Then it hit me. I wept for Safta.

My Safta, my grandmother, is my biggest inspiration when I dance. Dance has always been the window to my relationship with her. This began roughly 10 years ago when she was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease that causes the body to deteriorate from the inside out. Everyday we take for granted what we are able to do. When Safta fell ill, she was not able to dance anymore, and I began to dance for her. I never realized what I was missing from my dance, or how much I was missing until that exercise. I had gotten so caught up in the chaos of everything and forgot the sole purpose to why I dance. Without that day, without that teacher I would still be lost and I could not be more thankful for her. Dancing in her honor makes me feel free. Without her, my dancing would have no story to tell.

When I dance I feel her presence. The flowing music and the seamless movements feel like a warm embrace from my Safta. Feeling her there gives me strength and courage. When I stumble over tough choreography, I think of her. This calms me down and allows me to work through the moves. I feel, and hope, I am making her proud: she is watching me and is elated to see me dance. This empowers and liberates my dancing. Her presence pulls me back from distraction and helps me regain my focus and drive. She loved dance just as much as I do, and I honor her when I dance.

Dancing in the darkness that morning brought tears for one reason. I did not cry because she was gone; I cried because she was there, with me, in the dark, while I did something I love more than anything in honor of someone I love more than anyone.

 

 

 

This I believe Ideas:

1. Write/talk about my grandma, who has always been my biggest inspiration when it comes to dance. I will retell the story of a time in one of my dance classes where I was reminded of my inspiration in a shocking way.

Passion Blog:

1. Food blog, talk about good food or things I have tried around campus, things to stay away from or ways to make new foods with simple things like making a sandwich on a waffle instead of bread.

2. Trip blog–> a blog dedicated to talking about and telling stories from my past year living and traveling through poland, Prague and Israel, with lots of pictures!

Civic issues blog:

1. I think I would want to do blog posts about education and the current educational systems of today and whether or not they are actually helping kids. I’ll talk about how the education system is geared towards one type of student, not all students fit into the cookie cutter educational system. I’ll talk about how technology is being put into the system for younger and younger students and whether or not that is helping or hindering their education. ect.

2. I will talk about sexuality and marriage equality. all of the more rights people are getting and rallies, demonstrations and public figures who are the faces of these issues.

 

This experience was both fun and terrifying. It was interesting to do research on different TED talks and work up different ideas until eventually I got to my desired topic. It was fun to then talk to my sister and my dad about helping me with my talk. Different directions to go in and so on. But then once I had it written and a slide show made, it hit me that oh my god, I am going to actually have to give this talk. Thats when the nerves kicked in. Once I got passed all that, I actually enjoyed the talk and enjoyed spreading my ideas to the whole class.

Paradigm shift essay

– My main shift is the conflict and shift behind the idea of tattooed Jews. Many older, more religious Jews believe that it is absolutely forbidden and outragious for a Jewish person to get a tattoo, when on the other hand, the younger, more modern Jews are getting more and more tattoos. Some jews find that it makes them feel closer to “God”, creates a connection between them and Judaism or do it for someone.  The intro will focus on talking about the divide between the two generations.

– This will go into discussion of the Torah, and how Judaism is taught when it comes to tattoos. From the commandments to the (possible) myth that if you get a tattoo as a Jew, you will not be allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

-Then I will talk about my personal experience with this situation.

(MY grandpa, or Saba in Hebrew, which is what we call him, Is a pretty religious Jew. He has a huge involvement in Israel and the Jewish community all of the US and Israel. He is extremely religious and observant when it comes to specific customs and rituals, especially the debate of getting a tattoo. In Jewish tradition, Jews are not supposed to get tattoos. There are myths that if you get one, you are not allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery with the rest of your family. In some peoples mind, they also bring up the ideas of the Holocaust, where we were forced to be inked against our will. His wife, my Safta, died 4 years ago. It was the most devastating thing that had ever happened to my family, and especially him. She had battled Progressive Supernuclear Palsy for 10 years and this took an extreme toll on him. Every friday night at dinner, he would read her the prayer, Aishet Chayil, or “A Woman of Valor” he would always end it with the last line, “many women have done valiantly, but you excel them all. And as I always say, those words are never good enough for my Debbie.” When she died, he had this prayer written on her headstone in Hebrew. About a year and a half ago, my sister and I started discussing getting tattoos. We both wanted to get a Hamsa, a middle eastern sign of protection, and a quote from Aishet Chayil, in honor of my safta. My sister went first. She got the line “She’s clothed in strength and dignety, and faces the future cheerfully”, or in Hebrew, עֹז וְהָדָר לְבוּשָׁהּ, וַתִּשְׂחַק לְיוֹם אַחֲרוֹן. When my Saba first saw the Hamsa, he called my sister damaged goods. Once he saw the second one, the quote from his poem, he got pale and asked what it was. My sister explained the whole thing to him, and How it was for our Safta, his wife, and he burst into tears, hugged her and said thank you. Now my Saba has a different outlook on tattoos  because of her, and I now have permission from him to get mine )

-The story will lead into the shift–> embodying a larger shift away from rigid religious doctrines and toward a different relationship to those doctrines. It will discuss how the younger generations of Jews are actually helping to persuade the older generations that tattoos are not all that bad. (NY times article). There are so many Jews that use tattoos as a form of spiritual connection to their family, their past, the Holocaust, and many other Jewish connections that they may not be able to represent through prayer or other traditional, observant methods.

– Talk about how people see it as good and bad because of the Holocaust, because the Jews were tattooed against their will. However, a lot of Jews see tattoos today as a sign of pride. A sign showing I am free and I chose to do this, I chose to tattoo myself as a sign of remembrance and a sing that I am strong and I am connecting myself to my ancestors or to a spiritual something that makes me stronger. Choosing to be marked vs. being forced to be marked by someone else.

– Bring the two ideas together by discussion how it is a never ending debate whether or not tattoos are still considered taboo, but more and more people are shifting over to the idea that they are not all that bad.

– “Jewish people don’t get tattoos” -Tattoo Jew documentary

-Old testament- you shall not mark yourself

 

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/fashion/17SKIN.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/short-takes/tattoo-stil-taboo

http://www.tattoojewmovie.com/

 

TED talk:

Spiritual vs. Religion

Talk will focus on the pressure put on by family, school and world to be religious. I want to talk about what does it mean to be Jewish? What does it mean to be Christian or Buddhist? How do people define religion. I want to talk about the connection between religion and self-transcendence. As someone who was raised in religion and went to religious private school for 13 years, how did that shape me to become more of a “Jew” or less of one? I want to discuss the connection of religion as an idea, rather than a defining factor. How it can act as a guideline for each individual to follow, but input their own spiritual meaning to each aspect.

sources:

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

 

Sex Sells?

 

Everybody knows that in the world today sex sells. Even if people do not what to admit it, it is true. This can be done in very classy and tasteful ways, which is when the most success comes out of this slightly crude campaign genre. However, at other times, people take this campaign genre too literally; in this case Burger King in Singapore. They put sex on the forefront of this ad, and just as expected, it did not get such positive reactions.

This ad on the surface is clearly selling to young men. It has the profile of an attractive woman with her mouth open, as the “7-incher” comes towards her mouth. It has giant letters telling the men that it will “blow your mind away”. They are creating a very phallic, yet persuasive argument to buy this sandwich.  However, if you look more into the ad, you realize it is split in half. Under the large text there is a dividing line, and under that line is where the ad starts to cater more towards woman. The small text is using many potentially sexual words that are describing the act of eating the sandwich. It is describing how you can fill all of your desires by eating the 7-inches. This part does not cater to men because men would go straight to the visual of the woman with the giant sandwich coming towards her mouth. That image does not appeal to woman because, according to this ad, they would be the ones performing this function. That is why the lower half of the advertisement is directed at women. Not only does it have a full detailed description of the act and experience of eating this 7-incher, but it also provides a full image of what the product at hand is.

The pathos that is used in this artifact is clear. They are blatantly trying to get sex to sell.  The creators were attempting to create a common ground and common identity between this food industry, and their main consumers; the young to mid adults of today’s world. It is kind of sad to believe that our world has come to a point that we need phallic implications in order to sell products. In reality, all the creators of this advertisement were trying to do was engage and play with the audience’s emotions. They knew that if they created sexual innuendos and imagery, they would immediately make a connection with young adults who are in need of a 7-inch sandwich. This automatically creates a sense of passion, lust affection and well hunger in the minds of every individual who lays their eyes on the ad, and in some cases even anger.

There is always that small group of individuals who see right through the inappropriate aspects of the artifact and just get angry at how companies think this is the only way to get a point across. The people, who would not necessarily be grabbed by the sex sells approach, would appeal to the bottom corner of the ad. There it states the price, and how inexpensive it is, and how you can make it into a meal for a very low cost. Overall the logos here of the internal consistency of the message and argument are good. It is very clear what the writers were trying to do here and I believe that they accomplished exactly that. They wanted to cater to both gender parties in a way that would sell the product and remain sexy and phallic.

A tool that the craters used extremely well for this ad was the execution when it came to the fonts and colors. All of the main colors of this ad are very dull and mutes; various shades of browns and yellows. However, there is an ombréd effect in the center of the ad. The outside is black going into deep brown, and the colors hit their lightest point, in a dark-to-light faded circle fashion, right around where the female’s mouth is and the tip of the sandwich. This was so the eyes of the viewers would immediately go towards her mouth and so everyone, potentially, would understand exactly what image they were trying to portray. Right in the center of the light circle, is the woman’s mouth. They have portrayed her with bright red lipstick so, as if there already was not enough attention, now there is even more attention on her mouth; which really is the main focal point of this ad. Then, where the divide is for the “woman viewer” it is a think bright mustard-yellow rectangle, which is where the text is held. This automatically draws the attention of the eye because it is such a contrasting color compared to the background. And the main attention grabber of this advertisement is the word “ BLOW” giant and white written front and center of this ad, as if the imagery was not enough to already get the point across.

If this ad were to come out around 40 years ago, it would be shunned. It would immediately be taken down everywhere and every single person would be appalled. Why you might ask? Simply because the past had a sense of dignity and modesty. Activities such as what this ad is portraying, used to be seen as taboo to discuss in public. They were kept secret between two people, who shared a strong emotional connection and were not discussed to the general public. It was a much simpler, and cleaner world to live in.  The modern world today is extremely focused on centering everything on sex, and portraying it as many times as that can and in as many forms as possible, until they are completely pushing the boundaries.  The day this ad campaign came out was truly the day that subtlety died. It is honestly shocking to think about how much our filter bar and what is “appropriate” for the public has lowered exponentially as time goes on. Looking up Burger King ads from the 1950s, they show loving families, mostly of color but that is a whole different can of worms, sitting around tables, eating together. That’s all. There are no sexual innuendos, nothing that shocks the viewer and nothing that will honestly turn the consumer away.

The only thing, and I mean only thing, which makes the ad a little less offensive is that it did not come out in the US. This was an ad made by the Singapore branch of Burger King in hopes to create a more popular image of Burger King over there. However, just as the creators feared, it made its way over to the US, although the ad never actually ran here, it exploded and went viral very quickly.

According to an article on Entertainment Weekly, “Something long, juicy”? “Yearn for more”? “Mind-blowing”? I think it’s all rather glorious, in an I-love-trash kind of way. Who ever cared about cunning, cleverness, and nuance anyway? Blow your mind (and this Super Seven Incher) instead!” One thing that is most fascinating about this is that it did not get nearly as much hate and negative attention in Singapore as it did here in the US. What is it about the American culture that we can have ads, such like this one, that leave nothing to the imagination and put sex immediately on the forefront, but the immediately put such strong hate and negative energy towards it.

 

Talia Weiss

RCL

Haley

Sex Sells?

 

Everybody knows that in the world today sex sells. Even if people do not what to admit it, it is true. This can be done in very classy and tasteful ways, which is when the most success comes out of this slightly crude campaign genre. However, at other times, people take this campaign genre too literally; in this case Burger King in Singapore. They put sex on the forefront of this ad, and just as expected, it did not get such positive reactions.

This ad on the surface is clearly selling to young men. It has the profile of an attractive woman with her mouth open, as the “7-incher” comes towards her mouth. It has giant letters telling the men that it will “blow your mind away”. They are creating a very phallic, yet persuasive argument to buy this sandwich.  However, if you look more into the ad, you realize it is split in half. Under the large text there is a dividing line, and under that line is where the ad starts to cater more towards woman. The small text is using many potentially sexual words that are describing the act of eating the sandwich. It is describing how you can fill all of your desires by eating the 7-inches. This part does not cater to men because men would go straight to the visual of the woman with the giant sandwich coming towards her mouth. That image does not appeal to woman because, according to this ad, they would be the ones performing this function. That is why the lower half of the advertisement is directed at women. Not only does it have a full detailed description of the act and experience of eating this 7-incher, but it also provides a full image of what the product at hand is.

The pathos that is used in this artifact is clear. They are blatantly trying to get sex to sell.  The creators were attempting to create a common ground and common identity between this food industry, and their main consumers; the young to mid adults of today’s world. It is kind of sad to believe that our world has come to a point that we need phallic implications in order to sell products. In reality, all the creators of this advertisement were trying to do was engage and play with the audience’s emotions. They knew that if they created sexual innuendos and imagery, they would immediately make a connection with young adults who are in need of a 7-inch sandwich. This automatically creates a sense of passion, lust affection and well hunger in the minds of every individual who lays their eyes on the ad, and in some cases even anger.

There is always that small group of individuals who see right through the inappropriate aspects of the artifact and just get angry at how companies think this is the only way to get a point across. The people, who would not necessarily be grabbed by the sex sells approach, would appeal to the bottom corner of the ad. There it states the price, and how inexpensive it is, and how you can make it into a meal for a very low cost. Overall the logos here of the internal consistency of the message and argument are good. It is very clear what the writers were trying to do here and I believe that they accomplished exactly that. They wanted to cater to both gender parties in a way that would sell the product and remain sexy and phallic.

A tool that the craters used extremely well for this ad was the execution when it came to the fonts and colors. All of the main colors of this ad are very dull and mutes; various shades of browns and yellows. However, there is an ombréd effect in the center of the ad. The outside is black going into deep brown, and the colors hit their lightest point, in a dark-to-light faded circle fashion, right around where the female’s mouth is and the tip of the sandwich. This was so the eyes of the viewers would immediately go towards her mouth and so everyone, potentially, would understand exactly what image they were trying to portray. Right in the center of the light circle, is the woman’s mouth. They have portrayed her with bright red lipstick so, as if there already was not enough attention, now there is even more attention on her mouth; which really is the main focal point of this ad. Then, where the divide is for the “woman viewer” it is a think bright mustard-yellow rectangle, which is where the text is held. This automatically draws the attention of the eye because it is such a contrasting color compared to the background. And the main attention grabber of this advertisement is the word “ BLOW” giant and white written front and center of this ad, as if the imagery was not enough to already get the point across.

 

(3 pages on word double spaced)

4^th page outline:

next paragraph:

–       Social/historical context- modern times are focused on sex and portraying it as many times as they can, pushing the boundaries

–       How this would be seen in the eyes of ancestors, what if this ad came out 40 years ago? It would be shuned

–       How our filter has been lowerd so much as time goes on

–       Proper and modest to this

 

Next paragraph

–       where does this piece appear?

–       àHow does the world describe this piece

–       how reactions differà where this ad originated to the hate and attention it got here

 

I had seen this post a long time ago on Tumblr, and it always struck me as facinating. Is this really what bathing suit ads used to be like? If this was the mindset back then, why has it changed so much today? Why is the world today making such a big deal to slim down because that is seen as “beautiful” when before, being curvy and not showing your bones through your skin was seen as “beautiful”. I would analyze this image along side many ads and campaigns today such as this one

And also look into “WATE-ON” a campaign and company, “True beauty includes a full figure”, from the 40s,-60s and how the image has completely changed today.

 

This blogging week, I scrolled through the long list of blogs tagged with “passion” to find new ones that I could follow. Although I could not figure out where the actual follow button is… I am now a firm believer and follower in three new blogs. To no surprise as a dancer and a musician, I found myself drawn to three blogs that all had something to do with music this week.

The first blog is from our section’s very own Dylan. Dylan does a awesome job with his pop-culture song reviews I a do get a kick out of reading them. I find myself really connecting to the posts, which I have not seen so often. I love how he dissects each layer and unfolds every hidden element of the songs that are “popular” today. It is also very cool to see someone else’s perspective on some of the music that I too listen to. Keep up the great work Dylan!

 

The second blog is the blog belonging to James, just James (well that is all the information I know about him). James has an amazing blog that reaches out to the hip-hop and rap community, which I absolutely love to read about because this is the type of music (besides for my beloved Bob Marley) that I find myself listening to the most.  One post in particular that I found myself extremely drawn to was his second blog post  where he discusses Kendrick Lamar and his album, and what he is done. Kendrick Lamar is one of my favorite rappers today and I really found what James was writing about to be very interesting. I very much look forward to continuing my reading every week from this blog.

 

The final blog that I have stumbled upon is the blog belonging to Dan, and his “quest for zest in music culture.” In his most recent post he discusses the idea of silence as music. This post really made me interested and focused on what he was writing about. It caused me to start listening to my music verse silence and seeing if I had the same reaction to both. Could i define music as silence? Or silence as music? Besides Dan creating a personal dilemma within myself, he created a really great post and many other great ones before. He is really good at organizing his posts, including in-text links to the songs he is discussing, so that you can really get the full experience of each post and each discussion. Really great writing and organization all around.

I think I want to Interview my Grandpa, or Saba as I call him. He has done a lot in is his life that is worth sharing especially a lot of Civic organizations that he has been the head of or stood behind. And also how he ties his personal and religious beliefs into his work