My Journey Through Awe

When I started this class, I had no idea what it was going to entail. Throughout the semester, I feel like I've gone on this journey that has helped me truly understand what awe is.
The first thing that I did that helped me understand what brings me awe, was the list of 10 books that bring me awe. You can find it here. From there, I had to move beyond what brings me awe, into how awe can function and work. So I chose to write a post about The Yellow Wallpaper. A short story that has caused me to feel many different things over the course of my scholarly life, it finally helped me understand one of the many different ways that awe can work.
From here, I'm not really sure what happened. But something inspired me to start thinking about the awe of dance, and how that functions in literature and digital media. So I started to baby my idea, and grow it in different ways. Then I did my picture story thing. And that really helped me clarify my ideas, and figure out what I really wanted to talk about for my final project.
A few days later we did the digital media awe list, and that was really cool for me, to be able to explore a slightly different idea but still find ways in which it related to dance as well. One of my favorite awe inspiring example of digital media that relates to dance is still Thought of You, which is at the end of my list.
After this, my journey becomes pretty focused on my paper and prototype. I developed my creative side of my research first, and as a result, I had my prototype up before I had even started my paper, but my prototype helped me refine my ideas further, so it all worked out. And then I started researching for my paper. My list of sources came first, followed by what I had so far (but still nowhere near finished). My final draft is something that I'm quite pleased with (although it still wasn't finished), and since then, my paper has gotten even better.
My journey through awe has been unique and interesting. I have learned more about dance than I already knew, and I think that is what surprised me more than anything. It's been a wonderful journey. And at the end of my journey, I came out with a paper that I'm proud of.

Final Draft of Dance Paper

The Language of Dance

            Dance is an art form that is full of awe; however, it’s different from other forms of awe. Dance may seem like a bit of a foreign thing to some people. “One of the basic problems is that understanding dance depends largely upon one’s experience with dance” (Ellfeldt 10). The complexities of dance are certainly less known by people than a different art form, like music. The vast majority of the human population has experienced some form of music at some point of their lives, and it’s something that is very important to our culture, unlike dance, which is a less understood or known art form. Because this form of art is more common, people know more about it, and are able to find more awe when they see something amazing done with music. To illustrate this point, I will use an example: when you listen to a concert pianist perform, you hear the way that the pianist blends the notes together and creates pleasing harmonies. In some cases, as the listener, you find the skill and practice that the pianist put into learning the piano to be incredible. While finding awe in a performance is vital, what’s more important is what that awe inspires people to do. Being impressed by the beauty and power of the piano can lead members of the audience to want to learn more about playing the piano, or about the mechanics of music. Awe inspires a desire to learn, and to become capable of being as talented or skilled as one can be. And as a learner becomes more proficient in their desired skill, in this case the piano, they gain a deeper understanding of the skills and technicality of the piano, and the work involved in becoming proficient at it. When this happens, they reach a state of amazement, where they marvel at their own abilities, and find meaning in the notes that they are now able to blend together and produce to inspire others to learn more about music. Awe in art is cyclical, and its effects branch out and affect a large number of people at a time. Furthermore, music is an art form that is able to completely rely on itself. Music is often paired with words, to add meaning to the lyrical beauty of it, but it can be just as awe-inspiring, or some would say even more awe-inspiring, on its own.

            Now that I’ve talked about music, I’m sure you’re wondering how this relates to dance. Allow me to explain. The awe that is found in dance functions much the same as it does in music. More often than not, an audience is left breathless by the beauty of a well-performed dance. There is a moment of collective pause between the final note and step of the dance, and the audience jumping to their feet in applause, where they take a second to absorb and appreciate what they just saw. “Because humans are multisensory, they act and watch or feel more often than they verbalize and listen. The dance medium often comes into play when there is a lack of verbal expression” (Hanna 4). Dance has an awe inherent in it that speaks to everybody. It has the power to inspire others to express themselves with their bodies, and explore the movements that their bodies are capable of making, without relying on the structure of words.  And just like music, once you delve into the world of dance and learn more of its complexities and learn more about the beauty that rests in each moment, you’re able to find more awe in dance as an art form and mode of expression. However, dance, more often than not, relies on music to bring it fully to life. Dance is a powerful art, because while it relies on music to give it more life and a beat to move to, it doesn’t rely on music for meaning.  Like Hanna says, dance is an art that relies on other mediums to add to the layers of it, but these other mediums do not define, they enrich by speaking to the human spirit on multiple levels. Another “affective function of dance is to provide an immediate and sensuous experience. The appeal of the processual, sequentially unfolding dance form, with its arresting, seductive essence, is made through all or some of the sensory modalities” (Hanna 26). An audience that experiences dance is able to have an experience that helps them to connect with that sensuality and arresting essence that speaks to the parts of us that are most human. “Dance is human thought and behavior performed by the human body for human purposes” (Hanna 5). The ability to awe and inspire an audience that the dancer is performing for requires proper thoughts and behaviors from within the dancer. Without the necessary emotions and thoughts from within the dancer, there isn’t as much awe and power in the performance.

I’ve talked about music, and I’ve talked about dance, but I haven’t yet talked about how one really understands dance. “Some people believe they have an intuitive understanding of dance. Lay people, social scientists, and even dancers often use the term dance with the vague and uncritical connotations of ordinary speech” (Hanna 17). After having danced for almost twenty years, I have an intuitive understanding of dance, but due to the sheer scope and breadth of dance, it’s nearly impossible for me to articulate that understanding into a definition. Because of this difficulty, most people are unaware of the complexity of dance. What most don’t understand about dance is that it is a language that is just as complex as French or German. It has different levels and aspects to it; they’re just different than those you would find in a spoken language.

“Dance is a whole complex of communication symbols, a vehicle for conceptualization. It may be a paralanguage, a semiotic system, like articulate speech, made up of signifiers that refer to things other than themselves. Substantively information necessary to maintain a society’s or group’s cultural patterns, to help it attain its goals, to adapt to its environment, to become integrated, or to change may be communicated. Dance may support or refute through repetition, augmentation, or illustration, linguistic, paralinguistic, or other nonverbal communicative modes. Obviously dance may not communicate in the same way to everyone” (Hanna 26).

What I Have So Far

The Language of Dance

            “Some people believe they have an intuitive understanding of dance. Lay people, social scientists, and even dancers often use the term dance with the vague and uncritical connotations of ordinary speech” (Hanna 17). After having danced for almost twenty years, I have an intuitive understanding of dance, but it’s nearly impossible for me to articulate that understanding into a definition. Because of this difficulty, most people are unaware of the complexity of dance. What most don’t understand about dance is that it is a language that is just as complex as French or German. It has different levels and aspects to it; they’re just different than those you would find in a spoken language. There are many different parts surrounding the art form of dance as a whole. However, to understand how dance functions as a language and the powerful appeal that it holds, it is important to first have an understanding of how dance is defined. “So varied are the forms of dance…that it is difficult to offer a single definition or description that encompasses all forms” (Kraus 3).  However, after extensive analysis of the different forms and motivations behind these forms of dance, Kraus comes to this definition of dance:

“Dance is an art performed by individuals or groups of human beings, existing in time and space, in which the human body is the instrument and movement is the medium. The movement is stylized, and the entire dance work is characterized by form and structure. Dance is commonly performed to musical or other rhythmic accompaniment, and has as a primary purpose the expression of inner feelings and emotions, although it is often performed for social, ritual, entertainment, or other purposes” (Kraus 13).

Dance is a difficult thing to define, if only because it’s such a fluid and complicated form of expression. The definition that Kraus gives is the most accurate that I have come across in my research, albeit a bit more clinical than some. However, my point doesn’t lie in the definition; it lies in the truth that whether or not we, as individuals, are able to express our emotions through the movement of our body, “there is an innate, creative impulse toward expressive movement in each of us human beings” (Taylor 5). It is because of this creative impulse that resides in each of us as human beings, that the language of dance is able to instill awe in audience and dancers alike.

            Mary Wigman states that “The dance is a living language which speaks of man—an artistic message soaring above the ground of reality in order to speak, on a higher level, in images and allegories of man’s innermost emotions and need for communication” (10). Certainly a large part of the language of the dance is the movement used. Movement is what gives meaning and significance to the gestures of dance. “When the emotion of the dancing man frees the impulse to make visible his yet invisible images, then it is through bodily movement that these images manifest themselves in their first stages” (Wigman 10). The movements that the dancers employ to convey meaning is deepened by the emotion and understanding that the dancer has of their own body. In order for the movement of the dancer to be effective in conveying meaning, the dancer must be able to understand what his or her body can do. While body movement alone is not what makes dance a complete language, “…it is the elemental and incontestable basis without which there would be no dance” (Wigman 10). In my research on the languages of dance, I found that expert Judith Lynn Hanna adds to the evidence that movement is essential to the art form of dance by saying that “Meaning in dance is thus found internally, in the stylistic and structural manipulation of the elements of space, rhythm, and dynamics, and the human body’s physical control. In the embodied meaning of dance, one aspect of dance points to another rather than to what exists beyond the dance performance” (Hanna 24).

Can You Really Annotate Dance?

Working Thesis (A really, really rough thesis): Dance as an art form is something that contains a significant amount of awe in the audience. But is that awe conveyed through the emotion of the dancers? Or is it conveyed because the audience has an understanding of the art form, outside of what the dancers bring to it?

Chaiklin, Sharon, and Hilda Wengrower. The Art and Science of Dance/Movement Therapy: Life Is Dance. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.

This book contains a collection of articles written by experienced dance/movement therapists. The topics covered are intrinsic to many areas of dance/movemment therapy and each offers a theoretical perspective followed by case studies which emphasize the techniques used in varied settings.

Ellfeldt, Lois. Dance, From Magic to Art. Dubuque, IA: W.C. Brown, 1976. Print.

Again, I don't have this book yet, but I am really excited about what this book could offer me. It seems like it's going to really explore how the creative expression of the body is an art form, and how that process of transformation happens.

Hanna, Judith Lynne. "The Language of Dance." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance 72.4 (2001): 40-45. Print.

This article discusses how dance and body movement not only resembles verbal language, but can have a deep literary impact. The author explores the impact that dance is having on schools, and the way that they approach learning in the classroom, as more classrooms are starting to have a movement based curriculum.

Hanna, Judith Lynne. The Performer-audience Connection: Emotion to Metaphor in Dance and Society. Austin: University of Texas, 1983. Print.

This books looks into the major puzzles of human communication: the communication of emotion in dance. It attempts to systematically investigate what performers wish to convey and what audiences perceive in the performance of dance. This books asks and answers the question: How did dancer and audience interact at the emotional level on occasions of a performance? Through interviews of both spectators and dancers, Judith Lynne Hanna explores the performers' ways of imparting emotion through movement and audience members' expectations and responses. In doing so she casts new light on important issues of cultural identity, sex role, historic attitudes toward dance, and even marketing the arts today.

Hanna, Judith Lynne. To Dance Is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication. Austin: University of Texas, 1979. Print.

Exploring dance from the rural villages of Africa to the stages of Lincoln Center, Judith Lynne Hanna shows that it is as human to dance as it is to learn, to build, or to fight. Dance is human thought and feeling expressed through the body: it is at once organized physical movement, language, and a system of rules appropriate in different social situations. The author offers a theory of dance, drawing on work in anthropology, semiotics, sociology, communications, folklore, political science, religion, and psychology as well as the visual and performing arts.

Knapp, Debra Wright. "One Choreographer's Tale of Dance Making." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance 82.9 (2011): 16-18. Print.

In this article, the author discusses how her gifts and talents as a choreographer can influence and add to dance. The author talks about the many different ways that she finds inspiration in what she choreographs, saying that sometimes it's found in a poem or song, and other times it's what the dancer needs, and then there are times when the choreographer needs to express something for themselves.

Treatment: The Languages of Dance

Intro:
     A. I want to introduce my topic as something that has many layers. There are a lot of different elements and aspects that make dance a language all it's own. It's these languages that, once they're understood and comprehended, instill awe in audience and dancers alike.

The Languages:
 
        1. Movement- Dance isn't anything without the body, and the movements that a body is able to make. There is an actual dictionary that defines certain motions and movements as part of the language of dance.
        2. Emotion- Exploring the impact that the dancer's personal emotions and connections to the work have on the piece that they're performing.
        3. Choreography- Discussing the ways in which the choreographer's skills and emotions contribute to the performance.
(more discovery and inclusion of languages highly probable)

The Awe:

        1. What is awe?- Pull from previous post on definitions of awe.
        2. How do all of the different elements of the language of dance help create awe in the dancer and audience?
        3. How vital is it to be fluent in dance? Does speaking the language of dance and having an intimate knowledge of it increase the feeling of awe? Inclusion of prototype project?
        4. Are dancers in awe of the things that they can do? Do they marvel like the audience does?

The Question:

Use prototype response to answer the question of whether or not knowing more about the choreography and other languages of dance will increase awe in an audience.

Combination and Conclusion:

How the language of dance and awe are intertwined and connected, and vital to the beauty of dance. Talk about my experience as a dancer?

Why I Dance

As Dr. Burton and I have been talking about my final paper and project, the ideas I have keep hinging on the story behind why I love to dance.  Because it's so important to my ideas that you know why I love dancing so much, I've decided to share that story with you.

My Story:

My mother wanted me to become a classical pianist from the time I was born. However my career as a dancer was foretold by a fellow lifeguard that my mother worked with at the time I was born. This lifeguard was the niece of a ballet instructor, and told my mother that I would be a dancer because all I would do is sit in my car seat and point my toes. By the time I was 3, it was obvious that I was destined to be a dancer. My parents felt that because I attempted to dance and twirl every time they played classical music (hoping I'd become a fine musician), they should invest in some dance lessons. And so I began to dance.

When we moved to Springfield, Oregon, they enrolled me in the Eugene School of Ballet; a prestigious and expensive professional dance academy. My training there was rigorous. From the ages of 6-11 I was going to several hours of dance a week, devoting much of my time during the week to ballet. I was in countless performances, and I was in the nutcracker a total of 3 times, playing various roles and parts. By the time I'd turned 11, I was exhausted. We moved to Utah in October 2003, and when we moved, I stopped dancing. I was tired.

A year later, my soon to be best friend Rachel Webb moved into the house on the street above mine. As we were the only two girls in the neighborhood, we became friends, despite the fact that we were in different grades in school. When I started the 9th grade, I began dancing again, joining the same ballet studio as Rachel. Our friendship solidified, and we were able to do many dance-related things together, in addition to being friends outside of school. But we're going to leave my friendship with Rachel out of this story for the moment.

There are 2 distinct times when I remember turning to dancing to cope with what was happening in my life. This is the first.

As we all know, middle school is rough for everybody. When I was in 6th and 7th grade, I was part of a large group of friends, all girls, and we had several parties for any excuse we could. It was a lot of fun to be friends with them, and I bonded with several of them. However, with such a large group of girls, it was inevitable that we would break apart eventually. This happened in the middle of my 8th grade year. I remained close with a girl named Callie, and she was the friend who I spent most of my time with during school. Callie had the biggest infatuation with this boy who lived on my street. Almost accidentally, I found myself in between she and this boy. It was a bad place to be. In the middle of all of this, I'd found another friend in a girl named Alex. Alex was sweet and quiet, and easily became friends with both Callie and I. Due to the situation with this boy, Callie began to write me notes that were not of the friendliest of nature. I didn't know what was happening. One minute, the three of us had been close friends, the next, we weren't friends at all. My 9th grade year started with Alex and I being friends, but that quickly ended, as she became closer with Callie, and started writing notes with her, making me the object of scorn and ridicule. Rachel remained a friend thorough all of this, although she had her own group of friends to be with during school. She encouraged me to start dancing with her at her studio, and after talking with my parents, I began dancing again. Through dance, I was able to escape the problems of my personal life. Because of the words that had been written to me, my feelings of hurt and betrayal were extreme, and I felt lonelier than ever. Dancing helped me work through those feelings. It helped that Rachel was by my side. She walked home with me after school, cheered me up when I received note after mean note that left me in tears in several of my classes, and was one of my only friends when I had so few.  At her urging, I tried out for the school musical that year, and was cast as a dancer in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my 9th grade year. Not only did I get to show my skills in dancing, but I was able to make some other friends in the drama group, and expand my circle of friends. School got a little bit easier after that. Dance continued to be my outlet for my emotions. I found that when I was feeling low, dancing was one of the fastest ways to let go of the anger and the hurt. It helped me create something beautiful in place of something ugly. Time passed, wounds healed... but I kept dancing.

Time passed.

In the middle of my junior year of high school, I switched ballet companies. Unfortunately, this meant that I was no longer dancing with Rachel, but it was a change that was sorely needed. I had outgrown my old studio. My new teacher was phenomenal. In addition to making me dance until my toes were numb, she cultivated my skills as a dancer and helped me improve my self-image. When you're dancing at the level that I was, you spend a lot of time with your teacher. They have a lot of influence over you, as they correct your technique and teach you how to move and use your body correctly. The level of trust that is built between dancers is unlike any other form of trust I've ever experienced. Her opinion and good word was what I was constantly striving for. Through dancing with her, I learned that there were many things that, no matter how unhappy I was with certain aspects of my features or my body, it was all a part of who I was, and that I didn't need to change that. It is so rare to have somebody tell you that when you're in high school. While the entire world was screaming at me that I had to be super thin and toned, I had the person who had the most influence teaching me that there was nothing more important than loving who I was.  My love of dancing increased.

My senior year of high school was the second time that I had to rely on dance to cope with what was happening in my life.

My next door neighbor, and good friend, committed suicide just after the new year in 2010. It was devastating, heartbreaking, and tragic. The next two weeks of my life were some of the hardest of my life. I walked around school in a daze. I barely ate, barely spoke, and could hardly stay awake through most of my classes. I had excellent friends who didn't push me to talk or explain, but they were just normal, supportive, and cheery. I couldn't have asked for more. The only time when I remember feeling remotely okay was when I was dancing. Like before, dance was my outlet for my grief. I danced with single minded intensity that I'd never brought to class before. I was nailing things that I'd been working on for months. Having so much pent up grief and heartbreak was the best thing that I could have ever brought to my dancing. It made every step and movement explode with feeling. I've never spun faster, leaped higher, or stretched further than I did in the moments when I was feeling too much to put into words.

My ability to express and show everybody what I was feeling through my body is something that I treasure above a lot of things. It's been moments and times like the two that I've shared with you that have helped me realize why I love to dance. As much as I love words, and the power that they hold, sometimes words aren't enough, and in those moments, I know why I dance.

The New Criticism

The New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object. New Criticism developed as a reaction to the older philological and literary history schools, which, influenced by nineteenth-century German scholarship, focused on the history and meaning of individual words and their relation to foreign and ancient languages, comparative sources, and the biographical circumstances of the authors. It became common consensus that these approaches tended to distract from the text and meaning of a poem and entirely neglect its aesthetic qualities in favor of teaching about external factors. 

Creative writers and literary critics felt that the special aesthetic experience of poetry and literary language was lost in the chaos of unnecessary emotions and feelings. Heather Dubrow notes that the prevailing focus of literary scholarship was on "the study of ethical values and philosophical issues through literature, the tracing of literary history, and . . . political criticism". Literature was approached and literary scholarship did not focus on analysis of texts. New Critics believed the structure and meaning of the text were intimately connected and should not be analyzed separately. In order to bring the focus of literary studies back to analysis of the texts, they aimed to exclude the reader's response, the author's intention, historical and cultural contexts, and moralistic bias from their analysis.

Reading Poetry Closely

In +Carly Brown 's post on Wordsworth's poetry being worth every word, I think that she makes some great observations about how a close reading of the poem can add deeper meaning to the poetry and increase the awe that's felt while reading. Her efforts to reach into the words and text are exactly the ways in which a New Critic would go about unraveling a poem. I suggest that you go back and read that post, it has great relevance to what I'm saying.

Much like Carly, I have had a similar experience with poetry when I was required to read Keats for my British Literature 292 class. His poem "Ode to a Nightingale" is one of my favorite poems to this day. I enjoy his use of imagery, and how he is able to invoke such a beautiful scene with very few actual words. But what does it mean? There are many different ways in which this poem can be interpreted by drawing on the historical events of the time, or what Keats himself was going through at the time in his personal life, but in keeping with what I stated earlier,  when the principles of New Criticism are applied to poetry in particular, more awe can be found in the structures and words of poetry.

In and of itself, poetry is beautiful. When you apply the theories of New Criticism to poetry, new meanings are discovered. Since New Criticism focuses on the individual connotations and meanings of words and how they can add to the overall meaning of the poem, it's extremely effective to apply this literary theory to any form of poetry, or even prose, that you read. Essentially, it's applying close reading skills to any text, but it's more applicable to poetry because there is so much that is said with so little words. Take the following stanza from "Ode to a Nightingale" as an example of saying so much without using a lot of words:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Every word is measured. Every line is metered and rhymed. Each word is important. These are the things that New Criticism highlights in poetry. There isn't an unnecessary word or syllable in the entire poem.

New Criticism is something that we're all familiar with as English majors, so I won't deconstruct that passage for you; you're more than capable of doing that. Instead, can you think of ways in which understanding individual words can lend to the overall meaning of a poem? Through this process, is it possible to find more awe in the text? I know that I certainly did. In my experience with awe and New Criticism, it doesn't come on the first read-through for me. Often it's the 10th or 20th time I read a poem that the deeper meaning of the words and poem hit me. In this I am referring back to my post on delayed awe. Just because you know how to look for awe, doesn't mean you're going to find it on your first try. So what if Keats isn't your cup of tea? Look at any other poem, by any other poet, and test out the techniques of New Criticism on it. It'll bring a deeper meaning. 

How have the techniques of New Criticism helped you in your days as an English major?

Dubrow, Heather. "Twentieth Century Shakespeare Criticism." The Riverside Shakespeare. Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Keats, John. Ode to a Nightingale. Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

A Lifetime of Wonder

The example that I have chosen as my topic for this post encompasses a few different kinds of awe. Two of the biggest themes of this book are, the beauty and splendor of nature and the wonder and joy behind the human experience, as well as the connection that we have with God. The story explores how everybody is connected through the shared experiences of life, and that we are all a part of nature. 
My example is the book Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. It is the story of John Ames, and a collection of his memories that he's writing for his son. John is a pastor, like both his father and grandfather. The book chronicles his life, and describes how he was able to find God through the beauty of nature and in the actions of those around him.
As rife as this book is with references and observations about nature, this quote is my favorite. “The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.” The prose in this book is so poetic, and I think that this element adds to the wonder of this book. It certainly helps the reader feel the same kind of awe as John is experiencing. I also love how he ties a lot of his observations back to the human soul, and the inner light that we all have.  There are many instances when wonder is expressed at human nature or behavior. I love this quote from the book, as John brings up a point that all of us are familiar with, but never really think about. “It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it . . . so I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.” The whole book is like this. John points out the most ordinary things about nature or humans, and he expresses the wonder that he sees in these simple acts or things. It's truly amazing. Another thing that he points out about human behavior is that, “These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice.” There isn't a whole lot that I feel like I can say. These quotes just say it all for me. I think that this book would be a great thing for Cara to look at, because while fictional, it's a great example of a person's memories that are filled with awe and wonder. 

Lyrics for Miles

As I've been thinking of ways in which the digital media awes me, I've realized that lyric videos are capable of producing an element of awe for me. While most of these videos are unrelated to my final project, there is a video that I will share at the top of my list that connects to my final project, and I'll explain it there.

So without futher ado:

10. Ke$sha's lyric video for her song C'mon is absolutely ridiculous. And it doesn't do for me what some of the other videos do, but what I love about a lot of lyric videos is that they show you a glimpse of the artists mind, and how they view the song. In the case of this video, I don't think it really does that, but it's still fun to watch a bunch of kittens dance across a screen.

9. Honestly by Hot Chelle Rae

I liked the way that they used several different mediums within the video. The messaging from the iPhone, the neon colors to show partying, the design elements that expressed the feeling a little bit more, are all things that really add a mixed element of awe to this song. I just didn't think it was as clever or expressive as it could have been.


8. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift

What I really liked about this video was that it was done almost entirely through stop-motion. There were so many creative and unique moments in this video. There are many things that fans would recognize as being specific to Taylor and her style, such as her use of the color red, her love for vintage records, and the number 13 to name a few. Very creative and clever.


7. Payphone by Maroon 5
*Disclaimer: this is the unedited version, so there is a lot of swearing. I hate that part, but the rest is pretty awesome*

I love the elements of Graphic novels/comics. It was a really cool and unique element.


6. Roar by Katy Perry

I love the use of emoticons in this video. It is really clever, especially in this day and age when so much of what we do is smartphone related.


5. Daylight by Maroon 5

This project took videos from people all over the world talking about the things that they hate, the people that they love, and the things that they wish they could change. It's a touching and inspiring video. I think the awe-inspiring element of this video is realizing that as humans, we all experience similar pain, and that we aren't alone.


4. Still Into You by Paramore

Clever. The typefaces used are eye-catching and exciting, and the text does a good job of acting out the lyrics. Also, I just love the shadow puppets. That really wowed me, as it was an element that I hadn't seen anywhere else.


3. Lions Roar by The Hush Sound

This video was shown to me in my Graphic Design class while we were discussing the power of typefaces, and how they can be used to convey a concept quite clearly. What I find to be particularly impressive about this video is the way in which that is accomplished. It's beautifully designed, and I feel like it adds a lot to the song.


2. Wide Awake by Katy Perry

I love the way in which this lyric video combines the lyrics into a Facebook format. I really enjoyed the way in which she combined so many different elements into this video. On a deeper level, I experienced a moment of awe when I realized that all of the Facebook posts shown were of highlights from her career up until the release of Wide Awake, which talks about falling from cloud nine. Did you find anything awe-inspiring about that?


1. This is the one video that has to do with my final project. Dr. Burton has already shared this on Google+, but I love it so much, and I find it so awe-inspiring that it really just comes in first on my list. I love the way that dance is incorporated with graphic design, how authentic the movements of the dancers are, and how there is more emotion that is expressed because the drawn dancers can do things that might not be possible in the real world. It's a stunning work of art.

The Truth of Dance

Delayed Awe

There are so many things in this world that we expect to grab out attention quickly. We expect TV shows to be gripping and exciting; we go, see and do hoping for a quick thrill or instant gratification. Over the many years of my life, I've learned (and I'm still learning) that often it's the things that you have to work at that are the most rewarding or have the biggest sense of awe attached to them.

This is what happened when I read The Yellow Wallpaper.

The first time I read this story, I was 17, a senior in High School, and lazy.
It was assigned reading.
I read it (kind of).
Participated in class discussion (or attempted to).
That was it.


My second encounter with this masterpiece was in college. I think probably every English major has read this story at least once in their lives, and I am no exception. This time when I was assigned to read it, I had more of an analytic approach to it, thanks to my years of experience deconstructing English literature. My professor at the time asked questions that I'd never thought of, and got me thinking about this story in a different way.

And then we moved on to another short story.

And I forgot about it.

Until.

10 Things

1. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley- I first read this book when I was young, and I remember still how the race scenes struck me as amazing.
2. Super 8-it isn't a book, but it's inspiring enough that I want it to be.
3. Howard's End by E. M. Forster - I love the way the characters are immersed in the sublime.
4. The Broken Wings-a tragic tale about what it means to love somebody.
5. The Girl of Fire and Thorns series by Rae Carson- A series about embracing your full potential and changing the world
6. Fireproof- also not a book, but it really teaches what it is to love.
7. The Book of Mormon
8. The Life of Pi- could you survive?
9. The Epic of Gilgamesh- a real person did all of that?
10. Dune- could our future look like that?

Have You Ever Thought About the Way You Think?

Last week my roommate and I were talking about the Miracle of human existence. The conversation flowed through many different topics and ideas that all have their merits, but the one that made me think the most was when we started talking about how each person has a thought process all to their own. No two people think in the exact same way. As humans we can do a lot of things in the same way as one another. We can dress, eat, talk and look the same way but we can't think in the same way. We don't know what each other is thinking. There is no way to know exactly what a person is thinking about, or what occupies their mind. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if everybody knew what you were thinking all of the time? How would you ever know who you are? How could you know what kind of a person you were if you were constantly hearing the thoughts and feelings of others? Would we cease to have identity and become a civilization that is more of one collective being? In a world where so much of the human experience is shared and public, I find a great amount of Awe inherent in the fact that inside your head there is only you. A person's thoughts are completely their own. Have you ever thought about this? It's been something that I've been thinking about over the last few days, and I still find it amazing.