A Response to Three Thesis Concerts: Chasing Unison, Duality, and She'd

Running head: THREE THESIS CONCERTS1
Three Thesis Concerts: A Response
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Three Thesis Concerts: A Response
Chasing Unison
In Chasing Unison, a quartet performs an everyday “dance”: men and women wooing and rejecting one another. The dance opens by a “stiff” alignment of all four dancers in a fairly ritualistic manner. One dancer, in reddish brown outfit, is positioned to right (from viewer’s perspective) and not right behind a female dancer, in black outfit, just as male dancers are. This is intended perhaps to offer an in-depth dimension as is common in stage performances in order to raise early viewer’s interest in relation ship complexities among all four dancers in next moves. The dancer in reddish brown outfit is predictably, or not, first to move – making suggestive gestures to male dancers still motionless. This is followed by arm movements and similar gestures to male dancer in dark green furthest back in stage – first to “respond” physically. The second male dancer in blue outfit, initially very stiff, starts to move as female dancer in reddish brown outfit moves further away back in stage. The rapport each couple exhibits, in chasing unison, is initially suggested implicitly by moves made by all four dancers and revisited repeatedly all along. Specifically, female dancer in reddish brown and male dancer in blue, on one side, and female dancer in black and male dancer in dark green appear to be in constant negotiation processes about ways of unison – and breakup. For example, female dancer in reddish brown and male dancer in blue are, in contrast to female dancer in black and male dancer in dark green, appear to be in much less smooth negotiation of unison. This is evident, for instance, of first couple’s much less face-to-face and more back-to-face encounters. The push female dancer in reddish brown gives to male dancer in blue is, indeed, a very vivid example. In contrast, female dancer in black and male dancer in dark green appear to negotiate unison at a
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slower and more agreeable pace. The musical chairs of love game are exchanged, moreover, as all dancers unite and breakup in a recurring, choreographed routines. Half way, all four dancers are in a freeze frame: facing off only to turn away. The movements assume more vigor and continue to be so until all four dancers, in what appears to be a final resignation, raise hands upward, as if to sky, in an appeal for emancipati...