Week 8 and 9: Holiday Research
A bit of analysis
Here is a video that I have watched and as you can the lady is controlling the girl’s limbs bending it into shape as she has to be perfect on stage. It just shows the torment they go through. The blood on her shoes goes well with how she’s losing her body slowly to become a puppet and the tear that drips down her face while she is still as a statue shows she is not the one who is in control anymore.
Black Swan tackles mental health problems and how the main character is initially the villain in her own story where she portrays the emotions she is feeling eventually becoming the black swan which contrasts with the white swan which is the good side of her. She is tackling her hatred and fear within herself and trying to become the perfect ballerina.
Mistreatment
Links I used to gather information: McGuire, K. (2022) Grooming and sexual abuse in ballet: Why dancers are especially vulnerable, Pointe Magazine. Available at: https://pointemagazine.com/grooming-and-sexual-abuse-in-ballet/ (Accessed: 25 May 2024).
Daly, M. (2023) Ex-dancers describe body-shaming at top ballet schools, BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66720433 (Accessed: 25 May 2024).
Identity
Everyone struggles with existential questions such as, “Who am I?” and “Who do I want my future self to be?”. So many questions that make you feel like you as a human being are more complex than these questions lead on. Identity includes many factors such as relationships with people, identity as a child, friend, partner and parent. It makes you question your existence and your entire being such as your height, race, class and even gender. Identity even involves things that overlap with religious beliefs too or choices you make along the way in your life. People who are overly concerned about who they are and the impressions make them unable to express themselves and in the end, have identity crises as they don’t know how to express themselves to others as they don’t know who they are themselves. Who they are and who they want to be.
What is an identity crisis?
The idea of an identity crisis emerged from psychologist Erik Erikson, who found and created the idea of these eight stages of crises and development, a concept later expanded upon by others. Although not a clinical term, an identity crisis refers to facing a challenge to one’s sense of self, which may center around politics, religion, career choices, or gender roles.
Link where I gathered information: www.psychologytoday.com. (n.d.). Identity | Psychology Today. [online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/identity#:~:text=Identity%20encompasses%20the%20values%20people%20hold%2C%20which%20dictate.
Talking to Peers
Here I have talked to 2 peers about my project and how I want to go about it. Talking to my peers and getting my thoughts across really helped me find my ground on what I’m doing for my final project.
Artist Research- Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti is a sculptor, painter and printmaker. He was one of the great artists of the 20th century. In 1932, he began participating in some of Andre Breton’s surrealist group activities in Paris. He was later expelled due to his realistic works. He took an interest in surrealist forms and themes such as sexuality and trauma. At a young age, Giacometti expressed an interest in arts and created his first oil painting at the age of 12. His father was a successful post-impressionist painter and his uncle and brother became architects. Alberto experimented with a lot of printing techniques like etching, engraving and lithography.
After the Second World War, Giacometti returned to Paris from Geneva so he could focus on creating elongated figures which were often standing or walking. He created his subjects into stick-thin figures and his muses were normally people he had a connection with or were close with. He would make expressive figures that were associated with existentialist ideas and with post-war trauma.
The human head was an important motif in the artist’s work throughout his life. Fascinated by the idea that one’s life lies within our eyes, he concentrated on the sitter’s gaze. As the artist states
I cannot simultaneously see the eyes, the hands, and the feet of a person standing two or three yards in front of me, but the only part that I do look at entails a sensation of the existence of everything
I like the way his sculptures look how elongated are and are full of expression. I want to use his sculpturing for my final piece as he creates sculptures that don’t really make sense but once you look deeper there’s a hidden meaning behind it.
Link of information: Tate (n.d.). Eight things to know: Alberto Giacometti – List. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alberto-giacometti-1159/eight-things-know-alberto-giacometti.
Shipley Antique Store
Vintage Fair
Research about music boxes
The music box is a centuries-old art form when Swiss watchmaker Antoine Favre-Saloman took the idea of the carillion (a large instrument found in a bell tower) and scaled it down to the size of a pocket watch. As technology advanced Paul Lockmann (An Inventor from Germany) created a music box that played music from a disc in the 19th Century. There isn’t really a pinpoint of when ballerinas made an appearance on music boxes however, they quickly became popular. The common type of ballerina wears a leotard, tutu and pointe shoes either in pink or white. Sometimes they had a male partner wearing a tuxedo. The music box became so iconic that it made its way into music history. In 1979, Canadian musician Frank Mills released an instrumental piece titled “Music Box Dancer” that became an international sensation.
Link: About the Author Boris Muchnik is the Owner of Music Box Attic (2021) The history of the ballerina in the music box, MusicBoxAttic.com. Available at: https://www.musicboxattic.com/blog/the-history-of-the-ballerina-in-the-music-box/#:~:text=The%20phenomenon%20of%20the%20music%20box%20ballerina%20is,were%20added%20when%20Ray%20Conniff%20covered%20the%20song. (Accessed: 25 May 2024).
Week 9 Overview
I have done a lot of research so hopefully next week my research will pay off. Next week is cultural week so I’ll be meeting different artists and even a ballerina so I can finally have some primary research on her. I’m glad I have done a lot of research and have gone to the vintage fair and antique shops to find the ballerina box as it also gave me an opportunity to document everything I saw there which can link to my final piece.
Week 10: Cultural Week
We were told to book different artists, dancers, or photographers for the days we’re normally in college as they would talk to us about their careers however, most of them didn’t show up so unfortunately I didn’t get to know about most of them. The only artist who showed up was Hannah Lamb. I learned about her work and how she made a skirt with people’s quotes on it then cut it up and gave it back to them which people thought was a dumb idea and made no sense however it was a form of art cutting that skirt up. She gave us this sheet about herself and about getting out there as an artist.
There was a ballet dancer who was going to come in called Erika Mulkern however, she didn’t come and I, unfortunately, couldn’t take any pictures of her for primary research or interview her nor could I get in contact with her so it was a bummer.
To make up for not getting to interview a real ballerina, I tried messaging another ballet dancer on TikTok however she did not respond.
Link to her TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mereeeee30?_t=8mjNiqYphj7&_r=1
She does a lot of dancing to different soundtracks.
Checklist
I still have a lot to do concerning the things I didn’t tick off.
Week 10 Overview
I didn’t do as much work as I hoped to do and due to this week not having any lessons going on, I have to wait till next week to start experimenting with clay work. Hopefully, I’ll get help from my tutor and start experimenting with clay work as soon as possible so I don’t waste any time. The checkpoint really helped me see what I’ve done and need to do which gets me on the right path.