Dancers at the Edge of Spacetime – Changing the Tempo

This spacetime tempo

bends curves round Memory’s edge –

corners of the clock –

tick talk, tick talk, Yesterdays –

Present looks stylish, again.

 

 

This is the final  part of a series of images  that began with screen captures from a couple of Fred & Ginger movies. The series started as a meditation on the nature of memory and Mass Media. The constructed realities of Mass Media  play with our memories and sense of time. We remember images and narratives that were intended to depict the future, but now, from our recent experiences, seem quaint and out of date. We create new Mass Media content with new forms of media,  trying to depict the present with that “retro look”.

 

 

We readjust the the present, shifting the the tempo and style of recent pop songs, so that they come from past decades of the previous century –  turning  them into cultural artifacts from alternative timelines.  We reinterpret the cultural icons of the past in a more contemporary style/mode. The new becomes “hipster-manic” by being  “retro-static”. The old is now “in the pocket” by  getting down in the city with urban tempo gotchas.

 

 

 

In the process, we convey values, beliefs and ideologies about our culture and our perceptions of other cultures. We place other cultures on display on stage, screen and in museums( just another medium ). We relegate them to the past – making them historical artifacts, to be idealized, demonized,  or trivialized – turned into content and appropriated for our own use. But they still live, discarding  negativity and stereotypes, they reassert themselves, and make use of traditional and new forms of Mass Media – establishing different tempos within the spacetime of memory.

 

 

Buffy Sainte-Marie, Order of Canada (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is a Native Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas………, learn from our culture and  …………..

 

  Power In The Blood    Buffy in her own words.

 The wisdoms inherent in our own DNA are our real power,

and we won’t be goaded into war by feudal system racketeers who can outgun us.

I wrote new words to the Alabama3 classic, and they lent me samples from their original recording. I re-wrote some of the words, turned it into an anti-war song. Strange: we seem so different musically and personally, but we’re mutual fans and I love the cross-pollination in the song.

Power In The Blood
© Words & Music Alabama 3.   Modified words Buffy Sainte-Marie.

GMO GMO has got to go
Power in the blood Power in the blood

No time for spin-doctors’ medicine
Corporation government selling me some cover-up
Weaponizing pesticides; poison in my groceries
Nothing but another drug, a license they can buy and sell

I don’t mind dying
Well I don’t mind dying
I don’t mind dying
But when that call it comes I will say no no no to war

No time for backhanded compliments
From television anchor men desperate for an incident
Real estate assassins exploiting our predicament
Everything depends upon it being in their interests

No I don’t mind dying
I don’t mind dying
I don’t mind dying
When that call it comes, I will say no no no to war

There is power in the blood, justice in the soul
When that call it comes, I will say no no no to war
Power in the blood, justice in the soul
When that call it comes I will say no no no to war

There’s military interest, GMOs in paradise
bio-weapons high up on the call sheet
Young soldiers driving tanks
but old thieves they drive the banks
and you never see a uniform on Wall Street

There is power in the blood

I don’t mind dying
I don’t mind the dying
I don’t mind dying
When that call it comes I will say no no no to war

We have come a long way through memory by way of the Mass Media metaphor for Spacetime. History, theatre, dance, gender and cultural affirmation has danced past. Hopefully this meditation and exploration proved of value. The images of the young drummer and dancers were from photos taken when I was still teaching. You can find more information and images at the following link, Aboriginal Feast Day at ELSS.