Reading Response 2

Lilly Stene

Life Drawing 311

Reading Response 2

            This reading addressed themes of race and how it integrates into art through literature, dancing, and social situations. The first segment of the article addressed how a Columbian college student expressed his frustration with his professor about his parents not receiving his coming-out well, and saying that taking a Gay and Lesbian literature class was a waste of money. When the professor told the student to just stop talking to his parents, the student told him that he wouldn’t understand because it wasn’t an option for a “kid in a Columbian family” and that the professor wouldn’t “get it”. Personally, I didn’t understand this statement that being Columbian is related to being able to disown or not disown one’s family, so would have liked to learn more about why this student felt this way and perhaps he could have explained to his professor why it wasn’t an option because he was Columbian. In the second segment of the article, it addressed how there was “tension between white modern dance and black modern dance”. I also agreed with this statement, because there were predominantly white dancers who starred major roles in my pre-professional ballet program I was involved in for 13 years. Because many of the African American girls were more curvy, they were not placed in certain roles . There was a modern dance school that I transferred to because of body image discrimination, and coincidentally a lot of the black girls who went to my first dance school transferred there as well. There was no tension between black and white dancers at the second school because all cultures and races were accepted and celebrated in the different styles of dance that we performed; including African, Contemporary, and Ballet. I wish that the author of this article would have had the chance to visit predominately black dance schools to gain a better perspective on the issue they were writing about. There is a lot of dance schools that celebrate all races, cultures, and backgrounds where there is no tension between “white modern dance and black modern dance” as the author stated, and focused on throughout the majority of the article. Misty Copeland is the top ballet dancer at American Ballet Theatre, and she is African American. I think Misty Copeland becoming the first African American female to join ABT has inspired other young black dancers to continue their dream despite people telling them that it will be difficult because there is “tension” due to the fact they are black. Even though she was African American, she didn’t let any tension stop her from pursuing her dream in modern dance and ballet. In the last portion of the article it talked about how an artist did a performance art segment in which they directed people to separate themselves into categories. While I understood the reasoning in the point they were trying to convey, I personally believe that art should unite people together despite differences, and not separate people into specific categories based on whether they are a virgin or not or black or white.