Cassandra, Eurydice and other Themes...

In our class meeting and connection with UCI last week (2/27/07), we observed movements that some of the dancers had created in response to words describing their own "journey" as graduate students. Many of these words can be related to themes surrounding the story of Cassandra; those that particularly stood out for me were risk and vision (risk in relation to the risk of telling others the truth though you know they will not believe you, and the courage that it takes to do so). In this "risk" movement, the dancer's use of the camera was particularly interesting - this could relate to themes of openness versus secrecy (i.e. the idea of someone watching) and also to our discussions of camera angles and positioning and how this changes perspective. In demonstrating vision, the dancer again seemed to be demonstrating ideas of openness and secrecy. This term also relates to my movie on Cassandra; both in her ability to see the future (i.e. holding the whole world in her hands) and in her (lonely) perspective (i.e. no one else can see what she sees). In thinking about Cassandra and Eurydice, themes of love and trust seem to stand out in both of their stories (though in perhaps opposite ways). In examining these themes and our perspectives on them, one can see the challenge in searching for or creating media to "represent" a word, theme or idea (whether it be visual, musical or otherwise). I'll be posting more images on my Web site related to the theme alone, so keep checking!