I saw "The Breaks" Thursday night. This was my first experience with a Hip Hop show, even though this was not a full blown Hip Hop show. But I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it. From a performance aspect, the movement and command of the space alone were astounding. The movement and dance were such a blending of cultures. Not being well versed in this genre, it was amazing to me that even I could easily detect the use of Native Dance of Africa, Traditional Ballet and 80's break dancing ( to name a few).
But what really stuck with me was a comment from a boy in the video, which was part of the multi-media aspect of the show. The question was who owns hip hop? Several people answered the question and each answer reflected their own personal stake in the genre. Each person felt they had a right to claim hip hop as their own. And each person had a reason why it should not be claimed by other cultures/races.
But the last interviewees were two young boys. About the age of 12, I guess. The first one said, "Well, if somebody likes it, they like it." The second one said, "Yeah. I think we should just share it." One of the boys was black, the other asian, I think. At any rate, it struck me that ownership of a work of art may not be nearly as important as we think it is. If one culture can adopt a piece into their culture and put their own cultural spin on it, then, in one respect, it becomes a new piece, altogether. It is based on another's work, but it is a new piece, open for criticism and comparison to the original. On another more global level, however, this adoption only serves to create a link between two (or more, if adopted by more) cultures. I think we must ask ourselves why would a culture adopt the art of another? Obviously, there is some meaning in the piece that the culture finds interesting and connects with it. And, if we, as artists, are producing pieces that connect the global art community and individuals involved, then haven't we suceeded in our goal?
Personally, I like the fact that this adoption is happening. I see a connection between humankind on a universal level. I think it proves exactly what Joseph Campbell argued; that humans have the same basic concerns and questions imbedded deep within our psyches.
5 comments:
I agree with your thoughts Amy. I also saw the break/s and another thing that reminded me of our global theatre class was the part of the story that Bamuthi told of his experience in Africa and how he was the minority in a culture that a lot of us African Americans feel like we're not the minority. He was told by his friend who was Caucasian to go on stage in front of the Africans to perform a dance. She needed him to do this so she could help put an end to female circumcision. She wanted him to put on a show and in the beginning they looked at him, an African American (in this country he was known as an American) like who are you and what are you doing? They eventually accepted him, because with some of his movements he threw in a little African dance mixed with his hip hop and at the moment he was able to relate. We often times have this discussion in class and how it would be to go to Africa, and you would think we would fit in with no problem, but with Bamuthi, it was a different experience. I don't know if this is a true story or not, but it does raise some questions.
This idea of ownership of art is rather interesting to me. I wonder if our idea of ownership as Americans is centered around our view of individualism and materialism. In cultures where things are more communially shared or created i wonder if they struggle with saying who owns a piece of work.
Perhaps the greatest struggle we have as artist is creating a piece of work and then letting it go. We (or I) want so strongly to hold onto things and try to control it or how people understand it. But if art is a gift or service to the audience then we have to let it go. We can't hold on because then we aren't really giving to the audience. In voice class we discuss the need to let go of the breath in our body. That if we hold onto it it impacts or ability to communicate. Maybe this is a lesson from our bodies we can learn in our view of our own creative process.
When I consider some of the ritual aspects of the African theatre projects we have looked at or even the long history of Kabuki or Noh theatre I am reminded of people who seem to have a clearer sense of a communal and larger sharing of the creative process. That it isn't owned by any one person but by the community as a whole and passed down through history.
I wonder if a lesson I can learn from other artists around the world is the ability to give more freely without a need to cling so tightly to "my" work.
So, perhaps this idea of "ownership" is more of a Western ideolodgy. It seems as though we are so obsessed with having to possess something that we can't just come together and just enjoy things like music and theatre without having these discussions on ownership. Maybe this ownership gene is so embredded in us that there is so way of breaking this cycle. And I think that it goes much further than just a collective Western ownership, but once you look pass the Western into the different races in the Western world it even lies there. Take sports for example: it seems like nascar is owned by white people and basketball black people.
So, perhaps this idea of "ownership" is more of a Western ideolodgy. It seems as though we are so obsessed with having to possess something that we can't just come together and just enjoy things like music and theatre without having these discussions on ownership. Maybe this ownership gene is so embredded in us that there is so way of breaking this cycle. And I think that it goes much further than just a collective Western ownership, but once you look pass the Western into the different races in the Western world it even lies there. Take sports for example: it seems like nascar is owned by white people and basketball black people.
i really enjoyed the breaks, too, and really noticed how appropriate a lot of the topics were to this class, especially the things amy and mel bring up. the question of "authenticity" when it comes to hip-hop was raised in a really interesting way, not only in the part when he went to Africa and was called a "Black American" while his white friend was "African American," but also when he went to Japan and expected to get a lot of attention as "the real thing," but didn't get the reaction he was expecting.
hip-hop, in general, questions the idea of ownership and history in really important ways: sampling, for example, has always used pieces of other people's music and manipulated them into something new. but i think it's also important to remember that the question of ownership is really very very very complicated. and you have to take into account the context of hip-hop and its history: in some ways, i think, it's a way of taking something back that was stolen a long time ago (whether it be music or identity or culture in general).
in some ways i am just playing devil's advocate, here, because i actually idealize oral cultures where things get passed down and passed around and changed and elaborated, and nobody really "owns" anything. but the fact is we live in a world where material compensation is extremely important. if you wrote a book, for example, and someone (someone, say, already more rich and powerful than you are) took a few pages and put them in his or her own book without giving you credit, and that person's book made a ton of money while yours made none, you would be angry. or think of the context of early rock and roll, in which songs by african americans were basically stolen by white artists who made lots of money off of them, while the african american people who wrote them were never compensated.
and then, imagine if you lived in a world in which spiritual values were more important than money, and someone "borrowed" an important spiritual dance or poem or whatever without understanding its religious significance, but just so that he or she could make some money or gain some notoriety. i think that's where a lot of the complaint with adopting a form of art comes from.
i loved the fact that mark bamuthi joseph found a way to incorporate so many perspectives on the issue.
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