JC
Let’s watch some music videos and see how our favourite dance routines can sharpen our ability to unfold meaning in whatever kind of text we’re exploring!
Today, we will be…
- Recognising how narrative can be constructed visually or physically and sharpen the ability to identify plot arcs, tension, and resolution without relying on dialogue or text.
- Learning to look for subtle, nonverbal clues in literary texts.
- Understanding how tone can be conveyed physically, not just linguistically.
- Interpreting the body as a site of meaning
- Recognising gestures as a form of communication
- Strengthening Visual & Spatial Literacy
- Thinking about how space can reflect relationships
- Considering how visual composition shapes meaning
- Determining how movement creates mood or atmosphere
ACTIVITY 1
Watch the music videos and answer questions A to E. There are 18 prompt ‘sub-questions’ below – answer these (or at least the ones that feel relevant in each case) and you’ll be well on your way to coming up with interesting and original response to that bigger question.
- How is the setting relevant?
- Is the light/weather etc. significant?
- What props/symbols are you able to notice and examine?
- How do the ‘characters’ move?
- Who moves?
- Who stays still?
- Who controls the centre?
- Who is pushed to the margins?
- Is anyone’s movement restricted?
- Who stays in the space?
- Who just passes through it?
- Is anyone forced into a particular position?
- Is there a sense of direction or trajectory?
- Is there any kind of ritualised repetition?
- Do you note any meaningful stillness?
- Are there changes in movement over time?
- What is the pace and intensity/force of movement?
- Any other observations?
A. How does Tate McRae present ideas about love and relationships?
B. How does Moncrieff present ideas about his relationship and its significance?
C. How do Patty Walters, and As It Is, present ideas about mental health?
D. How do Say Now present ideas about heartbreak (with particular reference to the female position)?
E. How does Jacob Alon present ideas about the dancing boy?
Whilst watching these videos, we have been, of course, considering our trademark doorways to deeper meaning: symbols, props, lighting, weather etc.
But we have also been:
- Recognising how narrative can be constructed visually or physically and sharpen the ability to identify plot arcs, tension, and resolution without relying on dialogue or text.
- Learning to look for subtle, nonverbal clues in literary texts.
- Understanding how tone can be conveyed physically, not just linguistically.
- Interpreting the body as a site of meaning
- Recognising gestures as a form of communication
- Strengthening Visual & Spatial Literacy
- Thinking about how space can reflect relationships
- Considering how visual composition shapes meaning
- Determining how movement creates mood or atmosphere
You should take note of those movement-related ideas when thinking about whatever text you’re studying.
If – for example – you’re looking to develop your understanding of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, you should definitely consider how passive Offred is at beginning, when lying in the gym, and how on the move she is at end. In considering the whole novel as a process of waking up – or unfolding – you immediately have something interesting to say about structure.
You could say a similar thing about ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – albeit the other way around. At the beginning of the play, Blanche does still have the agency to move relatively freely, but by the play’s end, it’s clear how any all control has been stolen from her.
ACTIVITY 2
If you are studying ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, you could start by zooming in on the movement described in the following passages. How does the non-verbal narrative help give you insight into Atwood’s key themes?
Chapter 4
Her name is Ofglen, and that’s about all I know about her. She walks demurely, head down, red-gloved hands clasped in from, with short little steps like a trained pig’s, onits hind legs. During these walks she has never said anything that was not strictly orthodox, but then, neither have I. She may be a real believer, a Handmaid in more than name. I can’t take the risk.
Chapter 6
A block past All Flesh, Ofglen pauses, as if hesitant about which way to go. We have a choice. We could go straight back, or we could walk the long way around. We already know which way we will take, because we always take it.
“I’d like to pass by the church,” says Ofglen, as if piously.
“All right,” I say, though I know as well as she does what she’s really after.
We walk, sedately. The sun is out, in the sky there are white fluffy clouds, the kind that look like headless sheep. Given our wings, our blinkers, it’s hard to look up, hard to get the full view, of the sky, of anything. But we can do it, a little at a time, a quick move of the head, up and down, to the side and back. We have learned to see the world in gasps.
Chapter 27
I freeze, cold travels through me, down to my feet. There must have been microphones, they’ve heard us after all.
Ofglen, under cover of her sleeve, grips my elbow. “Keep moving,” she whispers. “Pretend not to see.”
But I can’t help seeing. Right in front of us the van pulls up. Two Eyes, in gray suits, leap from the opening double doors at the back. They grab a man who is walking along, a man with a briefcase, an ordinary-looking man, slam him back against the black side of the van. He’s there a moment, splayed out against the metal as if stuck to it; then one of the Eyes moves in on him, does something sharp and brutal that doubles him over, into a limp cloth bundle. They pick him up and heave him into the back of the van like a sack of mail. Then they are also inside and the doors are closed and the van moves on. It’s over, in seconds, and the traffic on the street resumes as if nothing has happened. What I feel is relief. It wasn’t me.
Chapter 33
Late afternoon, the sky hazy, the sunlight diffuse but heavy and everywhere, like bronze dust. I glide with Ofglen along the sidewalk; the pair of us, and in front of us another pair, and across the street another. We must look good from a distance: picturesque, like Dutch milkmaids on a wallpaper frieze, like a shelf full of period-costume ceramic salt and pepper shakers, like a flotilla of swans or anything that repeats itself with at least minimum grace and without variation. Soothing to the eye, the eyes, the Eyes, for that’s who this show is for. We’re off to the Prayvaganza, to demonstrate how obedient and pious
we are. Not a dandelion in sight here, the lawns are picked clean. I long for one, just one, rubbishy and insolently random and hard to get rid of and perennially yellow as the sun. Cheerful and plebeian, shining for all alike. Rings, we would make from them, and crowns and necklaces, stains from the bitter milk on our fingers. Or I’d hold one under her chin: Do you like butter? Smelling them, she’d get pollen on her nose. Or was that buttercups? Or gone to seed: I can see her, running across the lawn, that lawn there just in front of me, at two, three years old, waving one like a sparkler, a small wand of white fire, the air filling with tiny parachutes. Blow, and you tell the time. All that time, blowing away in the summer breeze. It was daisies for love though, and we did that too… After a while we turn right, heading past Lilies and down towards the river. I wish I could go that far, to where the wide banks are, where we used to lie in the sun, where the bridges arch over. If you went down the river long enough, along its sinewy windings, you’d reach the sea;
Chapter 33
A number of the Wives are already seated, in their best embroidered blue. We can feel their eyes on us as we walk in our red dresses two by two across to the side opposite them. We are being looked at, assessed, whispered about; we can feel it, like tiny ants running on our bare skins. Here there are no chairs. Our area is cordoned off with a silky twisted scarlet rope, like the kind they used to have in movie theaters to restrain the customers. This rope segregates us, marks us off, keeps the others from contamination by us, makes for us a corral or pen; so into it we go, arranging ourselves in rows, which we know very well how to do, kneeling then on the cement floor.
“Head for the back,” Ofglen murmurs at my side. “We can talk better.” And when we are kneeling, heads bowed slightly, I can hear from all around us a susurration, like the rustling of insects in tall dry grass: a cloud of whispers. This is one of the places where we can exchange news more freely, pass it from one to the next. It’s hard for them to single out any one of us or hear what’s being said.
And, finally, an extra Kylie/Olly Alexander video just for fun. One of my favourite dance routines – but I couldn’t think of a good question that worked alongside it! Send me ideas if you have any!!