Last week, I wrote up the week’s So You Think You Can Dance? with a focus on the role of choreography, namely, how bad or indecisive choreography was hurting certain dancers. That made this week’s episode so interesting – everyone dances the same routine? Hmmm. Still, that didn’t keep choreography from sinking Jaime. Sadly. And this week’s episode also revisited an old motif: anxiety about masculinity and sexuality.
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I really just don’t get So You Think You Can Dance? judging. Which is to say, I think I bring the wrong set of principles. Naively, I’ve been watching the show with the expectation that marginal dancers are on the way out, exceptional dancers staying around to develop. Especially since this year’s group is exceptional. This week’s goodbye to Jimmy means I’m wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
I am so happy to move beyond the humiliation teasers on So You Think You Can Dance? and into the real competition. Cuts, dancing for your life, focus on how people manifest their talents through exhaustion and pressure. You know, the real reason one might tune in if one imagines oneself as not a complete jerk. I’m still a little traumatized by the humiliation thing, but I’ll pretty much leave it behind. Except to say that it is totally unnecessary. This is a compelling and exciting show without juvenile antics. Seriously.
Slate.com has an interesting write-up on a new technology, you know, the one making it possible to never menstruate again. Like the author, I’ll pass over the debate about the relation between womanhood, nature, and the body – not really my place to make a comment. Except this: I’m wary about the whole “keep technology off our bodies” rhetoric, not because of the politico-economic suspicions underlying the rhetoric (sound enough), but simply because technology is so deeply inside our bodies that we should talk more about boundaries than abolition. Rather, my main interest in this reflection is a familiar name: Jerry Falwell. What would Jerry think? Read the rest of this entry »