Before & After Substantive Edits
BEFORE
Urbanity’s New
Mission Statement
Urbanity Dance is pushing the limits of contemporary technique, the result is aesthetically raw and unpredictable movement. Dancers build on a foundation of ballet, modern and jazz to successfully alternate between lyrical fluidity and quirky minimalism. Advocating for a fresh approach to dance and a new genre for open-minded, life-long learners, the Urbanity aesthetic is an experiment in increasing physical intelligence. Believing in the essential symbiosis of community and art, Urbanity’s work with Boston Public Schools is strengthening neighborhoods and economy. Trained dancers are known for their versatility and ‘sharp adaptability,’ discovering joy through the challenging array of movement. Also fostering life-long choreographers, dancers are encouraged to professionally produce their work. Performances are deeply provocative yet visually and audibly stimulating, promoting accessibility to wide-ranging ages and interests.
Urbanity Dance’s Mission
Urbanity Dance aspires to push
the limits of contemporary dance technique, striving to inspire audiences with
its edgy artistry and startling unpredictability of movement. Building on a
rich foundation of classical ballet and modern dance, the Company seeks to
combine lyrical fluidity with a jazzy economy of expression. Advocating a fresh
and imaginative approach to dance, the Urbanity aesthetic is an exciting
experiment in elevating physical intelligence.
Our trained dancers are lifelong
learners chosen for their sharp adaptability as well as dancing prowess and are
encouraged to professionally choreograph their work.
Believing in the creative
interplay between art and community, Urbanity in its ongoing work with Boston
Public Schools supports neighborhood collaboration and the constructive
channeling of vitality, especially fostering life enhancement for young people
through dance and movement. We also offer an annual college scholarship to a
talented student.
Celebrating a cosmopolitan
sensibility, Urbanity Dance is dedicated to providing provocative, visually
arresting, and musically stimulating performances for diverse audiences of all
ages.
BEFORE
Vision and Values
Urbanity Dance will continue to value the entwined nature of humanity with movement. The company will establish a new language for movement through the world of dance. This language will be the basis upon which our goals will flourish. We hope to artistically enrich (and be enriched by) our community, both locally in Boston and internationally and earn a repertoire and reputation that is respected among artists. The Urbanity aesthetic understands that attending live theater is a generous act in the 21st century and will, therefore, aspire to create entertaining, multi-sensory experiences in each performance. Creation within these performances will spring from a variety of sources — from collaborations with talented composers to choreographed pieces from company members. Thus, Urbanity will never cease to revisit and reimagine the stylistic accomplishments that can occur in the world of dance. Work within the community, including workshops for inner-city schools and growing scholarship support, will repair the ruptured human sinew of our time, connecting physical intelligence to the much under-valued asset of imagination.
AFTER
Urbanity Dance places supreme
value on the essential human desire for self-expression through movement.
Performing innovative dance at home in Boston as well as on stages around the
world, the Company aims to enact its own characteristic yet evolving artistic
language that is creatively acclaimed.
Appreciating the attendance of
live dance as a generous act in the mediated 21st century, we offer audiences a
challenging, entertaining, and visionary experience. Multisensory
works spring from collaborations with talented composers, in commissioning
choreographed pieces from Company members, and by never ceasing to actively
reimagine the stylistic accomplishments that mark the dance repertoire.
Our hope is to aesthetically
enrich—and to be enriched by—the
community we are so integrally a part of. Drawing on the resources of our
supporters, we are motivated in turn to run dance workshops in inner-city
schools and to provide scholarship funds for deserving students.
For it is the dream of Urbanity
Dance to help repair the ruptured body politic of our time by embodying
intelligence and imagination in uplifting dance engagements.
BEFORE
1. Urban Humanity—We want to bring the joy and power of movement to our audience. Dance is about celebrating human emotions and acknowledging humanity; every time we dance, we acknowledge one another and our audience.
2. Urban Insanity—What happens when we let disorder resonate? Finding peace with disorder. Organized chaos. Raw. Construction. Metal. Mechanical. Scaffolds. Quirkiness. Being comfortable with random spasms.
3. Urban Profanity—Profanity can be a word, expression, gesture, or other social behavior that is interpreted as insulting, rude or vulgar. What does our culture consider offensive or profane? What is the context and what is the point of the language or action? Does it make a difference? When do we as a community need to feel okay with being challenged and seeing things outside of our comfort zone? Is it ever our social responsibility to be profane or deviant?
4. Urban Organity—Live performance art has the power to move us in powerful ways. It has potential to deeply affect change and personal growth. As we dance, movement energy flows through the dancers, cycles to the audience and back to the dancers in an organic, shared experience. Realizing the dream of dance as a most sublime of human arts. The body as art and as that which connects us, the internet of sinew, webbed fingers and toes, engaging the brain as a network of connections, high and low, in and out, belonging.
5. Urban Vitality—Live performance can deeply affect the vitality of a city, engaging diverse populations and enacting lively streets of strong character.
AFTER
1.
Urban Humanity—We want to bring the joy and power of expressive movement to our
audience. Dance is about celebrating emotionality and acknowledging the
universality of human experience. Every time we dance, we connect to our fellow
human beings and embody the archetypal forces of life.
2.
Urban Insanity—What happens when we let disorder resonate? Finding beauty in
disorder. Organized chaos. Rawness. Construction. Metal and mettle. Mechanical
movements. Scaffolds. Quirkiness. Being comfortable with mysterious spasms.
3.
Urban Profanity—Profanity can be a word, expression, gesture, or other
social utterance that is interpreted as insulting, rude, or vulgar. What does
our culture consider offensive or profane? What is the context of and point of
such language or behavior? Does its utterance make a difference? When do we as
a community need to undergo challenges to our comfort zone? Is it ever our
social responsibility to be profane or deviant?
4.
Urban Organity—Live performance art has the power to move us in
fundamental ways, effecting deep change. As we dance, movement energy flows
through dancers to members of the audience and cycles back to dancers in an
organic, shared experience. Realizing the dream of dance as a most sublime
human art. Embodied dance as that which connects us in a sinewy web of webbed
fingers and toes, networking minds high and low, in and out, creating
belonging.
5.
Urban Vitality—Live performance can deeply affect the vitality of a city,
engaging diverse populations and enacting lively streets of strong characters.
BEFORE
Julia Zerounian’s voice is as warm and
glowing as her personality. The welcome she extends to her audience,
immediately establishing an atmosphere of enthusiasm and intimacy, is enough to
make her a charming and infectious entertainer. But she is much
more. This is a real artist who knowingly and lovingly shapes every
phrase and colors of every tone in order to bring out the maximum of feeling in
a song. Whether the mood is light hearted or passionate or something
in-between, she passes effortlessly from one to the other, and all are
important to her. With a repertoire ranging over many ethnic groups,
languages (she sings in ten different languages) and styles, you might think
the authentic moments would be reserved for the Armenian melodies. But
the Russian (romance and gypsy songs), French (Aznavour,
Piaf, Brel), Greek, Persian
songs, and Latin tunes, not to speak of classics from the American Song Book,
are delivered with equal conviction, authority, and heart.
Singing effortlessly
in ten languages, the charming and elegant Julia Zerounian
restores to an often callow contemporary scene the glamorous heyday of
international café-cabaret, creating an atmosphere of infectious enthusiasm and
intimacy with the audience that together move its members to feel like
sophisticated citizens of the world. Julia’s evocative voice is as warm and
glowing as her personality. This is a real artist who knowingly and lovingly
shapes every phrase and colors every tone to elicit a maximum of feeling and
expressiveness of mood in each song. With a worldwide repertoire including
Russian romance and gypsy songs, French raconteur (Aznavour,
Piaf, Brel), Greek, Persian, and Latin tunes, and, of
course, perennial classics from the American songbook, Julia and her brilliant
band ensemble deliver an ebullient musical experience with equal parts
conviction, authority, and heart.
At an early age, Julia
began her acting and singing career in Armenia, performing with various
professional ensembles and theatrical groups throughout the former Soviet
Union. Since her move to the United States in 1972, she has become well known
as a singer of Armenian minstrel, folk and contemporary songs creating great
enthusiasm in her audiences. The combination of Julia’s moving, soulful, vibrant singing and her wide-ranging, diverse
repertoire of songs and musical styles have touched the hearts of her audiences
as well as garnered praise and rave reviews from numerous prominent artists and
musicians.
“Julia’s music makes you
feel great, high spirited and cheerful. You leave the concert being fully
recharged and ready for new life adventures; looking at things with renewed
positive attitude….Her voice is fresh and beautiful, always in tune. The
repertoire is chosen extremely well. Each song is a bull’s eye and speaks
on a personal level to the whole audience.” Were comments made by Alexander Korsantia prize winning concert pianist and professor at
the New England Conservatory after the last concert at the Regattabar.
“Vocalist Julia performs
with all the pizzazz of a headliner, as comfortable on stage as if she had been
singing on Broadway, in clubs and in cabarets all her life,” says Victor
Rosenbaum, concert pianist and composer, former president of Longy School of Music. “Her voice is gorgeous – with
a full palette of evocative colors – and she can put across every kind of song,
from the sweetest innocent love song to hand-clapping dance
numbers. She is completely riveting on stage, and her back-up group
led by her husband Sarkis at the piano, provides all
the necessary support, rhythm and complementary color.”
Jonathan McPhee, Music Director – Boston Ballet Orchestra and
Longwood Symphony adds, “Julia Zerounian and
her musicians perform music from Eastern Europe and America with a unique
blend of cultures dominated by a warmth and personal quality that captivates
the audience. Even though many of the songs are in Russian and Armenian,
her singing is so passionate and beautiful that the meaning is clear even
without knowing the language.”
Julia began her
singing and acting career at an early age in Armenia, later performing with
various professional ensembles and theatrical groups throughout the former
Soviet Union. Since her move to the Boston area in 1972, she has become
well-known to sophisticated urban audiences as an inimitable interpreter of
modern American jazz tunes, international folk and contemporary songs, and
Armenian minstrel. The combination of Julia’s soulful, vibrant singing and
mastery of musical idioms has not only gained a large and loyal following but
garnered rave reviews from prominent musicians and critics. A recent sampling:
Julia’s music makes
you feel great, high spirited and cheerful. You leave the concert
being fully recharged and ready for new life adventures; looking at things with
renewed positive attitude…. Her voice is fresh and beautiful, always in tune.
The repertoire is chosen extremely well. Each song is a bull’s eye and speaks
on a personal level to the whole audience.
—Alexander Korsantia, prize-winning
concert pianist and professor at New England Conservatory
Vocalist Julia performs with all the pizzazz of a headliner, as
comfortable on stage as if she had been singing on Broadway, in clubs and in
cabarets all her life…. Her voice is gorgeous—with a full palette of evocative colors—and she can put across
every kind of song, from the sweetest innocent love song to hand-clapping dance
numbers. She is completely riveting on stage, and her back-up group led by her
husband Sarkis at the piano provides all the
necessary support, rhythm and complementary color.
—Victor Rosenbaum, concert pianist and composer, former president
of Longy School of Music
Julia Zerounian and her musicians
perform music from Eastern Europe and America with a unique blend of cultures
dominated by a warmth and personal quality that captivates the audience. Even
though many of the songs are in Russian and Armenian, her singing is so
passionate and beautiful that the meaning is clear even without knowing the
language.
—Jonathan McPhee, Music Director,
Boston Ballet Orchestra and Longwood Symphony
BEFORE
I selected the term
“amorphous ego structure”, which describes Japanese cultural pattern and
explains this types of psychopathology. The characteristics
of the amorphous ego is as follows;
1) It shows ego contents of
colloid like state, ambiguous desire, overlapping and loose structure of values
system, chaotic object images, diffuse intentional behavior and
undifferentiated psychic structure.
2) There are similar terms to
describe these phenomena, such as “ambiguous”, “formless”, “fluid”, “chaos”, “incoherent”, “unstructured”.
3) Kenzaburo Ohe
made a speech titled “Japan, the ambiguous and I” at his Noble Prize reception
lecture. He expressed in his paper “Aimai” as ambiguous. It is
the same phenomena as I want to stress.
4) However, I chose to use the term “amorphous” as more a value-free and neutral. The term “Amorphous” is an engineering term. It means noncrystal and liquid state, of which molecule is not organized.
AFTERIn his Noble Prize for
Literature address translated
as “Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself,” Kenzaburō Ōe emphasized the same phenomenon
of ambiguity I want to stress. I use the term amorphous ego structure to characterize a type of psychopathology
prevalent in Japanese culture.
A person exhibiting this condition is often considered unstructured,
incoherent, and even chaotic in matters of psychological identity, object
relations, and behavior—in other words, as a personality manifesting a weak ego
structure. This latter phrase is a value-laden one I wish to avoid by
substituting a more neutral word. Amorphous,
in fact, is a scientific term referring to a colloidal, unorganized molecular
state. A person of amorphous ego structure, then, experiences ambiguous
desires, an overlapping and loose system of values, diffuse behavior, and
undifferentiated psychic contents.
I will describe it
with a diagram, using Freud’s model.
The two circles mean
a boundary line with outer world which indicates ego boundary and a part of
self which is an inner core. Its in-between state represents ego contents.
I put the term
metaphorically the periphery of the ego boundary skin ego. The skin ego is sensitive
to outer world and particularly to an interpersonal world. Structure of the
core ego is ambiguous and self concept is diffuse. In addition, the ego
contents are undifferentiated and colloid like state
without any organized structure. Consequently, it shows traits such as socially
weak self-assertion, few expressions of opinion, and clumsy at argument. It
does not mean the opinion of his own does exist but does not expressed.
Instead, it does not exist.
The followings are
the characteristics of the skin ego:
1) It indicates the
periphery of the ego boundary.
2) It manages dynamics of the
interpersonal relations and functions as to follow the Sekentei,
the decency, interpersonal code of behavior.
3) It maintains the
ego contents in amorphous state.
4) The skin ego plays
a role of container of ego contents.
If you compare the
Japanese amorphous ego with the Western core ego, you will see the difference
of the each trait clearly. “Amorphous ego structure” has traits that “the sense
of self” is ambiguous, that ego contents are amorphous, and that the skin ego
is fairly vigilant and sensitive (see, Fig.1).
Figure 1 diagrams an
amorphous personality structure using a Freudian ego model, represented by the
large encompassing oval. Its thick boundary marks the periphery between the ego
contents within and the outer world beyond. This periphery can be characterized
metaphorically as a sensitive ego skin or persona interfacing between inner and outer worlds
and in particular vigilantly managing interpersonal dynamics.
The ego skin serves
as a container of ego contents
insofar as it follows rules of sekentei, or
decency, the Japanese culture-bound code of behavior informing all human
relationships. In other words, self-containment in one’s behavior depends on sekentei, whose precepts are elaborated on later
in this chapter.
Further, the ego skin
serves to maintain the ego contents—depicted by the letters in between the
central circle and the outer oval in Figure 1—in an amorphous state. At the
center of the oval is a core ego that is itself ambiguous, resulting in a
diffusive sense of self among certain Japanese. Such undifferentiated persons in their
social functioning exhibit weak self-assertiveness, express few opinions, and
are clumsy at argument. Note that this does not mean such persons have opinions
of their own yet do not express them; rather, they simply do not have opinions
of their own.
On the contrary, the
core western ego structure has traits that the self concept is clear, that ego
contents are structured, and that the skin ego reacts selectively and is not
indiscriminately vigilant and sensitive toward the interpersonal stimulus (see,
Fig.2).
The amorphous core
ego and ambiguous sense of self among the Japanese can be better understood by
contrast with the more organized ego structure and clearer sense of self in
their Western counterparts, as depicted in Figure 2. However, as the diagram
shows, the Western persona reacts more selectively toward and is less
indiscriminately vigilant and sensitive in interpersonal relationships, in
comparison with the more porous Japanese ego skin.
How differently are
the core ego structure and the amorphous ego structure in interpersonal
situations indicated? As for the core ego structure, we can say it becomes a
confrontational relationship with others. They recognize others as “you” as a
second person and the others relate to “me” as a second person. It is a
relation of the first person vs. the second person, which is a
“I and you” relationship. We can say the ego meets the other ego, or the self
meets the other self. The relationship of “I and Thou” of Martin Buber could
structurally indicate this linkage.
How are the
differences between the amorphous Japanese ego, on the one hand, and the
organized Western ego, on the other, manifested in interpersonal behavior? It
would appear that persons with a more Western-style organized ego structure
form more confrontational relationships with others than do those with
amorphous egos. In the former case, persons relate to each other as separate
individuals, a meeting of self to self that may be characterized as an I–you relationship. To the extent that
the I encounters a you out of genuine respect for this
other’s unpredictable autonomy, without making social calculations or imposing
past assumptions and judgments about this other’s nature, such a living
relationship can be compared with the German philosopher Martin Buber’s exalted
I–Thou mode of involvement between
two people [AU: See “Martin Buber,” The
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. But to the extent that Western
interpersonal relationships take place between two defensive egos, a comparison
of such with Buber’s I–Thou encounter
is unwarranted.]
Figure 3 represents
the interpersonal relations of core ego structure and Figure 4 represents the
interpersonal relationships of the amorphous ego structure.
How is the case of
the amorphous ego? Here are the characteristics of amorphous ego in the
interpersonal relations which is different from the core ego structure.
1) Firstly, the field of
interpersonal relations is dense which is filled the rule of SEKENTEI,
culturally bound code of behavior. They have to consider much about who the
speaker is, and how their relationship with the speaker is. The term “SEKENTEI
(decency)” is used in ordinary life in Japan.
2) Secondly, the speaking
partner, namely “you” is introjected into “I”, according
to the rule of SEKENTEI. “I” talk to projected other, based on the introjected “you”. The other also replies to “projected
me”, with same psychological maneuver. This relation can be said as “my - you” versus “your - I”, that is
the second person versus second person relationship. A philosopher Arimasa Mori called it “binominal relationship”.
In Japan, if you
don’t operate this “you-you” relationship well, your interpersonal relations
would not proceed smoothly and end up in vain. For instance, if you use an
expression style that you would use to your peer to someone senior to you, you
are considered as rude or impertinent. It will hurt his/her feelings and will
break off the talk. On the contrary, if you use honorific words to your junior
persons, your relation will become clumsy.
AFTER
Figure 3 illustrates
the confrontational pattern frequently found in interpersonal relationships
between two persons possessing an organized ego structure. In contrast, Figure
4 depicts the nesting style often encountered in interpersonal relationships
between two persons of amorphous ego structure.
In the case of Japanese interpersonal relationships between two persons with amorphous egos, behavior is determined by the sekentei cultural code introduced above. Each speaker must take into consideration the particular social status of the other in addressing and behaving toward him or her, which not only makes for dense interpersonal relations but entails a complex psychology at work in each person. That is, each person acting with great sensitivity and decency toward the other, following the rules of sekentei, introjects an image of the other into his or her own self. So I as an introjected you thereby interact with a projected you, just as you who have introjected me through a similar psychological maneuver then interact with a projected me.
The result is a you–you nested relationship—in the sense of
a you within an I and an I within a you—that philosopher Arimasa
Mori describes as a binomial one. In Japan this means that if you don’t handle
this you–you relationship
sensitively, your interpersonal relations will not proceed smoothly and will
end in vain. For instance, if you use a style of expression
that would properly be directed only toward a peer instead toward someone senior
to you, you will be considered rude or impertinent. You will have hurt the
other’s feelings and as a result he or she will break off the conversation.
Similarly offensive, if you make the mistake of using honorific words toward
persons junior to you, your relationship will be a clumsy one.