Puppet of the Muses

The Ancient Art of Trance

2009-02-10T09:45:00.001-05:00

Everybody knows that trance is ancient. (Well anybody who knows what it is to begin with.) And so many people feels that gives them the right to state with certainty what ancient peoples did or believed about trance. And oddly enough it is always exactly like whatever technique or style it is that they are doing. The word "ancient" is used as a sort of justification for the bizarre or validation for the unique.

"Trance is ancient. I trance. Therefore my techniques are ancient."

That is a logical fallacy. The trance techniques of today look very little like the trance techniques of 500 years ago and those look nothing like the trance traditions of 2,000 years ago and those look nothing like the trance traditions of 3,000 years ago. And that is not taking into account a difference in geographic culture. But of course by ancient what many people mean is "back in Matriarchal times" or something equally historically inaccurate. Perhaps ancient is meant as 11, 000 years ago? Or 20,000 years ago? In other words, before written record.

And this is backed up by a layman who looks at a cave painting on wikipedia and interprets static inked figures as being evidence of trance. That is if the person declaring the antiquity of trance even bothers to try citing sources in either art work or in some form of bibliography. Many trance books and documentaries that I've had the pleasure of perusing have neglected any form of scholastic inquiry whatsoever and rely wholly upon a series of logical fallacies, essentially just appeals to common knowledge.

"Well everyone knows that ______________."

No. Not everyone knows. Why don't you share your source for that? In many cases those who do bother to give some form of background commonly cite modern sources to back up claims of antiquity. And I'm not talking about quoting an anthropologist or art historian, I'm talking about referring to modern traditions of trance to demonstrate the age of a completely different technique. Why? Because a lot of the things trance authors write about comes from unverified personal gnosis. (UPG) In other words... its a belief that they pass off as a historical fact. And everybody should know about it because their personal belief is "common knowledge."

Take a look at the bibliographies of some of the trance books that are out there and you may walk away completely disturbed. Some trance artists that I know have actually taken the names of well known trance traditions and asserted their own beliefs over what they are and created their own versions of how they are done while passing them off as "the real thing." This happens a lot more than you may think. And it happens in both performance circles and in spirituality circles and even where the two combine.

Pay close attention to the words "ritual" or "ancient" and see if the person talking or writing follows it up with a date, a location or any form of specific information or if it is all a series of blanket generalizations. Do not be afraid to question even persons whom you may adore and respect. Do not let respect blind you to the spread of misinformation.

Ink, Ink, Covered in Ink

2009-01-29T08:23:00.003-05:00

It took me a few years to become comfortable with the idea that I do not enjoy working with color mediums. I have preferred pen and ink since high school and I never fully warmed up to color. I do enjoy painting though, acrylics, and I do not paint in black and white with those. Though I am sorely tempted to start because I think it would look very interesting. Regardless, I thought it would be kind of fun to blog about how I create.

First I start with a pencil sketch in one of my note books. I use a regular HB .5 mechanical pencil because I like to get a little more detail and I enjoy the control. I may eventually switch to something else one day but cheap is good when you have toddlers circling your work space like little sharks. (My kids love taking my pencils apart.) My first sketches are always very rough, they just give me an idea of the scene or general features of the characters. I sometimes keep these first sketches as templates for later.

After the first pass I use a light box to transfer the image over to a clean sheet of paper but this time I clean up the image and make it look quite a bit nicer. I frequently add clothing, jewelry and tattoos in this phase. Sometimes I just do one of these and sometimes I do a whole series, changing clothes and hair each time until I find one that I like. When I find one that I like I add all the appropriate shading and make it as detailed as possible. Sometimes I use a blue pencil to add layers but not often. I prefer the lengthy process because I'm still developing my style and technique and I don't frequently have many deadlines.

Once I have the pencil image the way I like I will take out my good paper and use a light box to transfer the image over completely. This time I'm very careful to keep my pencil work light because I don't want the lines to show through the ink. After all the penciling is transferred over I can start the inking process. I prefer to use a brush for the majority of my work but when I go in for finite details I use an acid free water proof black ink pen. When it comes to pens I'm not too picky about what I use and I have a lot of options. I have a good set of black ink Prisma pens from .5 up to 8. I also use Sharpies and brush pens. Sometimes I use a dipping pen with different types of nibs. There's a pen for pretty much everything in my little arsenal.

Sometimes I will ink the same image on multiple pages just to experiment with different inking techniques. This is handy for trying to figure out the best way to render an image. This is how I figured out that I prefer brushes to pens as well.

But there are drawbacks to using dipping ink as the area under my desk will prove. I once sat at my table using a stippling technique on a really incredible piece, I had been working on it for a long time, and I had a can of Sprite next to me. I would dip and dot-dot-dot then take a sip of my Sprite. Well I dipped and dotted and accidentally took a mouthful of ink. I quickly spat it out and while most of it landed on the table some of it hit the paper and I had to dramatically adjust my "vision" for the piece to fix it because the way that it occurred couldn't be fixed with a white pen.

That's rare though. But these things make for good stories! I find sketching and inking to be very relaxing. I enjoy it even when I have a deadline. So that's how its done!

What is Trance, Really?

2009-01-28T07:54:00.005-05:00

Trance is the same thing as hypnosis. When a person is hypnotized they are said to be entranced, in a state of trance. Trance is a sort of distance from consciousness and stimulating trance is a rather long an involved process. Trance requires a willingness to descend into a semi conscious state and a person to actively induce it. This is why trance is a community or group affair. It takes at least one conscious person to induce a successful trance in others.

So does this mean that there are people who cannot be entranced just as there are people who do not generally succumb to the usual techniques of hypnosis? Yes. I don't know the statistics on it but I have met people who have never been able to trance. I have also put a number of people under who have never been able to do it before or have been resistant to other forms of hypnosis. I am almost certain that it is possible for a person to be completely resistant to externally induced trance because it is possible to be strong willed enough to stay focused and not fall into a hypnotic pattern. How long a person can hold out is an interesting question though.

Trance is colloquially understood as the arts of hypnosis induced by music and dance. This can be achieved through dancing, playing instrumental music and chanting. Trance is a considerably more active series of techniques when compared to the more customary, and stationary, techniques used by hypnotists.

So how is trance induced? How is it controlled? To be ridiculously simple, trance is induced through rhythmic control combined with mental and physical relaxation on the part of the entranced. Control is maintained by an outside person who makes active decisions but for trance to be successful the person to be entranced must also relax.

Trance has been known to have a positive effect on persons who suffer from great amounts of stress or trauma. It is also known to have anesthetic qualities that allow for strange rituals of body mortification in both the past and the present. (Search Thaipusam or Cybaline Galli) Does this mean that trance can be used to conduct surgical procedures? I really doubt it. The activity of trance is really not conducive to a surgical environ. Even with the minimum number of participants its still a pretty noisy and elaborate affair. I have a very difficult time trying to picture a surgeon working under those sorts of conditions. That and trance is a skill. A person can be bad at trancing and neophytes often are. Your first time trancing may be a spectacular experience but a beginning trance artist does not have the same fortitude and hypnotic conditioning that a more experienced trance artist would have. Therefore to have any real chance at success for any type of surgical procedure the subject would have to be very experienced as a transcendental dancer already. And yes, it would have to be a dancer as neither a musician or chanteur would be able to be still enough.

So what is trance used for? That depends on what you want to use it for. It has multiple purposes and there are many different but familiar ways to achieve it. Some people trance recreationally, that is they trance because trancing is fun and good for you (like any other positive physical activity). Some people trance for spiritual or psychological reasons, it helps work out strong emotions and traumatic events so it can have a very positive effect on a person's demeanor. Others view trance as a more magical or religious experience and so you can generally find a considerable number of trance groups both modern and historic who've used trance to "cure diseases," work miracles or connect to the divine. All of these things are in the province of trance.

A Musical Revolution

2009-01-23T10:40:00.002-05:00

There was a time when Belly Dancing was just entertainment. It was just a man or a woman using their skill to move and even connect to music on a deep emotional level. But at the end of the day it was Orientale dance, it was performance dance. Beautiful, powerful, meaningful, skillful, but still performance dance.

Dance follows the traditions of music and so when we want to understand the direction that Belly Dancing is taking in the world today all we need to do is look to the music as it has grown and matured. Is it the same music of 50 years ago? Is it the same music of 20 years ago? Is it the same music of even 10 years ago? The music is growing, adapting and changing; new branches are forming. It would be egotistical to think that the only reason a new kind of sound emerges because of the dancers themselves. Trust me... if there were no dance there would still be music. But if there were no music would there be dance? How many dancers find themselves listening to a piece of music for the first time and thinking, "Wow, I really want to dance to this!" And how many dancers create a choreography or dance innovation and think, "Now if I only had some new type of music to put it to?"

I listen to music like that composed by Cheb I Sabbah and Azam Ali and I see an ancient future. I see the expression of things that we were not allowed to express as dancers 20 years ago. Give us the music and we will complete the revolution.

I was listening to a 13th Century Turkish piece last night, we're talking right after the first sacking of Constantinople in 1204, called Ey Derviccsler and I thought to myself... what a beautiful dervish piece. I would love to dance to this. I would love to share this. I've considered the same thing with Kyrie Eleison, adopting it as a Mithraic piece. I'm not ignorant of the sacred names called out during these songs or their histories. With my eyes open I want to dance to them. I want to dance to lyrical Rumi. I want to dance to those things that were denied to me as a "Belly Dancer" 15 years ago, 10 years ago. And so I wonder now, ...now that Belly Dance is not what it once was, now that the music is brought to the public through concerts and dance clubs, can I finally become the dancer that I want to be?

Its rather foolish to think that a puppet of the muses can do anything but follow what I am directed to do. As if I could suddenly will myself to stop dancing. Play the music and see what happens.

The Mother of Creativity

2009-01-22T19:56:00.002-05:00

Creativity does not run on my schedule so much as I kowtow to it's. Much like trance, creativity has a flow and the act of being creative is knowing how to channel but not interrupt that flow. I find the act of creation to be so supernaturally sublime that I could sit for hours just "making." The process of creation does not always need to lead to direct personal profit either. For one who creates and is subject to the almost lunatic desires to suddenly do so, the act of creation is the reward itself.

The inspirational forces of life are not subject to the whims of you, I or anyone else. These things come and go. When you force them, when you abuse them, when you try to control them they squeeze out between the fingers of your fist. But if you hold out your hand into their stream, leave yourself and step into the world of inspiration, then it moves freely all around you.

Sounds nice doesn't it? It has practical applications. Creativity cannot be forcibly contained because to be creative you must frequently come into contact with new ideas, new scents, new colors, things external of yourself. You have to go out and expose yourself to people with whom you do not normally associate. You have to try new things, new foods, new places. Especially the things that you don't want to try, don't want to taste, places you don't want to go. Because that is where the paradigm shift if waiting. That is where new material rests dormant waiting to mix with the sum total of all of your current experiences and ideas up until that point. THAT is how creativity leads to progress. By thinking and doing things that you never thought you would or could. By allowing yourself to change.

You are never in danger of becoming a different person, you will always be yourself, just like I will always be my wonderful, crazy Spoony self. But I should not want to find the me of five years from now all too familiar a person. I want to be able to say in five years that I have really grown.

We count our lives in the number of experiences we have. Our memories are linked to our senses. Smell. Touch. Taste. Sight. Hearing. Remember that Mnemosyne *Adoratio* is the mother of the Muses. Memory is the mother of art and history, inspiration. Create memories and you will have her children.

The Anthropomorphism of Dance

2009-01-21T10:04:00.003-05:00

Anthropomorphism

A thread on the Unmata Tribe got me thinking... dance is anthropomorphized subjectively by the viewer as it is performed by their performer.

Dance itself is an activity, an abstract concept that would not exist if there was no one there to do it. If we use the Greek word "choros" it would probably plug into my analogy a little better as choros more implies the rhythmic, timed, patterned movement of a group of objects. In using the word choros the world dances, the stars dance, the hours dance through the day, etc. But humans also dance and not just in our day to day business. We dance with inscrutable, wide ranging motivations and to an equal number of purposes.

Though most humans have the ability to speak and the ability to move we have a wide array of different languages and bodily gestures that convey meaning. Language is subjectively understood. So it is also true for dance. Dance is supposed to be the wordless ambassador on a general level but how the dialects do get lost in translation sometimes! Dance is understood subjectively based upon cultural perceptions and personal experience factors. It is not universal. In fact dance forms themselves are rather like languages with stylistic differences within each form being rather like dialects or accents. There is nothing universal about it at all apart from "we all dance"; but we all breathe and blink and reproduce as well so perhaps the universal quality that we attribute to dance is more akin to the universal quality of being human.

And now for the anthropomorphism. We, as human beings, interpret the world based upon our individual understandings of it. There is no other choice, you are the summation of what you are composed of --what you know. Each human being anthropomorphizes to some extent unless they purposefully make an attempt to not do so. Take a look at the popularity of LOL Cats or the number of people who name their cars and give them human emotions, religious people who beg the invisible for help and so forth. Dance is an abstract concept that many people, especially dancers, attribute some form of life and self awareness to. This blog calls itself a "puppet of the muses," the personifications of art and history. Personification. Anthropomorphism.

We anthropomorphize dance by attributing characteristics like gender to one form or another. This is a masculine dance. Why? Because it is performed by males. Why? Not because only males are physically capable of doing it but actually because it just IS. The anthropomorphism, and thereby gender personification, of dance is a stumbling block in the equation of human equity but it is also a matter of cultural heritage and identity.

Zeibekiko is a Greco-Turkish (ethnically ambiguous) men's dance. It is generally thought of as being Greek. We identify this dance as a Greek dance performed by men. Does this mean that a woman from Greece who performs this dance is not Greek? Or does it mean that she is not a woman? Or has she just crossed a hazy taboo line of authenticity or propriety? Why would this cause a flinch at all if dance itself was not to some degree gender personified? If it is danced by women, and it has been (myself included), it is not a flaw or a shame to the female dancer. It only becomes an issue in the eyes of those who witness it. Spectators, audiences, perceive what is essentially good and bad grammar from a perspective of choros. The accepted language of dance within their own cultural and personal paradigm. In this way it is the viewers who shape the meaning of a dance and not the dancer him/her or themselves.

Dance has gender. Dance is language. Dance has a spiritual essence. Dance itself is emotional. Dance is self imposing upon others. Dance has ever been... personified.

Tambourine Blessing

2009-01-20T09:05:00.000-05:00

Last night I went out to my regular Monday night trance session to bless my new tambourine. I dressed well and came well prepared to do what I needed to do. It was pretty cold out there even though it was semi indoors so it took me a little while to warm up but once I did...

The participants were energetic; my fellow drummers, my fellow dancers, even the Off the Rug people were dancing outside the space or clapping along. Everybody was moving and I could tell the dancers had something going on internally. I'm not sure if the music was really intense or if several of them just had some deeper issues last night but I found four dancers starting to trance at once at one point. Either dancers were dancing fast around the central pillar or they were off the edges of the trance space to focus on personal trance.

I would have been doing the same thing if I wasn't playing my tambourine so fast. I wanted to make sure that it soaked up all the incense but I wasn't sure how long it would take to burn. It burned slowly but it smelled really wonderful and I had the diffuser right below me on the floor so that the smoke trails would billow all around my new tambourine. I saturated both sides and gave it a good rub down. Even holding it flat in my hand the vibrations through the room shook the jingles and caused them to tinkle by themselves.

I love dancing and I was dressed for it last night but instead I just sat and played for an hour and a half straight. It was pretty wonderful. This tambourine replaces my lost set of sistrum, my preferred weapons for directing trance rituals. I really enjoy playing the sistrum but the tambourine is certainly the king of drums. (Well... unless were comparing it to the tambourello.) Given that my new trance class is starting up next month I wanted to make sure that I had all my ritual items prepared well before hand. I am really looking forward to putting people under again regularly. That was one of my greatest joys for years.

Dumbo's Magic Drum

2009-01-19T06:49:00.000-05:00

I don't know what it is about expensive gadgets but I just can't get into them. Its not that I'm thrifty and I know this because I routinely go broke buying books. I also know its not because I have priorities in other places because I spend a lot of time with the inexpensive gadgets that I do have. I think I'm just content. I've never really bought into advertising and I openly laugh at the notion of spending more than $100 on a pair of shoes that do not also have rockets or hidden daggers attatched to the soles. I just don't need the frilly stuff.

The reason I bring this up is because my new tambourine just arrived this past week and I've been merrily playing it for a few days now. It wasn't expensive. It is not a Remo frame drum or anything even remotely brand named. Just a little wooden tambourine with a goat skin head and some aluminum jingles. I already have plans to henna the surface and make it pretty. I'll probably name it and I imagine that it will end up being a part of "the family" for many years to come. But its just a cheap little tambourine to the rest of the world.

About a decade ago I rescued a little aluminum doumbek from certain destruction. The vinyl was never glued on properly so it was mightily discounded on account of it being just so gosh darn ugly. Nobody would ever want to play a fugly little drum like that, not when entire egos are based around just how awesome and spangley, pearl inlayed or hypercolored a drum can be. The vendor was about to just toss it out, it really was fugly. I offered to buy it and they snatched up my offer. I took my little fug drum home, dressed it up with yarn tassels and an old Inian anklet. I gave it a name and a place in my world. I burned incense in front of it, rubbed resin and ritual compound on the inside of it and used it in just about every trance ritual I've ever drummed in since. I joke about how ugly it is because the peeling has only gotten worse. I've changed its "clothes" several times over the years, added stone beads, shark vertibrae and whatever else caught my eye. In my opinion it is a very well loved, trusty, hearty companion. Because it isn't a little play boy drum it can go out into the woods with me, it can be played in the smoke of a fire circle and it survives the changing temperatures of night and day. I love that drum and I play it more than I would ever feel comfortable with playing something more aesthetically pleasing. There is not another drum like it out there.

Now we come to my zills. These are probably the things that I laugh at the most in other people. I cannot take a dancer seriously if they don't know how to treat a pair of zills. They are wicked, evil devices of psychological warfare designed to be knocked against one another in a Bacchic cacophany thats part torture and part ecstasy. Most people who play the cymbals treat them like Dumbo's magic feather; they swear by the largest and most expensive name brand sets out there. (Oh how posh you are!) Seriously... if you can play the zills well you can rock any set out there. You can take a clunky little cheapo set from ebay and turn them into heralds of the apocalypse if you know what you're doing. I do not view my zills as extensions of my own ego; which is sizeable enough as it is without magic bits of holy metal strapped to my fingers.

I suppose what I am getting at here is that love, dedication and the ability to look past the exterior of things can yield gold. It is the skill of the musician, dancer, person who makes the instrument, costume or whatever come to life. Paganini played the violin in jail without access to a lot of replacement strings. If you have passion you can make incredible things out of the seemingly ordinary.

~*Spoon*~