Clapping
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Philosophaster
- Posts: 563
- Joined: Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:19 am
Clapping
When I see a crowd of people clapping and cheering it really makes them look "monkey-like" to me. It seems like such an animalish thing to do, smacking your hands together to indicate approval, a crowd making a bunch of disordered noise in appreciation of something that has happened.
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BMcGilly07
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Re: Clapping
Disordered noise here.Philosophaster wrote:When I see a crowd of people clapping and cheering it really makes them look "monkey-like" to me. It seems like such an animalish thing to do, smacking your hands together to indicate approval, a crowd making a bunch of disordered noise in appreciation of something that has happened.
One of the creepiest things I've seen is going to Cuba and seeing Castro speak, while the Americans were making random noise as we normally think of clapping, the Cuban students were clapping in a rhythm all together and fairly slowly.
-Katy
Clapping and Line Dancing
This relates to something I've been thinking about in passing lately, which is that all societies and cultures (that I know about) seem to have something equivalent to line dancing.
The most obvious case is in pop music videos, where there almost always is a scene with a group of people doing the same moves in unison - as if a bunch of people doing it together somehow makes it less stupid than if a single person was. The movements themselves, of course are arbitrary; the point is that everyone is doing the same thing.
So now I think of culture as being split roughly into these two major areas: there is one area that consists of the actual knowledge (science and practical techniques) of the culture, and the rest consists of line dancing.
Are there other areas? That seems to cover most of it, at least. I suppose there is considerable overlap in choreography and politics - the practical techniques of getting a group of people doing the same thing, or working together.
Or is it overly cynical to throw all art into the category of coming up with new line dances?
The most obvious case is in pop music videos, where there almost always is a scene with a group of people doing the same moves in unison - as if a bunch of people doing it together somehow makes it less stupid than if a single person was. The movements themselves, of course are arbitrary; the point is that everyone is doing the same thing.
So now I think of culture as being split roughly into these two major areas: there is one area that consists of the actual knowledge (science and practical techniques) of the culture, and the rest consists of line dancing.
Are there other areas? That seems to cover most of it, at least. I suppose there is considerable overlap in choreography and politics - the practical techniques of getting a group of people doing the same thing, or working together.
Or is it overly cynical to throw all art into the category of coming up with new line dances?
I guess they've given up on the illusion of clapping being spontaneous. Of course in the US a very slow clap would be sarcastic.Katy wrote:One of the creepiest things I've seen is going to Cuba and seeing Castro speak, while the Americans were making random noise as we normally think of clapping, the Cuban students were clapping in a rhythm all together and fairly slowly.
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Elizabeth Isabelle
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