Culture is defined by Webster’s dictionary on-line as:
the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular
society, group, place, or time
: a particular society that has its own beliefs,
ways of life, art, etc.
: a way of thinking, behaving, or
working that exists in a place or organization (such as a business)
.
Recently, my daughter and I made our annual girl trip back
to my home state of Oklahoma. We stayed
with some friends who took us along to see a dance interpretation? I placed the question mark at the end of the
sentence because I’m not quite sure what to call it. It was at the Tulsa Performing Arts center
and the name of the production was called Mob Mental.ity. That period in the middle of the word was
intentional, I mean, they printed it like that everywhere. It is probably something artsy that I just
don’t “get.” Oh well. I think the whole
thing was just plain weird…period. There
I said it.
The modern dancers jumped around on stage to some
intentional terrible flat and sharp live music.
It sounded a lot like my cat Oscar getting his tail stuck
somewhere. He complains a lot. I felt like this production was a social
justice WHINEfest too. There was the “Hitler
reigns” scene. Ok, that was what I got
out of it as one dancer made the third Reich sign high in the air and then
everyone started to copy it after some time.
It was disturbing but wait …there’s more. The scene where they mock religion or
Christianity anyway earned a heavy sigh and groan out of my seat mate to my
right. Then there was the political
scene where they showed pictures of the Republicans and Democrats and they
kindly decided to show a large jug of Kool-Aid behind the purported GOP
candidate. Uh-hem. The democrat side only lacked a rainbow
unicorn and brownies. There was the
independent candidate too and of course they gave some time to the green party
too. After all being green is so very good
for us all.
Because a bunch of little social justice dancing soldiers
wasn’t enough toward the end of the program a younger man in the audience
jumped to his feet and started screaming.
Now, after 12 years of living in Colorado and especially after the
recent theater shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado, I didn’t care for this at
all. At first I thought well this is
it. It is happening to us. Then he started carrying on about the color
of his skin and being accepted for who he is.
Oh, ok. Right. Back to the message. Then a 20-something with blue spiked hair and
a dress that looked as though she was poured in and forgot to say “when” jumps
to her feet and joins in with the rant.
When I saw this I knew this was a part of the production. After all, who would shoot up a theater
wearing stilettos and blue hair? It
seemed like these kids were carrying lot of anger. Does getting your Saturday night dose of
culture do this to you? If so, maybe I’ll
stay home in my pajamas and watch Duck Dynasty.
Our daughter’s biological father is always insisting that
his daughter get some “culture” because we live in the country, what on God’s
green earth could we know about that? I
would like to say that culture is subjective.
It isn’t some over-priced evening where you dress up and listen to
lyricless music by people wearing all black in a low light theater saturated
with the wafting of Channel number 5. Culture
is simply as defined above. It can be
the culture of a people, a rural people even.
Culture is county fair. It is handmade
quilts, delicious pies, slow smoked BBQ, perfectly refreshing iced tea on a hot
summer day. Culture is the hard work
demonstrated in tomorrow’s leaders as 4H youth show their animals. It is the sweet smell of the earth as it is plowed, the aroma of cow and horse poop, the smell of the volunteer parents on the grill raising money for 4H to continue the program. It is the collective lifestyle of a
people, any people. It isn’t ONLY New York City or
the artsy coffee shop in Seattle or the Smithsonian. It is life.
It is unique and special and it is sometimes just simple.
The dance production was certainly two hours and something
of our lives we’ll never get back. It
was well, very interesting. It was not
my cup of tea. It was really more of a
glass of WHINE.
~Anne Boswell Taylor
#Culture
#Culture
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