Did I Just Make Up a Ghost?
Have you ever noticed that when you read about something, all of a sudden that one thing starts to appear everywhere?
BODIES NEVER LIE
“Dance can give the inarticulate a voice” … Fortunately, I never had that problem — Jess Ruhlin
Jess’s multiple fun blogs talk about soooo many things. OMG talk about voicing opinions! She’s a QUEEN on making sure her voice is heard. The more I click on the different blogs she has written, the more I realize that she has so much to say about dance. Multiple posts about teaching, being a student, being a company member in a professional setting, gender inequalities within dance, movie reviews about dance, etc… it’s pretty fascinating to hear someone speak my same language :) Yaay!… I say yayy cause I feel like that rarely happens.
All of her posts are always related to dance of course, but mainly ballet because you can tell she has had a passion for this for a looong time since I stumbled upon a baby ballerina photo of her. Jess is very knowledgeable in the field and she likes to randomly dissect topics within dance and give advice or showcase her opinions.
You can get a sense of who she is because of how conversational her posts are. This one in particular:
The way she starts to introduce gender inequality in dance was kinda funny and random. She first mentions that recently she’s noticing several things she has never before, simply because she is directing her mind into that particular subject. (ok here’s my connection to the Title of this post) She points out that her random curiosity about demonic possession led her to make up a ghost in her room. She jokingly said that followed by a (don’t ask me why side note) because she knew the reader was going to be like wtf? And yeah, I certainly was like… wtf does this has to do with gender inequality? But the point is that this is how she introduces the idea that when you start reading about something or decide to pay close attention to one thing, you’ll find that thing everywhere or at least make it up. This happens to me all the time, for instance, when I was car shopping a few years ago, I had my eye on a Toyota Corolla and all of a sudden every single car I would see parked or on the road was a freakin Toyota Corolla. Why is that???
This post showcases her voice in many ways and its why I chose it to describe how she writes. The way she decides to split up her paragraphs allows the reader to move along with her thoughts which is cool. Lots of photos in her blogs make them very engaging and easy to read. At the end of her posts, she likes to sum up what she talked about but end with her advice.
This is Jess.
Her “About Me” section starts with this paragraph:
“I am first and foremost a lover of dance, particularly classical ballet. I started dancing when I was about three and can’t remember life before ballet. I can’t imagine life without dance- teaching it, creating it, painting it, writing about it- now.”
I do like her tone, generally serious and informational, but every now and then she’ll add a side comment or little thought that goes through her mind, just like that last part in her “About Me” section…. I can’t imagine life without dance -teaching it, creating it, painting it, writing about it — now.” Her witty and sarcastic mode at times uses a lot of rhetorical devices like Apostrophe, Symbolism, and Informalities. For instance in this post:
“If someone falls or doesn’t do something quite right, be sensitive to their feelings. I wish I had known this in college when I laughed to the point of tears at a teacher who fell. Whoops.” The way she uses her voice at the end makes the reader engage but also she is just being informal and fun.
-M
