How a modern Dance Show made me understand the Chomsky text.
I recently (last week) I went to Darmstadt to watch a theatre dance show called “Fractus V”. To be honest, I went there without knowing anything about it, and I didn’t even read the text on the little Flyer I was handed. I only knew that ‘it’s something about modern dance and linguistics’ and I was so very confused by that mixture, I can tell you!
Turns out this play/dance/-no idea what the right name is- had a lot of interpretations of Chomsky and his text on government and media controlling your thoughts. I found it really interesting to observe how the producer turned something so abstract and almost dry into a dance. The show tried to convey to which extend our thoughts are directed by how the media presents an event or a situation.
In the beginning it gave examples for why media does this. The explanation was that the government no longer could steer the people with thundering speeches, but only trough fear. So what easier way is there but to scare the people through what they see in the media?
It then touched upon how the media has the power to twist the ‘truth’. This was done, amongst other concepts, by a scene where several people aimed at one person with handheld guns. The music at that moment incorporated sudden loud sounds to imitate the gunshots. So this person was shot down by, what’s really important, people in the same costume, in the same colour, thus meaning the same group. This went on for a while but the scenery shifted very slowly. The gunmen turned into photographers and the victim was put into a different costume. Now when lying on the ground, the victim no longer wore blue, like all the others, but red, and represented a different group (not specified what kind of group though).
The point there was that a Blue person was murdered by Blue people, but the Blue photographers reported the death of a Red person. Meaning the media had just falsified the truth so easily and no one who would see the story in the news would ever know.
If anyone is interested, here is the link. I’m not too sure if there are going to be more dates this month…
