Where do I see myself in 10 years?
In 10 years, I will be 31. If all goes as planned, I will be living in Germany, continuing work on developing my voice and stage presence with voice teachers and coaches. If I am lucky, I will be hired by an opera house. Most likely, I will *just* be entering the professional world. The voice will just need a few more years before it is fully developed. Hopefully I will have found an agent who really knows their stuff. And hopefully the opera world will still be alive. Hopefully opera houses, its patrons, directors, and conductors will have recognized that putting pretty, young singers is NOT bringing a newer, larger, younger audience. Perhaps we will see the pendulum swing and a new golden era of singers take stage. Maybe then the honor of classical singing can be restored and its ability to revitalize a public reinstated.
It is hard to imagine my life across a distance of many years and many miles and a big ol' ocean. My life will undoubtedly be one that is international. In the meantime, I might be studying all around Europe: Italy, Austria, France? I will need to build my language skills in German, Italian, and French in order to be a serious musician and a smart business woman. Being able to sing and speak in these foreign languages is essential for interpretation of text and music; ability to perform convincingly to a foreign audience; networking with teachers, coaches, directors, and colleagues; and adapting to a multicultural world.
I will be spending several hours in the practice room, strengthening my technique and acquiring new repertoire. I need to go to the theatre, listen to recordings, watch performances, and read books. What is missing from this picture?
Art is a profession that requires a lot of time alone, a lot of self-evaluation and reflection. I believe that many musicians get caught up in the race to perfect their instrument and lose sight of the ultimate goal. Without communication to the audience, what purpose does this art have? Singing for yourself is no fault, it can be a therapeutic and beautiful thing, BUT this is not the point of opera or of art song. I think that many of my colleagues have lost other people. A genuine caring and understanding of other people and the society they live in is essential to any singer who wants to use classical music as a way to speak to an audience, to keep the music relevant, and who wants to portray their character in depth.
I find my background in GWSS to be absolutely invaluable in my quest to become a professional singer. Female characters in opera are completely reflective of women's status of their times. Understanding the history of oppression and liberation of women gives me unique insight in characterizing the music of my role. Through GWSS, I have gained a means of relating to these women. Additionally, I feel empowered in chasing my career. In reading autobiographies of famous female opera singers, I found that many of these women were surprised by the need to really own their voices and bodies. They had to take ownership of themselves, lest risk their talent and money and authorship be used and mishandled by others.
Additionally, through GWSS studies, I realize my own agency. I have developed a way of making my own choices and feeling empowered in those choices. I can make the choice to have a career or not, to marry or not, to have children or not. I know that there is a place in this society for the kind of life I want to lead. I will not stand for intolerance and will demand much more than just tolerance. While I pursue my own quests in life, I know that I can and will reserve energy to help defend the rights of others, to care for others, and to fight injustices. Through GWSS, I have learned that this is not an expenditure of energy, but instead one that gives right back, that gives forward.
I am excited to explore the world and to create my own history. I am prepared for the battle of pursuing a career in music and balancing the home life I want with this demanding career. There is much that lies ahead...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
die Gerechtigkeit
Justice
How does your experience with theories you have encountered in
Women’s Studies inform your ideas about justice? What is justice? What is just?
Similarly to markiewicz1916, the courses I have taken in Women's Studies usually focused on social and reproductive rights. This is my first encounter with theories of Restorative Justice (RJ). It is exciting to throw myself into a new argument, to use feminist tools to find my own answer to what is 'just.' In the same way that liberal, social, and radical feminisms (do I count you, post-feminism....nah, I don't think so) mark valid approaches towards feminist goals, a feminist approach to RJ is going to be open and diverse.
I am prone towards a more radical, Marxist approach regarding RJ. In such a case, I hold capitalism and a patriarchal beginning/evolution of the prison industry responsible for its inability to provide comfort to the victim and rehabilitation for the incarcerated, as well as the disproportionality of representation of racial, classed (and gendered, if we consider the feminization of poverty) groups in prisons. It seems, however, that there is no way to really attack the prison industries. It is well secured financially, with a trend towards privatization. The only way to change the system is going to be tearing it down. I believe it was Angela Davis who talked about having to go and tear down the walls--that our contact is going to be key towards successfully bringing our brothers and sisters back into society. So, perhaps a focus on individual cases isn't entirely such a bad idea.
It is hard for me to fathom how alternative RJ approaches could be built to really successfully deal with the needs of victims and criminals and societal demands or moral imperatives. It is interesting to read how feminist approaches are having a hard time being understood and integrated into this process. I believe that justice is finding a new way to live peacefully, and peacefully for all parties. A victim has been wronged and deserves the option for punitive punishment of their oppressor, as society well supports. However, I do believe there are times when this step could be unnecessary, and I certainly believe that it is a step that does not tremendous amounts of time. We must take the time to teach victims forgiveness and empowerment. If a victim relies only on the courts for healing, criminal activity will not stop. Hating crime will not make it stop. These are living, breathing humans.............and now I am miles away from my original attack on the prison industry structure, doch nicht (actually, no I'm not), I think we need to tear down those walls to reach out (maybe RJ even after incarceration?) to our fellow citizens.
There are alternative ways to justice. I am excited to begin talking with the women at ICIW and to start singing with the OCPC. I am certain they will shed light onto this issue.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Was, Warum, Wie, Für wen?
What are prisons for?
Why are we going to ICIW?
How can this impact us and the women we encounter?
What do we expect? Hope will happen? Fear? What questions do we have?
I believe that prisons, according to original concept, were meant to temporarily remove citizens from a society they no longer fit into, rehabilitating them and training them to peacefully fit back into society. It seems that the literature about the steps leading to, or rather the consequences resulting from, misuse of prison structure is abundant. More often than not, it seems to be a sad story. Smaller prisons with specialty services seem to have better luck at getting the right people in the right positions---at least giving the possibility of securing some money for programming for prisoners or even structural reform of the prison itself...but in the end, prospects of reducing overpopulation of prisons and the disproportionality of black, poor, and mentally ill (as well as many other) persons seem slim. It was interesting to read on one website that R. posted that with Obama's presidency, advocates of prison reform found a bit of hope that he could begin to at least shine light on the prison problem. It seems to me that, once again, those in prison are still deemed unworthy of our attention. To be honest, they haven't received much of mine either.
I cannot say for certain what my goals are (or even my reasons) for going to ICIW. Maybe after the visit to the prison today I will have a better idea. At this point, I can't even begin to fathom what being imprisoned is like. I haven't seen or felt or smelled or touched the walls; I have no context. I am afraid that I will never be able to understand at a level where the women can actually take me as a legitimate person. I want these women to respect me....meaning, I want to have value for them. I want to be there for them, but if I were imprisoned, I am unsure whether I could ever trust. I am afraid that they will find me patronizing. Then again, I guess our purpose in volunteering has a specific goal. We are doing a class with these women, right? We're going to be having conversations and we'll all be sharing information. I will be so relieved when we're all on the same page. I think that as long as I can keep sight of the infinite variety of my identity and perspective, one that is much more than just being a 'free' person in society, I can drop some of the insecurities I have and just be a person who is making myself available to another.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Ethik der Behandlung
Ethic of Care
After our first week of readings, I have a whopper of a question for R. In her email to us, she signed off telling us to 'take care.' In which sense of the word?! I will try, but I am suddenly overwhelmed. Can I care for myself? If yes, is it desirable? Can I care for someone else? If so, am I caught in a perverted state of engrossment? Am I only feigning care to get credit? I am human and therefore intrinsically full of morality, whew, but unfortunately there is no universal system of ethics; I actually have to be responsible with my capacity for caring!
The Noddings reading leaves me feeling like I did in elementary school (perhaps due to her constant use of teaching as an example): full of potential, but devastatingly untrained and uncoordinated. Hamington and Miller reel me in from my personal crisis, introducing the work of recent scholars who are bringing care ethics onto a bigger playing field, stressing the politicization of care as necessary towards making significant social change and progression.
I am still unable to define what an 'ethic of care' is. I assume, like the act of caring itself, its definition will be subject to change and context. Actually, I can't get past the term 'ethic' to even begin with an ethic of care. Instead, I will attempt once more to define what caring is. It's already a large enough challenge, but perhaps it's not so ridiculous to stop and think about the term 'care' -- even Hamington and Miller say, "Care is such a simple word. Its usage is so vast and diffuse that, like 'love,' care seems to have lost its precision through its widespread application" (xi).
Stop. Actually, defining 'care' is still beyond me. I know it involves many parties (who all actively participate and receive), that it takes many forms (thought, action, providing resources), and stems from multiple sources of motivation (natural, special interest, personal interest). I am sure this will become a common theme--a question for each blog or journal entry. For now, I will focus on care and how it applies to the practice of my daily life and future career.
A singer is a unique sort of musician. We carry our instruments with us. They are part of our physicality. We did not purchase our voice, cannot compare manufacturers, cannot buy a new one if the one we have breaks or gets old. Because of this, we struggle to separate ourselves from the voice. It is easy to see a weakness in the voice as a personal failure. We may often get sucked into egotistical thinking--working more towards making our voices sound good (and therefore defining our self-worth) than actually making music (which I also propose as the singer's potential for caring).
A similar and connected phenomenon is our motivation for singing. Is it self-serving? Who are we trying to serve when we step onstage? Do we really care about the audience or do we just like to sing and act because it's fun for us? Is it our own personal secret, our own revelation? Or is it something larger, and can we communicate something to and with the audience? The reasons and answers vary across the board, with each person.
One popular perspective is that we are musical therapists or doctors. Our profession begs to be equated and respected with those that care for the human body and mind. According to some people, as singers, we are doctors of the soul. Through our voices and acting, we can reach out and repair the human soul. Perhaps we can 'care' through our singing.
The most interesting and pressing question to me is the motivation for 'caring.' To regard singing as a career of care initially strikes me as a stretch. I realize that my reaction comes from looking at singing from the position of being a singer myself. I regard care in singing from the perspective of the potential care-giver. I define the care by my motivations. When I sing a certain phrase, when I make a certain character choice, is my main goal and motivation to move someone in the audience? Certainly, I think this feeling is possible; I have felt it minimally in my performance, but in all honesty, such a motivation is a privilege only for professionals (and successful professionals, at that). It is hard to be selfless in one's work when it is subject to endless criticism, self-criticism (again, hard to separate the voice from oneself), job insecurity, and demands from various sources (composer, music on the page, director, conductor, colleagues, teachers, orchestra, stage-crew). It is nearly impossible to solely attend to or care for our audience. We are too preoccupied. BUT, of course we want to help people, to move people. There is a lot of vulnerability in opening up to an audience. Does that count? Can putting oneself in a position of vulnerability mark a certain level of dedication for caring?
This leads me to another interesting question. It is possible to care for someone if this someone is fictional? The articles we read on care suggest that there is a certain level of shared human experience and morality. In opera, singers act as historians, literally breathing life (and song) into characters. If there is the possibility for audience members to identify with a character on stage, and if I am in charge of my character, is there the possibility that in delicately caring for my embodiment of a character, I am caring for my audience?
After our first week of readings, I have a whopper of a question for R. In her email to us, she signed off telling us to 'take care.' In which sense of the word?! I will try, but I am suddenly overwhelmed. Can I care for myself? If yes, is it desirable? Can I care for someone else? If so, am I caught in a perverted state of engrossment? Am I only feigning care to get credit? I am human and therefore intrinsically full of morality, whew, but unfortunately there is no universal system of ethics; I actually have to be responsible with my capacity for caring!
The Noddings reading leaves me feeling like I did in elementary school (perhaps due to her constant use of teaching as an example): full of potential, but devastatingly untrained and uncoordinated. Hamington and Miller reel me in from my personal crisis, introducing the work of recent scholars who are bringing care ethics onto a bigger playing field, stressing the politicization of care as necessary towards making significant social change and progression.
I am still unable to define what an 'ethic of care' is. I assume, like the act of caring itself, its definition will be subject to change and context. Actually, I can't get past the term 'ethic' to even begin with an ethic of care. Instead, I will attempt once more to define what caring is. It's already a large enough challenge, but perhaps it's not so ridiculous to stop and think about the term 'care' -- even Hamington and Miller say, "Care is such a simple word. Its usage is so vast and diffuse that, like 'love,' care seems to have lost its precision through its widespread application" (xi).
Stop. Actually, defining 'care' is still beyond me. I know it involves many parties (who all actively participate and receive), that it takes many forms (thought, action, providing resources), and stems from multiple sources of motivation (natural, special interest, personal interest). I am sure this will become a common theme--a question for each blog or journal entry. For now, I will focus on care and how it applies to the practice of my daily life and future career.
A singer is a unique sort of musician. We carry our instruments with us. They are part of our physicality. We did not purchase our voice, cannot compare manufacturers, cannot buy a new one if the one we have breaks or gets old. Because of this, we struggle to separate ourselves from the voice. It is easy to see a weakness in the voice as a personal failure. We may often get sucked into egotistical thinking--working more towards making our voices sound good (and therefore defining our self-worth) than actually making music (which I also propose as the singer's potential for caring).
A similar and connected phenomenon is our motivation for singing. Is it self-serving? Who are we trying to serve when we step onstage? Do we really care about the audience or do we just like to sing and act because it's fun for us? Is it our own personal secret, our own revelation? Or is it something larger, and can we communicate something to and with the audience? The reasons and answers vary across the board, with each person.
One popular perspective is that we are musical therapists or doctors. Our profession begs to be equated and respected with those that care for the human body and mind. According to some people, as singers, we are doctors of the soul. Through our voices and acting, we can reach out and repair the human soul. Perhaps we can 'care' through our singing.
The most interesting and pressing question to me is the motivation for 'caring.' To regard singing as a career of care initially strikes me as a stretch. I realize that my reaction comes from looking at singing from the position of being a singer myself. I regard care in singing from the perspective of the potential care-giver. I define the care by my motivations. When I sing a certain phrase, when I make a certain character choice, is my main goal and motivation to move someone in the audience? Certainly, I think this feeling is possible; I have felt it minimally in my performance, but in all honesty, such a motivation is a privilege only for professionals (and successful professionals, at that). It is hard to be selfless in one's work when it is subject to endless criticism, self-criticism (again, hard to separate the voice from oneself), job insecurity, and demands from various sources (composer, music on the page, director, conductor, colleagues, teachers, orchestra, stage-crew). It is nearly impossible to solely attend to or care for our audience. We are too preoccupied. BUT, of course we want to help people, to move people. There is a lot of vulnerability in opening up to an audience. Does that count? Can putting oneself in a position of vulnerability mark a certain level of dedication for caring?
This leads me to another interesting question. It is possible to care for someone if this someone is fictional? The articles we read on care suggest that there is a certain level of shared human experience and morality. In opera, singers act as historians, literally breathing life (and song) into characters. If there is the possibility for audience members to identify with a character on stage, and if I am in charge of my character, is there the possibility that in delicately caring for my embodiment of a character, I am caring for my audience?
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