Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Essay -- creativity, liveliness of m

Grappling with "Creative Block" My mind is at times a broken record devoid of nuance. But when I walk outside into the morning sunlight today, the air tastes like smoke. That minute difference jostles my mind. In that moment, I, no longer preoccupied with internal tensions, savor the spirited atmosphere of people hurrying about, the underlying brick road and overlying partly cloudy sky. I hurry to preserve these thoughts, as I feel the inspiration already evaporating from my grasp. Dong! Dong! Dong! The gong reverberates to rhythmic drum beats. The majestic lions' eyes slowly open, and their ears and feet twitch languidly. Da-da dum. Da-da dum. Da-da dum... Da, Da da, Da dum, Da Dum, DA DUM! Inside each lion, two dancers spring to life and explode with power and energy. In the background, instrumentalists conduct drums, cymbals, and a gong into an unstoppable, steady rhythm that elicit the lions' liveliness. Da, Da, Dum. Da, Da da, Dum. The lion heads sweep down toward the floor in a circular motion and punctuate the air with its presence, warding away evil spirits. Acrobatic martial arts moves, such as "towers" that involve one dancer lifted on top of another, elicit excited gasps from the audience. Lions then prowl among audience members in "low walk," their noses muzzling surprised faces and eyes blinking ferociously. To summon good luck and fortune, lion dancers shower the audience with lettuce at the end of the performance. Even as the lions run across the stage in "high walk" and crumble into sleepiness once more, the energy of the performance still lingers in the air—as lion dance has done since its inception approximately 1,500 years ago (Hulsbosch 112). April 5, 2014. 10:00 AM. I and two fellow Columbia Lion Dance ... ... Kaufman, Scott Barry. "The Real Neuroscience of Creativity." Scientific American. Scientific American, 19 Aug 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2014. . Khatchadourian, Raffi. "Onward and Upward with the Arts in the Picture: An Artist's Global Experiment to Help People be Seen." New Yorker. 28 Nov 2011: 58-63. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. Montaigne, Michel De. Translated by J. M. Cohen. Essays. London, England. Penguin Books. 1958. Print. Taylor, Diana. "'You Are Here': H.I.J.O.S. and the DNA of Performance." The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. 161-189. Print.