I wanted my emblem to be a photo of mine. After I spend nearly an hour searching the web for images that related to “spinning”, “twirling”, “captivating” and “enchanting”, I came across a piece of mosaic roof art by the Spanish artist Antonio Gaudi in the Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain. I took pictures of this very park when I traveled there this past spring while I was studying abroad. The spiral mosaics on the roof on the underside of the supported walkway captured my attention, as did the genius of the entire park, but these spiral mosaics were filled with so many colors and so intricate a design, you could stare at them for minutes. Not only were they captivating; they were quite large and must be extremely heavy, which was all the more fascinating that they stayed in the ceiling. at any time, I thought, one could dis-attach from the roof and crush me – what a strong bond the mosaic spirals had to the roof! (My name, Rebecca means to bind.) This is the perfect emblem to describe my life as a hermeneutic circle, as well as my love of spinning and dancing!
This is turning out to be a long process of discovery…bear with me…
Ulmer says in his chapter on Emblem that the “function of the wide site in electracy performs this function(of the fetish) in its own way, as a virtual ‘potential space’ that augments the basic trust or ontological security needed in order to be creative.” (Ulmer 247) Ontologically speaking,this wide site, this digital space, provides me with the non-judgment space to experiment and create ideas and images that represent my story, or my being, in all the aesthetics I can think of. It’s really a wide-open interpretation. Putting the details of mystory together, says Ulmer, “is a more calculated formal or aesthetic procedure,” (247) So to organize and clarify my thought process now, I will briefly list the meanings that need to go into an emblem describing my ‘being’:
religion – Christ in me
family – oldest child
big sister – protective
leader
timid
impatient
caring and feeling
introspective – a thinker
socially motivated
active – physicality
spinning, twirling
dancing – my purest expression
musically – inspired
nature loving – outdoors
networking – making connections
judgmental – of self and others
colorful
all-or-nothing
Furthermore, this emblem is a “version of your wide image”, and “it should evoke the mood of your ‘themata’.” The mood I portrayed in an earlier post is ‘enchantment’. Enchantment describes my wide image because:
“captivation: a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual
a psychological state induced by (or as if induced by) a magical incantation
a magical spell
My name, Rebecca, means ‘captivating’. Here are some more definitions I found by doing web searches:
In Hebrew, the name Rebecca means Variant of Rebekah: Captivating
From the Hebrew word rivka: a person with a captivating personality
Faithful wife, as in the Biblical account, Rebekah was a faithful wife to Isaac.
The Biblical spelling, Rebekah, means ‘to bind’ as in a knotted cord; a strong bond
Hebrew: To tie, bind; enchantingly beautiful
Interestingly, I was given a book by a girl I met on my flight back to Columbia this fall called “Captivating”. It is still on my desk next to my bed and I read a paragraph or two before I go to bed every so often. I plan to finish it over this Christmas break. The premise of the book by Christian authors John and Stasi Eldridge, is “unveiling the mystery of a woman’s soul”. The Eldridges are also authors of the best-seller “Wild at Heart” which reveals the nature of men’s hearts.
This book inspired the image I chose to represent my emblem. My emblem needed to be something that captivates the meaning of my first name and the word ‘enchantment’. Something that gives me great pleasure and makes me soar: like musical instruments whose melodious sounds make my body move and spin – faster, faster, faster and it doesn’t end. I also wanted an image that speaks of God’s goodness and grace to me and captures the personality and passions He has given me. These passions unite many interests, and they all center around the primordial passion in my life: God, because He first loved me. It is a picture of His little girl spinning and twirling, captured by the colors in her Father’s world, beauty, dancing caught up in the music…
I think I have finally made my choice of image for my emblem...
Mapping my ‘blue line trail’ as Ulmer calls it after the Boston Blue Line which takes visitors to sites related the novelist D. H. Lawrence’s Life (It is a take off the Red Line historic trail in Boston):
Connecting the dots, literally, between places where I have called home
The resulting shape, when I draw a line out from my birthplace to the other places I have lived for more than a year forms two triangles
These triangles look much like a bicycle frame to me.
I like the bicycle frame as my abstract design logo – it says something about the mode of transportation I currently use to get around, not to mention one of my part-time jobs at a cycle shop.
My 'blue line' trail
blue bicycle frame: my favorite form of transportation
Obtuse meanings are ways of looking at photographs for yourself. Call it sarcasm or giving the image a different twist… ‘Image‘ refers to verbal as well as pictorial meanings of words, says Ulmer. (46)
Ulmer cites a verbal obtuse meaning of my name ‘Rebecca’ by Michel Leiris in his book:
“A proper name such as ‘Rebecca‘ learned from biblical history, belongs to a strict realm of the sacred, evoking as it does an image that was typically biblical for me: a woman whose face and arms were bronzed, wearing a long tunic, with a full veil on her head, a pitcher on her shoulder and resting her elbow on the well’s coping. In this instance, the name itself played in a specific way, making one think, on the one hand, of something sweet and spicy, like raisins or muscal grapes; on the other hand of something hard and unyielding, because of the initial ‘R’ and especially the ‘…cca’ that has some of the same effect on words today like ‘Mecca’ or ‘impeccable’” (Leiris,1988:29).
Since I have such a good example of a verbal obtuse meaning, I wanted to go ahead and play with a visual obtuse meaning using the same image:
Rebecca's Cafe: bronzed raisin scones (because scones, as the English know, are stone hard and unyielding)
Rebecca was chosen to be the lipstick model because her lips were as soft as raisins.
Rebecca Mader got her gorgeous auburn hair by washing her hair in raisin juice everyday for a month.
The veiled Rebecca at Salarjung Museum, India: stone cold 'captive'-ating
Previous Olympic Bronze metalist Rebecca Romero fueled up on raisins before snagging the Gold for the UK.
Rebekah in the Bible:
15Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel the son of(A) Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, came out with her water jar on her shoulder. 16The young woman(B) was very attractive in appearance, a maiden[a] whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. 17Then the servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water to drink from your jar.” 18She said, “Drink, my lord.” And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave him a drink. 19When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, “I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.” 20So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water, and she drew for all his camels.21The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the LORD had prospered his journey or not.
22When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing a half shekel,[b] and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels, 23and said, “Please tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” 24She said to him,(C) “I am the daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nahor.” 25She added, “We have plenty of both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night.” 26(D) The man bowed his head and worshiped the LORD 27and said, “Blessed be the LORD,(E) the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken(F) his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the LORD(G) has led me in the way to the house of my master’s kinsmen.” 28Then the young woman ran and told her mother’s household about these things. (Genesis 24:15-28)
Rebekah's matching gold earrings and bracelet set: I think she'll be a great wife.
What it may have been like for Rebekah: trucks are sacred (obviously. they’re gilted with gold that is melted down from jewelry) and not meant for menial tasks like carrying water.
Rebekah couldn't wait to ride her golden camel back to meet her husband Isaac.
My mom’s father’s side of the family is from Aosta Valley in northern Italy, in the Alps near the French border. My mom’s grandparents on her dad’s side immigrated from Italy to Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains that reminded them of home in northern Italy. My mom grew up in Carbondale, Colorado, near Aspen. In the 1950′s and 60′s it was a small coal mining and potato farming town, nothing like the wealthy influx of Californians it is today. My mom grew up being one of the “Italian kids” of the town, although she and her three siblings were only half Italian since their mom, my Grandmother Joyce June (Alsbury) Cerise’s family were from England and Ireland. Her father’s (Her father was Frederick Carl Alsbury) family name was Alsbury and her mother’s was Denney and she was Irish- Her parents were Roy Denney and Blanche Adams, who is related to John Adams, one of our founding fathers.
My red hair - comes from my mother’s grandmother Alsbury who was her mother’s mother, Pauline Blanche Denney Alsbury- she had some red heir but her sister violet had deep auburn hair. Their mother Blanche Adams Denney (Haselbush was her second husband’s name) had bright red hair.
My Grandfather Cerise(my mother’sdad) said that some of his mother’s side of family , the Leteys, also had red hair. So the red hair, it seems, came from the Irish and English on my mom’s side, and the Irish on my Dad’s side as well.
What I relate to from my Italian heritage:
Romeo and Juliet – my favorite full-length ballet, and possibly the best full-length ballet score ever created, by Prokefiev. I have seen this ballet by several different world-class ballet companies in the New York, London, and Scotland.
The Montagues and Capulets: When I visited Venice in spring 2010, I imagined the story unfolding in the narrow streets where Shakespeare based the drama. Below is a clip of the family rivalry by the Paris National Ballet.
One of my favorite ballerinas, Alessandra Ferri of American Ballet Theater, dances the role of Juliet in the bedroom scene in clip below. I have always thought she looked like a younger version of my mother, Linda (Cerise) Krumel. Ironically, Alessandra Ferri is an Italian ballerina, born in Milan, northern Italy where half of my mom’s gene pool originated.
My mom, Linda Cheryl (Cerise) Krumel in her high school graduation picture, 1960's
Alessandra Ferri's profile picture from ABT, probably in her late 20's
Mountains – Northern Italy in the Alps. Whether Italy, Colorado, Montana or New Mexico, my mom’s family has always lived in high altitudes where the air is crisp and thin, the mountains are snow-capped most of the year, and skiing, hiking and horse back riding are the popular activities.
Aosta Valley, Italy - where my mom’s father’s family lived before they migrated to America.
Aspen, Colorado - now a popular ski resort holiday destination for celebrities and millionaires, my mom and her sister Cindy worked as maids in resort hotels in Aspen (they lived in nearby Carbondale) while she was in high school. She has stories of seeing such celebrities as Lucile Ball who gave her a turkey and another movie star who gave my mom’s sister a down coat.
Sandia Peak, New Mexico – in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque, where I grew up in Cedar Crest, outside Albuquerque. I love going home to visit, especially for Christmas when I can expect snow but rather mild winter temperature. All of my family ski and ride horses except me, because I was always too busy dancing. I have a lot of catching up to do! Below are some pictures of the Sandias. Also see Cedar C(rest) for pictures of the house my family built in the mountains.
One of the newer hotels in Aspen, CO
Aspen trees in the Sandias, one of the reasons my mom was willing to move to the mountains of NM - because it reminds her of Colorado
Sandia Ski Peak near my home in New Mexico where my brother and sister took ski lessons
Skiing in Aosta Valley
My English Heritage:
Alsbury, England – my mother’s mother’s maiden name and her grandmother’s name is Alsbury, and her husband’s family came from England, probably Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, Southeast England. During my spring abroad studying in Leeds, I traveled to London and Bath but that was as far South as I ventured in the UK. I mapped a blue line trail for my ‘homes’ in the UK because I spent enough time there to really connect to those sites.
my 'blue line trail' in the UK
There’s not much to be found on the web about Ayelsbury, which tells me it is still a small community in England. I would love to visit Aylesbury next time I am in the UK and try to discover some relation to it. From the looks of the images I pulled up in a Google search, it doesn’t look as if this will be hard for me since I feel ‘at home’ cycling: the 2008 Tour of Britain went right through the middle of the town!
2008 Tour of Britain
England feels like a second home to me. I intend to live there for a couple years after I graduate. My dream job would be to work as a dance writer for Dance Europe magazine out of London. Below: pictures of me in London reveling in its splendor and history.
I was a child who was in a constant state of enchantment, whether I was a princess, prima ballerina, or archeologist discovering remains in the desert, my inner thought life was a rich and happening world. I drew almost constantly when I wasn’t dancing, and for a long time people thought I would become an artist like my mom. My favorite subjects to draw were horses, girls in beautiful gowns, outfits for the various paper dolls I created, and of course, gorgeous ballerinas surrounded by sparkling lights. I still remember the first time a babysitter showed me how to draw sparkles like in Disney’s Cinderella illustrations. Everything I drew became surrounded in sparkles: red roses, fairy princesses, stars in the midnight sky.
When the film Enchanted came out in 2007, everyone told me I looked like Amy Adams in that movie. I love being likened to her, but not a ditsy, ‘princess’ girlie-girl. As much as I like to feel like an enchanting beauty who can wield her charms over men, I would rather be known as a strong, self-sufficient woman. I reconsidered wanting my hair to be more red like Amy Adam’s in that movie after it came out. I have to admit though, I enjoyed putting her picture up as my Facebook profile pic for a week. Only a couple people guessed it wasn’t me, and that was because her hair and makeup was too perfect.
me at age 22
Amy Adams, my facebook profile pic for a week
Amy Adams, age 30
me at age 17
me at age 20
Enchantment can refer to more than a Disney film or little girl’s imagination. I think it is best described as a mood. A mood can be likened to a space you enter into, a sacred space. Enchantment is my sacred space, or ‘chora’, as Gregory L. Ulmer describes it. The ancient Greeks separated space into three categories – topos, chora, and kenon. ‘Chora’ is a room that is filled, something that is becoming, according to the Greek philosophers, whereas karos, which the term ‘kenon’ comes from, is vacant, or abstract space. ‘Topos’ is closely related to ‘chora’ for Plato, but it has been used to refer to more specific space, where something is located. Ulmer uses ‘chora’ as if it “names the ground of feeling that lets us know where we are ‘at’, how we are doing, how things are with us.” Chora can be translated into “atmosphere”, “ambiance”, “mood”. The German philosopher Heidegger calls a human being’s mood “attunement”, and the attunement of modern man is “dread”. I would say that the attunement that best describes my personality and general mood is ‘enchantment’ because I often enter into a space of my own invention where I am surrounded by my own thoughts. Enchantment also describes mychoragraphy, which is “my proposal for a hyper-rhetoric in which chora rather than topos is the kind of space used as a metaphor for the places of invention.” (Ulmer. 101) Whether I have fallen in love with a piece of music or ballet, or am trying to understand the depths of another person’s life and step inside their shoes for a second, I am operating in a mood of enchantment. My friends often see it as a spaced-out, glazed-over look in my eyes. This is not the case: I have transported myself to my chora for the moment.
I had to post these images below of Disney princesses with their appropriate prince in relation to the movie ‘Enchanted’. As a young girl I wanted to be either Ariel because she had red hair like me, or Sleeping Beauty. I remember pretending to be asleep on my bed with my hair fanned out and hands folded like Sleeping Beauty and trying to sing like Ariel. As we grow up, most of girls do not lose that mind set; we all want to be told we’re beautiful and we want to capture our men’s attention. Fortunately, as we get older we begin to recognize how foolish some of our ploys to get their attention are…. or do we?
While I may not practice sing like Ariel anymore, I still do foolish things like sing and dance around like a fool, with or without intoxication. Below, Ella is singing and instead of her prince (Patric Dumpsey) being enthralled with her as in Ariel’s case, he is dumbfounded. The look on his face is priceless: it’s saying, “You’re making a fool of yourself. please get down from there.” or “What have I gotten myself into…”
enchanted/Little Mermaid: two disillusioned girls
Again in the Snow White eats-the-apple-Sleeping Beauty-waiting-for-her-true-love’s kiss scene below, the reluctant Dumpsey has to figure out where in the world his date got this apple and why she suddenly passed out on the couch. It looks like he’s thinking, “why me? why now? really?!”
wrong place to pass out/sleeping beauty
I think Disney movies give us the wrong expectations of men because they clearly don’t respond the way all the Disney princes do to their helpless princesses. Thank God for reality. Now if I can just keep that mind and not go around fainting and waiting for a wake-up-kiss! How awkward, by the way, would that be to wake up to a stranger leaning over you?!!
Darcey became the favorite face of the Royal Ballet of London and many young ballerina's minds.
My favorite professional ballerina role model was Darcey Bussell of the Royal Ballet in London. This was probably due to seeing her in ballet story books and later in videos of ballets from the Royal Ballet. I used to draw her from the ballet books I picked out from the library. As I got older and took more ballet lessons, I became more like her, in my mind at least. I learned Gamzatti variation and Sleeping Beauty variation from videos of her for competitions when I was 15 and 16. In my bedroom I have a photo of me in a tutu from a competition piece I did at age 15 next to a framed photo of Darcey in the same pose attitude enface sur la pointe. Although I had never met her or seen her perform live, and although she lived across the ocean from me, she was my role model, the image of perfection that I wanted to be.
I first fell in love with Darcey when I read these story books written by her: The Young Dancer, and A Dancer’s Guide. Since the 1980′s she has published many more ballet books for young ballerinas, as well as fitness, pilates and autobiographical books.
Below is a video of Darcey introducing Angelina Ballerina’s story books after Darcey’s retirement from Royal Ballet. She too has little girls, whom I certain she reads the story books to, and I intend to do the same to my little girls one day.
The Prima ballerina left the stage in 2008 to devote her time to her family and children. She continues to be involved in the ballet world and write books. Darcey’s final performance caught pubic attention across the UK and America:
Her self portrait in vlog format:
You know those icebreaker questions, “if you could have tea with one person, alive or dead, who would it be? Mine would be Darcey Bussell. I love you, Darcey. You inspired me more than you can know.
My favorite movie is ‘My Fair Lady’, the Hollywood adaption of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. In the play, Eliza Doolittle, a simple Cockny flower girl, takes lessons from phoneticist Professor Higgins. In the original 1956 musical on Broadway, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews led the cast in a triumphant premiere. They also took the musical to the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, London, which is one of the most magical places, in my mind, and appropriate for the reenactment of this play.My favorite movie is ‘My Fair Lady’, the Hollywood adaption of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. In the play, Eliza Doolittle, a simple Cockny flower girl, takes lessons from phoneticist Professor Higgins. In the original 1956 musical on Broadway, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews led the cast in a triumphant premiere. They also took the musical to the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, London, which is one of the most magical places, in my mind, and appropriate for the reenactment of this play.My favorite movie is ‘My Fair Lady’, the Hollywood adaption of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. In the play, Eliza Doolittle, a simple Cockny flower girl, takes lessons from phoneticist Professor Higgins. In the original 1956 musical on Broadway, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews led the cast in a triumphant premiere. They also took the musical to the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, London, which is one of the most magical places, in my mind, and appropriate for the reenactment of this play.
On Broadway, My Fair Lady was originally cast with Julie Andrews before Audrey Hepburn starred in the Hollywood film version. Although Andrews was never a ballerina, she emulates all the grace and beauty that I aimed to attain. “I Could have Danced All Night” sung by Julie Andrews (below) is a song that has stuck with me since I first saw the film as a young girl.
This song speaks to me in more ways than one. Julie Andrews was not a trained singer, but only trained singers would know that. I never questioned her singing voice because her stage presence and charisma are so powerful. The scene of her spinning high atop the Austrian Alps in the film “Sound of Music” is what I imagined as a little girl spinning in my living room. I graduated from wanting to become like Angelina Ballerina to wanting to be Julie Andrews.
The lyrics in “I Could Have Danced All Night” are my theme song: I have had many nights I have felt this, and many nights when I didn’t feel it enough. When you get your high from performing and aren’t on stage, it’s like a life line is missing. Fortunately, I strongly believe that while I may not ever get recognition here on earth, I know I will be performing for eternity in heaven. As cheesy at that sounds, it keeps me going. I know I will have the perfect body and endless energy up there, too. For the rest of my time here I will have an attitude of praise and worship for my Creator. I had to come to a place where I could trust God and give up my dancing for my mental and physical health, and God has given it back to me. I owe all to Him.
I grew up in Cedar Crest from age 4 to 17, after my Dad got a job in Albuquerque and moved to the Southwest from Nebraska. Cedar Crest is located in Bernallilo County, New Mexico, east of Albuquerque, New Mexico:
New Mexico is the “Land of Enchantment”. The Sandia Mountains where Cedar Crest is located, offer some truly enchanted scenery. The Sandia Crest Ski Area attracts skiers from all over the world. Not only can you ski during the day, you can drive or take the tram down into Albuquerque within half an hour and go golfing in the warmer altitude. Sandia Crest offers some phenomenal views of the city of Albuquerque.
our house, built in 2001
Sandia Peak ski tram
Sandias from the Albuquerque side
The Crest is over 10,000 feet in elevation, but my parents lives at just over 7,000 feet, and Albuquerque is in the 5,000-6,000 feet range.
My community growing up was a mesh of my family’s Protestant non-denominational church community that was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later in the east mountains of Albuquerque, where we lived. Our home school group was based in the East Mountains, and our neighborhood was mostly old people, but very lovely old people for whom I could pet sit when they went to Colorado to go skiing or wherever it was they were going. On a side note, my neighbor Catherine who I pet sitted for became a very good friend of mine as I got older, and I recently visited her daughter’s family in London while I was studying over there. Much of my time growing up was spent in the dance studio, Alwin School of the Dance in Albuquerque. I had girlfriends there, but none who were very close, probably because I lived so far out of town I could seldom do social things with them. My parents tried to let us go to birthday parties and get-togethers in town for our friends, but most the time it was just stressful on them and a waste of their time, and we knew it.
Needless to say, our communities growing up were pretty sheltered, although our parents tried to raise us with open minds…it seemed counter-productive, until we got old enough to travel on our own outside our safe environments. Home for us was away from the city, in fact, a good 25 minute drive through the Tijeras mountain canyon into Albuquerque. We commuted everyday of the week – my Dad for work and my Mom took us kids to our ballet or gymnastics lessons. The return home each night was just what my parents intended when they moved outside of the city – a retreat. Cedar Crest is the name of the village my parents’ house is in , and it literally is a ‘rest’ from the city. the population of Cedar Crest was just over 1,000 in the 2000 consensus. Our side of the mountains is cooler because it’s about 1,500 feet higher is elevation than Albuquerque, which means it is greener and has more trees than the desert-mountain city. I love coming back home for a rest from the world, but while I was in secondary-school, I felt outcast and distanced from my friends in the city. Not only were there less things to do on our side of the mountain (save hiking and skiing), but I felt like escapists from the ‘corrupt life of the city’. True, my parents are conservative, but they didn’t intend to shelter us as much as they did. The distance from the secularism of city life did that for us.
The Sandia Mountains are beautiful and peaceful, however, and I appreciate now that I am older coming home to a restful home in the mountains, away from the city. We built tore down and built a new house in the site of the old one in 2000-2001 because the location was so good, and my parents knew it would bring up the value of the acreage. Our entire family worked on the project, although my dad did most of the work. He and mom designed and drafted the plans together and did most of the work. My contribution was painting the walls and installing tile. I was 15, turning 16 during the year we built the house.
our house, built in 2001
The ‘rest’ of the story is that I became a city-loving urbanite, to use the phrase from one of my favorite authors (Marisa de los Santos), but I still love coming back to retreat at my parent’s house in the mountains. I hope they never move. It will always be home for me. Perhaps the fact that I grew up in the mountains explains why I love the great outdoors and feel more comfortable hiking and camping than I do dressed to the nines. My life is truly paradoxical – I am the only ballerina who bikes home after a performance!
My girlhood dream was to become a professional ballerina like my childhood celebrity, Angelina Ballerina. This image stuck in my mind, whether I realized it or not, and was substituted for Disney princesses, then older dancers at my studio, then professional dancers I read about in Dance magazines or saw in stage as I got older. As I grew up, my identity image matured, you can say, but still remained a just a grown-up version of Angelina. As I got oder, she stayed forever 8 years old.
