Lately I've been weighing the phenomena of the performing arts and the visual arts, one against the other, and wondering where they are rooted in human nature. This occurs to me as I've been fortunate to engage in conversation with Jennifer Foster, a director, producer, and public personality with WDAV, 89.9 FM, our "classical" music station. (I've been listening to it--and her--for years.) Her life's work is supporting musicians, but she relates to paintings and collage like the rest of us.
For me, the performing arts represent the extroverted part of our nature: an overt effort for connection, usually in community with others. The visual arts represent the introverted part of us: a whispered call to look within for meaning. This would be a personal, or private, thing. The danger of this paradigm lies in creating an either-or situation, when there is certainly a whole spectrum of combinations. We are all both extroverted and introverted at the same time.
This is what I love about the notion of the dialectic. As two seemingly opposite concepts, or methods, or people, interact over time, each begins to change. Each becomes somewhat like the other.
It's the same principle inderlying an appreciation of many different kinds of art and many kinds of music within the same heart. And thank God for it!
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