Gravity affects living dancers and puppets differently. Puppets have two key points - a center of gravity and a pivotal point. They have advantages over living dancers as they are not subject to gravity, inertia of matter, or affectation. Their lifting force is greater than their binding force to earth. Since our bodies naturally resist falling due to gravity, we subconsciously keep ourselves balanced as if our bodies are safely on a tray moving downward.
4. What advantage would these puppets
have over living dancers?
• no affectation [Ziererei]
• not elsewhere than at the
center of gravity.
5. What advantage would these puppets
have over living dancers?
• not subject to the law of
gravity.
• know nothing of the inertia of
matter;
• the force which lifts them into
the air is greater than that
which binds them to earth.
7. Natural Twice
• Since the natural force of gravitation makes
the body fall,
• therefore the body has formed the natural
anti-gravitational attitude
– to resist such fall.
8. “Body on the Tray” phenomenon
• Because we are used to perform downward
movement in this natural manner
– against the fall –
• thus we as if keep our bodies safely on the tray
moving downward.
9. The Fallen-ness (Verfallen) in Heidegger
• It takes the gravity in cosmic, metaphysical,
or/and metaphorical sense
• We fall into the midst of the world away from our
authentic being
• It also implies rush in time (ruinant(e), Ruinanz,
‘falling, fall, into ruin’, from the Latin ruere , ‘to fall
down, rush’).
10. Quiz
Differentiate
Center of gravity: Pivotal point:
• a point where the • a point on which
gravitational weight of a something turns or
body acts as if it were hangs.
concentrated.
Center of mass: Geometric center:
• the average location of • a point in the middle of
the mass distribution. the figure.
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11. Reading
Heinrich von Kleist. Puppet theatre.
In What is Dance. Ed. by Roger Copeland and
Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 1983.
P.178-184.
Editor's Notes
„a negative one, namely, that they would always be without affectation. For affectation sets in, as you know, when the soul, the vis motrix, is elsewhere than at the center of gravity, during its movement.“
„Another advantage of the puppets," he said, "is that they arenot subject to the law of gravity. They know nothing of thatworst enemy of the dancer, the inertia of matter; for the forcewhich lifts them into the air is greater than that which bindsthem to earth.“
It is a huge separate topic which we will only slightly touch in this section.Heidegger resisted biblical interpretation of this concept.Therefore up and down space directions here is not the point.Rather the center and periphery – the focus and the margins.Am I in the midst and the world besides/around me into which I distract?Or am I always already in the midst of the world, whereas my authentic self is always besides?It also involves the dimension of time – forth and back directions.A Heidegger Dictionary‘To fall, drop, etc.’ is fallen ; ‘fall’ is Fall. The prefix ver - gives verfallen and Verfall the flavour of lapsing or deterioration. One falls into ( verfällt in ) bad habits (accusative), or falls prey/victim (verfällt) to them (dative). Verfallen also means ‘to decay, decline, waste away’. In early lectures Heidegger uses ruinant(e), Ruinanz , ‘falling, fall, into ruin’, from the Latin ruere , ‘to fall down, rush’ (LXI, 2, 39, 120, etc.). Two years later Verfallen is established as a feature of CARE (XVII, 84). In BT the three coordinate, inseparable constituents of care are: existence, facticity, falling ( Verfallen ) (BT, 231, 328, 350). It also one of four ‘structures’ that constitute ‘disclosedness’: understanding, the state one is in ( Befindlichkeit ), falling and talk (BT, 335). Falling is distinct from THROWNNESS, which is associated with facticity and Befindlichkeit. But Heidegger suggests that DASEIN falls because it ‘remains in the throw’ (BT, 179). Despite its air of deterioration, Heidegger insists that Verfallen is not a term of moral disapproval and has nothing to do with the Christian fall from grace (XX, 391; BT, 179f; LH, 329/235f.). ‘Dasein has first of all always already fallen away [abgefallen] from itself as authentic ability-to-be-itself and fallen [verfallen] into the “world” [an die “Welt”]’ (BT, 175). The fall is an Angst-driven ‘flight