On July 13th
2011 this Adbusters poster appeared online to present the Occupy Wall Street protest. It features a
dancer on the top of the bronze bull which is situated near Wall Street. At the
back there is a group of people immersed in a foggy atmosphere and ready to
fight.
There is a
sharp contrast between the shape created by the dancer and that of the bull.
The former, in fact, stands on one leg performing an attitude to the back (a ballet position on one supporting leg, with the other bent at the knee to a
ninety degree angle) with
her arms in a loose second position. Her focus is downward left, her hair is composedly
combed and her sleeveless dress is tight and short. Her pose suggests a sense
of balance and stability.
On the
other hand, the bull is portrayed in a very dynamic manner, with its forefeet
off-balance to the right and its tail curled upwards. The bull was created in
1989 by artist Arturo DiModica as a Christmas present to the city of New York to praise its
endurance after the 1987 stock market crash. Since then, it has become Wall
Street mascot.
According
to Wray Cummings, there is an interesting parallelism between this picture and
one of the Major Arcana in Tarot decks, that is Strength. This card presents
the figure of a woman with her hands on the jaws of a lion. It is not clear whether she is
opening or closing them, but the usual interpretation of the card refers to
humans’ ability to tame instinctual forces. The parallelism is quite
appropriate as in the case of the Adbusters poster, the dancer tames the
charging bull with her steadiness and grace. It is as if non violent protests
could really make a difference in a world dominated by economic powers. So far
the Occupy Wall Street movement has become an almost mainstream motto to be
used in numerous protests’ activities in different parts of the world. In Italy,
for example, it has recently been used to promote a campaign against animal
testing (see here).
Watching
this image, I asked myself why did Adbusters choose a classical dance pose and
not, say, a hip hop one. But then maybe the contrast would not be as sharp as
this one. Classical dance is a technique based on tough discipline and rigour
and in the poster it is used to exemplify grace and steadiness (Cummings refers
to the dancer’s pose atop the bull as improbable though) which are also its
characteristics.
Interestingly, classical dance has been used in another kind
of political visual message, that is on the cover of Francesco Raparelli’s La
lunghezza dell’onda – Fine della sinistra e nuovi movimenti (2009) [The wave length
– The end of the left and the new movements], a book which analyses the Italian
students’ protests (nicknamed ‘the wave’) from 2008 to 2009 as a new political
agent in a country where the Berlusconi government repeatedly tended to erase
the students’ rights. The cover is an interesting mix of ballet and activism as
it presents the coloured drawing of a dancer performing an attitude to the back. However, if her legs are in the correct position, her arms
escape ballet grammar in that they are placed one straight downward
and the other bent upwards, with both hands in a fist. They eloquently express strength and the will to fight. At the back replicates of
this figure announce an army of people ready to fight. The effect is further
enhanced by the sense of perspective given by the baby blue rays that stem from
the right low corner of the image.
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