Last week, I went to a talk given by GRF Sam about the modern and the primitive. The modern and primitive are basically aspects of life from different time periods and how they are perceived. For instance, Sam showed us a short clip of a dance by the Tiller Girls from the movie Half Shot at Sunrise from the year 1930. The female dancers were dressed in masculine clothing and performed a dance in the style of a military march. This juxtaposition of female and masculine characteristics makes this clip modern, since it brought something new to the normal concepts of the previous time periods. We also saw this idea of the modern and primitive coming together in another example he showed us of Josephine Baker’s famous Banana Dance. Baker used the tribal stereotype, which could be considered primitive, and mixed it with modern culture.

One question that struck me after this talk was: What aspects of today’s society will be considered good examples of the primitive in the future, and how soon? It is hard for us to think of something from a future time period which would make ours seem primitive. For instance, it would have been impossible for those using primitive tools centuries ago to predict or imagine the computers we have today. Culturally as well, if we grow up with certain norms, it can be hard to break from those. But, maybe this is something that we should always consider if we want to make a difference in the world. This is the basis of a visionary.