Assemblage!

Arola defines bare repetition as a direct re-replication of a piece of work. It repeats the same concept to help the audience to understand the rhetorical impact of the original piece. On the other hand, ethical assemblage allows for conversation with the audience, and transforms the piece in a way that creates a “different” piece. In Taylor Swift’s music video “Shake it off”, she creates a new song which an assemblage of different dances from different “dance-cultures”. She combines ballet, techno, hip-hop, cheer-related dance moves, etc. This is an example of an ethical assemblage, as it is innovative, and it involves a communal “we”. It responds to the audience by combining all these different dance moves in one video under the title “Shake it off”, implying that whatever dance, background, or culture you come from, we can all shake off the stresses through dance expression. In “Swan Lake” the ballet, the two-hour show uses bare repetition of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s nineteenth-century Swan Lake composition (click here for his original piece) to create a show that expresses the visual elements of the music. They each contribute an exigency of some sort. In Taylor’s video, the audience is prompted to create conversation surrounding dance and how dance can change across different cultural art forms. In Swan Lake, the exigency is calling the audience to pay closer attention to the rhythmic musical patterns of the classic composition. Taylor Swift’s music video created a deal of controversy surrounding how she was re-replicating particular dance moves, and how they relate to different cultures. For example, the hip-hop section of the video was controversial because many believed she was appropriating hip-hop’s root culture in some way. The response to potentially harmful assemblages is to create conversation about why or why not the intent of the piece is harmful to the group/mission. Fair Use can help to ensure that bare repetition is used with proper intent from the creator. Overall, the status of being an ethical or unethical approach is up the audience that views the piece. Conversation and circulation will be centered around that group and that particular demographics’ opinions.