Mahdiyyah Weekly Response & Analysis

Mahdiyyah Weekly Response & Analysis 





Darkness fills the screen 

Faded sounds of equipment or metal of some kind as the music begins to start 

Short clip of black woman behind gym equipment 

Blackout

Two words flash across the screen: Teyana Taylor

There she is

Blackout

One word: FADE appears on a black screen 

She walks around the gym equipment mouthing the words of the song 

The gym gives off late 90s vibes

Grungy 

Sweaty 

Impeccable body, true strength you can see with her every move 

Envy 

Sharp movements emphasize the great beat 

Reminiscent of the dance scene from old black comedy sitcoms when they killed it 

Interpretive dance, african dance, voguing, ballet 

The cry baby —iconic 

Black out

Scene change

Shower, steam, sex

Immense passion between her and her husband 

Scene Change

Lioness protecting her family 

Black Out 

I can dig it 

While responding to this work of art, Kanye West’s video of Fade, I decided to focus on the main concern of ekphrasis which is describing the work of art. I decided to just describe the things that I saw in sort of like a stream of consciousness. The process I used for my response is to literally write down the things I thought about while watching the video. I didn't write the exact thoughts word for word but I tried to write sentences in the way that we as people think about things. We don't always think about things in full sentences or analyze every little thing. We tend to think about things at face value and then go back and take these initial thoughts and analyze those. The thing I was most concerned about when doing this was that I wasn’t using full sentences like Tisa Bryant did in Unexplained Presence but I decided to take a risk and follow my first instinct and document my natural reaction to the video. The process in itself is a relatively simple one and I think does the job in describing however, I do think that writing in this way limits the analysis of the video. I did not go into detail about the specific choices of Kanye or what the movements Teyana made a certain parts of the song meant. Although I did not delve deeper into the meaning behind the video, the process allows me to capture initial thoughts which have value. I deliberately chose to write in short choppy sentences to emphasis the meaning of the word. For instance, after quickly describing Teyana’s amazing body, I chose to simply write the word envy to highlight the actual meaning of the word itself. I felt that it made it stand out and drew attention to it. While responding to this I learned that ekphrasis can take on many forms because mine is extremely different from Bryant’s or Goldberg’s and I think that this is a good thing.