Author Topic: 4:48 psychosis dab flicker flash slash float meaning?  (Read 11358 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

1984

  • Guest
Re: 4:48 psychosis dab flicker flash slash float meaning?
« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2013, 06:51:37 PM »
This answers is probably a little too late to be useful, but in case someone else wonders about this, I'll copy in a quote from one of my theatre studies lectures on Surrealism:

Laban Movement Analysis
Rudolf Laban, a German kinesiologist and dance educator, analyzed the movements of workers and dancers in order to categorize them in terms of effort-shape, a system still used in choreography and ergonomics, or the study of how humans adapt to their surroundings. The eight basic efforts are wring, press, glide, float, flick, slash, punch, and dab, containing three of the six movement elements such as strong, heavy, sudden, sustained, direct and indirect or flexible.

I think she's referencing Laban, so that these bits in the text actually make up a choreography of sorts.
Hope that helps :)

Offline schwarz

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 4
Re: 4:48 psychosis dab flicker flash slash float meaning?
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2010, 02:30:44 AM »
No idea where she got them but I'd suggest that the scene as a whole could be viewed as an episode (or several) of ECT - elctro-convulsive therapy or shock treatments as they are commonly known.  The aggressiveness of the words makes sense in that context, as does the remark a little later about sanity being found at the centre of convulsion.  And patients who go through ECT often report a lifting of their depression, which is one reason why the treatment persists despite little understanding of it.  This reaction (lessening of depression) also fits with the context of the play, since the next two or three scenes are probably the most hopeful of the play.

Another mysterious aspect of this scene is the fact that each of the punch flicker "speeches" has exactly 31 words.

Online Iain Fisher

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1863
    • Iain Fisher
Re: 4:48 psychosis dab flicker flash slash float meaning?
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2010, 11:37:04 PM »
Good question, and I will add it to the guidance to the plays.

"dab flicker flash slash float".  These word are all about self-harm.

Dab isn't too common now, but it is to hit or punch.
Slash is to cut wrists.
Float is death by drowning, floating on the water.
Flicker and flash are about hurt from fire, for example the flame on a gas cooker.  Putting a hand on the gas flame.  The flame flashes alive, then flickers.

Just my view.  Does this help?

Iain

Offline jkeklk1

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 3
4:48 psychosis dab flicker flash slash float meaning?
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2010, 09:12:38 PM »
Does anyone have any idea where Sarah got these words from and what is meant by saying them?
 It would be really helpful. 
Thanks