International Dance Day is a global celebration of dance, created by the Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), the main partner for the performing arts of UNESCO.
The event takes place every year on 29th April, the anniversary of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre
(1727–1810), the creator of modern ballet.
The day strives to encourage
participation and education in dance through events and festivals held
on the date all over the world. UNESCO formally recognize ITI to be the creators and organizers of the event.
Every year, since its creation in 1982, an outstanding dance
personality is selected to write a message for International Dance Day.
ITI also create a flagship event in a selected host city, at which there
are dance performances, educational workshops, humanitarian projects
and speeches made by ambassadors, dignitaries, dance personalities and
the selected Message Author for that year. The day is a celebration day for those who can see the value and importance of the art form dance,
and acts as a wake-up-call for governments, politicians and
institutions which have not yet recognised its value to the people.
To mark International Dance Day each year, on the 29 April, the
International Theatre Institute invites its members along with dancers,
choreographers, dance students and enthusiasts to join them in a Gala
Celebration.
The Gala Celebration takes place in a chosen host city decided on
by the Executive Council of the International Theatre Institute – for
instance in 2017 it was held in Shanghai, China, and in 2018 it will be held in Havana, Cuba.
The programme of the Gala Event can vary, but usually consists of
top-quality dance performances from around the world, student
performances, keynote speeches, and a recital of the Message for that
year’s event read, in person, by that years selected message author.
In Shanghai 2017 for instance,
the event became a three-day celebration with greater emphasis on
education through dance workshops and presentations led by an
international cast of dance experts. The evenings were reserved for
performances, the finale of which was the Gala Celebration. The Shanghai
event also had a humanitarian aspect, with much of its focus being on
celebrating the achievements of disabled dancers and encouraging
disabled children to dance.
Beyond the Gala itself, ITI Centres across the globe are
encouraged to mark the 29th April in their own country through special
educational initiatives, humanitarian drives, dance performances and
festivals.
Message Authors
To
help publicise International Dance Day each year the International
Theatre Institute selects an outstanding personality from the world of
dance to be the Message Author for the event. In the message, it is
hoped that the author can underline the relevance and power of dance.
Past authors have included Trisha Brown, Alicia Alonso, and Merce Cunningham.
International Dance Day
Celebrated on April 29th every year, International Dance Day is a day that was created to increase the public profile of dancing as an art form. This holiday was created by the International Dance Committee of the International Theater Institute and is a day in which both amateurs and professionals alike can hit the dance floor and get their groove on. After all, dance is both an art form and a form of cultural expression for many cultures all over the world.
The Dance Committee of the International Dance Committee of the International Theater Institute created this holiday in 1982. April 29th was picked as the day to celebrate it by the committee because that was when Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of the modern ballet, was born in 1727. They created the day to help bring people together in the language of dance. A language that can transcend borders and cultural barriers.
International Dance Day Customs & Traditions
Every year, except for 1983, a speaker is chosen to deliver the message of the International Dance Council around the world. This speaker is someone who is somehow connected to the art of dancing. These could be dancers, choreographers or other dance professions. Some of the past speakers have included Yuri Grigorovitch, Robin Howard, Germaine Acogny, Maguy Marin, William Forsythe, King Norodom Sihamoni, Sasha Waltz and Sidi Larbi Cherkaou.
Adagio - in a classical ballet class, the adagio portion of the lesson concentrates on technique by using slow movements i.e. exercises at the barre consisting of plies, developpes, attitude, arabesque, rond de jambe.
Allegro -applied to all bright, fast or quick movements i.e. canbriole and jete. The most important thing to achieve is lightness, smoothness, and make it seem effortless
Tendu - extension of the leg most commonly from 1st or 5th position; going from front, side, back, side (en dehors); while extending the leg your floot goes from flat to demi pointe and to just the toes; when extending to the front and side lead with your toes then pull back to position with your heel leading vice versa to the back
That Fought Fascism By Fiona Macdonald * 6 February 2017
Opening during the Spanish Civil War, the 1937 Paris Exhibition allowed artists to speak out against brutality. Fiona Macdonald looks at a moment when paintings became propaganda.
On 26 April 1937, Nazi German and Italian bombers attacked the Basque
city of Guernica. Over the course of three hours, they destroyed
three-quarters of the ancient town, killing and wounding hundreds. The
raid was “unparalleled in military history”, according to reports at the time – and it inspired one of the most famous anti-war paintings in history. A new exhibition staged in London by Barcelona’s Mayoral Gallery honours a group of artists who responded to the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War.
These artists were brought together by the 1937 Paris Exhibition, which opened less than a month after the bombing and just 10 months after the Civil War began. The Exhibition is usually remembered for the competing bluster of two nations: Germany, with its monumental granite tower topped with a giant eagle and swastika, and the Soviet Union, whose marble-clad structure was capped by an even bigger statue of two figures clutching a hammer and a sickle. Yet it also played host to a humbler project that has outlasted either monolith. Mayoral’s exhibition commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Spanish pavilion, seen by the Second Spanish Republic as a way of revealing General Franco’s cruelty to the rest of the world against a backdrop of rising authoritarianism.
Its ambitions were far removed from Nazi and Soviet architectural one-upmanship. As Europe moved towards war, the situation in Spain took on significance around the world. It became a battleground for the forces of Fascism and Communism and inspired new works from some of the greatest artists of the time. Pablo Picasso, Julio González, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Alberto Sánchez, and José Gutiérrez Solan were all shown in the Spanish pavilion.
Inspired by the bombing of the Basque city, Picasso’s mural Guernica is one of the most famous anti-war paintings in history (Credit: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía)
Picasso was commissioned to create a mural for the pavilion, and had started on a series of anti-Nationalist images called Dream and Lie of Franco earlier in 1937. After reading reports of the attack on Guernica by Franco’s allies, he began work on a painting that would come to symbolise the wider fight against Fascism. According to the art historian Fernando Martín Martín, “For the first time in the contemporary history of war, a town and its civilian population had been annihilated both as a scare tactic and a way of testing the war machine.” He says this was the “instant Picasso knew what would be the subject of his mural for the pavilion.”
In Guernica, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death – Pablo Picasso
His painting, Guernica, is not on display at Mayoral (it is exhibited at Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum) – but there are insights into its creation, including photographs taken by Picasso’s girlfriend at the time, Dora Maar. The mural took him just over a month to complete.
“In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death”.
Political canvas
The artists creating pieces for the pavilion were explicit in their aims. Mayoral’s exhibition curator Juan Manuel Bonet says that “all the major works at the pavilion were fruits of a commission. The special thing about this commission was that it was not intended to be a political commission; the artists took it upon themselves to react in such a way.”
Designed as a stamp to aid the Republican Government, Help Spain (Aidez L'Espagne) was one of Miró’s first political works
(Credit: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía)
It was a new outlook for some of them, says Bonet. “Before 1936, neither Picasso nor Miró were very political; but the Spanish Civil War changed this.” According to him, 1937’s Dream and Lie of Franco by Picasso and Aidez l’Espagne (Help Spain) by Miró are the artists’ first overtly political works. “Later on in their careers, Picasso joined the French Communist Party in 1944 and Miró continued to be very active against Franco’s regime into and during the 1960s and ‘70s.”
The American sculptor Alexander Calder’s contribution to the pavilion was also a piece of propaganda. A supporter of the Republican cause and great friend of Miró, Calder was initially refused permission to create an artwork because he wasn’t Spanish, but the organizers relented after a marble fountain from Spain had to be repurposed. It was filled with mercury that was poured through a series of sculptures created by Calder until it reached a mobile labelled ‘Almadén’.
The Mercury Fountain by Alexander Calder referenced a Republican stronghold famous for its mercury mines
The word resonated with Republicans. It was the name of a stronghold that held out against an offensive by Franco’s troops in March 1937, famous for its deposits of mercury, an element valued for its use in manufacturing weapons. Calder’s piece, The Mercury Fountain, doubled as a symbol for Republican resistance. “Nothing in the pavilion was free from intention,” writes Martín.
Guernica was not a picture but graffiti, though graffiti done by a genius – José Bergamín
The exhibition has been put together with Joan Punyet Miró, historian and grandson of Joan. It includes a reconstruction of his grandfather’s El Segador (The Reaper) – a mural painted onto construction material in situ which was then lost or destroyed after the pavilion was dismantled. Showing a Catalan peasant with a huge misshapen head, it was a cry of outrage at the events in Spain. “Of course I intended it as a protest,” said Miró. “The Catalan peasant is a symbol of the strong, the independent, the resistant.”
Pop-up propaganda
Both The Reaper and Guernica were created as propaganda, in the manner of Soviet agitprop – “ephemeral art based on propaganda and agitation for a political cause aimed at stirring up the masses”, writes Joan Punyet Miró, arguing that the murals “looked like huge political propaganda posters”. The poet José Bergamín commented that “Guernica was not a picture but graffiti, though graffiti done by a genius”.
Joan
Miró painting El Segador (The Reaper), a mural intended as an ephemeral
work of propaganda, according to his grandson
Credit: Successió Miró
Archives/Courtesy of Mayoral)
Painted on poor quality canvas, Guernica could easily have been destroyed as well. According to Punyet Miró, “Neither of them chose a tough, hard-wearing support, for they knew in advance that these were ephemeral works, designed to cause an impact and then disappear along with the pavilion… Guernica was spared the same fate as Miró’s mural because Picasso was asked to send it to London and later to the United States”.
The painting was not to return to Spain until democracy had been returned – Juan Manuel Bonet
As it turned out, the pavilion was only the beginning. Guernica toured around the UK in 1938, says Bonet. “Picasso later entrusted the painting to MoMA in New York, as it was his wish that the painting not return to Spain until democracy had been returned to the country. This was symbolically very important.”
Through a dark lens
Guernica took on a wider meaning in the years that followed. “It speaks about the Spanish Civil War, and the destiny of civilians in it, as well as the bombs that killed so many people in this Basque city,” says Bonet. “It also remarks on all wars.” The French writer Michel Leiris was moved to say of it: “On a black and white canvas that depicts ancient tragedy… Picasso also writes our letter of doom: all that we love is going to be lost.”
Yet there was hope in it too. Amid shrieking figures and corpses, Picasso left a beacon, according to Martín. “At the top, stretching out from a window, a woman with an oil lamp seems to want to illuminate the encroaching panic and darkness.”
No Pasarán! (They will not pass!) by Ramón Puyol, who said “the rickety theory of art for art’s sake has just died” (Credit: CRAI Biblioteca del Pavelló de la República/Mayoral)
Guernica tapped into an earlier tradition, echoing Goya’s works commemorating resistance to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. According to curators at the Reina Sofía, “The grotesque vision that Goya brought to his political critique was not lost on artists as a powerful tool for crafting their own views of the present.” Picasso admired Goya’s “dark lens on Spain’s complex political and religious traditions”.
“Picasso, Miró, Calder and González taught us that sometimes major moments such as the Spanish Civil War force us to take sides,” says gallery director Jordi Mayoral. “The works created by these artists for the pavilion are still part of the Spanish collective memory; they represented a major turning point in the Civil War and the country’s struggle between democracy and fascism”.
Picasso himself summed up his decision, remarking in 1937: “I have always believed and still believe that artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilisation are at stake.”
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us onTwitter.
And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter,
called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of
stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos,
delivered to your inbox every Friday.
In 1937, in one of the worst civilian casualties of the Spanish Civil War, Fascist forces bombed the village of Guernica in Northern Spain. For Pablo Picasso, the tragedy sparked a frenzied period of work in
which he produced a massive anti-war mural, titled “Guernica.” How can we make sense of this overwhelming image, and what makes it a masterpiece of anti-war art? Iseult Gillespie investigates.
Why is this painting so shocking? TED-Ed - Iseult Gillespie
Discover the history and symbolism of Pablo Picasso’s powerful anti-war mural, “Guernica,” rendered in his signature Cubist style.
In 1937, in one of the worst civilian casualties of the Spanish Civil War, Fascist forces bombed the village of Guernica in Northern Spain. For Pablo Picasso, the tragedy sparked a frenzied period of work in which he produced a massive anti-war mural, titled “Guernica.” How can we make sense of this overwhelming image, and what makes it a masterpiece of anti-war art? Iseult Gillespie investigates.
The song Bella Ciao was sung by the left-wing anti-fascist resistance movement in Italy, a movement by anarchists, communists, socialists and other militant anti-fascist partisans.
The author of the lyrics is unknown, and the music seems to come from an earlier folk song sung by riceweeders in the Po Valley.
Another interpretation has been given following the discovery in 2006 by Fausto Giovannardi of the CD "Klezmer - Yiddish swing music" including the melody "Koilen" played in 1919 by Mishka Ziganoff.
👇 ♪ 📽️ ♪ 👇
Bella Ciao - La Casa de Papel
👇 ♪ 📽️ ♪ 👇
Una mattina mi sono svegliato, o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! Una mattina mi sono svegliato, e ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano, portami via, o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! O partigiano, portami via, ché mi sento di morir.
E se io muoio da partigiano, o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! E se io muoio da partigiano, tu mi devi seppellir.
E seppellire lassù in montagna, o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! E seppellire lassù in montagna, sotto l'ombra di un bel fior.
Tutte le genti che passeranno, o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! Tutte le genti che passeranno, Mi diranno «Che bel fior!»
«È questo il fiore del partigiano», o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao! «È questo il fiore del partigiano, morto per la libertà!»
Pablo Picasso « Guernica » Bombing of 26 April 1937
Guernica has become a universal and powerful symbol warning humanity against the suffering and devastation of war.
Moreover, the fact that there are no obvious references to the specific attack has contributed to making its message universal and timeless.
Medium Oil on canvas Dimensions 349 cm × 776 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in)
Location Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Guernicais a mural-sized oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso completed in June 1937, at his home on Rue des Grands Augustins, in Paris. The painting, which uses a palette of gray, black, and white, is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing at 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) wide, the large mural shows the suffering of people wrenched by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, and flames.
Guernica is a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country. During the Spanish Civil War, it was regarded as the northern bastion of the Republican resistance movement and the center of Basque culture, adding to its significance as a target.
The Republican forces were made up of assorted factions (Communists,
Socialists, Anarchists and others) with differing goals, but united in
their opposition to the Nationalists. The Nationalists, led by General
Francisco Franco, sought a return to pre-Republican Spain, based on law,
order, and traditional Catholic values.
At about 16:30 on Monday, 26 April 1937, warplanes of the GermanCondor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen,
bombed Guernica for about two hours. Germany, at this time led by
Hitler, had lent material support to the Nationalists. Later, intense
aerial bombardment became a crucial preliminary step in the Blitzkrieg tactic.
In his journal for 30 April 1937, von Richthofen wrote: When the first Junkers squadron arrived, there was smoke already
everywhere (from the VB [VB/88] which had attacked with 3 aircraft);
nobody would identify the targets of roads, bridge, and suburb, and so
they just dropped everything right into the center. The 250s toppled a
number of houses and destroyed the water mains. The incendiaries now
could spread and become effective. The materials of the houses: tile
roofs, wooden porches, and half-timbering resulted in complete
annihilation. Most inhabitants were away because of a holiday; a
majority of the rest left town immediately at the beginning [of the
bombardment]. A small number perished in shelters that were hit."
Other accounts state that the town's inhabitants were in fact
congregated in the center of town, as it was market day, and when the
bombardment commenced, were unable to escape because the roads were full
of debris and the bridges leading out of town had been destroyed.
Guernica's location was at a major crossroads 10 kilometers from the
front lines and between the front lines and Bilbao, the capital of
Bizkaia (Biscay).
Any Republican retreat towards Bilbao and any Nationalist advance
towards Bilbao had to pass through Guernica. "During 25 April, many of
the demoralized (Republican) troops from Marquina fell back on Guernica,
which lay 10 kilometers behind the lines."
Wolfram von Richthofen's war diary entry for 26 April 1937 states,
"K/88 [the Condor Legion bomber force] was targeted at Guernica in order
to halt and disrupt the Red withdrawal which has to pass through here."
Under the German concept of tactical bombing, areas that were routes of
transportation and troop movement were considered to be legitimate
military targets, and tactical aircraft tended to operate just outside
the range of friendly artillery; in the German mindset, Guernica was
thus a major target in support of the Republican offensive. The
following day, Richthofen wrote in his war diary, "Guernica burning."[
The Republican retreat towards Bilbao did pass through Guernica, before
and after the bombing, and, as Beevor points out, "At Guernica the
communist Rosa Luxemburg Battalion under Major Cristobal held back the nationalists for a time".
Guernica was a quiet village. The nearest military target of any
consequence was a factory on the outskirts of the town, which
manufactured various war products. The factory went through the attack
unscathed. Thus, the motivation of the bombing was one of intimidation.
Guernica in ruins, 1937
Aftermath
Because
a majority of the town's men were away, engaged in fighting on behalf
of the Republicans, the town at the time of the bombing was populated
mostly by women and children. These demographics are reflected in the painting because, as Rudolf Arnheim writes, for Picasso: "The women and children make Guernica
the image of innocent, defenseless humanity victimized. Also, women and
children have often been presented by Picasso as the very perfection of
mankind. An assault on women and children is, in Picasso's view,
directed at the core of mankind." Clearly, the Nationalists sought to
demoralize the Republicans and the civilian population as a whole by
demonstrating their military might on a town that stood for traditional
Basque culture and innocent civilians.
After the bombing, the work of the Basque and Republican sympathizer and The Times journalist George Steer
propelled this event onto the international scene and brought it to
Pablo Picasso's attention. Steer's eyewitness account was published on
28 April in both The Times and The New York Times, and on the 29th appeared in L'Humanité, a French Communist daily. Steer wrote:
Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of
their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed yesterday afternoon
by insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this open town far behind
the lines occupied precisely three hours and a quarter, during which a
powerful fleet of aeroplanes consisting of three types of German types,
Junkers and Heinkel bombers, did not cease unloading on the town bombs
weighing from 1,000 lbs. downwards and, it is calculated, more than
3,000 two-pounder aluminium incendiary projectiles. The fighters,
meanwhile, plunged low from above the centre of the town to machinegun
those of the civilian population who had taken refuge in the fields."
While Picasso was living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II,
one German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did."
Commission
In January 1937, the Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. At the time, Picasso was living in Paris, where he had been named Honorary Director-in-Exile of the Prado Museum. He had last visited Spain in 1934 and never returned.
His initial sketches for the project, on which he worked somewhat
dispassionately from January until late April, depicted his perennial
theme of the artist's studio. Immediately upon hearing reports of the 26 April bombing of Guernica, the poet Juan Larrea visited Picasso and urged him to make the bombing his subject. However, it was only on 1 May, having read George Steer's eyewitness account of the bombing (originally published in both The Times and The New York Times on 28 April), that he abandoned his initial project and started sketching a series of preliminary drawings for Guernica.
Establishment in Spain
As early as 1968, Franco had expressed an interest in having Guernica come to Spain.However, Picasso refused to allow this until the Spanish people again
enjoyed a republic. He later added other conditions, such as the
restoration of "public liberties and democratic institutions". Picasso
died in 1973. Franco, ten years Picasso's junior, died two years later,
in 1975. After Franco's death, Spain was transformed into a democratic constitutional monarchy, ratified by a new constitution
in 1978. However, MoMA was reluctant to give up one of their greatest
treasures and argued that a monarchy did not represent the republic that
had been stipulated in Picasso's will as a condition for the painting's
delivery. Under great pressure from a number of observers, MoMA finally
ceded the painting to Spain in 1981. The Spanish historian Javier Tusell was one of the negotiators.
Upon its arrival in Spain in September 1981, it was first displayed behind bomb-and bullet-proof glass screens at the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid in time to celebrate the centenary of Picasso's birth, 25 October. The exhibition was visited by almost a million people in the first year. Since that time there has never been any attempted vandalism or other security threat to the painting.
In 1992, the painting was moved from the Museo del Prado to a purpose-built gallery at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, both in Madrid, along with about two dozen preparatory works.
This action was controversial in Spain, since Picasso's will stated
that the painting should be displayed at the Prado. However, the move
was part of a transfer of all of the Prado's collections of art after
the early 19th century to other nearby buildings in the city for reasons
of space; the Reina Sofía, which houses the capital's national
collection of 20th-century art, was the natural place to move it to. At
the Reina Sofía, the painting has roughly the same protection as any
other work.
Basque nationalists have advocated that the picture should be brought to the Basque country, especially after the building of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. Officials at the Reina Sofía claim
that the canvas is now thought to be too fragile to move. Even the
staff of the Guggenheim do not see a permanent transfer of the painting
as possible, although the Basque government continues to support the
possibility of a temporary exhibition in Bilbao.
It’s incredible how much can change with a tiny shift in perspective. And we don’t just mean it in a soul-searching philosophical way, either!
The human brain has an incredible talent for looking at things from a variety of angles, whether that means reviewing all facets of a complicated problem, or literally looking at an image in more than one way.
In fact, there’s a rich history of creating optical illusions that force us to look at two sides of a situation, and test our brain's ability to adapt.
Somehow, even in an age where we are spoiled for entertainment on every tech gadget imaginable, people still get caught in the amazing spell of these images that seem to be two things at once.
Though the rabbit and duck image is a famous example, it’s likely that no image depicts duality quite like the illustration “My Wife and My Mother-In-Law,” by William Ely Hill.
What did you see in this old brainteaser?
The cartoon — published in Puck, a humor magazine, in 1915 — appears differently to different people. Some folks, upon glancing at the drawing, immediately see a young woman. Others instantly know that it’s an illustration of an old woman.
So how could different groups of people be looking at the same image and seeing something so different? Well, as it turns out, both camps are right. The aptly titled illusion depicts two women at the same time.
The clever illustration — which includes several variations, like this German postcard — seems to say that in every young woman, there is the promise of the woman she will grow into, and in every older woman, there is the memory of the young woman she once was. Fascinating, right?
Unfocus your eyes for a moment to readjust, then look closely at thepink area of the picture. If you focus on this area, you should see a young woman, drawn in a quarter-profile. She’s looking away from the viewer over her right shoulder, with a veiled hat flowing behind her.
Now perform the same exercise, but focus on the blue area of the illustration. By looking closely at this area, you should see the other side of the picture, an older woman in profile. Drawn in half-profile, she is stooped, she wears her hair and kerchief differently, and her face is more visible.
Combine the color palettes together, and you can easily see how the two opposing images fit into the same space. The young woman’s chin becomes the older woman’s nose, the older woman’s chin become the younger woman’s neckline, and so on.
It’s a classic optical illusion, but a new university study found age matters when it comes to perception. People who are younger instantly see the young woman. Older people see the old lady. That is according to researchers at Flinders University in Australia. The illusion is called "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law", or even the Boring Figure. Take a look – what do you see. OK, so if the research team is right, young people will probably see a young woman looking away. Older folk will spot the profile of a sad looking granny. And it seems 30 is generally the cut-off point, said the university which added in its findings that "own-age biases affect subconscious face perception". For those confused, take a closer look. The young woman's chin doubles as the older woman's nose, and the old woman's chin is also the young woman's chest. The Australian study was conducted by two psychology professors and they concluded that it has to do with the age of the viewer. According to the study a younger person will see the younger woman first, while older people will see the older woman first. They surveyed 393 participants made up of 242 males and 141 females. The ages ranged from between 18 and 68 with an average of 32. They were then shown the image for half a second, and were asked the gender and age of the person that they saw. The pair of boffins were amazed at the answers. While most participants first saw the younger woman, this could be due to the fact that many of the participants were on the younger side. When the researchers separated the oldest 10 per cent and the youngest 10 per cent of those surveyed, they found that the older set saw the older woman first, and the younger set the young woman. The point of the study was to determine if "own-age biases affect the initial interpretation of an image at a subconscious level."
