More on classic status (and a crazy YouTube video)

Literary critic Roland Barthes writes:

"The goal of the literary work (or literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text. Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and its consumer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness—he is intransitive; he is, in short, serious; instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the signifier, to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text: reading is nothing more than a referendum. Opposite the writerly text, then, is its countervalue, its negative reactive value: what can be read, but not written: the readerly. We call any readerly text a classic text."

I have to admit, I don't know much about reading creatively. At least not as a legitimate method of analysis. Usually for "experimental" purposes. Even my initial reactions to works occur in "I liked it"/"I didn't like it" responses. Accepting / rejecting binaries, as Barthes would say. And my reader-response papers, which seem to be creative avenues of expression, often mimic the parent text. Spawns prompted by someone else's classic conventions. "Creative writing" is certainly a common phrase in our literary vernacular, but "creative reading"? Novel.

So, considering my lack of exposure and experience in the area, I wonder what creative reading actually looks like? How does one jointly-produce a text through reading? Rather than accepting and/or rejecting, does the reader accept some and reject some? Does that show readerly discernment? Does one write essays in response, creatively altering the text? We often use the phrase "join in conversation" to refer to active participation on literature, but, honestly, how does one do that without writing back? Surely one doesn't read back?

Yet Barthes considers "what can be read, but not written: the readerly. We call any readerly text a classic text." So perhaps, after all, writing is a means of creatively reading a text. If one can read a text but not respond to it through writing - if it is unalterable - then one can only participate in consumer reading.

Ok, switching Barthes-isms. So I found this YouTube video which uses dance to expand Barthes' work vs. text theory. Check it out. According to the website, the project seeks to 'probe language objectively through art movements' in order to 'understand that literature, as with all arts, is a powerful reflection of cultural practices and ideologies.' I've watched the piece several times now, and I'm still struggling to make the connections. And usually I enjoy connecting art genres like this. I get that in some sequences the dancer dances while controlled, with constraints, and in some sequences she appears to move without constraints (though one can see the controls underneath her odd church-musical/'Bible-times' get-up). Beyond that, I've developed few theories? Anyone else want to take a stab at it?