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My name is Sherilyne Co. I am pre-med student in the BA-MD program at Brooklyn College. I plan on majoring in Business Administration for Health Professions. I may minor in neuroscience and health and nutrition sciences. I’m not entirely sure … Continue reading
It was a Wednesday night and I was all dressed up in my red dress and black shoes. My friends and I walked towards The Metropolitan Opera House. When we finally arrived at the opera house, we saw a mass of people. I took in my surroundings and I found myself surrounded by beautiful lights and a nice dark blue night sky. I took in the view of a lovely fountain with water gushing out from it. It surely was a sight to see and an amazing one at that. I was finally here, here at the opera L’Elisir d’Amore, my first opera ever.
Upon walking in, I noticed the nice light fixtures, the beautifully decorated halls and what I would soon find out, the ubiquitous red velvet. I mean it was everywhere- the stairs, the walls, handles and doors. Pretty much anywhere you could put it, it was there.
Making our way to our seats took quite a while and several flights of stairs. I remember joking about how our seats were so high we could probably touch the ceiling. Turns out I wasn’t wrong. Our seats were dead last all the way at the top, just a few feet, in some cases a few inches, above our heads. Despite this, our seats did offer us a nice view of the whole theater. From our seats, I could see the immensity of the place. Seats lined the sides and the areas down below. It was almost tempting to dive down to the depths below – almost.
The chandeliers and the stage were beautiful. When I first looked at the stage, it was quite deceiving. I didn’t realize how much depth it had until they lifted a screen uncovering a farm village in the background. The scenery was beautiful – the village, the intricately decorated trees and town, the barn with its two floors. The scenes as well as the costumes were vibrant and colorful. I really liked all the different colors of the main characters’ costumes, especially Adina’s red dress and top hat, because I really thought it made them stand out.
I really enjoyed the singing as well. Even from our really high seats, it was really surprising that there was still great acoustics and that I could hear everything they were singing. I may not have understood the exact words that the actors were saying but I could definitely hear what they were singing and the clarity of their words. Their crescendos and decrescendos were impressive. Even when Nemorino, played by Mathew Polenzani, sang really low, I could still hear him singing.
I found the titles on the back of the chair really helpful. They helped me understand what was being said and what was going on in the opera. I liked how we couldn’t see each other’s titles because I think that would have been a little distracting seeing everyone’s words changing. I also found it easy to follow the words. I could read and observe what was going on stage quite easily without missing the action.
I think one of my favorite parts of being at the opera was seeing and watching the orchestra in the pit. I could see each of them playing each note – the string players’ bows moving up and down, and the flute players’ fingers moving. It was all very interesting to watch them. Sometimes I could even single out who was playing the main melody line.
The opera, which has been stereotyped as boring and sleepy, was actually quite refreshing in its liveliness and its comic nature. I especially enjoyed when Doctor Dulcamara was singing about how foolish Nemorino was for taking his elixir. I wasn’t expecting that and I was really surprised with the opera overall because I enjoyed it so much.
Going to the opera for the first time was a truly great and enjoyable experience. I’m glad I had the opportunity, especially the opportunity to go to the opera with my friends. I’ll always remember this experience. Hopefully I’ll get to see another in the future.
Some would say the way I got to Political Mother should have put a damper on the performance. I forgot my ticket on the train on the way to the performance and my friends and I had get off; I had to run back to my dorm to get it. By the time we got on the train again and headed towards the theater, we were running about 20 minutes late as we rushed towards the signs that said BAM. We entered into one building that we thought was the Howard Gilman Opera House only to find that that building was around the block. As we turned right towards the correct building, we could hear loud, pounding music being played through the metal doors. We weren’t even in the theater yet, but it sounded quite intriguing already.
When we finally got there, we were escorted to our seats, but not the ones we were supposed to sit in. Our seats were actually on the lower level towards the back where we could see everything that was happening on stage. As I settled into the theater, I noticed that there was a dense layer of smoke hanging in the air and flashing lights. The theater was full of people all enraptured by what was occurring on stage and the music that was playing.
On stage, the dancers were already performing with very dramatic movements. Their movements were spastic and erratic as they moved their hands in the air and contorted their bodies this way and that. Despite its erratic nature, I thought the dancers had certain fluidity in their movement as they moved from one position to the next. Sometimes one dancer would start with a move and the rest would join in. It was truly amazing to watch the dancers do all these moves as one unit because the movements seemed so unpredictable. I found it so interesting that they could actually perform them with such coordination. At the same time, each dancer gave way to the music; their bodies were taken over by it. As I watched the dancers, I was just appreciating everything they were doing and asking “How did they do that?”. I kept wondering how they practiced this piece of work and thought, “Wow, those practices must have been very interesting!”
While the dancers were performing, there were other things going on. There were flashing lights that I thought added to the performance; I felt they mirrored the chaotic nature of the dancing. In addition, there was a man yelling into a microphone behind them, along with musicians that played guitar and drums. At times, they were hidden in darkness until the lights flashed and revealed them playing. The man yelling was incomprehensible as he screamed and shouted at the top of his lungs. As he yelled, the dancers continued to make their peculiar movements and seemed in a way controlled by it.
If I had to attribute a meaning to the performance, I would probably do it in light of the title Political Mother. The man yelling and the people playing along with him represent a type of oppression. This oppression, represented through the loud and pounding noise they were spewing out, is very powerful. The people are shown moving with their spastic and chaotic movements, which represent the symptoms of being controlled by this powerful oppression.
Something that I really wasn’t expecting to appear during the performance was the expression “Where there is pressure, there is folk dance”. It added an interesting twist. It was if the performance was telling us when we become too burdened by things, we should revert to our original state of being. We should return to a time before there was any establishment, a time that was more primitive and relied on intuition. This phrase gives us something to think about as we live our busy lives because perhaps sometimes we feel that the chaos of our lives causes a necessity to return to how things previously were.
At the end of the performance, I was really glad I didn’t miss it. It was really enjoyable to see the dancers and musicians perform in a different way than I was used to. After seeing it, my advice for all is that the next time that you’re feeling a little or a lot of stress, just do a little dance and shake your arms in the air. It may make you feel better.
There are many places in New York City where people can go to find beauty and recreation. Of course New York City if known for its magnificent and towering skyscrapers that never cease to amaze me every time I look at them but there are also other places other than skyscrapers and tall buildings which can appeal to people’s senses with their own beauty and design. One such place is called the High Line. This public park that was once an old freight line but now its architecture has been converted into a magnificent park filled with plants and flowers of all sorts, grasses, benches, and walkways. Approaching the park near the 14thstreet entrance, I can see the overpass where the railway is situated as I walk toward the entrance.
When I reach the stairs of the entrance, I enter as if I’m at a station ready to get on a train. And yet when I reach the top of the stairs I’m in a whole new place, a place I thought I wouldn’t find as I walked around the neighborhood. I didn’t realize that a place like this was here, especially after passing many restaurants and nice stores full of clothes. I had the pleasure of seeing the High Line at night and during the day. At night, the place was really beautiful, with the lights from the surrounding areas pouring into the space. During the day, I walked around and saw the water of the Hudson River in the distance.
Like Central Park, the High Line is “as series of manipulations and transformations performed on the nature “saved” by designers” (Koolhaas 23). Here, nature has been transplanted and planned by designers. There’s beautiful flowers and plants everywhere. There’s a view of the Hudson River on one side and the hustle and bustle of the streets on the other.Walking around here, I can definitely understand the flânerie, “the activity of strolling and looking” (Tester) here at the High Line, especially when my friends and I went at night. We spent an hour or two just walking around the place, admiring its beauty. There were colorful plants and trees and leaves everywhere. I wanted to take pictures of all of them. I was transfixed by the spectacle of how beautiful the plants and the buildings surrounding the place were. I would really like to go back there when the weather is much nicer and warmer so I could see the flowers in full bloom and sit on a bench and just absorb the surroundings. I can also understand when Tester quotes Baudelaire saying, “The man who loves to lose himself in a crowd enjoys feverish delights that the egoist locked up in himself as in a box, and the slothful man like a mollusk in his shell, will be eternally deprived of” (Tester 2). I would have never experienced the beauty of the High Line if I did not actually go there. A picture is worth a thousand words, but I feel that the actually feeling of being there is different. I appreciate the park more for what it does when I was there; this natural beauty is able to exist with in the concrete jungle of New York City, which I think is great, since sometimes I am jaded by the tall typical buildings of the city.
One thing I really like about the park is how they incorporated the railway into the natural beauty of the park. The plants grow with in it and on the tracks which sort of reminds me of the country when the unused tracks are overrun with grass. This element brings a sense of wildness amidst the backdrop of the city. It’s like the concrete jungle meets Mother Nature. It was inventive to use a structure so ubiquitous in New York City as a place where nature can thrive and be seen.
Another thing I liked is how they used the tracks in an interesting way. They put some of the wooden chair benches on wheels that were placed on the actual tracks and could move. I thought that was cool how they used an existing structure to make such a cool object that fits in with the ambiance of the park to remind us that this actually was once a railway.
Another thing I also noticed while walking through the High Line were the benches. All of them seem to slope downwards at the end. It reminds me of how trains slope downwards when heading from higher to lower ground and how sometimes they must slope downwards to reach tunnels.
These wooden benches and the other wooden chairs and the stone where some of the plants lay also seem to emphasize the natural element of the park with in the frame work of a metal station and railways. It’s like a reflection of the city. Nature in the city is surrounded by the outer framework of concrete and metal buildings. Still, there is a unique beauty in that; such beautiful natural “wild” places can exist within that metal framework. It’s nice to have a natural element in a city full of towers and metal and cars, even if that means that nature had to be “transplanted” in.
Another place where people can go to reflect and find beauty is at the World Trade Center Memorial. Here, where the Twin Towers once stood, are two pools. These large pools have waterfalls that cascade down the sides into a center hole.
Around each pool are the carved names of people lost during September 11. It is very solemn and reflective place as we remember the tragic events that happened that day and the loved ones that we have lost.
These two pools, in place of the North and South towers, are sort of the opposite of the structures that are usually built in New York City. Usually we build upwards, making towers and skyscrapers that soar into the sky. From the height of what once was the World Trade Center, according to Certeau, we are “lifted out of the city’s grasp. One’s body is no longer clasped by the street that turn and return to it…” (128). We think of skyscrapers as placing ourselves above the hustle and bustle of the street, bringing us to new heights and bringing us new perspectives. However, I believe it’s not just skyscrapers can bring us different perspectives; these two pools bring us a new perspective as well. We stand at a height were we are also looking down, though not from a building, but from the ground looking down at the waterfalls fall into the center of the square. We see that there can be beauty in something other than a skyscraper. Looking at the pools we can reflect and meditate about our lives. In a way, the natural beauty of the cascading waterfalls frees us, if only for a moment, from the hectic hustle and bustle of city life.
Much more common to the scene of New York City, are the buildings surrounding the memorial pools. They tower over us and soar high in the sky. They are magnificent in height and sometimes I am in awe at how wonderfully tall these buildings are. Together, these buildings show the typical structures that are seen throughout the city while the pools offer a nice contrast to the metal framework of the city by offering space that includes the natural element of water.
What I believe that these two places have in common is that they both use natural elements within the context of New York City, which is the concrete jungle. The High Line uses plants and trees in a space were railroad tracks can be seen while the World Trade Memorial uses water in a space that once contained two buildings. These places both utilize areas that are ubiquitous spots in New York City. The High Line is in a place of a historic freight line while the World Trade Center Memorial is a site of the famous Twin Towers. Both these places are spaces that can be viewed as very beautiful. I know that I found the foliage at the High Ling very beautiful while I also found the reflecting pools at the World Trade Memorial site to be beautiful. For me, I think part of the beauty lies not only in the delightful experience that I have, but also that these two sites are able to exist in spaces of the city that are so occupied by metal skyscrapers, concrete buildings, and busy, noisy cars. It’s wonderful that while the city has the skyscrapers and buildings that we love to see, there are also some spaces were there is an element of natural beauty within the metal framework of the city that’s different from what we are typically used to seeing.
All these elements call us to be a spectator to the things that are in the city, like the flaneur, who is “the secret spectator of the spectacle of the spaces and places of the city” (Tester 7). We should partake in the places and areas that the city has to offer. We cannot be closed off to the world, rather we should explore what is right in front of us. We should experience the sights and sounds, the delights and joys of the city. After all, we do live in the greatest city in the world, why not take advantage of it?
The second piece of art that appealed to me was called El Exodo Cubano or the Cuban Exodus. This painting was made in 1963 by Asilia Guillen, who is from Nicaragua. This painting was made of oil on canvas. It is a moderately sized painting, about two feet in width and a foot in height.
I liked this painting because of the intricate detail in the vast landscape of Cuba and detail of the tiny people fleeing. There were several paintings in the museum that caught my eye; this was one of them because it sort of just popped out at me. It popped up at me because of the various colors utilized in the painting. I thought that the water in the painting was so blue and clear. Guillen uses so many eye catching colors; they are vibrant and full of life. There’s green and brown in the middle; blue in the ocean, and yellows, reds, oranges, grays and whites in the whole painting.
I believe this painting depicts the serious nature of the Cuban exodus. It is evident that the people in the painting feel an overwhelming sense of desperation. Cuba in the painting, is still evolving; it is still has its basis in agriculture and farming, something that doesn’t seem to satisfy the people and their needs. People want to leave; one group is even leaving on a barrel. The desperation is also seen in the people waiting at the edge of the shore while others leaving are waving white rags. The seriousness of the painting is also evident in the scene on the bottom left hand side where there is, what I think, cannons firing at people. This fits the desperation of the people to flee the country. Overall, the painting delivers a message of great sadness as the people in Cuba flee from its terror.
One of the first pieces that I really liked at El Museo del Barrio was a piece called The Prize, or in Spanish, El Premio. The Prize was created in 2007 by artist Hew Locke. Locke is a British artist of British and Guyanese descent.
The actual object itself is not too large, a little over two feet in height and a little over a foot in width in my estimation. For the main body of the piece, he uses golden pieces to mimic the coloring of a trophy. Several of the pieces are lion heads and circular pieces with a sort of face on them while others say ‘Get Well’. There are some plastic green plant fronds and different plastic colored flowers: pink and yellow. There is even a wand, some tinsel with stars on it, and several strings of small golden beads that wrap around the entire piece.
I thought this was appealing because it was just mix of everything. It had bits and pieces of objects that seemed to be scraps. It reminds me of the left over pieces and scraps that we place in the art bin for future use. I thought it was cool how Locke used a bunch of seemingly unrelated objects and put them together into one cohesive piece that, for me, makes sense. I also thought it was cool how he made flat pieces come alive into a three dimensional object. For me, the title also shows how we may “prize” the bits and pieces in our lives, the small things that other people may not think are important but are important to us. The fact that one can make things from little scraps and bits and pieces, things that we may even “prize” and cherish.
I think this piece is playful in that it uses different things like flowers and beads and a wand even, to make something whole. I think it shows us how seemingly unrelated things can be made into something beautiful. It shows how bits and pieces that one would normally throw away can come together to make something unique. Overall, I think this piece begs the question, what can one make from leftovers?
Spellbeamed. Yes, I was definitely spellbeamed to another time and place. Why do I say that? Well, this performance was certainly very peculiar and bizarre, if those words could accurately describe what I saw and heard.
All I really knew going in to this performance was that this was an avant-garde type of performance. This perhaps was not the first of this kind of performance, but it was my first time experiencing such a strange production. I have never heard of such sounds and noises being made by anyone before. This being said, I actually enjoyed it to an extent. Granted there were dissonant moments, but there were also some cool things that the performers did.
I must say the whole thing did strike me as strange but at the same time I thought it was really interesting. In the first part, two women, Shayna Dunkelman and Zeena Parkins, were dressed in white coats and white gloves that made it seem like they were researchers or archeologists looking and examining the items in front of them. Some of the items in front of them were a brush, horsehair, and ribbon. Ms. Parkins proceeded to pass items to Ms. Dunkelman, who “played” each item on a harp laying on its side. I liked the different sounds each object made; the “artifacts” made interesting and unexpected sounds as they were “played” on the harp. While this was going on, a woman, Ms. Joan La Barbara, portraying the dead Walter Benjamin using a voice modifier, was reciting one of his essays. It was hard to understand what she was saying; I only heard bits and pieces like the words “bookkeeper” and “collector.” At times I found it difficult to focus on one woman, but all in all, I thought it was a really cool piece of work.
The performance then proceeded to the stage, where there were musicians from Ne(x)tworks Ensemble and JACK Quartet who played violins, trombone, and harp, just to name a few instruments. These players played both traditional notated music as well as music in the form of pictures. As pictures came up on the screen, each player interpreted them and produced different sounds. Some of the images were paper clips, coins, and a bus. They all were very expressive, intense, and powerful in their playing and movements as they played their music. I give them credit for being able to play in what others may call the “wrong way” because often times when one knows how to play the “right way” it makes it harder to play anyway else.
Some sounds that the musicians produced were dissonant; other sounds were really, really strange. At times I felt a bit overwhelmed by how many different sounds being made at once on stage, but there were also times where I felt I could enjoy the music. The part I really enjoyed was when I saw the piano player, Stephen Gosling, interpret into music a black dot that came on the screen. He played the piano with such power and intensity. I could barely see his hands. I thought that was amazing; I wished I could play like that. The part of the performance I found to be really strange and haunting were the noises coming from Ms. La Barbara’s voice. She seemed to be making sounds I never knew were humanly possible; I don’t know how she made them. Other noises that were produced sounded like when bombs drop in cartoons and the turbines of a plane. It felt so real; I felt like I should be on a plane and taking off.
The use of pictures as music during the performance was interesting. It actually got me thinking about how pictures could have been used as notes. Ancient civilizations, like Egypt, used pictures, hieroglyphics, as written language, why not use pictures as notes? It seems odd to do that now because we have become accustomed to seeing music as 5 lines with black round circles on them, but pictures could have been used as a representation of music; pictures could have been just as valid, perhaps not for use as musical notation now, but maybe it was back in ancient times.
Although many people did not like the performance, I enjoyed watching them play music in a different way. I do agree that it was weird, strange, peculiar, any other type of word along those lines that you could think of, but it was definitely interesting. I certainly don’t think I’ll be forgetting it anytime soon.
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