The Politics of Art & Authenticity

When I heard that Jody Sperling was going to give us a lecture on Loie Fuller and skirt dancing my initial reaction was one of bewilderment. Who is Loie Fuller I wondered? What is skirt dancing? I almost felt like there was no lecture and I was being pranked. I have never heard of Loie Fuller and was completely ignorant when it came to skirt dancing. Jody Sperling changed all of that. As I sat through the lesson i was entranced by the videos of women dancing lost in the light and fabric. I could not even see their bodies. I have never seen such a combination of light fabric and music all in perfect harmony. The videos she showed us changed my previously cynical perspective on the matter. Before i though the entire lecture was a joke. As the lesson went on I recognized how much hard work and dedication goes into each dance and how all of the pieces come together to form such a beautiful work of art. Personally, the most inspiring part of the lecture was the fact that Jody raises money for her dance studio from many small donations. I was truly shocked at the wide support they received from people who genuinely cared. Their shared passion kept this artwork alive.  It is the passion of Jody Sperling, Loie Fuller and countless others that I will never forget. Their dedication to this art is what will stay with me forever.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f1/Loie_Fuller.jpg/300px-Loie_Fuller.jpg

I can’t dance. I have no sense of rhythm. I can’t even hold my body up either, but after seeing Loie Fuller‘s style of dancing really surprised me. When I first looked at it, I thought, that’s easy. You kind of just twirl around and hold your arms out to make the outfit look all as if it’s floating. Then you realize that these dancers that are performing aren’t holding their arms out for a minute or two. They are holding them out and up high for long periods of time. The amount of strength it takes to hold up their arms and be in constant motion is amazing. I seriously give them a lot of props. At a glance, it looks so easy, that this dance does not require much. Of course, I was wrong and there is more than what meets the eye. I think the one thing I loved most from the presentation was the idea that the outfits were always white and the only way you can bring color to the outfits where through the lights. I found it creative and absolutely beautiful. When we were watching the videos, I was truly amazed at the lights and how they looked on the outfits throughout the dance. If I could dance and I have a sense of rhythm, I might actually want to try this and see how much strength, energy and time goes through these dances.

http://1morefilmblog.com/wordpress/the-waiting-room-nicks-2012/

Peter Nick’s The Waiting Room was a documentary about the public hospital in Oakland, California. The first person that appeared in the film was this nurse who was full of personality and kindness. She cared for everyone who entered the hospital and tried to make everyone feel better. She was full of life while the waiting room seemed dull. There was a long line of uninsured people waiting to be assessed and it was going to be a long day for her.

It made me sympathize for the uninsured and those are unable to pay for their hospital bills. People wait all day long and get charged so much money because they want to be healthy. It made me realized how much Obama’s Health Care Act can definitely change this. This film showed different situations people were in. There was this man who was denied a surgery from a private hospital because he wasn’t a member. I guess in this society people care more about money than the well-being of others. There was a background story on about how his wife or girlfriend had a miscarriage and this surgery would decrease the chance of reproducing, which made the audience sympathize with him even more.

There was another shocking situation of a 15-year old boy brought into the emergency room and died. It showed the nurses and doctors working as hard as the could to revive this young man. The workers in the hospital want to do what’s best for their patients. There was this man who was on cocaine and amphetamines that was on the verge of death. The doctor wanted to keep him in the longer because he was worried about his well-being after going back out into the world.

I would definitely recommend people to see this documentary, especially those who oppose Obama’s Health Care Act. Maybe it would change their minds.

I feel that one of the more difficult forms of art is dance.  Dance takes time, effort, and natural ability.  Certain dances are choreographed and practiced over and over again until perfected and in order to perfect these dances the dancers need rhythm.

From what I viewed during class and on youtube, Time Lapse Dance is a very interesting type of dance.  It involves a lot of twirling, “circus arts”, and the use of various stage lights.  The dancers wear, what looks like, white long sleeved gowns with wands beneath to extend their reach.   The stage lights cascade down across the dancers, which, along with the music chosen, give off the feeling of certain natural related occurrences such as tornados or of running water.

I thought of many different things while watching the dancers.  At times while they were twirling the waves made by the sleeves in the air along with the colored lights reminded me of flowers.  Then there were times when the music almost stopped and became quieter and the dancers became almost still holding up their arms up and behind them holding the wands slightly outward.   The dancer then slowly moved across the stage. This made me think of a swan or an angel.

What I found amazing about this dance is the amount of effort and time that must be put in in order to pull it off.   The videos of the dances that I have seen have all been long and in each one the dancers never dropped their arms.  Jody Sperling commented that in order to keep the costumes flowing the dancers must continually be in motion and must keep their arms up which must take a lot of arm strength.  When the dancers dance alone they can spin at their own pace but, also as Ms. Sperling stated, spinning in groups in unison must be, and is, one of the hardest things they do.

I could tell that Jody Sperling was very passionate about this.  In fact, her organization is a non-profit one.  For her to have found something she truly likes, Loie Fuller’s dance style, and have built off of it to make something of her own is amazing.

Sources: 

http://www.timelapsedance.com/files/images/Elements_Web_txt.header.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Poster_for_The_Waiting_Room_Documentary.jpg

Well, my mommy taught me to be honest and hopefully Professor Davis doesn’t fail me for this, but I definitely dozed off for the first 10 minutes of the movie. I blame it on the darkness and coziness of the room

Anyway, once I actually woke up and started watching, I was amazed. That waiting room was PACKED. I felt bad for the doctors and nurses and staff and the people waiting hours and hours just to be seen. It seemed as though this was filmed in one day and if it was I hope it just so happened to be a busy day. Regardless, it looked stressful, unpleasant, and nutty in there. I was surprised more people weren’t filmed throwing fits.

The film in general got me thinking about Obama Care. Now, I’m not crazy about politics and all the shenanigans it entails but I didn’t ever give much thought to people who don’t have health insurance. It’s one of the many things that a lot of us overlook. We don’t think about it because we have health insurance and when we need to see a doctor we don’t think twice about it.

The most touching instance in this movie was the young man diagnosed with testicular cancer whose surgery was cancelled because he didn’t have health insurance. I just wanted to give him a hug. Poor guy. That must be such an awful feeling for him, his girlfriend, his family. Helpless is what I imagine him feeling in this situation.

Most of the people in the film demonstrated people truly in need of health insurance that didn’t have it. People recently laid off from their jobs, people of low-income families, people who just can’t afford this luxury. Now I understand a little more why people are rooting for Obama Care so fervently.

However, I also see the other end of the spectrum in this debate. What about the people who can work and simply don’t want to? The homeless crack/meth addict with a hangover – does he deserve health insurance? Those people that mooch off of tax payers like my parents to acquire benefits from the government? People who really don’t deserve this kind of aid.

The degree of government involvement is also scary. Aren’t we a free market, capitalistic society? The government has nothing to do with private insurance institutions so why get involved now? Obama Care from this point of view has a socialistic, borderline communistic edge to it. Not at all something Americans want for their nation.

It basically comes down to one question: do we help those in need and risk investing our money in people who don’t deserve it or do we ignore this issue and continue living our lives? It’s a difficult question to answer. I’m inclined to ‘do the right thing’ and help out those in need but would that really be the right thing to do?

Seeing this film made me realize why healthcare is such a controversial issue in America today. I don’t think I’ve made up my mind about it just yet but hopefully these politicians know what they’re doing. They probably don’t which is another scary thought…

Wasp, by Andrea Arnold, is just one of those short films where you have a love/hate relationship with the main character. The mother, Zoe, is a young girl with four kids. Clearly, she did not know how to raise a family for she curses in front of her kids who are all under the age of 10 at least. She does not bother to properly feed them, dress them, nor give them a strong figure to look up to. The one thing that I hate about Zoe was the way she spoke to her kids and the way she treated them. She didn’t talk to her kids with kindness or as a mother should talk to her kids. Zoe spoke to them as if they were nothing but a bother to her, as if the kids are just troublesome in her life. Although Zoe does not really treat her kids the way they should be treated, Zoe does care about them. Maybe not the most proper way, but she does. The way she tries to bring some sort of fun to the kids in the situation they are in, the way she tries to feed them even though she doesn’t have enough money, and the fact that she brings them out shows how she does care for them. Bringing the kids to a bar and having them wait for her outside wasn’t the smartest idea, but there is a possible reasoning behind it. As Konstantin said in class, that Zoe brought the kids to the bar with her because she would be close to them and if anything were to happen that she’d be there sooner than she would be if she left them at home. Zoe, by the way she acts, is not fit for being a mother, however, she does care for her kids and she does try to be the mother her kids deserve. I guess that is what I love about her. The unconditional love that she has for her kids.

Just a friendly reminder from your ITF–don’t forget to cite your sources when using images, music or video that is not your own.

Check out “Adding Footnotes” and “Adding Captions to Images” for ways to help you cite your sources.

And for more details, check out  Using Music, Images & Video on your Baruch ITF site.

I never really took the time out to watch short films but after watching two in class the other day, I really appreciate the work and time put into making these short films. During the films, I started to see the transition of each picture to each picture in such a short time but the film a whole was amazing. Each film was so short and each person can have a different view on each film.

The short film More by Mark Osbourne was my favorite out of the two that we watched in class. The reason I liked this short film the most was because it seemed realistic to me. The film was about this man who tries to find a way to be happy in this world. Then as he invents these glasses that bring color to his life, he is happy and becomes praised by society. The moment he is praised by society, he is the man that controls the world and in the end he is not happy because he became the person he didn’t want to become. I feel this is how the world revolves around. That a person tries to find something to change the world because what the world is now is not doing well. Then the moment that person finds a way, everyone praises him/her for their amazing idea. Since everyone praises him/her, they are given the upmost power or the control in a way. In the end, the person realizes that they aren’t truly happy with where they are and they go back to square one, unhappy. That’s why I enjoyed this film because it just brings truth to the table for people to see. This film doesn’t hide the facts but rather brings them to light for the people to see.

The other film, Madam Tutli-Putli by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, was an interesting film. The one thing that stood out to me the most was that the eyes of the character moved. In short films, eyes don’t usually move, only the body does to show movement, but in this film the character’s eyes moved. When Professor Davis told the class that the eyes were actually an actor’s eyes, I was completely blown away. It’s incredible how technology has grown and that directors and film producers are able to use real eyes for a short animated type of film. The idea of the eyes also freak me out a little because it’s real eyes just looking at you. Other than that, I didn’t really understand the point of the film since there was so much going on. Altogether, I just feel that the film was about a woman trying to run away from her past but she couldn’t and in the end she finds some sort of freedom and that’s where the butterfly plays its role. The whole guy stealing body parts and all her things were missing didn’t make any sense to me and I’m still completely lost about that. Plus, the idea of someone stealing body parts in the train doesn’t seem natural or realistic whatsoever.

It has been twenty minutes since I finished watching More and I still have the chills. I feel like a gloom has come over me and I cannot shake off this horribly depressing feeling. The ominous music is still playing over and over again in my head. The one scene that really resonated with me is when the man/figure/piece of clay achieved success. He is deemed the greatest inventor of all time for creating a product that allows everyone to escape reality by looking through these special lenses. After they raise a statue of him, he literally looks inside himself and finds that he is empty, devoid of the light within.  His creativity is gone. His passion is gone. He is alone and finally realizes that his dream of a better life was shallow and shortsighted. He thought escaping reality would create a better one. Instead nothing  changed. People still buy products they think will make them happy. The boss of the factory is still oppressive and the world is still devoid of color. I think the scariest part of this film is that it is reflective of our society. A society where people believe that a product can make them happy and where people try as hard as they can to escape reality rather than confront it. It is that idea that leaves me with the chills twenty minutes after the film is over.

One day I was playing handball at the park with my friend. While we were playing, he asked me what I wanted to do with my life and what I planned to major in since I was applying to colleges at the moment. I told him I did not have an idea as to what I really wanted to do, so he asked me what I liked to do and what I found interesting. After a few minutes of thinking, I realized I love math. Regardless of how difficult it may seem to others, I love how structured it was and how everything had to be done a certain way in order to find the answer to something. I also told him that the one thing that I looked for when deciding what I wanted to do in college was something stable and that will always have a job available no matter how bad the job market may be. He then told me that I might really enjoy accounting. At first I looked at him, but then after a while I realized I actually might enjoy accounting. Even though people say it’s boring and the only thing good about accounting is the stability, but I enjoy the idea of having my own little cubicle and just sitting by a computer and just doing audits and bookkeeping things. That is when I realized that I wanted to pursue a career in business and major in accounting.