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Monthly Archives: October 2012
What Do You Mean You Don’t Know Perfect English?
My family usually travels to India every year to year and a half. Every time we go, it is amazing to see how much the country changes in terms of development. There are new malls, an ever expanding metro line, … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Culture of the Southpaws
I scribbled words across my notebook and then suddenly, a new friend I just met at Baruch blurted out in surprise, “YOU’RE A LEFTY?!” So I’m a lefty. I did my research and apparently I am not the 99% but … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Loie Fuller and Jody Sperling: Innovator and Artist
As I squeezed into class, unfortunately a few minutes late, I took a seat in the back and had to take a second to realize what was going on. I was still out of breath from my run from the … Continue reading
Shifting Forms
Many choreographers look at the past when they are searching for inspiration; Loie Fuller became Jody Sperling’s inspiration. This was surprising because the Serpentine Dance, developed by Loie Fuller, is a very modern form of dance. This was a learning … Continue reading
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Immigrant Bonds
Each year, thousands of people immigrate to the United States. Regardless of what country they come from, they all carry the same luggage: a unique culture, a religion, and a way of thinking. Some people safely store these three things … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Jody Sperling: Revivalist of a Golden Age of Dance
Jody Sperling’s time-lapse dance is sensationally redolent of the golden age of dance. With costumes that extend the physiological boundaries of a human body, time-lapse dancers create the illusion of incessant metamorphosis in imitation of nature’s ever changing forces. Just … Continue reading
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Choreographer, Dancer, & Historian
Jody Sperling is a dancer, choreographer, and historian. She attended the renowned Joffery Ballet School in New York as a child. She went on to receive her Bachelors from Wesleyan College in ’92 and her Masters in Performance Studies from … Continue reading
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A Well Choreographed Presentation
Jody Sperling is a dancer, choreographer, and dance historian. She is the founder of the Time Lapse Dance Company and has produced her own shows. She also proved to be an expert on Loie Fuller by giving a presentation on … Continue reading
Posted in In the Spotlight, Jody Sperling
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Jody Sperling and Loie Fuller
Back in the 1800’s the technology to create a moving picture was still in the primitive form. The frame rate was slow and there was no color. To counter this, certain people would take footage and literally hand paint each … Continue reading
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Language Barrier
Over the summer, I traveled to the west coast for the first time. Before I boarded the plane, I had my worries. Are people going to be nice to tourists? Will hotel rooms be comfortable? Am I going to have … Continue reading
Jody Sperling: Dancing the History
Jody Sperling is a dancer, choreographer, and art historian. She has performed all over the world. As someone who is knowledgeable in all dances, she decided to talk to us about serpentine dance and a certain Loie Fuller. I looked … Continue reading
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A Woman of Many “Elements”
Jody Sperling has been managing her own dance company for just over a decade now. While this may not seem like such a long period of time, Sperling has still managed to compile quite a resume. As a scholar of … Continue reading
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“I Don’t Want Any Trouble”
My father had worked as a Corrections Officer at Rikers Island for 20 years of his life. So from all of the stories that I heard, I had a pretty good idea of what an inmate is. There are some … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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“Nobody is built like you”
“Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, we go hard.” These lyrics to Jay-Z’s hit song “Brooklyn We Go Hard” echoed throughout the newly finished Barclays Center last Saturday night. Lights were flashing, the crowd was roaring, and speakers were blasting. All of the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Occupy Wall Street
Cultural encounters may not only be of different nationalities, but also of different ideas. On a long weekend, my friends and I decided to celebrate by heading into the city. We were so excited to leave school and enjoy ourselves, … Continue reading
A Random Conversation about Baruch
Today, I was in a study room with my friend. We were both reading something for our classes, when she asked a question out of nowhere, “Do you have any idea how many Asians are there in Baruch?” Since the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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A Pair of Jeans
A familiar topic for many of you might be jeans. As for me, I really didn’t start wearing them until last year when Uniqlo opened a new store in 34th street. They had an opening sale, selling skinny jeans for … Continue reading
The One Who Waved Back
They say New York is a lonely city. Yeah, I could definitely relate. As a native New Yorker, I notice too, the people on the streets looking out for themselves, never looking away from their straight path, the nonchalant brushing … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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A Holy Place Destroyed.
After Business Recitation on Friday, I decided to attend the short 12:30 daily mass held in the small church next to my dorm. Located on 96th and Lexington Avenue, the small neighborhood chapel is one of the few places that … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Notes for Thursday, October 11th Be prepared to talk about Carmen. Try to find a surprising detail about the libretto, the music, the opera’s history. Final reviews of The Train Driver should be uploaded before class tomorrow (make sure they … Continue reading
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Notes on Visual Composition
In my webtravels, I stumbled across a link to this instructional comic: http://kalidraws.tumblr.com/post/32953413185/today-i-gave-my-students-a-quick-presentation-on. Essentially, it’s a short slide show dealing with positioning, shapes and lines, cropping, and proportions, with quick-sketch illustrations of each point. It’s designed for drawing, not photography, … Continue reading
Can Collecting
I always saw elderly Asian people digging through garbage for cans and bottles when I walked around my neighborhood, Flushing and Chinatown. I always wondered what would drive a person to dig through so much trash just for bottles. Then … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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The Struggle Continues
(from offBroadway.com) Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver traces the life of Roelf after the “accident”. It explores his emotions and his psychological journey as he attempts to cope with his predicament. The setting of the play is in a makeshift … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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The Train Driver Review
When we hear a TV broadcaster say “suicide by train,” we suddenly tune in to get the details. The reporter goes on to tell the facts about the victim. We find out the victim’s name, possibly why he or she … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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Eating in a Different Style
Sometimes what is old news to you may be the strangest thing to someone very close to you. This can range from speaking habits, cultures, or even food. Food is treated differently in different parts of the world. Not only … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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“Train Driver” Review
“There are no white people sleeping here,” Simon Hanabe (Leon Addison Brown) exclaims, “Only black people.” Athol Fugard, the playwright and director of The Train Driver plays with a notion of redemption and has the audience anticipating every word of … Continue reading
Driven to Interpret
Athol Fugard sets us off in The Train Driver with a sullen song. What are we about to see? Well, we meet one of the characters, who briefly introduces us to the background information. Although there are two sides to the … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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The Train Driver…Driven to Insanity
What does an emotionally disturbed man, a graveyard, and a train have in common? It is not a question many of us face on a daily basis, but the answer is the source of Athol Fugard’s new play, The Train … Continue reading
Posted in Critics' Corner, Cultural Encounters, The Train Driver
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A Flawless Performance
From the entry of Simon with his beautiful song to the unnecessary profanities of the train driver (Roelf Visagie, played by Ritchie Coster), The Train Driver appeals to many emotions that convey to the viewer the dynamics of a rather … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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Another World
Fugard’s The Train Driver is a performance made unique and memorable by the way it was told. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that this is a two person play that creatively makes use of the power of memory through … Continue reading
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Prepare to Embrace the Impact
BAM! The train rams into the black woman and her kid – is what we have expected to be The Train Driver’s sensational opener. Instead, we are welcomed by a wasteland of rusted metals and sand, and a run-down, decaying … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
Tagged Athol Fugard, Despair, Hope, Leon Addison Brown, Ritchie Coster, The Train Driver
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Respect for the Unnamed
Vulgar and wretched, yet sympathetic, cries of a traumatized white train driver echoed the compact theater and startled me with his every exclamation as I was sitting merely a few feet from stage. Roelf Visagie (Ritchie Coster), the train driver, … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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Cultural Encounter
I had just gotten out of my Sociology class at 5:25 pm when I and one of my classmates met up to travel to the New York City Center. It was dark and raining outside when we left Baruch. So, … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Asian drivers are wrongly accused of being “horrible drivers”
Stereotypes in America accuse Asians of being horrible drivers, and I just think that Asian immigrant drivers are not used to the rules and driving etiquettes here in America. I actually think otherwise; that Americans’ driving skills are not at … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Enjoy the Ride
A man sprawled over a sandy grave, wretchedly trying to arrange the scattered stones into a dignified cross will leave you with chills spiking through your shirt. How can a man care so much about a dead woman who he … Continue reading
Posted in Critics' Corner, The Train Driver
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A Point Driven Home
The eerie graveyard setting of Athol Fugard’s play “The Train Driver” is an excellent fit for the story the play tells. The barren wasteland filled with garbage, a broken down car and a lone hut set the mood for the … Continue reading
Posted in The Train Driver
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Marriage Customs
I was reading Tereus, Procne, and Philomela in Metamorphoses by Ovid, which inspired me to research different cultures’ ways of sustaining a marriage. This Roman myth focuses on the failure of Tereus and Procne’s marriage. Some interpreters believe that this … Continue reading
Cultural Encounter
There are hundreds of different Chinese dialects. Today, most people in China speak Mandarin but that doesn’t mean that Mandarin is the only dialect that still exists today. With all these different dialects that are spoken, sometimes it’s difficult to … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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Taste of Growing Up
Like many other normal children, the only places I ever went were the places my parents brought me. It wasn’t until I was in middle school that I realized that one of my favourite restaurants was a little bit different … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Encounters
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