William Carlos William’s “The Great Figure”, compressed into one line, would read thusly:
Among the rain and lights I saw a figure 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving tense unheeded to gong clangs siren howls and wheels rumbling through the dark city.
The figure 5 doesn’t heed the clangs, howls, and rumbling nor the rain and lights. It’s going to go fight a fire—what does it care?
Denise Levertov’s “The Cabdriver’s Smile”…
The guy’s Jewish (Star of David and something in Hebrew). Someone greets him with much enthusiasm and with his first name; he doesn’t know him? He accepts the generous tip, I imagine, with a curt nod and a “Thank you.” He’s hiding longing and hope though—he smiled at the camera (what kind of camera?) as if hoping to please.
The poet is squinting to read his license plate number; she probably took a photo of his car after getting out, perhaps to give the man a recommendation…
Edward Hirsch’s “Man on a Fire Escape” captures a man who walks out onto his fire escape just in time to witness (a factory?) explode. Vivid descriptions abound for every part of that night, from the sunset coloring the sky to the flames warping the sky into many colors. I hope the people in and near the factories live. How why does this happen? Why did it happen today and not yesterday? Did someone bomb the place? Did the synthetic dye get adulterated with an acid? a sunset. (Tricky, tricky!) The key here was the phrase “almost unnaturally”—the day brightened; the factories burst into flame; the trees and shrubs, as well; the shadows of pedestrians, too; storefronts and cars and steel girders collapsing (disappearing) into the polluted waves—almost unnaturally.
Galway Kinnell’s “Room of Return” depicts someone returning from somewhere back to his home in West Manhattan. He describes his previous life, the view—both far and near, the sounds he hears, and his security surrounded by all these things. (“shelled by the dirty sea.”)
I should start this by admitting that I know very little about dance, especially what makes professional dance good. I also went into this event expecting to dislike the majority of the performances, and “Concerto” did little to dispel these expectations. I found Lucinda Childs’s “Concerto” to be overly repetitive, as both the music and the dance seemed to loop. Fortunately, the rest of the performances were very entertaining. “Neue Suite” by Semperoper Ballett Dresden was a great performance because each segment was slightly different. The segments seemed to work from more classical ballet to more modern ballet, as both the dance and the music progressed. “AP15” by Sebastien Ramirez and Honji Wang was an outstanding display of chemistry. Both Ramirez and Wang were so in sync and were able to express a story through their dance. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’s “Minus 16” was the most interesting performance because it was not a conventional dance. I felt this performance was designed entirely to convey a deeper message. While the other performances likely tried to convey messages of their own, they seemed more focused on sticking to a more conventional dance style. I would have to say my favorite performance on the night was “Neue Suite” because each segment was slightly different from the one before and each one took an incredible amount of skill.
Anthony Cacchione
I have been waiting to write this post because I absolutely love dance and believe that it is one of the greatest forms of expression of emotions. It is one of my passions! I apologize because this will probably be a lengthy blog post.
I am ever thankful to Professor Drabik for giving Nabila and me Orchestra seats because they were absolutely wonderful. Because we were so close to the stage, we could experience the action happening on the stage. We could feel the dancers’ energy and the emotions that they portrayed with their performance. It was absolutely wonderful! I genuinely wish that our entire class could have had such incredible seats and I am sure that this way we all would have enjoyed the dancing even more.
I found a very interesting review from The New York Times about Fall for Dance by Alastair Macaulay (ironically). However, I do not necessarily agree with the author.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/arts/lucinda-childs-and-alvin-ailey-troupe-at-fall-for-dance.html
Lucinda Childs’s “Concerto” did not impress the author of the article at all and I many spectators disliked this piece as well. In contrast, I really enjoyed this dance because it reminds me of Merce Cunningham, a pioneer of contemporary dance. In the very precise dance sequence, the dancers had upright posture and there were moments of stillness. The dancers wore black attire in order to emphasize the movements of the body. Moreover, the females’ hair was pulled back to make it seem as if there was no difference between the male and female dancers. This further emphasized the bodies of the dancers. Overall, I believe that this was an inspiring performance due to its minimalism. It was a wonderful introduction to the other performances.
Dresden’s Semperoper Ballet did not interest the New York Times’ journalist as well. “Nueu Suite” was actually my favorite performance this evening. Macaulay described it as being “inexpressive,” though this performance was everything but inexpressive. The modern ballet was amazing with all the jumps, footwork and lunges. The performers were wonderful. In addition, I thought that each performance portrayed a different mood and feeling. The first performance had a romantic aura, the dancers in red were passionate, and the dancers in purple seemed to be bickering through their dance and movements. The final performance drew a connection between old-school ballet and contemporary dance. This was certainly an astounding performance that I really enjoyed. I believe that the New York Times’ journalist overlooked this performance.
Sebastien Ramirez and Hanji Wang were fantastic as well. I admire how Ramirez and Wang made their performance seem very casual and natural. They awe-struck the entire audience with their very modern, “circusy” (as Alastair Macaulay calls it) performance.
Ailvin Ailey’s Dance crew made an impressive statement as well. This performance was a favorite this night. The performance combined humor, dance and strong messages. In my opinion, the dancers were making a political and a social statement in two of the performances. In the performance involving the audience, apparently one of the women is an American ballerina that will present her performance later this week and others may have been professional dancers as well. I admired this performance; yet, I believe that perhaps the choreographer tried to combine too many things into one performance.
Finally, I just want to mention that I noticed that all the dancers that danced this evening had a fundamental ballet education. I find this very interesting because contemporary dance tends to distance itself from ballet in order to emphasize other movements.
Anyway, what do you guys think about this article? What you agree/disagree with?
Thank You Professor Drabik for taking us to see this wonderful performance!
City Center is beautiful!
Angelika
