It is that time of the year again when one feels the desire to talk about Christmas (ironically my favorite time of the year as a skier, as well.) In New York City, Christmas is clearly a big Deal! From decorations, shows and holidays shopping, Christmas transforms New Yorkers into characters from cliche Christmas movies. Indeed, the Holidays are an essential part of the city and they turn our wonderful city even more charming and magical.

The Rocketts dancing to “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

In order to experience a bit more Christmas spirit, Nabila, Sophia and I went to see The Rocketts. We were very surprised to see a full house at Radio City because it was not nearly even Thanksgiving yet. Essentially, I believe that the Christmas Spectacular is so popular because it prepares the city for the Holiday season. The intent of the show is to entertain the audience, but also to sparkle some love, happiness and magic into the atmosphere. After the show, everyone felt incredibly elated. It was a very lighthearted show that transported us into a different dimension, Santa-land, leaving behind our troubles.

The Nutcracker performed by The Rocketts

The show was highly led by distinct dance numbers from The Rocketts ranging from traditional ballet, tap dancing and even ice skating. While every dance number was wonderful, The Nutcracker performance was my favorite because it took a completely different twist on the traditional story. In this act, the dancers wore oversized costumes, yet still managed to appear completely gracious. It was a humorous act and Tchaikovsky’s music made it even more wonderful.

Everything in the show sparkled some magic over the audience, even the fake snow at the end of the show. I recommend that everyone sees this show because one can experience such innocent, childish happiness while watching it.

-Angelika

P.S. Happy Holidays!

P.S.S. 

Straight White Men is Lee’s powerful social commentary on privilege and manages to address several topics all in one piece–homosexuality, race, and gender. These categories through history have all been determinants of status and privilege in society. The play itself was at times crude (the intro music) and comical (the playfulness of the brothers). Although it began as a less serious piece with the family just hanging out and acting like typical guys/brothers the play to a turn and became a very earnest portrayal of the power of privilege. While the two brothers exhibited member of society who have privilege and the advantages of being straight, white, men who abuse their privilege and take it for granted the eldest brother continues to be conflicted by the ease of privilege and his urge to earn his way in this world. It was a very interesting way to address these topics.

This post is a little late, however, this play is too good to not be posted. First of all, as soon as I went into the theater, the irrelevant  music caught my attention. I expected a smooth and a calm music for the crowd to settle in. However, that was not the case, since it was a very loud and electronic music. However, when the show started, the mood changed.

The overall story line was great, filled with suspense and humor. There was a great shift in mood in the second part of the play. The ending, however, did confuse me since I expected an additional scene. It felt as if something was missing, and I left the building confused and not satisfied. However, the fact that this play only used four characters and one setting to create such an amazing product, was shocking. In addition, I found it really interesting that when the scenes ended, the lights turned off, and when the lights turned back on, the staffs were moving all the props back to where it was originally and when they left, the characters came back in again, and continued to the next scene. That was something that I have not seen previously.

This one performance was able to effectively compile several touchy subjects that most people are afraid of confronting directly, into a perspective that we could all relate to in some way and understand. It addressed racism, sexism, sexual orientation, white privilege, and what entails each one.

During the performance, two of the actors (the two younger brothers) began playing a game called “Privilege”, (which I thought was subtly powerful, but powerful nonetheless) which was not only meant to be a joke, but it also put privilege into the perspective of a reality. This act also foreshadowed the fact that only the two younger brothers had grown up using their privilege whereas the oldest brother felt like he didn’t deserve it, and had to earn it instead.

It was definitely interesting to see how they presented different views of privilege through each actor in the family and how each one ultimately decided to take advantage of it if they did at all. I also thought it was powerful how one by one, each of Matt’s (the oldest brother) family members, left him because of the fact that he didn’t know what to do with his life and with his privilege, but he knew for sure that he didn’t want to use and abuse it like his brothers had.

The first thing that catches one’s attention as you walk into the auditorium is the music. I for one was expecting some “elevator-like” music, a soft tune that’s repetitive; something one can listen to while waiting on an event to happen. What was playing in place of that soft and soothing music was outrageous. The auditorium was blasting rap music that covered the topics of many vulgar things. The funny thing about this was that the audience consisted of elderly people who probably have no idea what the slang words meant!Thankfully the music was stifled when the play started.

As for the play itself, it started off really light. The latter half of the play was not. The play began with the brothers goofing off, fighting with each other, and catching up on each other’s lives. When the last 30 minutes of the play hit, The issue of privilege came through and was argued back and forth. The play ended with one of the brothers left alone.

The actors weren’t the best. From my point of view, if one was to be in character, they would talk normally as if having a normal conversation. One of the actors kept over-emphasizing words as if he was a 5th grader reading lines off a manuscript. Another actor had his crying feel really awkward and out of place. There were some more irregularities, but who am I to criticize. I am no actor and I barely watch plays.

For the part of the play that covered privilege, I have to admit that it was very hard to digest what each viewpoint on privilege each brother has. All in all, the message was clear and I honestly think the play was worth the $25 and the attention.

On Tuesday, Joshua, Kevin, and I went to Joyce Theater to see a dance because we had enjoyed watching Fall for Dance. Thus, we were looking forward to watching this dance performance.

The building was similar to BAM Harvey Theater because the walls were old and made of bricks. It was around for a while, so the outer walls remained unchanged, but inside everything was renewed/replaced.

Outside it was cold and everyone had a lot of clothes on, while during the performers in the theater had very little clothing. In the first dance, the men were basically only wearing matching underwear and the women wore one piece bathing suits. The dancers performed ballet usually in pairs and sometimes in larger groups with about 20 performers on stage at the same time. They were all synchronized and switched partners often. In their groups, the dancers moved together and came really close to one another (something I would not do if people had barely any clothes on). They relied on one another for support and balance. Something common was a woman raping herself loosely around a man, while he spun around at the proper speed to make sure she did not fall.

Part of the music was recorded and some of it was live. I noticed that the two violin players that performed live at the ballet made the sounds of their violins compliment one another. If I did not watch both of the people playing the instruments, I would not have known that there were two violin players. Just like the dancers, they made their music (instead of dance) combine to make a single, proper functioning system. The recorded music played at the ballet would normally make me want to dance slowly, but the dancers were dancing really quickly to the retarded rhythm.

One thing that I remember well from the performance was that a dancer fell when he was running on the stage to his position. He had gotten back up in the blink of an eye and continued performing. This blunder demonstrates that people always make mistakes, which cannot be avoided even in a synchronized, well-performed ballet. Moreover, I was never expecting anyone to slip in a professional performance, so I guess that anything can happen.

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