Category Archives: Responses

Guided responses to course readings and screenings

American Journey

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Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Taking pictures is an art, and like Robert said, you need passion AND purpose.

The documentary presented us a guy who went around and took pictures of what he saw. What I probably liked most about his photos were its complete randomness. Robert took pictures that ranged from the flag with the boy in it, to outside his hotel at Butte. And to compile it into a book and called “The Americans”, Robert Frank had to have a lot of guts, because like they said in the movie, Americans got very defensive about it. It showed the “American Dream” and the “American Nightmare”. I truly admire Seclier for taking the time to follow the footsteps and piece back everything. It is rather a tough task.

For some reason this film kind of reminded me of the book “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer. It follows the journey of a man who took a journey across America. Anyone else think this?

 

~Christopher Chong

An American Journey – Role of a Photographer

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The one thing that mainly stood out to me from the documentary, An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps, was the portrayal of the role of a photographer. I believe that Frank’s printer described it well in his interview. He claimed that Frank was simply an architect, while he was Frank’s engineer. Frank, the photographer, had a design or plan for an image, and it was up to the printer to work accordingly. Although Frank had taken the pictures, his printer had to manipulate them in order to truly realize what Frank wanted to portray.

I found this idea to relate to our early conversations pertaining to the purpose of art. The role of a photographer basically runs along the lines of the role of an artist: to convey a specific message through some creative means. Analyzing further, I have noticed that most of the art we have seen (opera, dance, films) have all been collaborations. There is no one single artist, but rather a combination of different artists in order to produce a final masterpiece. This is also the case with Frank. My original thoughts about photographers were shattered, as I previously viewed them as singular artists producing single forms of art. However, upon realizing Franks’ dependency on his printer in order to produce his art, I now view photography as a collaborative effort as well.

Dawn by Federico García Lorca

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The four columns of mire could be the bridges connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, except that there are three bridges with at least three columns each.

Spikenards are costly perfumed oils of ancient times used primarily for their fragrance. So when I read “spikenards of drafted anguish” I understand “fragrant oils of anguish selected for a certain purpose”. What does this mean?

“furious swarming coins / penetrate like drills and devour abandoned children.” Hmmm…

I don’t understand.

American Journey

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This documentary seemed more focused on Philippe Séclier’s personal journey that about Robert Frank’s book. To me, it felt like Philippe decided he was going repeat Frank’s journey and decided he might as well film it. The documentary was not particularly well thought out. Many of the places Séclier visited because they were photographed in Frank’s book, The Americans, no longer existed, which made it rather insignificant to have in the documentary. Also, many of the people that were interviewed in the documentary did not know much about the book and often did not remember when Frank came around. The two best parts of the documentary were the interviews with Frank’s printer and publisher because they provided stories about the process of making this book and also the true purpose of making this book. These were really only the two interviews that provided good insight into the making of The Americans.

American Journey Review

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This movie explained the journey of Robert Frank, a photographer, when he took photos across the United States of America and put them together in a book. Robert Frank was a man born in Switzerland and raised in Germany. He wrote, well put a bunch of photos together and called it a book called “The American.” I believe he named it that way because he had captured images of people doing their common activities in different parts of the country, rather than showing a few similar photos and claiming they represent everyone. He took photos of working class people living their demotic lives, rather than experienced performers or scientists.

American Journey

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For the most part I really disliked the production of the film itself. It was literally painful to watch a film that was 75% blurred throughout the journey in Robert Franks footsteps. I guess it most likely was done on purpose, but it just doesn’t seem worth doing in a logical sense. I think that sole aspect alone would turn away many viewers.

There was one thing that stood out to me, and stuck with me throughout the film however. That one scene where it was stated that both passion and purpose are necessary. One cannot exist without the other, it just doesn’t work that way. Well, those are my short thoughts about that film.

~Pun

Fall for Dance!

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That day was a pretty great overall day. My group went out a couple hours before the performance to take pictures of public art, and afterwards we ate at Shake Shack, chilled at Starbucks, and then watched the performance!

Overall, the entire performance was really, really good. I have a ton of respect for the dancers and their ability to do what they do. The first half of the performance, although it was good, and required much skill, those types of dances don’t interest me too much. I didn’t enjoy the first half as much as I did the second. But man, was I glad that they ended the second half with strong performances that I truly enjoyed. Shout outs to the Wang Ramirez duo who kept me on the edge of my seat during their performance, and were nice enough to take a picture with us afterwards! The intricacy, preciseness, and story within each of their moves were breathtaking needless to say. I also thoroughly enjoyed the last performance, as it was not only powerful, but humorous as well. They lightened up the mood and created a fun and interactive performance for the entire audience. Much respect for every dancer that performed.

~Pun

The Cabdriver’s Smile

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In “The Cabdriver’s Smile”, Denise Levertov writes about a cabdriver with rather poor customer service skills. The cabdriver does not seem to accept the passenger, even after receiving a very generous tip and is not even pleased when a fellow cabdriver greets him, even though he does not actually know the man. Upon seeing the cabdriver’s license photo, the passenger concludes that this man is hiding “longing and hope”. I do not feel this is necessarily a fair conclusion, especially since she has only seen this man once. For all she knows, the cabdriver is just having a bad day, but otherwise could be a very pleasant man. What about this man’s actions make the passenger extrapolate this one experience out to his entire life?

The Great Figure

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This poem seems incredibly simple, especially since it is easily the shortest poem we have read this semester. However, it may be so simple that it is still very difficult. On the surface, William Carlos Williams writes about seeing a figure 5 on a fire truck, as sirens are going off. I do not understand why this is so significant. Why is the figure 5 so “Great”? Clearly there is some emergency that calls for a fire truck, but what is this emergency? I also do not understand the structure of this poem. Why is each line so short, yet there does not appear to be any pattern?

Fall for Dance Short Critique

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I came to Fall for Dance thinking that the performances would be so fantastical and out of this world, but after the first two performances I was a little disappointed. I felt that they were classical and traditional in style, and the music had me nodding off a little. However, the last two performances were extremely captivating. I loved how much they played with the lighting in “AP15.” I could see how the dancers pushed their bodies to the limit, especially during the one part when one basically jumped over the other’s head. It takes so much skill and so much practice, and then so much composure to carry that out on stage. I also loved how some of the moves could still be playful and receive a bit of a laugh or a shock. It was really an enlivening dance. With the “Minus 16” dance, I enjoyed how informal it felt and how welcoming the dancers were towards the audience. It took me a while to even realize that the performance had begun. I honestly thought the man in front of the curtain was like one of those award show hosts that entertains the audience while the next performers get ready. But that inclusivity of the audience during the performance carried out through the end. During this performance, I realized how much voice contribute to dance. Dance performances can actually incorporate vocals alongside body movements; there’s no rule that says it can’t. That was something I’ve rarely seen if ever.

There was simply a feeling of good energy by the end of the night. I feel like that’s just something that dance evokes in people.

My Fall For Dance Performance

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It seems like everyone enjoyed the Fall For Dance performance that you attended last Friday! I wish that I had gotten to attend with you all also, but I really enjoyed the one that I went to on my own.

My favorite of the performances was “Umnikelo” by the Vuyani Dance Theatre. I was really captivated by their use of what seemed like traditional African music and dance. To me, it was all really beautiful. Here’s a video:

There were a few things that I was really able to notice from sitting in the last row of City Center to watch the performance. The first was that getting a birds-eye view of the show enhanced my experience. I’m sure that seats closer to the stage and down lower are considered to be better for a reason, but I was excited to be able to see everything. I also really enjoyed during some of the performances not being able to tell whether the dancers were male or female. It was a good reminder about how this kind of art only is produced by humanity with no necessary divides between gender, race, or social class.

Something else that I noticed and appreciated was also touched upon by Chloe in her post: the set designers for each performance played with light as a major tool to set the scene for the audience. I never really noticed how important this was until I saw how the same people and place could be dramatically transformed because the color or location of the light changed.

My favorite part of all the performances was honestly seeing how seamlessly all of the dancers cooperated with each other. I have always admired dancers because I’m not a good dancer, myself. I admire their dedication, self-discipline, and passion. However, to me the best part isn’t an individual dancer, it’s seeing how beautifully everything ties together when all of the individuals mesh into one whole.

 

Fall for Dance was great

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I enjoyed watching the dancing in Fall for Dance at New York City Center.

The first performance was terrific because all the dancers’ movements corresponded with another and everyone took their turns dancing. During the dance all of them came very close to one another without making any contact, which impressed me. However, the music was bland because it sounded like the same key being played on an organ with a little bit of others occasionally coming in and simple the sequence just repeated. The ballet performances that followed were not very interesting to me other than their manipulation of gravity. The dancers were ready to fall when their partners stopped them just in time. That is not for me. I would probably fall over. Later, two dancers were quite funny when they danced because the man physically showed impulses to come closer to his partner. In the end a person that looked like he worked for City Center stood in front of the curtain, and did some funny dance moves for the audience. I thought he was just fooling around, but later it seems that it was all part of the dance. I found this to be a very unique trick on the audience. After the dance built up in intensity, the dancers took people from the audience onto the stage and dance with them full of energy. It was very entertaining to watch trained, lively dancers dance with unprepared audience members. I wish I could have been chosen to dance with them.

I was so happy we went to this performance.

The Great Figure…

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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?

The Cabdriver’s Smile…

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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…

Man on a Fire Escape…

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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.

Room of Return…

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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.”)

Fall For Dance

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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

Fall For Dance

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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.

 

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!

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City Center is beautiful!

 

Angelika

Experiences with dance at The New York City Center

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Lucinda Childs Dance Company : CONCERTO

Professor Drabik, I apologize for my abrupt, extreme, unqualified statement that the music accompanying the first dance was horrible. I took the time to listen to a recording of a 1980 performance of Mr. Górecki’s concerto today. I admire the overwhelming volume of the orchestra and the ceaseless fugue on the harpsichord. There’s passion expressed in this music, and it is expressed well. I also discovered what I heartily, passionately disliked about how the dance group handled this passionate piece of music. It sounded like they took a snippet of it and choppily and glaringly looped it. Was it intentional, a workaround for an unexpected failure, or simply a lack of attention to the music? I suspect it was intentional, but then why?

Here’s a demonstration of the choppy looping they did:

I hope you now understand why I was disgusted with the music–not because of the musical content, but rather because of how it was arranged / excerpted.

Semperoper Ballett Dresden : NEUE SUITE

I saw in this performance a progression from classical to modern dance. I can see the emphasis it placed on physical interaction by the sinuous movement of the first dancers.

Sébastien Ramirez & Honji Wang : AP15

This is the dance that I have no reservations about. Everything flowed naturally–the music was smooth and the pair of dancers were fluid. I haven’t seen many forms of dance before; all the performances I saw yesterday are new to me. This dance, however, caught my attention more than all of the others before it because of the complexity and the precise execution of the choreography. It was great.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater : MINUS 16

“The illusion of beauty
The fine line between madness and sanity
The coexistence of fatigue and elegance”

Is the nonconformist insane or sane?
I noticed that as the anthem wore on and the nonconformist kept falling over, the music developed more and more of a minor chord in its undertones. I think that symbolizes some kind of degeneration. So, which group is mad, the conformists to a degenerating system or the nonconformist? Or, is this a false dichotomy–in which case both groups could be insane to different extents?

I’m really interested in delving into the political undertones of this performance. It was completely hidden from my eyes while I watched the scene unfold. How clever!

Fall for Dance at New York City Center

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When I first saw the syllabus, this was something I definitely looked forward to. I always loved to watch people dance. Whether it was the street performers on the subway or impressive YouTube videos. Despite all of that, I was really exposed to dance by my friend who majored in Dance throughout high school and now a Theater major in Taiwan. She loved to dance and took master classes during her whole entire stay in the U.S. with my family. She is trained in modern, ballet, classical, Chinese opera, lyrical and jazz, and even choreographed many of her dance troupe’s performances. She would take any opportunity to dance. We would walk down the street and turn around to she her pirouette-ing or leaping or just moving her body in anyway that doesn’t resemble normal walking.

She taught me a lot about how disciplined dancers have to be. She would start classes at 7:00am and leave at around 9:00pm, or even later if there was a performance approaching. For the entire performance, even if I didn’t understand what the dancers were trying to portray, I was utterly amazed at what they could do with their bodies and thinking back to what my friend told me. These dancers pushed their bodies past breaking points and have achieved so much to be on the stage.

Dance is very much intertwined with the dances and choreography styles of each performance. The music that left the most impact on me was Lucinda Childs Dance Company’s Concerto performance. It had really jarring music that wasn’t my taste, but I can understand why the choreographers had chosen them. The music I enjoyed the most accompanied Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s performance of Minus 16. The music was fun, simple, and soulful.

What I also learned from my friend is the importance of lighting. Her dance troupe would always hire a different lighting designer to come and create the lighting for their specific dance. The way body movements looked in different lightings were extremely important, and even the mood of the dance is partially through the lighting. This was clearly seen in Minus 16, it was bright and well-lighted when they took audience members on-stage to dance with them, creating a really cheerful mood along with their ridiculous body movement. But in the dance when they were chanting, the lighting was from above and cast a shadow over their bodies as they were crouched over, because they wanted to create an intense mood.

The highlight of that night was seeing Sebastian Ramirez and Honji Wang outside the building after their performance. The large crowd was already gone and Sebastian Ramirez and Honji Wang were just talking to their friends. I had to get a picture with them, so I did!

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and then the rest of the class decided to photobomb.

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And a shoutout to my friend Sarah who came with us to the performance!

 

 

 

Man on fire escape

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This poem is difficult to understand and I’m taking another shoot to get this post right.

The man is on the fire escape to watch the sunset.

I think this description is good enough because if I add anything more I’ll probably have to correct it again. No one can argue with this, though.