Author Archives: Michele Bradley

Tosca: Highlights, Connections, and Improvements

Tosca was an amazing experience with some wonderful highlights. I must say, simply stating that I was going to the opera made me feel like a high class New Yorker, but being able to talk about and make comments on the opera Tosca was even better.

The most memorable aspect was the main character Floria. Her voice was absolutely beautiful and amazing, every time she sang I was left in awe. She clearly outshone every character in the Opera with her voice and range. I couldn’t help but think of her extraordinary lung capacity, during an intermission some tried to sing Opera, and one can tell it’s difficulty by giving it a quick try. The orchestra playing music for Tosca was also extremely memorable. I’ve never had much musical skill, so hearing such professionals play so beautifully was a real treat.

Sondra Radvanovsky (Floria) after killing John Del Carlo (Scarpia)

Sondra Radvanovsky (Floria) after killing John Del Carlo (Scarpia)

What made Tosca the most interesting were the connections I could make from my prior experiences. Over the summer I visited Rome and Vatican City: two big areas for churches. They were simply everywhere, just walking in unknown areas would likely garner a visit to one, so after reading the playbill and realizing that the first act was in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle I decided to look it up. Honestly, the Church looks like every church in Rome (they all have a distinct lavish look about them) so I very well could have been there, perhaps I haven’t, but I did enjoy making the connection. The other connection I made was that of a video game: Assassins Creed II. It may sound odd, but a major part is set in Rome during the 15th century – yes the Opera’s setting is during the 19th century, but there were still some connections. In the video game, the main character’s family get caught up in political upheaval and he must avenge his father’s death against the powerfully corrupt religious men in the country. The plot does have it’s connections, but I was instantaneously reminded in the last act with the guard’s circular movements and I later realized that in the second act, the women who dressed provocatively looked extremely similar to the prostitutes in the video game.

Inside of the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle

Inside of the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle

Despite this ability for the Opera to resonate with me, I did have some problems with it – none of which have anything against the performers and the orchestra, for they were all absolutely fantastic. However, my problems lay with the actual plot. After hearing a synopsis of the play, namely that all the characters die, I expected something that mirrored my favorite Shakespearian play, Hamlet. Hamlet’s ending is grand and exciting with plot twists and action where by the end, everyone dies due to some turn of events likened to emotions of in numeral levels. However with Tosca I did not find this to be true. I felt as though the building climax was simplistic and easy to determine. Even without knowing her lover would die could I easily suspect it. Floria did kill Scarpia after all – did she not think others would find out? I thought her acceptance that a mock execution would occur was extremely naïve and inaccurate. Despite this one problem, I thought the Opera was a whole was wonderful, and going back to the Met Operahouse will certainly be something I do in the near future.

The House in a Bottle

This week has been particularly rough, I was in the hospital a few days ago doing cat scans, x-rays, EKGs, blood tests – the works. While I was there, I desperately tried to mentally escape, and the television showing some reality program not helping. So I decided to get creative and rely on my imagination. I remembered seeing a public art piece while walking along Chelsea Piers. It was a home inside of a bottle that I was planning on blogging about, so I decided to construct an elaborate plot behind its construction.

Inside of the bottle - toilet is off to the side, television and chair in the distance

Inside of the bottle – toilet is off to the side, television and chair in the distance

Inside of the bottle - sink

Inside of the bottle – sink

Outside of the bottle

Outside of the bottle

To sum up my story: a boy and girl lived next to each other and the girl’s dad made ships in a bottle using “magic” – not allowing anyone to see the process. The boy didn’t believe him so he hid and watched, once he “understood”, he tried it in big scale. The boy brought the girl to his magnificent ship but she disregarded it because she knew only magic could create it, so to prove it worked they tool it for a test run, but they crashed and landed on a deserted island. The boy still remembered how to create the bottle, so he did, and he wanted to use it to get back home, creating livable situations inside. Their life would then become a message in a bottle for everyone to explore and piece together, and when they landed on Chelsea Piers, this became their gift to New York City, for everyone to see.

It’s not the most beautifully constructed story, but it helped me escape and showed me the beauty of art. I must admit, I never saw the purpose of the majority of art, especially as an environmentalist who mainly thought they were wastes of our resources. And while I still do adhere to this principle in many ways, I suppose I can become more tolerable of grandiose art pieces such as these, especially if I begin to think that each art piece helps someone in some shape or form. Behind my environmentalist ways are simply a concern for others to ensuring everyone a healthy and happy life on Earth, and if art can successfully do that for some, as I can now understand, perhaps I can appreciate art that much more.

Complexions

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The projected sweat, the deep breathes, the sweet caresses: nearly every aspect of Complexions Contemporary Ballet left me in awe. The performance as a whole was broken into three, and some were better than others.

It started off with a contemporary dance with what I believe was a storyline of male versus female, bridging off towards topics such as seclusion and heartbreak. The males and females would sometimes dance as pairs, leave their partner or dance alone as others stared. As a whole, a full liner storyline can be difficult to interpret, so I decided to fully focus on one dancer. I created a story for him: he was the man with brown curly hair and nameless. He immediately caught my attention after bouncing up and down; making me laugh and grasping my emotions. At times I noticed his sadness as others danced, his happiness when he danced. He seemed to be a loner trying to find a companion, so he would often stare with wonder at the other characters. I identified with him and was drawn to his story, but I wish I could have done the same for all the dancers; a daunting task based on the wide variety of personal stories being told on stage.

The second part was by far my favorite. As the curtain rose, I heard deep, saddening music, and right away I was touched emotionally. I had so many favorite parts of this show; one being the two seemingly naked males dancing. It was slightly provocative, potentially homosexual, but the crisp movements of their body and the chemistry between the dancers were simply beautiful. To me, the two dancers portrayed a love story with potential problems and heartaches, and when one dancer tried to leave the stage and the other pulled him back, I felt the tension and quick desire between them. The final scene was so graceful, as the two dancers held a disconnected embrace.

The other dance I particularly enjoyed was with three dancers: two up front and one in the back. The dancers in the front seemed to be wearing black robes doing a traditional Japanese dance. It felt extremely proper, but in an artistic and elegant in tone. However, the artist in the back is what I enjoyed the most: he danced in front of a white screen making him appear as a shadow and dancing as he wanted to. This gave the dance a direct juxtaposition: traditional versus the internally pleasing. It reminded me of oppressive parents, the two dancers adhering to their strict traditional beliefs of dance, as their child is in the back dancing as he wants to, making motions off whim and pleasure as opposed to tradition.

The final act was my least favorite, it was lively but it seemed off putting compared to the beautifully constructed first parts. The whole dance seemed to be a bad Broadway musical reminiscent of dancing at a club. Sure it was fun and enjoyable, but I felt that it was all over the place and I couldn’t focus on one character or one dance like I’d want to.

MOMA : René Magritte and John Cage

My favorite painting of all time is Le fils de l’homme (The Son of Man) by René Magritte. An apple covers a man’s face, immediately making us question what’s behind, but that’s the message: why figure out the hidden when the rest is being shown. The interesting thoughts behind Magritte’s paintings are what interest me the most. He is a surrealist painter who incorporates simple, common items and places them in areas to give them a surrealist, new meaning. This questions everything we know about the common item. He elevates simplicity into beautiful art everyone can relate to and ponder.

The exhibition at the MOMA was very surprising and beautifully constructed. It takes the museum-goer on a journey through Magritte’s life, beginning with his earlier work and ending with his later ones. It begins with typical paintings, progressing to 3D art and redefining the boundaries of the frame. Despite this progression, Magritte consistently uses the same basic idea: fiddling with the juxtaposition of objects, placing objects where they aren’t usually found and defying common sense. For example, the piece that struck me the most was La reproducción interdite (Not to be Reproduced) by René Magritte. A man looks into a mirror, yet his reflection is not shown back. This is meant to confuse us and our common sense. I wanted to know how his face looked, why the mirror was doing this. It made me frustrated – that is not how a mirror works and I want to see his face.

[Clio Team] 1937 Magritte La Reproduction interdite, 81x65 cm

The last exhibition I visited was There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4’33’’. I visited it after noticing the name John Cage from my art movement project, and was further intrigued when I noticed that I knew a majority of the artists featured. I knew their famous art pieces and their main objectives in art, which intensified my appreciation for the exhibition. For example, it examined Cage’s influence on artists such as Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol – artists who pushed the boundaries of space, time, and physicality. One of the most interesting pieces was Cage’s 4’33’’ manuscript of simple plain white pages. While going around the exhibition, I noticed the art and poetry of Yoko Ono, whose poetry was very avant-garde and confusing. I did not understand it, but seeing this historical figure’s work was an amazing experience. As I was walking out of the exhibit, I heard strange, random noises. I was at first scared but then I was struck when I located the noises coming from a small wooden box in the middle of a room. There was no name on the piece, but I wish I could know who created this eerie box, I walked around the piece, hearing it from all different angles, put my ear as close as I could. I wouldn’t have noticed the piece if I didn’t explore the area, it seemed to blend into the exhibition, just as John Cage always wanted: ambient sound can change the art form.

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Spoken Word Poetry – Michael Indemaio

I could never be a poet, a manipulator of words. But I do enjoy watching poetry spoken, far more than reading it. My friend’s brother, Michael Indemaio, is a poetry writer whose written poetry books and gone to many poetry slams. My friend would read me his poems, or have me read them, and they were beautiful poems, but it wasn’t until I heard them out loud did I understand it’s beauty.  The YouTube Clip attached is of Michael Indemaio reading his poetry, and is one of my favorites. I haven’t heard him say this live, but I think it’s a wonderful, heart-felt poem, especially since I know a lot of his personal history. I’ve never asked him his process in preparing for his shows, which I would be interested in, but I have seen him write poetry (for Twitter, he has a huge fan base) and I find his process of brainstorming and editing down to be quite similar to what I do, yet his end results are far more artistic.

I personally enjoy spoken word poetry because it allows me to understand poetry greater than if I were to read it on my own. Each word when spoken has a transformation of meaning and elicits far more emotion than if I were to read it in my head. Usually, when I start reading a poem, I start off in my own voice, and it is not until the end that the author’s tone seeps in and I begin to understand the message. However, when hearing it out load, the tone is set from the beginning, allowing me to understand what the author meant by certain phrases. Specifically in this spoken word poem, Michael Indemaio changes his speed of voice, allowing some parts to show his troubled, fast paced mind, while slowing down on other parts, allowing words and phrases to soak in. The tone and nonverbal communication also adds to its significance, as the grief and madness in his face gives the poem an extremely emotional quality, one I would not imagine if reading it to myself and in my head.

 

 

MET: Japanese Art

 

Deciding what exhibit to go to in the Metropolitan Museum of Art can be quite a daunting task, so difficult that I left my voyage up to chance, randomly selecting a room and heading there. In my quest to locate The American Wing, I stumbled upon a sign for Japanese Art. Coming from half an Asian background I’ve always found Asian art particularly beautiful and interesting, so off I went to explore.

I stood in a dark room with few people, accompanied to the sound of a waterfall. It was quite pleasant, and their uniquely modern sculptures took me by surprise. I was expecting traditional art such as calligraphy and flowers, but instead, I saw abstract pieces – one of the most interesting was a deer made out of glass balls.

However, it was the 1979 piece entitled Footprint of the Buddha by Kondo Yukaka that took me in awe. From afar, I thought the overall print was beautiful, but once I got closer, I saw the fantastically unique detail. Each indentation was the name of a country, city, district, restaurant and name the artist knew, some in English, others in Japanese. This merging of cultural beliefs is very intriguing. Japanese ceramic art resonates very close to Japan’s culture, so to have it contain English words and an Indian Buddha footprint, exemplifies a fascinating culmination of all cultures.

Unfortunately, these camera-phone pictures lack depth and fail to do the piece justice. When I studied and admired it, I tried to see it from all angles, bending down to be at eye level and standing on my tippy toes to get an overhead view. Each angle made it appear slightly different from the other, making my overall impression very comprehensive. Other than the angles, I also found the placement of the two pieces interesting. When going online to find information on it, I noticed that the two pieces were pushed together as opposed to being spread apart. When they were pushed together, it made the piece appear more like a footprint, yet when spread apart, it became more abstract.

Overall, I found this piece both beautiful and interesting, and I’m happy I stumbled upon this serene section of an otherwise chaotic museum.

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Union Square: Public Art

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While walking around Union Square on Halloween, I took newfound notice at the huge artwork plastered on a building. I never paid it much attention, but perhaps the (what I think looks like a) wand and the smoke on Halloween gave the day a more magical appearance, so I watched it for a bit, pondering its significance.

The piece done by artists Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel and is called Metronome. They describe the piece to be “an investigation into the nature of time,” which incorporates a variety of symbolic aspects.

The digital clock is called “the Passage”, the five-foot-wide circle is called “the Infinity”, the hand is called “the Relic”, the gold overlay is called “the Source”, the brick wall is called “the Vortex”, the rock is called “the Matter”, the lunar time piece on the far left is called “the Phases”, and the needle is called “the Focus”. It’s clear to say that there’s a lot of symbolic meaning to this piece, much of which revolve around energy, time, earth and God. “The Vortex” stands for a metaphor of the rotation of the earth and the passing of time, “the Matter” is suggestive of geological times when Manhattan was simply made of bedrock, and “the Infinity”, which strikes a tone at noon and midnight, shows the importance of time.

“Ultimately, the work is an ode to mortality and the impossibility of knowing time,” which is supposed to contrast the digital clock on the right. To read the digital clock, look at the seven leftmost digits, which show time in a conventional 24-hour format, going left to right showing hours, minutes, seconds and tenths of a second. The seven rightmost digits display the time remaining in a 24-hour day counting backwards, once again, left to right, to show the tenths of a second, seconds, minutes and hours left in the day.

I don’t know why I never cared for the piece or gave it much notice, perhaps because I find it rather drab, and its symbolic meaning certainly won’t jump out at you, it’s a piece one would seriously have to ponder. Similar to my reaction, yet perhaps a bit more harsh, critics alike have generally found the Metronome to be a waste of space, dubbing it a pretentious “wailing wail…where the death of aesthetics can be contemplated.”

Little Fun Fact: Metronome cost $3 million to produce

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Rox Gallery : Stories and Optical Illusions

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Ever walk into those elevators with mirrors on all 4 sides and see yourself infinitely from every angle. It can be slightly creepy, and I never thought that all the reflections could create an image such as this. The symmetry and aesthetic quality from this man simply standing in one place is quite remarkable.

The whole photograph serves as a sort of optical illusion – a photograph of initial light that descends into a three-dimensional darkness. Breaking it down, one aspect of this photo is the naked man surrounded by a bright light and white walls. The color white, the brightness of the photo, and the nude man are often symbols of purity. However, looking to either side of the reflections, the image of the man gets infinitely smaller until he is submerged into this black square, which I believe tells us a story of the mans change in his life, towards darkness. The color black is symbolic of the hidden and secretive. From this, I can assume that the man slowly becomes immersed by his lies and potential problems. I also see another perspective that contains a biblical allegory. The naked man symbolizes Adam and the start of the world and this black box symbolizes original sin. However, these are just two potential aspects of understanding this picture; but with art this vague, a lot is left to interpretation.