The little desolate theater known as the Joyce Theater managed to get me to walk through the howling bitter cold wind, just to watch a cliche ballet. It was completely worth it. It was engaging, fun, elaborate and sensational. The dancers physique was graceful and sturdy. I myself enjoy going to the gym as often as i can. However, the kind of flexibility and muscle that these performers had to acquire is truly inspirational. While i am on the topic of physical attributes, the odd thing about this display was how often the dancers changed their body’s direction. It gave the audience views from all orientations. It wasn’t one conformed performance that one can see every christmas season. No it was free and contemporary and that was what i think people wanted to see now. The underlying engager during the performance was the music. It started slow and naturally graceful and ended up reaching an upbeat, fast and aggressive tone that was very empowering helping deliver the message of the dance theme. The emotional experience is exacerbated by the music and the performers wanted you to feel the theme in all of its rawness. Its not enough to just focus on the show but on the performers movements and emotions as well. When the audience feels the same emotions that the dancer does, then the dancer can rest knowing the audience has felt the theme.
Overall, this was an unforgettable experience that i will have no regrets for walking through the bitter cold to watch. I plan on returning to watch more modern ballet.
Having never gone to the opera before, it was definitely an experience I’ll remember hopefully for the rest of my life. The day we spent preparing for it kind of made me sure I was going to fall asleep because I just don’t like what I used to term as the “ahhh singing”. (I still don’t, not really). But while we were watching it, the story of Carmen really gripped me. It wasn’t just people singing for no reason, but there was an intricacy in the songs themselves that added to the depth of the story.
The plot of Carmen made me very ambivalent. I liked some characters and not so much for others. Carmen herself was a little meh. I felt like throughout the whole story, she was too selfish for words to describe. Of course, she did warn Don Jose and he did spoil her by giving into whatever she wanted, but it was still annoying to watch her make unreasonable demands of which she was the main focus even when it wasn’t her decision to make. For example, when Don Jose wanted to go back to work after getting out of jail, thereby showing that he wanted to somehow reform his life, she demanded that he become a robber to fit in with her life. I was mind-boggled when he gave in because she ruined his life!
Let’s not forget how the amazing Michaela performed in the opera. That was a bone-chilling, hair-rising aria! It was definitely very powerful and heartfelt, and it gave her more of a purpose that she previously didn’t have.
The best part of the opera, for me, was the conductor and orchestra. I’m usually not a music person, but without the conductor and orchestra, the play would not have been as exciting. When the music became loud and fast, the audience knew this was a tense scene. When it was serene and slow, the audience knew it was a calm scene. The conductor himself would get into the music and half the time I would be compelled by his movements. It was a truly beautiful thing to see him bring all forms of instruments together and create masterpieces. I guess that’s credit to Bizet, who composed all the music for the play hundred of years ago, though.
All in all, the opera was a new experience that is not easy to forget. What I thought would be a snooze-fest kept me awake and interested the whole time. Three hours seemed like a lot but by the end it didn’t even seem like that much time had passed. The story of Carmen was definitely a worthwhile watch in The Metropolitan Opera.
I know this is a bit late, but I wanted to devote one of my posts to Marina Abramović who we saw in “Picasso Baby” by Jay-Z. I know a lot of people didn’t know she was a famous artist at the time, but I wanted to show everyone her art since each piece is really powerful in my perspective.
One of my favorite pieces by her was actually in 1974 called “Rhythm 0”. In this piece, she made herself the art object for 6 hours (8pm-2am) and put 72 objects on a table that the audience could use on her. The objects ranged from an apple and lipstick to a loaded gun and box of razors. I though this piece was really powerful because she literally risked her life to show how the audience treats an artist. It also has to do a lot with sociopsychology since when one person decided to act violently and didn’t get in trouble for it, everyone else started acting that way.
“What I learned was that… if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” … “I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.”
You should definitely check out her other work, I especially liked “Rhythm 5”, “Breathing In/Breathing Out”, and “The Artist is Present”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMG2oNqBy-Y
Jay-Z “Picasso Baby: A performance Art Film” (dir. Mark Romanek, 2013)
Edouard Manet, “Olympia” (1865)
Renee Cox, “Olympia’s Boyz” (2001)
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