I know this is how everyone has started their blogs this week, but it must be said: Wow, I can’t believe the semester is over and this is my last blog. I feel it was literally yesterday that I was trying to figure out what Professor Healey wanted me to write in a review of The Indian Wants the Bronx. I remember struggling to structure my blog correctly and make the blog flow in the way I wanted it to.
After that I remember, week after week, feeling so impassioned during a performance we attended that I would outline my blog in my head as the performance was going on.
The opera especially, I vividly remember sitting in that performance and being so entranced, yet simultaneously trying to focus on the things that inspired me so I could write about them.
Because of this class, I think about every piece of art, every movie, every play and every performance, I read or view. I think about them not just in terms of “Oooh I really like this” or “Oh man, I do not like this” but rather, I peel off the first layer and look deeper.
Every performance has been beneficial in teaching me how to see things, to really SEE things, for more than they appear to be. This class has broadened my perspective on many political and social issues. But most of all, it has forced me to question the fundamentals of art and the person behind the art.
Who is this artist? Why is he creating? Who is he creating for?
Once again this is expected, but the performance that effected me the most was, drumrolll please, Ralph Lemon’s creation.
His performance affected me the most because it was his performance that fundamentally questioned my view of art, and dance.
While watching it, I had to think: Is this a movie? Is this a play? Is this a dance number? Or, does this performance perhaps not fit into any one category that I can think of. The performance was essentially a microcosm of what I just spoke about, thinking about art in a radically different way than I was ever used to.
Ralph Lemon’s performance was considered challenging, but why?
I think the answer to this is the fact that it made people question the parameters they have set up in their minds and deeply think about the thoughts that have been stamped into their train of thought, before they even began thinking.
Personally, it made me question the way I view things, it made me think about beauty and dance, and right and wrong.
What makes something beautiful?
Why do certain pieces seem beautiful and right, while other ugly and wrong?
These questions can go on forever, but what I think is important is the fact that Ralph dared to be different. He had the courage to think outside of what is expected, and truly create something unique. Is that not how all-innovative creations are created? They are done by people who step outside the comfort zone in a labyrinth of creative possibilities.
Because of this performance I will never think of dance in the same way again. I will really never think of anything the same again after this class: dance, theatre, photography, art, opera, and film…
This class has encouraged me to think about everything with a critical eye. This is what makes it so hard for me to pick a performance that was least effective. I really found something positive about everything we saw and experienced. They were really all enjoyable to me.
I guess I would have to say, Kissing Fidel and War, were the two least effective for me. It is because, unlike the movies or performances or exhibits, it was simply something we read, and there was less life to them. But then you could say that Metal Children and Ruined were also written plays.
Perhaps the fact that they were mostly, simply, dialogue made them less enjoyable to me. There was no engaging story line. If they happened to be plays than each would mostly take place in one simple scene the entire time. But the again, Little Foxes was basically the same setting the entire time.
It is harder to think of why something is bad than why something was enjoyable…
I think if a performance or an exhibit lingers in your mind long after it is over, it had made an impression. Just the fact that I reference the performances I enjoyed in this class in other classes, means they have made an impact on the way I think and have influenced my life. To be honest, I forgot we had even read War and Kissing Fidel. That is the number one reason why I consider them to be less effective. They did not linger more than a day, while Ralph Lemon’s performance still lingers inside of me EVEN today.
