I am mad at myself that I didn’t write down some of the things he said, thinking I could remember them, but obviously I couldn’t. Not that I wasn’t listening or anything but there were certain phrases he said that were really deep and philosophical.

Anywho it was yet another great experience meeting the mastermind behind this strange dance phenomenon. One thing I noticed was that the same feelings of uncertainty and questioning that we as an audience had, Ralph also had. When asked inquisitive questions about the dance or asked what he thought he’ll do in the future, he responded with uncertainty and doubt. And I think that this is why we felt those feelings as an audience because we were influenced by the artist’s emotions. I mean Ralph definitely had a message to convey but he also had many scenes in his dance that were private and intricate that maybe even he couldn’t get or explain. Which is why, as I pointed out in my last blog, we don’t NEED to get or understand this piece. We should just sit back and enjoy it for what it is: a new form of expressing oneself through dance or as a professor in the room stated, an “experiment.” Which reminds me of a story Okwui said of her neighbor coming up to her and telling her that he didn’t get it, and she replied with “good, you’re not suposed to.”

Another point I found extremely intriguing was the point they brought up about needing and not needing the audience. When I act on stage I need the audience there to make sure I’ve accomplished my goal of making them laugh or sob. On the other hand Okwui and the other collaborator next to her stated that they didn’t need the audience because it was something they were doing for themselves as an artist and the audience was just there witnessing it. Okwui also said that it was weird because she wanted to know what it would be like to “need” the audience and I on the other hand wonder what it would be like to not need them. For one I wouldn’t get those silly butterflies in my stomach before going onstage ;p .

I especially loved the little book Ralph gave us at the end. It was so cute!! I showed it to my friends in class that hadn’t seen the performance and they were so perplexed….they didn’t get it at all. Oh well, they’re not suposed to.

VS                                  

As I rushed from Chemistry recitation over to Rathus Hall, which was incredibly hard for me to find, I wondered what Ralph would look like up close, and I was even more curious as to what he had to say regarding his own piece.  Running down the stairs, I was stopped in the hallway because of a few people blocking the hallway.  But, wait!  They weren’t just any ordinary person!  It was Ralph Lemon himself, as well as two of his dancers and Professor Profetta.  I acted as though he was a true, famous celebrity and I felt my heart racing as I followed him into the dance studio, 101A.

When he took his shoes off, as well as the other dancers, I wondered if I was supposed to take mine off too, but I figured that it was just some weird dancer routine that I was unaware of, so I kept mine on.  One of the first questions that came to my mind was, why is Professor Profetta not letting him speak?  I was so eager to hear from Lemon himself.  His piece left me in a “what the ****” state of mind, and I thought I would just leave it alone, but the piece wouldn’t leave me alone.  I needed to understand what Lemon was attempting to show me, and I hoped to find that during the talk-session with him.

In the beginning of the talk, I noticed that many of my classmates were shuffling around a little, and that is probably because Professor Profetta, the dancers, and Ralph Lemon were all basically restating what we had already known from previous discussions on the piece.  This made me want to get up and leave, but I didn’t want to be rude.  I thought that I was giving up my free hour, where I could be eating and finishing up my chemistry labs just to restate the obvious.  I thought that it wouldn’t be beneficial and it was just a waste of my time being there.  But, my mind quickly changed.

When the audience sitting around Lemon and the others were asked to propose any questions, no matter the topic, to Lemon or his dancers, the talk became really interesting, in my opinion.

There were two professors in the audience and one of them continuously referred to Lemon’s piece as an “experiment,” which Lemon gladly accepted.  His piece was indeed an experiment, an experiment between form and non form, the human body and its movements, as well as the possibilities and limits to which he could take this piece.  Lemon really wanted to show what he was feeling, his grief, and this moment in his life.  This piece was based on everything Lemon had been experimenting on in the past few years, and he thought it would be a good idea to put it together.  Lemon even chuckled at the idea of calling “How Can You Stay in the House…” a piece because he felt as though it was unfinished and his experiment wasn’t really over.  He even laughed at the idea of making his dancers do this nonstop because he still didn’t really achieve his goal.

One of the girls in our class mentioned that the dance was made without a structure.  Okwui quickly responded to her comment by making it known that their dance, or whatever you wanna call it, was indeed structured.  The dancers knew their timing: how long they must spin, how much time should elapse before they jump, when they had to “meet up” with each other again.  So, the dance was indeed structured even though we thought that the majority of it was just improvised.

Another question that was brought up, which seemed to stunt our class’s minds, was:  why put animals on the screen?  I expected a really long response from Lemon with very intricate and detailed descriptions, but his answer was extremely simple.  “The animals showed grace.”  One question that I really was burning to ask is, why did he choose those animals in particular, but I felt that maybe I would be a little too repetitive.  This idea of a moment of grace was really my favorite portion of the talk because he revealed something that I would have never thought about.  The animals were indeed very graceful, after looking at chaos and listening to eight minutes of crying, they were peaceful.

Okwui also spoke about her crying book, and told us more about what it included like letters from Lemon’s deceased partner, news clippings, images, and poems.  I found it to be amazing that she could just look at sad images and cry for eight minutes.  She said that when she thought about crying, it was impossible for her to actually do it, but when she focused on the book itself and its contents, she found that place inside of her that helped her to let it all out.

One last thing that I found to be interesting was that Lemon mentioned that the dancers’ performances did not depend upon the audience’s reactions.  The audience could have loved it, liked it, or hated it, but the performers weren’t trying to make them feel any sort of way so all of their responses were valid.

Ralph Lemon was extremely down to earth and he was really fun to talk to.  The talk helped me to really get into Lemon’s mind and understand the meaning behind his work.  I am extremely happy that I was able to meet Lemon in person, and I really hope that he uses children in his next piece.  I finally understand…sorta.

I really did not want to be spending my Wednesday free hour spending more time talking about Ralph Lemmon’s “How can you sit in the house all day and not go anywhere?” BAM dance piece.  But that’s exactly what I found myself doing.

When I saw the BAM piece, as I wrote in my blog, I really didn’t like it and just wanted to forget it and put it behind me.  But of course that didn’t happen- first we had a discussion with Katherine Profetta, the dramaturge, and just when I thought it was over I found out we had another one with the great Ralph Lemmon himself!

Well, I was shocked when I walked into that dance studio.  I saw Ralph, Katherine and two of the dancers sitting in chairs across from us, not up far away on a stage.  It was an intimate gathering, there weren’t many people there, and it seemed pretty informal.  Especially because since it was a dance studio they had to take their shoes off, so it was funny that Ralph and everyone was there barefoot.

Anyway, enough about that.  Now for the actual content of the talk.  At first it was boring, like same old, same old, talking about how the goal was nonform and dance in a different way instead of something we’re used to, etc. which we knew already but they had to talk about for the other people there who hadn’t seen the show or didn’t know.

After that I picked out some interesting tidbits.  First of all, I thought it was so interesting when a student asked a question and mentioned unstructured dance or something like that, and Okwui the dancer answered and was saying that it was a false impression- it was a VERY structured piece with exact timing and reasons behind everything.  Contrary to what I, and I think a lot of other people, thought, the dancers didn’t just get up on stage and start randomly flailing.   Okwui said nothing they did was random- for example, she would spin for 25 seconds, then improvise for 1 minute, then she had an “appointment” to bang into another dancer on stage, so everything was very structured.

Another thing I liked was when someone asked a question about what the animals on screen were all about and Ralph Lemmon said that it was his attempt at showing grace, because it was just a peaceful moment among all the fast-paced craziness, and that the animals were the perfect representation because they just are what they are.  I don’t really know how to put it into words, but when he explained it I really liked that idea.  In general, I just really appreciated that nothing was random and that everything had a reason or thought behind it.

I also found it interesting when they were talking about their relationship to the audience and Ralph was saying that it’s not like a typical Broadway show where they want the audience’s approval.  He said its less like they were performing FOR the audience, it was more like they were performing and ALLOWED the audience to watch.

It is also really impressive that they managed to pull off the performance because the dancers were saying that it was so hard to do because they couldn’t rehearse and learn everything straight through, they would do it for a week, then take a few months off, do it for two weeks, take more time off… and it was all very scattered.  So I’m impressed that they were able to do it so well and keep moving forward instead of relearning the same thing every time they got together, which, from what I gathered, wasn’t too often.

Overall I have to say that the more I hear about and talk about the Ralph Lemmon show, the more I can appreciate the kind of performance they put on and what they’ve done.  But that doesn’t mean I would want to sit through it again LOL.

Drum Roll Please…..He’s coming, he’s coming!

Last week, when I blogged about the Ralph Lemmon Dance, I discussed my inability to comprehend the piece, but more importantly, I focused on the ways in which Dr. Profetta helped us to understand it. Just when I thought I finally understood the piece to the best of my ability, I received an email that Ralph Lemmon himself would be coming to Queens College. I jumped at the opportunity to better grasp the meaning of the piece.

Wednesday afternoon, Ralph Lemmon, Dr. Katherine Profetta, two dancers from the Ralph Lemmon Dance, and approximately 40 students, gathered into a dance studio to listen to Ralph Lemmon speak about his piece. To be honest, I was expecting to be sitting in the audience of an auditorium, needing a pair of binoculars to see Ralph Lemmon, who I imagined would be sitting on stage. I was more than excited to find that I was sitting less than ten feet away from him, which elicited a friendlier atmosphere for the lecture.

Mr. Lemmon began the session by discussing his opinions about the piece, as well as his goals in creating it. He believes that, with regards to dance, the possibilities are endless. Ralph wanted to fill the stage with other ideas and concepts, not generally associated with the dance we know. He originally created the film shown in the beginning for an artist conference, and it created a “spring board” for the piece we witnessed at BAM.

During the lecture, one member of the audience requested permission from Ralph Lemmon to refer to the production as an experiment, and Mr. Lemmon eagerly welcomed this term. In our class discussion with Professor Profetta, the readings about the performance as well as a student in our class suggested that the piece was a conglomeration of many different ideas that did not seem to be connected, but all worked together to formulate a masterpiece. We couldn’t come up with a good reason for the display of the animals on the screen, but in response to a question asked, Ralph Lemmon explained that the animals were incorporated as a “moment of grace.” The dance is filled with exhaustive movements and intense crying, and the animals moved across the stage in a calm, soothing manner.

Much of the session was spent discussing the 20 minutes of straight dancing in the middle of the show. Many of the audience members were curious as to how the dancers were able to move continuously for 20 minutes keeping their energy levels high until the very end. One dancer explained that each time he goes onto the stage for this portion of the piece, he imagines that it will be his last opportunity to dance, and therefore puts all of his effort into the dance. The dancers also dispelled any beliefs that the dance section had no structure – many aspects of the piece were carefully planned and timed. Okwe spins for a certain length time, and at a specific point during her crying, she picks up the tambourine. Although an audience may not realize it while watching the show, the dance is not “random” – each movement made by each dancer has a purpose. Additionally, during the improvisation, there are specific markers and meetups – planned times when the dancers all come together on the stage, which allow for a resurgence of energy.

The last aspect of the performance we discussed was the relationship between the performers and the audience. Ralph Lemmon and the dancers were unsure what the audience expected from them, and the audience members often are unsure what to expect from the production. Different members of the audience have different reactions to the piece – some hate it, some love it, and some erupt in tears. Regardless of their reaction, I believe that the dance is unlike any production any member of the audience has ever seen, and I am glad that our class had the opportunity to learn more about the piece from both the dramaturge and the writer themselves.

After initially watching Ralph Lemon’s performance I wondered why on earth would he chose to produce something that would want to make the people he was performing for want to get up and just leave? After listening to what Ralph Lemon, Katherine Profeta, and the dancers David and Okwui had to say, I was finally able to realize that the piece wasn’t supposed to be about whether or not we liked it, it was about the process. We as the audience have to figure out how to watch this performance.

Normally when I watch something I try to figure out what the storyline is and why things are occurring. So naturally when I sat down to watch this performance I immediately tried to figure out what the story was. For this reason I think I left the theater very unsatisfied that night because I wasn’t able to figure out this story. But that’s exactly what Lemon wanted. “How Can You Stay In The House All Day And Not Go Anywhere” can be thought of as an “experiment”. Ralph Lemon didn’t want the piece to be about us, rather for it to be about the bigger questions, such as, is it acceptable to go to a performance and watch dancers just be? What is it now that is done on stage? What is dance, and what are its boundaries? How far can something go before it doesn’t belong in theater?

I guess another reason why when sat through this performance I didn’t enjoy it is because it wasn’t anything I was used to seeing. I was very disappointed when I walked in thinking I was going to see a dance, and then all of a sudden I saw a large screen on stage, and then when the dancing started it wasn’t the dancing that I had been expecting to see. “We’re not trying to do something that you recognize”. ……oooo, now I get it! I wish I had known that going into the piece. Now everything makes so much more sense. We weren’t supposed to know what was to come next, we weren’t supposed to recognize their movements. This is why their dancing appeared to have no form. It was child-like, which is what Ralph Lemon wanted to accomplish.

Something that Okwui pointed out which changed my view on the dancing was that she mentioned that the dance actually did have some form to it. Because it was a performance for an audience, it couldn’t just be 20 minutes of complete randomness, there had to be some structure to it. So although to me the whole thing just seemed like completely random movements, and during the performance I had no idea how something like that could possibly be planned, and that it just had to be completely made up on the spot, but after speaking to the dancers I now understand that there were moments where the dancers met, and these moments were prepared and very structured. So although there was no form to the dancing, it was still a very structured piece.

Through this piece, Ralph Lemon takes the opportunity to share a very personal experience with the audience, and through the performance he creates moments of wrongness and tension and in these moments of wrongness he sets the stage for a discussion. So now I finally realize that this Ralph Lemon performance wasn’t about the entertainment aspect, rather it was about how you view this piece, and what you are personally able to get out of it.

I love his voice. Hearing Ralph Lemon speak today brought me back to the performance at BAM when he read the film talk. He has this thoughtful tone to his voice, and his diction makes him seem like he is reciting poetry.

But his voice is just the cherry on top.  I thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue between Ralph, Katherine and the dancers. Actually, Okwui is not even a dancer; she is an actress, which I also loved. I have too much love to give.

Sometimes I get too passionate. Like, I will have all these ideas in my head after listening to people explore their own ideas or after reading a really great thought provoking essay, and I feel like I’m going to explode from all the connections and new thoughts that they have helped generate in my head.

This kind of explosion of excitement began, when they started talking about non-form, of trying to break the patterns of dance and create their own language. This semester in my philosophy class, my teacher keeps trying to get my class to think for ourselves. To realize, as Socrates says, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We are brought up with fixed categories, but instead of questioning these stereotypes and brandings, we accept them as truth.

Professor Rosenberg would love Ralph Lemon, for he also tried to break the norms and protocols. With this production, he wanted to find realms beyond his consciousness. Beyond what is fixed right and fixed wrong. Beyond what is beautiful and what is ugly. To see, “what happens when you get lost in your body?”

I could probably answer this question of what happens when you get lost in your own body. I’m not really a great dancer. I have rhythm; I am just not the greatest multi-tasker. My feet and hands just are not capable doing two different things at the same time. Yet, I know the feeling of when a really great song comes on and you feel it travel through your veins, all over your body, until it is not possible for you to sit still. Then you just get up, and start moving. Jumping. Prancing. Shaking. And it’s the most freeing and exhilarating thing. To others watching this may look very wrong. VERY WRONG.

Ralph Lemon spoke of this “wrongness”. Not mine, but his production.  How it was full of moments that expose a tension from this wrongness. How it was suppose to create a debate as to what we now do onstage. This again, goes back to the idea of a set framework. Where do the borders end? How far can you push until the frame breaks? Maybe I want to break the frame.

This reminded me of a painting I analyzed for a formal analysis paper in Art History. It was Van Gogh called Oleanders. In the painting, the composition is really interesting. It is of a book and vase of flowers on a table. Yet the book is all the way on the left, half off the table, and the vase is towards the right back corner of the table. When you look at it, you feel a tension emanating from the painting, for things are not, “where they belong.”

The idea of things not being where they belong, or how they are “suppose to be,” connects to the idea Ralph was speaking of at the end of the session. (I promise this is my last point)

At the end he spoke about this performance as memory and memorial, him, “Coming to terms with my own life.” It was like a catharsis. Most people see sadness and grief as something terrible, and wish it would just be absent from their lives. Someone commented that she really appreciated him stepping into his own sadness and sorrows and fully taking them in and creating something from them. I could not agree more. I think there is something simply beautiful about contemplating life and sadness. Sorrow and loss can create a sense what of it means to be alive and a human being. In this piece, Ralph Lemon took his grief and tried to get to elements of joy and grace and ecstasy. In the film at the beginning of the BAM production Ralph declares, after his partner dies, “I will ennoble this loss…the remarkable and confounding absence.” I believe he did exactly that.

I was pretty excited to go to a dance performance for the first time! “Brooklyn Academy of Music” This sounded familiar yet I had no idea what to expect. All the other classes were raving about their performance and I was expecting something big, modern, and live too.

The BAM was a nice theater and the atmosphere was very comfy too. I got settled in my seat and then the performance started. Lemon came out, even though I didn’t know it was him at the time, and a screen also came down. I thought, “Oh wow, just like Little Foxes.” This thought wasn’t particularly positive because I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the use of the screen in Little Foxes in the first place. Nevertheless, after this, an old guy came on the screen as Lemon was narrating and started rolling on the floor in a fake spaceship. I thought to myself, “Oh Boy.” This wasn’t a normal dance piece and definitely had its own unique aspect. I had NO idea what was going on for the remainder of the play. There were various stories about different people on the screen and it also showed a short piece of people dancing freely. I had no idea that these performers would actually come out and do that sort of dancing for what felt like forever.

I was shocked at first when the dancers came out and started performing. I thought, “Really, does Lemon actually expect us to watch this?” As I was thinking this, I saw a few people walk out of the theater. I wasn’t surprised, I felt like doing it too! I became angry, and annoyed at the dancers because I had to watch them dance so awkwardly. I didn’t know what to do, however, for a split second, I did feel their emotions, but this quickly went away and I ignored that I had ever felt that.

When Okwui was crying on stage, I felt an intense emotion. Like someone said in class, “It was like mother grieving over her deceased child.” At first, I was like whats going on and why is she crying. Yet, after a few minutes, I got into it and started thinking about the sad moments in my life or all the horrible possibilities that could occur in my life. Honestly, I felt like crying for a few seconds because her crying felt like something real. When the speaker came Monday, she told us that Okwui prepares for that scene by looking at her “book of sad things”. So her crying was genuine and I had felt all the emotion there.

Professor Profeta really helped me appreciate what Lemmon was trying to portray. When I left the theater, I felt like that time of my life was wasted and I was angry we had to watch it. However, I knew there was something about the piece I was just not getting. This is what the professor helped clear up. She told us about the emotions, the breakdown of them, and everything that was put into this piece. It really helped me appreciate this work of art so much more. I actually got the idea and thought to myself, “How would my viewing be different if I watch it again, knowing the messages behind it?” I think I would definitely appreciate it more and actually get into the roles of the performers.

I have learned from this experience that we shouldn’t be so superficial and always want what is commonly portrayed. I think a piece like what Lemon created is something that we may need more of and if you actually put in the effort to understand it, then it is definitely worth watching.

How would I even begin to describe what I saw on October 14th.  Perhaps I was dreaming and a bunch of people were just going completely crazy right before my eyes.  Or perhaps I was cursed by some evil spirit who forced me sit there and watch ninety minutes of what I would call…torture!

When I went into the theater, I was super excited because I’ve been to the Brooklyn Academy of Music a few times before to see ballet performances and I absolutely loved it there.  However, when I heard about this dance performance I didn’t really expect a whimsical and pretty ballet, but I did expect something entertaining.  As I sat in my seat, I couldn’t help but take pictures of the amazing theater, which I fall in love with every time I’m there, but I was quickly scolded for just trying to take a picture for my photo journal :[  I saw in my seat, got comfortable, took out my bottle of water, flipped through my BAMbill and I was ready for an awesome experience–flashy dancers, beautiful costumes, amazing choreography, hip music, a storyline–I just couldn’t wait.  But instead I received the complete and total opposite.

When the lights dimmed, I saw a chair with a spotlight on it. I thought that the dancers would come and start spinning chairs and crazy acts but instead, out comes Ralph Lemon with a small set of papers, and the screen lowers.  “A film?!  Are you serious…where the heck is the dancing?  I could’ve stayed home if it was just a movie!”  I thought to myself.  After thirty minutes of watching a video that made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, but I do admit that Lemon had a very soothing voice, the lights dim once more and I’m ready for some action.

Then the dancers came out in really crappy, bright, stretchy, cheap-material costumes that look like they took about two seconds to put together and start dancing like the crazy people on the video that I had just seen.  That moment set off a lightbulb in my head, Ralph Lemon said that he made his dancers dance like that for three minutes and he wondered what would happen if he made them do it for thirty minutes.  Foreshadowing?  I think so.  Those thirty minutes felt like forever.  I didn’t understand what they were doing at all and at times, it began to be funny watching them.  I did notice that there were some structured dance moves for example Okwui (I might have gotten the spelling wrong, actually I’m pretty sure I did) was doing a broken down version of a pirouette in the corner of the stage while another man was flipping in the air (Ten times!!!).  These dance moves all seemed very familiar, but it was like they were messing them up on purpose.

I waited for thirty minutes, or thirty hours, and then a woman started to cry backstage.  I thought to myself then that the story Lemon was trying to convey was about his grief for his partner, but the crying wouldn’t stop.  In fact, the crying went on for probably another thirty minutes to the point where it was driving me completely insane and I wanted to yell out to Okwui “Shut the **** up already!!!”

Luckily, just as I felt as if I had reached my breaking point, the crying stopped.  When the crying stopped a few animals came out including an adorable dog, the bunny from the video in the first act, a cow, a walrus, and god knows what else.  I felt like I was in a staring contest, but the silence was a plus for me after hearing minutes of wild, crazy crying.  The animals were cute…and I don’t understand why they were even there in the first place, but the projections were incredible.

Ralph Lemon comes out once more but instead he is dancing with Okwui, a duet that I felt I understood a little more.  I actually really enjoyed this part of the dance, believe it or not because I felt like it was a love story between the two of them, and to me that was beautiful.

I left the theater not knowing anything that had happened and I was just focused on going home.  In the train, I decided to read the BAMbill once more to see if I’d understand what had happened the second time around, which actually made me even more confused than before.  When I heard that a professor who was the dramaturge would be in to speak with us, I was super excited because I would finally understand what I saw.

When the professor walked in, she was actually really cool to talk to and I felt comfortable with telling her about how much I actually hated the performance even though she had worked on it for so long.  After her discussion, I still didn’t completely understand the piece and I still don’t really understand it, but that’s the beauty of it…Ralph Lemon didn’t want us to understand it, he wanted to create something so mind-boggling that it’ll stay with us forever, and possibly haunt us.

I finally understood that it was the breakdown of the body’s normal everyday activities and movements and Lemon wanted something different.  Perhaps he wanted to show his grief for his partner, or the connection of time periods, or  That’s exactly what he gave us–something really different that probably only a few in the audience could actually relate to, but we all found one part, one thread of the entire “story” that we could relate to.  After the class discussion, I learned to really appreciate this type of art because we had a chance to go behind the scenes and really dig deep into the artist’s mind which proved to be extremely helpful in understand the piece.

What seemed like a horrid experience for me, actually turned out to be an eye opener.  Although I am a lover of spectacle, fancy costumes, and an amazing storyline, I’ve come to appreciate art that doesn’t have any of this, but yet still does in its very own way.

Confused, fascinated, and expectant are the best words I can think of for how I was feeling during the BAM performance.  I was confused as to what was going on and what the artist was trying to say, fascinated by the newness of the experience of watching such an undefinable form of dance, and expectant of something to explain the piece, or at least tie it all together, at the end. One thing I did understand was that Ralph Lemmon was trying to defy form and put on something the audience had never seen and he couldn’t have done a better job of it.  I am by no means familiar with dance, but I usually can recognize some moves or style within a performance I see.  There was nothing recognizable on Wednesday night, except maybe a couple of motions that looked like things I would see in a wrestling or MMA match.

Because of my confusion I was fascinated.  I couldn’t take my eyes of the stage in my attempts to figure out what was going on.  I tried to catch every move, every word, and every subtle symbol in order to understand Ralph Lemmon’s message. The flailing, the crying, the animals, the sock and tambourine all caught my attention, but I couldn’t connect them.  It seemed that the performance was a series of meaningless, disconnected pieces.  I was hoping and searching for some sort of explanation.

In the end, I did not get what I expected and wanted.  I’ve experience strange and confusing works of art before, but usually there has been something to make sense out of.  There was nothing in Lemmon’s piece that I could figure out.  However, I remained fascinated, I was sure there was something being said and couldn’t wait for an opportunity to find out.  I had high hopes for the explanation I would receive in class.

Professor Profeta helped a lot.  She didn’t provide concrete explanations- that would have limited the ability for the piece to provoke thought- but she did give some helpful opinions and background information.  Going into the performance I did not know about Ralph Lemmon’s relationship with Asako or Walter, nor was I sure that he was talking about real people during the piece.  Professor Profeta gave us more detail into Walter’s influence on Lemmon and Asako’s illness.  Knowing that Lemmon was in a state of grief during the process of creating this piece helped me understand the crying and even the lack of structure.  Death of a loved one can leave a person feeling as if there is nothing reliable, and a structureless dance is a great reflection of this feeling.

Professor Profeta also told us that Lemmon had been studying dance from other cultures.  If the dance reminded me of anything, it would be of primal dancing. Although my lack of knowledge leaves me unable to be certain, I would not be surprised to find out that the piece was heavily influenced by some sort of tribal ritual.  Also, studying other cultures can make a person more open to experimentation and less convinced that any conception of the right way of doing things is objectively true.  Lemmon’s experience with foreign cultures may have left him contemptuous of the idea that a dance should have a particular style, or any style at all.  Knowing that our ideas of formal dance would look ridiculous to other cultures, and vice-versa, may have left Lemmon feeling as if structure and style in dance is useless and even silly.

In the end, I cannot know what Lemmon was thinking when creating “How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere,” but I can think about potential implications. I can do my best to empathize, or at least sympathize, with the artist and think about the importance of structure.

Eccentric. Weird. Connected. Torturous. That’s how I would describe Ralph Lemon’s dance piece, “How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?” It was a piece that was unprecedented. It was “out of the box.” It was alien. BUT there was a story, a message, a feeling, emotions that kept the piece together. What those things were, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Even with Professor Profeta’s help in trying to understand the piece, my preconceptions did not change they were only spurred on.

Other than that, I really don’t know where to begin. I don’t know where Ralph Lemon began in his piece. Was there a beginning and an end? Maybe it was a dream? Was it about fertility? Maybe it was exposing us to the metaphysical world? Or it is string theory? Personally, I’ve been using the concept of time a lot in my schoolwork, but it can’t be helped. Time affects everything. And maybe that is what Ralph Lemon is trying to say. Maybe he’s trying to talk about time. Or not.

When the dance piece began, I wasn’t expected a piece where a person talks in front of an audience, but maybe that was his way of expressing the dance. The dance of the words – bouncing, ricocheting, rolling, jumping, spinning – across the auditorium and, finally, into the audience’s ears. Then the screen filled with images that seemed to have no flow, no connection yet, it did. The images may not have held together by themselves, but the words, the narration did. I guess this can be seen as time holding the world together, just like those words. Whenever the silence came out, it made everything seem empty and unsecure. Time gives us structure.

During the readings there were a few things that Ralph Lemon read which struck me. One was “the question was in the form of the answer which answers all questions” or something to that manner and that reminded me of Epik High in my previous post where they say, “Genius is not the answer to all questions. It’s the question to all answers.” This started me thinking that we shouldn’t just accept life just the way it is. Instead, we have to be questioning our existence and the present. Why are we here? What is our purpose? “All for one, one for all.” That is the way life is. When we live everything is ours, but once we die our own bodies will be serving a purpose for other organisms. This slow breakdown of the body makes me think that we are all living contradictions and not of our own volition. What I mean is that once we are born, the mitochondria release these toxins that is one of the components which bring about the slow breakdown (I’m sorry, but I do not know where I can retrieve this fact because it was televised on the Science Channel several years ago, I believe). Is this what Ralph is trying to tell us? We should take advantage of our lives because once born, we are already set to die.

Another set of words were seemingly strung together delicately yet bluntly, “Asako, with the last of her strength, grasped my penis,” or something similar to that. When Ralph Lemon said these words, the myth of the Fisher King immediately flashed into my head. This myth showed how the arid, barren, and infertile land was tied to the Fisher King’s injured groin. The groin was the symbol of life and, because of the injury the kingdom was affected greatly. I feel that Ralph Lemon’s words here portrayed this because Asako was ill during the time and slowly withering away, but she still had the strength to grasp at life. In addition, Ralph Lemon may be using past myths to connect to the present because it is also seen in Ancient Greek Mythology that Dionysos was born from Zeus’ thigh/groin. The word for groin means life. This is another way in which Lemon is connecting everything with a thread, maybe the red thread of fate. Well, not really because that is meant for soul mates. But maybe everything is a marriage for one another because we cannot live without everything else.

Then there was the dance that, as Professor Profeta explained, was the breakdown of the body, was torturous to watch because it showed the dancers moving without “structure” and throwing themselves around. The fact that the dancers were so dedicated to this shows their concentration and state of mind of being in the present. Other than that, it was long and confusing.

After the dance, there was a woman, Okwui, who was crying loudly. Professor Profeta told us that this part was like the grieving of death. She was mourning for herself and her cries includes our own. During this part, I actually got tired of the crying, but if it was a child I would have been irritated. Maybe it’s the pitch of their cries which annoy me, but that’s besides the fact. Anyway, Professor Profeta mentioned professional mourners which reminded me of Japan because they hire professional mourners to cry for their dead ones because the mourners themselves cannot cry enough or cannot cry at all. The professional mourner can be so emotional so as to incite the mourners to cry. But honestly, I didn’t really know why she was crying, but at one point there was something in me that felt happy. I guess I felt that she was crying for me too, but it was a quick moment until it was hidden under layers of my annoyance.

Still, the entire piece can be confusing. You have to look at it as a whole and remember specific pieces which touch one another. It’s like a spider web: strong yet thin, fragile, and almost invisible.

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This is an addendum to my Ralph Lemon blog. I bring this up because Professor Profeta mentioned John Cage because the New York Times article mentioned Merce Cunningham. I bring John Cage into this blog because of his work “Aria with Renga.” Personally, I was captivated by the definition of Renga and therefore, I listened to the piece. Renga is a “type of group improvisatory work where John Cage tells the orchestra how to play and when to play it, but not what notes and instrument to play,” as Michael Tilson Thomas defines it. This piece reminded me of Ralph Lemon’s dance piece because they both have freedom, but this freedom is restricted within some boundaries.

Aria with Renga