INTAR Performance

So, this was the last performance of the semester for a few of us, and it was really enjoyable (aside from the weird elevator). I am so glad I went to it; the theater had such a nice atmosphere. It consisted of such a small space with few chairs and a stand, and it seemed as if many of the people knew each other. The audience was like a large community, and it was nice to be a part of it. However I can’t imagine the whole class coming to event, both because we’d take up most of the space and we are not a part of the community.

The first performer was funny and entertaining, everyone laughed throughout the piece. As each person read something they wrote, the theme of home and the holidays became clearer. Each reader had so much emotion, and it was interesting how each performer had a strong connection to the audience. Specifically, two of them read excerpts from their plays in order to get feedback from the audience. One person read a piece of his play about the search for his biological mother. He spoke so fast and with rhythm that it sounded like a song to me. I felt like I was part of the search and I started to become anxious, until the end when the rhythm slowed.

One woman read her piece about a rabid reindeer, and while the piece had that fictional aspect of it, the reader also had a message to give to the audience: leave the past behind in order to look towards the future. The ‘rabid reindeer’ helped her realize this message, in the midst of the holiday season people can be fooled by fantasies and wishful thinking, but in the end a person must always face reality. I loved this piece because it was funny and serious at the same time.

My favorite reading of the night was the one from the actor. He asserted there was no god because a woman he was so close to gave birth to a baby who died minutes later. The piece was so sad, and the reader was filled with so much anger, hurt, and confusion. It was amazing how someone could read with so much power. What really frustrated me was the end of this piece; the whole time I was enthralled as I listened, and then the last line was something in Spanish. No fair! I didn’t understand L.

There was also a woman who performed, and after reading a short piece she sang a song. It was such a beautiful song, but I could not understand that either because it was in Spanish. This made the song have a beautiful and mysterious sound to me, but I still wish I could understand it. I feel as if me and the other people from our class (unless they knew Spanish) were the only few to not understand the words. At the same time, that did not matter too much because these artists were presenting their culture and it was beautiful to observe, even as an outsider.

After all the readings, Christian Amigo played his music. He walked to the center of the room, casually talking while tuning his instrument. He told the audience of his grief after losing a mentor, and he confessed he was not sure what to play. As he began to play, his music was so dreamlike. It is hard to describe the beginning of the piece, because as I closed my eyes to listen better I felt so many things at once. It was so soothing and relaxing, it made me think of falling asleep near a fireplace on a cold and windy day. In this way it tied in with the readings about home and the holidays. It also sounded a bit like the grief he spoke of before playing the guitar. Then the music became happier. No words were necessary in the beginning, but he occasionally uttered a few Spanish words while playing. He began to smile while he strummed, and the music felt more content. I really enjoyed listening to the music, it was so soothing and relaxing and fit well with the snow that we found as we left the theater.

Going home felt magical. The flurries and lights and busyness were the best ways to end the class. It gave a stunning view of New York City that we have not seen throughout the seminar: the view of the city during the holiday times. It was spectacular.

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week of 12/6-12/13

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INTAR-Performances

Snow, cold, empanadas, music, and laughter are only a few words to describe my last performance of the semester at INTAR.  For me, INTAR was definitely a unique way to end the semester and I am glad that I went to it.  It was something that  I did not expect but it was also something that allowed me to be exposed to a different type of Arts in New York City. Without this course, I would not have seen other performances and be exposed to such a various and diverse part of New York City.

One thing that I really enjoyed about the INTAR theater was the sequence that the producer put the performances.  There was a pattern that involved a certain sequence of emotions.  One performance could be filled with frustration, anger, and  questioning, while another performance could be used as a comic relief to the viewers.  As a member of the audience, I found this sequence better to take in and enjoy these performance. INTAR had a great balance of pieces.  The overall performance was not too serious and dry for me to take in.  It had enough humor for me to be attentive to all parts of the performance, parts that were serious and calm were succeeded with humor and laughter which made the performances enjoyable.

Now I know I talked about the performances a lot, so it’s probably time to talk about them.  At first, I thought that since the performance was only a series of play readings or story readings, I thought that it would lack the connection the actors and audience make in one whole performance. I thought that it would not have as much emotion or impact as actors do in a whole piece. By the end of the performance, I was completely wrong about what to expect. I saw so much emotion put into these pieces in such a short amount of time that I was amazed. What amazed me even more was how much the audience was zoned into the readers in such a short amount of time.  For example, one performer that made me notice this was  Rock Wilk’s one man performance about a play he wrote in search of his biological mother.  He spoke so fast when he reenacted a part of his play that I wondered how could the rest of the audience be connected with him. Yet, I still understood what he was saying and what he went through in the performance and I enjoyed being a part of his performance.

Another performance that struck me was the one who talked about the lady who had a dead baby. What struck me was the anger he put towards his piece when he read it. The way he cursed at Jesus so openly and so angrily surprised me. I did not expect him to be so open about cursing one of the most popular religious figures to this day. I know in the other performances we have seen, we would never expect such a thing. You wouldn’t expect hearing something like that in any performance you go to, but I heard it with shock.  Another thing about that piece that struck me was how he wrote it during Thanksgiving.  I expected him to say at least several months ago.  To write something like that only a couple of weeks ago surprised me as to how creative he was.  To write something like that and to execute a well-developed performance for me was truly amazing.

I cannot end this blog without talking about Cristian Amigo.   I was waiting for him to come in some how but the more I heard different performances, the more I knew his appearance would be random.  He sat in the audience and when I heard his name announced I did not expect  him to rise right out of the audience itself. That was something that really got me and another thing was the music.  I was surprised that he did not sing much; he would say words once in a while just to make us laugh but besides that it was only instrumental. It was relaxing and soothing; it allowed me to have a time to think about the performances, and put what I liked all together.  It was definitely a great way to end INTAR as my last performance of the semester.

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Light up your life :)

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The End (of the semester)

**Sigh**

It’s already December and the end of an extremely eventful semester.

As I think back to those first days of semester in August, the main words that run through my mind are: “Who would have thought?”  Who would have thought that I could stay awake and alert in a class three hours long, when I could barely manage in my forty minute classes in high school?  Who would have thought that I would get to explore my city so much, even venturing out to Brooklyn for the first time in my life?  Who would have thought that there would be so many people on the subways at 1 a.m., as I found out when I traveled back from the opera one night.  Who would have thought that this class would give me so much to talk about and so much to look back fondly on?

I flash back to the beginning of the semester.  I am talking to my friend about my photojournal project.  I’m so excited about my photos that I email all my friends the link to my Macaulay page, telling them to keep up with my photos.  I remember one of my friends calling me lucky and saying that she wishes she had a fun class on her schedule.  I tell her that’s why she should have come to Queens.

A few weeks later, this class gets even better for me.  We go see “The Little Foxes” and it’s my first time getting to see a live performance.  I’m nervous and excited because of course, I want to see a live play but then the weather outside is terrible and I’ve never been out to the city so late before.  I find out as the semester goes on, that I love being in the city at night.  There’s so many people around and it feels safe and it’s beautiful.  Plus, hailing a taxi to come back home actually makes me feel sophisticated and grown-up, for some reason.  Anyways, back to the play.  I think that “The Little Foxes” affected me the most precisely because it was my very first live performance.  Everything was new and exciting and magical to me.  I remember sitting in my seat like a child, gazing in awe at the stage, flinching every time the actors started to yell and hit each other, and just thinking “This is so cool.  This is so cool”.

I also think that “The Little Foxes” affected me so much because the plot of the play was just so interesting.  Coming into the theater, I had no idea what the play was going to be about.  I think that this made the experience better for me, because as the play unraveled and all the drama between the siblings, and Regina and her daughter (yes, it’s been so long I’ve already forgotten some names) exploded, I found myself caught up in the drama and wanting to know what would happen next.  Also, for me at least, the characters make or break a story for me.  If the plot of a story is bad but then the characters are oddly fascinating, I’ll give that story a positive review.  With “The Little Foxes” I thought that all the characters were fascinating because they weren’t two dimensional and I never knew if I should feel sorry for them or hate them (with exceptions like Birdie, of course.  See, the names are coming back to me now).

Of course, we saw so many performances there has to be one that wasn’t that enjoyable.  Hmmmm…. a performance that I didn’t like…. a performance that made me wish I’d stayed in my house all day…. a performance that made me think Professor Healey was purposely away for it… This is going to be a tough one.  No, as I’m sure many people can agree, the Ralph Lemon piece at BAM was my least favorite.

I guess that this piece was the least affecting for me because it wasn’t what I was expecting.  You see, when I walked into the BAM, I thought that I was going to see a dance performance.  I thought that this meant music, cool costumes, and well… dancing.  However, I actually didn’t get any of that.  Reading some of the blogs about Ralph Lemon’s visit to Queens College, I saw that the Ralph Lemon piece was not meant to be something that we would understand.  It’s just that I didn’t know that when I actually sat in the audience and watched the performance.  I just sat feeling really confused and bored about having to watch people twirl and bang themselves on the ground and put socks on their feet.  This wasn’t entertaining for me, and I think that this performance disappointed me because I was expecting it to be really entertaining.  Despite how bad I might have found this performance, however, it still makes for an interesting memory and an interesting story to tell.

Besides more knowledge about the arts in NYC, one of the biggest things that this seminar has given me is a treasure chest of stories to tell.  It has also opened my mind to some wonderful directors and writers that are out there.  I will even be giving my bookworm friend my copy of “The Metal Children” to read.  I hope that we can discuss it, just like the discussions that our class had that I will miss so much.  I’ve come a long way in this semester and I will always remember it as my most exciting class of freshmen year.

Au revoir, Arts in NYC.

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A wop ba-ba lu-mop…

…A wop bam boom

Awww….I’m going to miss this class. For real….Time sure does fly by when you’re having fun :).

It’s hard to pick just one piece that affected me the most, so I’m going to begin with the least succesful and go on from there.

Ok, so since I actually really liked this performance this might be a little bit of a contradiction but I believe that the least successful was Ralph Lemon’s piece. It was successful to me and maybe two other people, but for the whole class it seemed to be the one that people had the most problems with. Most of my classmates had problems grasping the meaning (although respectively there might not even have been a meaning). I really felt that it was an interesting experience. It opened my eyes to something new and challenged my views on what art/dance really is. Based on the majority though, it didn’t serve it’s purpose if people weren’t inspired or challenged by it.

Ok, phew got that over with. On to the next challenge.

The performance that affected me the most was “Beirut Rocks.” I actually liked everything from this semester,maybe some more than others, but this was the performance that started it all. This was the one that began the controversies and some of the major themes we explored in class. I’ll never forget that moment in the play when Nasa said that the world would be a better place without Jews and everyone in the audience gasped at the same time.

It was weird, while watching this play because I actually tried to place myself in all the characters’ situations and by doing that I understood where they were all coming from. Usually while watching a play you pick one or two characters you can identify with but with this one you could very easily be every one of them. Although they were different, in the end they were all the same: a bunch of young, scared, college students forced to come to the realization that war is cruel and it always bring out the worst in us.

This play strongly displayed themes of racial tension, like in “Do The Right Thing,” conflict and war, like in “Fahrenheit 9/11”, and the role of women, like in “Ruined.” Even after seeing three performances in a row this was the one that stuck in everyone’s minds when we discussed them in class, and the one we all felt we could most strongly relate to. That’s where this performance comes in as more successful than Ralph Lemon’s piece. My classmates were able to understand and discuss the major themes and the significance of the play. On the contrary you couldn’t really place Ralph Lemon’s piece with a lot of the themes discussed in this semester.(I mean you could…if you really tried =/ )

From this though stems the question, of what is art? Something we should look at and relate to or something that exposes us to new ideas and makes us question our old ideas? I believe it could be both but that it should be more of the latter.

And so, I tip my hat and bid my adieu to you (at least in writing). I’m sure I’ll see you guys around but this class was a blast and I hope everyone will have much success in the future~ 🙂

XoXoXo,

Olivia~ <3

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Last Photojournal :( What is NYC?

The tall skyscrapers

Busy streets, buses, busy life on the move

A really cool window display with a christmas tree serving as the bottom half of a mannequin’s dress.  Only in New York 🙂

Of course, no one can think of NYC without picturing the yellow taxicabs by association

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performance/exhibit

Wow, I can’t believe I can actually say I’ve ridden on a city bus, and been into the city more than once a year.

Unfortunately for me, before this class that’s what my life was like, I guess you could say that living in the suburbs really sheltered me.

The first exhibit that we had to go see at the Brooklyn Musuem, I remember getting ready to go out with a bunch of people from class, and when I told them that this was my first time going on a bus, they couldn’t believe it, but it was true, and now I can say that I’ve been on one more than once. I actually also thought that there was only a 1,2,3 subway, and now I’ve learned that there are not only many different numbers, but also letters (who would have thought?!).  A place that was so unknown and unfamiliar to me is now becoming more known to me, and I’m so glad that this class has given me the opportunity to become more cultured. I’m so glad that I can now consider myself to be considered a cultured individual, and I hope to continue to see new intriguing things.

My favorite performance that we saw this semester would have to be the opera that we saw, les Contes d’Hoffman, maybe it’s because it was the first and only opera that I have ever seen, or it could just be because there was so much going on on the stage, but for these reasons and many others it was my favorite performance of the semester! Everything was just so amazing, from the sights to the sounds, I felt that even though I was so tired, I could not help but pay attention. The opera truly provided my eyes with “eye candy”.  Although I couldn’t understand everything that was being said because it was in French, the language barrier was not an issue just because it was so beautiful to listen to and watch.

I could definitely see myself going to the opera again, and I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to go to one this year.

Maybe next time we can actually all get dressed up in fur coats, top hats and bring monocles, now wouldn’t that be fun?!??

Although this was my favorite thing that we saw this semester, I wouldn’t say that this was the most effective thing that I’ve seen this semester. Contes d’Hoffman was so my favorite because it was the most entertaining to me, but did it actually have any meaning behind it….well if it did, I must have missed it because I was just too distracted by the beautiful environment. The thing I viewed this semester that had the greatest effect on me had to have been Farenheit 9/11. The strong stance that was taken within this documentary definitely caught my attention right away. This documentary was filled with facts, but so many of the things that were said I just wanted to believe weren’t facts. I mean it’s not that I didn’t believe that some of these things could be true, I guess it’s more that I didn’t’ want to believe these things. I was just so angry while watching this film, and that’s exactly what Michael Moore wanted to do, he wanted to make us angry, we were supposed to walk away mad, and trust me, I WAS!

Least favorite performance of this semester…..I think that one’s pretty obvious. Ralph Lemon. Although I now have a better understanding of what the piece was supposed to accomplish, immediately after watching the “dance” I will never forget the subway ride home where everyone was just hysterically laughing. I laughed so hard on the subway ride home that I could barely breathe. Sure Ralph tested the boundaries of what we consider dance, but did I find this entertaining…..absolutely not!!! I’m more entertained at my little brother’s middle school orchestra concerts (which aren’t that entertaining). Besides the entertainment factor, I guess I just really didn’t think that there could be any meaning behind a man dancing with one sock on a stage, or a girl spinning in circles for what seems like hours upon hours. Let’s just say that if I ever had the opportunity to go sit through something like this, I definitely would NOT!

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Most and Least Effective Stuff This Semester

I have to say that my favorite part about this class wasn’t our discussions or the plays we read or movies we’ve seen (although I really enjoyed both).  My favorite thing about this class is that it exposed us to live theater and gave us new experiences (both good and, shall we say, not so good).  Would I ever have gone to see “Little Foxes” at New York Theater Workshop, or any play at NYTW for that matter, on my own?  I have to say probably not.  But am I glad that I went as part of our Arts of NYC class?  As Sarah Palin would say, “you betcha!!”  Would I have gone to the Metropolitan Opera?  Not in a million years.  Now would I go back?  Yeah.  Would I ever have gone to see Ralph Lemmon on my own?  No.  Now would I see it again?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.

I guess it is clear that the Ralph Lemmon performance was my least favorite this semester and that I thought it was the least effective.  It was strange, and hard to relate to, and there was not a clear point of it, which made it ineffective.  After our discussions in class and with Ralph and the dancers, I understood that there was a point he was trying to make.  But to the average person who wasn’t studying the performance and didn’t have a chance to speak to Lemmon and the dancers, the point would have been unclear and the dance would have been excruciatingly boring, which is why many people left in the middle.

But since I’m pretty sure that most people in our class will say Ralph Lemmon was least effective/ least favorite, to be different I’ll say that Kissing Fidel was pretty out there.  While it was definitely an entertaining piece to read (who wouldn’t love gay incest??) I don’t think it was effective in conveying a point or opinion.  Here is where I would go into reasons why I don’t think it was effective in proving a point, but the problem is that I don’t even know what point it was trying to prove which is why I can’t even disprove it or claim that he didn’t say the point he wanted to-because I DON’T KNOW WHAT POINT HE WAS TRYING TO MAKE.  That fact alone is enough to tell me it was ineffective in getting a point across.

Out of all the live performances we saw, I think my favorite was Contes D’Hoffman.  It wasn’t only the performance, it was the whole experience.  I loved seeing all the people getting dressed up in ball gowns and it was fun to follow them and take pictures of them.  I felt like the paparazzi.  Next time I go to the opera, I want to dress up like those fancy ladies.  I also loved the actual performance because of the spectacle and the singing.  I didn’t understand it, but that was fine because I enjoyed the experience.  Also the subtitles helped.  Although it was my favorite, I don’t know if I would call it the most effective because again, I wasn’t sure what point it was trying to make.  I think it was more of teaching us to appreciate the opera by showing that it is not just for old people.

I think the most effective piece we saw this semester was Fahrenheit 9/11.  It was the most effective because it was the clearest- it had an agenda, a clear opinion pointing in a certain direction, and it made its point very, very clearly.  As I spoke about in the Fahrenheit 9/11 blog, whether you agreed with it or not, there was a clear point that couldn’t be mistaken or misunderstood.

All in all, I have to say that I loved this class and all the performances we saw.  Even Ralph Lemmon.  I mean, I didn’t love the Ralph Lemmon performance, but I enjoyed complaining about it and talking about how much I hated it.  But for real, I truly enjoyed the performances and I plan to go to more performances on my own in the future.  Oh!  I forgot to mention the exhibits we saw.  I love museums, so it was cool that I got to see the Andy Warhol exhibit-that was my favorite exhibit that we saw.  Not only was the exhibit cool, but it was also my first time going to the Brooklyn Museum and it was really nice.  Thanks for a great semester!!

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