Arriving at BAM, I feel like a lot of us had little to no idea what to expect. Reading the Rites of Spring still left a lot of questions on what exactly we would be viewing and how it would make us feel / what we might think. Standing outside of BAM waiting to enter, I couldn’t help but appreciate how beautiful the building was. The building was older but still architecturally aesthetic. It had modern lighting and a nice welcoming feel to it.
Getting to our seats was a mess. There were crowds of people moving in every direction, and little to no guidance on where to go to get to our seats. We had to pack into such small elevators which reminded me of the Field building at Baruch! Our seats were high up but actually provided a good view of 90% of the stage. The seats were small and compact, but I expected that.
The feeling in the room was very…mature. The people around us all seemed very intelligent just by the way they dressed and the conversations I was hearing around me. Everyone seemed to have a deeper understanding of what we would be seeing. When the show started, I enjoyed the music a lot despite not always understanding the meaning behind everything. The music was able to indicate the emotions of the characters, and could make us feel excited or fearful, when necessary.
The actual dance left me thinking a lot about what was happening. It seemed like a love story at some moments, and other times it felt like an awakening. Café Müller felt like the characters were stuck in a cycle in which they could not escape. There were physical obstacles in their way the entire time, keeping them from achieving their individual goals. The Rites of Spring, however, felt like an awakening of emotions or a revolution in a way. There was a lot of tension in both acts, and I wasn’t always sure of why. It was very dramatic and sometimes drawn out, because nothing seemed to be progressing in any way, and if the point was for there to be a lack of progress, it had already been established. Both had a very distinct dynamic between male and female. There was never any real similarities between male characteristics and behavior, and female characteristics and behavior. I felt like I was being constantly bombarded with new things to think about and comprehend, and it was difficult to take in entirely, to say the least. Overall, I enjoyed trying to understand the show, and wish it made a little more sense.
I would definitely agree that the feeling in the room was very mature. I noticed a lot of well-dressed, seemingly intellectual people in the theater. While they were all carrying on these very thought provoking conversations – analyzing each and every movement of the dancers and discussing the tone the music set- during intermission, I was busy trying to understand what exactly had just happened on stage. I’m really glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one.