Hearing the Tokyo String Quartet play musical selections from the great Beethoven brought back many memories for me. My mother, who used to play the violin in orchestras, had brought me up with the music of Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovshy, and other classical geniuses. I haven’t been to any concerts of such a genre in years, but hearing the quartet play brought back the memories of sitting on the grass at SPAC late at night, eating junk food as I played my video game and listened to the music in the background. 

While I’m not exactly a fan of the classical genre, I can appreciate the mood it creates for its audience; it allows the people to just close their eyes and feels relaxed and soothed. My mother constantly says that this generation is always so stressed because we don’t know how to survive without constant stimulation (i.e. tv, internet, entertainment). The Quartet provided absolutely no visual stimulation, only allowing the audience to hear their sound and take it in as they may.

Watching the old people listening to their preferred style of music, many of the gestured with their hands and fingers as if they were the conductors. It was adorable, but it also made me realize that there is such a disconnect between generation. These elderly people are sitting there, understanding the meaning of this music and enjoying it, and us youth are short of being tortured. I found this observation both thought-provoking and sad.

Despite the fact that I’m not into this type of music, I hope that one day I can learn to appreciate it because all music is a gift, not a right.

It was a good thing that I brought my inhaler to the Met last night because by the time we climbed Mount Everest to the Family Circle, I desperately needed it.  I guess it didn’t really matter that I brought my glasses because I wouldn’t even have been able to see the stage with the Hubble Telescope.  The thing that really makes the opera better than the rest of the things we’ve done so far, is that even though the seats were beyond terrible, the opera was still fantastic.  The opera was great from beginning to end.  I assume that the only good thing about the family circle is that it actually makes the opera more believable because you really can’t tell the difference between Don Giovanni and Leporello.  The Don’s and Leporello’s performances were absolutely fantastic.  Leporello is a true buffo.  The commendatore also did a great job even though he only had a small, but pivotal, role.  There were three instances during the opera that I can use to illustrate the magnificence of this opera.  First, I would choose Leporello’s Catalog Aria.  This aria, where Leporello tells Elvira about The Don’s list of women, exhibits Leporello’s real personality and is a pivotal aria in the opera.  (Audio of Leporello’s Catalog Aria performed by the man we saw, Luca Pisaroni, can be heard here.)  Second, I would say Don Giovanni’s Champagne Aria.  This aria, exhibits the inner Don Giovanni, and although short, is also a pivotal aria advancing The Don’s character.  (Audio of The Don’s Champagne Aria performed by the man we saw, Mariusz Kwiecien, can be heard here.)  Third, I would say that the end of the opera just adds the icing to the cake.  The final scene of The Don being dragged into hell can be portrayed in many different ways, some better than others.  This particular performance included the stage floor opening up and sucking The Don into “hell” in a blaze of pyrotechnic glory.  These three components of the performance of Don Giovanni proves the true magnificence and genius of the opera that we saw.  The last thing that I can say about Don Giovanni – Bravo!  Bravissimo!

The evening started with me getting lost a wee bit too close to Harlem.  When I eventually found the theater, which looked nothing like a regular Y, it was about five minutes past eight.  The ticket-taker told me that I would have to wait for the end of the first piece before I could go in and take my seat, so she directed me to the waiting area.  In this area, I watched the entire first piece on a high definition TV with extreme close-ups of the quartet.  The sound quality was fantastic, and it was amplified.  To top it all off, I was sitting on a small couch in an air-conditioned room.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  The ticket-taker then told me that I was clear to enter the theater.  I walked into the stifling hot theater and found my seat amidst the rest of the geriatric ward.  It was more difficult to hear, harder to see, and it had to be about seventy degrees in there.  Without a doubt, this was one of those things that was worse live because of the theater conditions.  Slow classical music itself does not really interest me, live or not, but it definitely was better outside of the theater in the waiting area.  The music was so slow and it was so hot, that it was difficult not to fall asleep.  I honestly can say that even when the music got fast, and more to my liking, it ended so quickly that it wasn’t enjoyable.  The only truly good part of the performance, in my opinion, was the last five minutes of the performance, the allegro molto vivace.  Much like the Italian translation suggests, the last five minutes are cheerful and lively; therefore, it was the only part that I enjoyed.  The music and the surroundings were so depressing, that during the performance, I temporarily lost the will to live, but the end of the performance lifted my spirits, much like Christmas music, and I went on my merry way, cheerful and lively.

The day after the performance, a friend of mine asked me what it was about.  I had to think about that for a few minutes, and I eventually realized how to describe it.  I told him that the performance was a peek into the mind of a deranged psychopath.  After all, only someone who is deranged would repeatedly recite the lyrics to a bad disco song throughout the entire performance.  Most of the characters in the performance seemed deranged as well, especially the split personality character.  When she had the deep voice she seemed like a serial killer, but I think it was even creepier when she had the high pitched “tame” voice.  I didn’t really understand or enjoy the performance in a traditional sense.  The only part that I found somewhat enjoyable was the part when the professor needed two of the dancers to keep propping up and straightening out his spaghetti legs; and then he would say “thank you” in his thick accent.  The fact that the stage was full of balls of tape that everyone had to tiptoe around for the entire play was strange.  It was even more strange when the guy started playing with the balls of tape and shoving things down his pants.  It was almost as if the entire cast and crew were on the stage having a happening and the audience knew nothing about it and was just told that it was a performance.  Finally, the name of the performance itself made absolutely no sense at all.  What did the performance have to do with outer space or the disbelief thereof?  Nothing.  I believe that the only way to respond to this performance is to say how one feels as an individual while sitting through it.  Personally, at first I was afraid, I was petrified, but I grew strong, and I learned how to carry on.  Did they think I would crumble?  Did they think I would lay down and die?  Oh no, not I.  I will survive.  It took all the strength I had not to fall apart, but now I hold my head up high and you see me, somebody new, and I’ll survive, I will survive.  Hey, hey.

As I listened to the music played by the Tokyo String Quartet in 92^nd Street Y, I could not help but remember the class discussion about lip-synching. I remembered the question of whether or not musical lyrics reflected a person’s mood at the moment when he/she lip-syncs. At that time, I was not sure whether to agree or disagree, mainly because I do not lip-sync, but instead, I hum. However, the Tokyo String Quartet performance provided me with an answer to the question. When one listens to music, the melody, not the lyrics, evokes emotions and often reflects a person’s mood.

As a former active pianist, the speed of the music is written in Italian and can often foreshadow the mood of the music piece. Here I will translate some of the Italian (in the order in which they appeared in the booklet) that I recognized from experience:

Lento: slow

Poco: little

Allegro: fast

Vivace: increase tempo

Molto: very

Adagio: slow

Scherzando: playfully

Presto: very fast

Andante: moderately slow

Musical pieces played in allegro or in presto were often joyful sounding. In fact, allegro is translated to “joyful” in Italian. However, pieces played in lento or in adagio sounded depressing and dark. The transition of lento/adagio to allegro/presto created a dramatic effect and sometimes created a sense of being chased. In addition, in the beginning of the performance, I noticed that each instrument created its own separate “voice,” producing a chaotic effect. However, towards the end of the entire performance, the instruments were played in-sync and produced a harmonic effect. That harmonic effect created a playful tone in combination with the speed (allegro). To me, that melody evoked a sense of joyfulness in my thoughts, whereas the pieces played in lento or in adagio evoked depressing/angry thoughts.

For some, “I don’t believe in outer space” was a random, confused dance performance. Grey rocks scattered around the floor. Dancers were freely dancing as if they had no control over their bodies. There were different scenes and random actions. However, to me, I found it soothing with a surreal mix of life and fantasy. In fact, I considered the entire dance performance as three different stories: the atomic world, the human mind, and New York City (Yes, Nietzsche would probably smack me thrice for this).

The Atomic World

I was not sure how I began to think of the entire dance as the atomic world. Possibly because the Chemistry lecture that day was about internal energy? However, to me, it did make some sense. Atoms move randomly, occasionally colliding to other atoms, thus forming a compound. Likewise, the dancers moved around randomly, and some even attached to each other for a while. Some bonds collapsed, while others did not. The scatter grey rocks represented sub-particles (more specifically the electrons), which, like atoms, are scattered around. What about the chatting and occasional background voices? Well, even atoms communicate with each other, whether they are vicious to bond with other bonds or remain alone like a noble gas element.

The Human Mind

As I listened to the words coming from the “bipolar” dancer in black, I began to consider the entire dance in an existential point of view. At the end, the dancer spoke about her lover, in which she loved him and hoped he would come back “from outer space.” This could indicate a sense of withdrawal or even insanity brought about by the lover’s death. Could the dance be the entire thoughts of that “bipolar” dancer in black? Maybe her state of mind is in “outer space?”

New York City

A dancer in a blue hoodie was playing ping-pong. Occasional dancers sat by the corners of the stage as if they were poor. A Japanese acrobatics instructor was jumping around. Dancers grabbed onto each other as they were fighting. Does the randomness reminded you of New York City, or even captured an essence of the city life? I even considered the references of Hamlet (“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” and “I Will Survive” (by Gloria Gaynor) as satires, which could reflect society’s view on such literature or music.  It was also difficult to notice every single dancer’s actions. Likewise, in the city, we do not notice every single movement in the crowd of people. We do see movement as a whole, but to notice what each person is doing, we have to focus our attention on one person at a time.

Overall, out of the entire dance, I considered the ending of the performance as my favorite. No, not because it was the end of a random, confused dance performance. The voice combined with the choice of words (for example, the repetition of “no more…”) created a poetic, dream-like tone. Therefore, the tone created a soothing ending (a feeling of serenity) to a random dance performance.

My initial reaction to “I don’t believe in outer space” was confusion. It took awhile to realize that it was the same actress portraying both the meek woman and the snaring more demanding voice. I thought it was two separate individuals until I realized that she was the only woman on stage. Perhaps, it’s because I’m not use to seeing one actress portraying multiple roles. Also, I found that it was hard to focus on just one aspect of the play because there were so many things going on at the same time. There were too many visual and auditory stimuli assaulting my senses all at once. For example, at the start of the play there was the actress portraying two roles, a guy creeping around the stage, two men doing ballet with each other and a man lying on the floor on stage simultaneously. Since there were so many scenes going on at the same time, by focusing on one scene I end up getting lost in another. If I focused my attention on the ballet dancers, I ended up losing track of the words that the woman was saying. Throughout the whole play, I found myself trying to find a way to connect these seemingly random scenes to no avail. But, I think that the ending summed up the whole play. I thought that perhaps the random events represented life, one filled with constant activity and energy. But, when a person dies it all disappears like the voice of the woman and the light at the end of the play.

I thought that the film had a Fluxus aspect to it. It was a deviation from the traditional ballet performances and plays. It didn’t have a clear-cut plot line that the audience can follow and had multiple scenes occurring on stage at the same time. Even the ballet dances were a deviation from the norm. For example, in the beginning of the play there were two males dancing together, with one of them performing the role of a female. In another instance, one of the ballet dancers stuffed balls in his pant before continuing to dance. It was quite an odd action. I would think that while performing, no dancer would want unnecessarily cumbersome objects on the body. Wouldn’t those balls in his pants hinder or make his movements awkward? Was there a purpose for it? Perhaps, he wanted to enhance his assets (for the particulars of his piece) or simply to provide comic relief.

One particular scene that stood out to me was when the man clothed in all black came onto the stage. It was partly due to his clothes, which was different from the other actors and actresses. But the main point that stood out was that his speech had rhyme. I thought that it was interesting that among the seemingly random events, his speech was the only thing that had a form of structure or order to it.