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Author: Rebecca Kurtz
The small orchestra walked onstage. The audience settled down as they took their positions, and I watched the performers ready themselves. Suddenly, they started. They didn’t tune! I thought frantically as the musicians played on. One of my favorite moments had been skipped, but I couldn’t stop too long to think about it because I couldn’t afford to miss one breathtaking moment of the evening’s program. The tuning would come later.
Listening to Anne-Sophie Mutter on her violin was incredible. Her instrument had the most liquid sound, like molten gold, that reverberated beautifully around the concert hall. She seemed to know the music by heart, hardly referring to the sheet music on the music stands surrounding her. The young musicians playing with her were obviously very talented and passionate about the music. One of the cellists was so engrossed in his playing that he couldn’t sit still and danced in his seat with his feet sweeping back and forth.
The audience responded very enthusiastically, clapping with gusto at the conclusion of each piece and even before, something that the musicians were good sports about. It must be said, every ounce of extra applause absolutely merited.
The open mic event was a pleasant and receptive forum for aspiring writers (and some musicians) to share their work. One of my favorite performances was the spoken word poetry “Robo-Cop” piece. Until the poet started his routine, he seemed perfectly casual and about to calmly recite his chosen work like the rest of the performers. But then suddenly his arms jerked and froze and glided in robotic movements, and his face changed as he took the roles of several voices in his story. He was lost in another reality, and for the few minutes that his performance lasted, the audience was lost with him.
Another performance that I really enjoyed was a duet sung to the accompaniment of a strumming guitar. What astonished me was the smoothness and professionalism that the performers demonstrated in their singing and guitar playing. They sounded as if they had trained their voices for a long time. It was also pleasant to watch them because they genuinely seemed to be enjoying themselves. As they sat together perched on a piano bench singing, they looked relaxed and happy and pleased to be doing what they were doing.
The first moon landing was loosely scheduled in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy challenged NASA to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. [1] The realization of this challenge was the final installment in the Space Race with the USSR, a challenge between the two countries born of the Cold War era. Kennedy hoped to make it to the moon before the Soviet Union to demonstrate the strength of the United States to the Communist threat of the east. When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969, approximately 600 million people were transfixed by the event on television and radio. Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” line became instantly famous, and the Apollo 11 mission soon found itself well represented in popular culture.[2]
The first moon landing was the pinnacle of excitement in the United States’ space explorations. The New York Times front page from July 21 was completely taken up by headlines about the first men on the moon and photographs from Outer Space. Sadly, while the excitement about the mission was enormous, subsequent moon landings failed to capture the country’s imagination and attention in the same way.[3]
[1] nasa.gov
[2] history.nasa.gov
[3] history.nasa.gov
The first noticeable element of the evening’s third dance was the music. It was cold, full of odd sound effects, and very modern. The second noticeable element was the fact that the dancers started as soon as the lights turned on. I was pleased with this traditional timing of the choreography, and the good beginning and the interesting music seemed to bode well for the rest of the dance.
Shortly into the choreography, I was struck by the deft movements of the dancers and the slow pace of their motions. Every step was done in almost slow motion. There were none of the lightning pirouettes that were so prominent in the first dance, and none of the playful skipping and dashing of the second dance. Another subtler characteristic of the dancers was their endless motion. They were moving slowly and carefully, yes, but they were moving, always moving with no pauses between motions. This created an extremely fluid quality in the dance. The time that the dancers had allowed them to do everything so carefully, and they carefully, gracefully, kept moving and moving. And the beautiful thing was that they didn’t even seem to be exerting themselves. I was so taken with the grace and fluidity of the dancers that at one point when the music had progressed to an almost grating presence and some people’s heads were throbbing, I decided that their remarkable precision was enough to carry their whole performance because it was so pleasant to look at.
As for the music; while at first I thought it sounded promising, soon I began to notice it for its strangeness rather than for its interestingness. The music turned out to be mostly a repetition of a dull, underlying beat punctuated with odd sound effects reminiscent of a science fiction setting, particularly a spaceship. (In my notes I recorded it to be “slightly discordant.”) The spaceship came to mind also because of the futuristic tones of the costumes, which included shiny metallic colored pants, and the darkness of the walls and the floor. Some of the sound effects in the music sounded like the whirring of machinery or a disembodied robotic voice over an intercom. Since the overall effect of the dance reminded me of outer space, and the dancers seemed to follow a more modern style of dance, in my notes I dubbed the genre of the dance as futuristic ballet.
I must admit that I was slightly confused by some of the aspects of the dance. While I was trying to follow the progression of the choreography, I noticed that every dancer was doing his/her own thing. Effectively, there were a bunch of separate dances going on simultaneously. I felt that there was a lack of a story; the dancers were all focused on their own individual dance, and there seemed to be no connection between what all of them were doing. The only times that all of the dancers were doing the same thing was when they all stopped moving at the same time a couple of times throughout the dance. (This was something I did not really see the point in.)
Another aspect that confused me was the inconsistency in formations. Sometimes a couple of dancers would pair up to dance together, leaving all of the others still stuck in their private routines, and not everyone would get a turn to dance with a partner. Also, although there were seven dancers in total, there were oftentimes only six dancers on the stage. When the dance was finally over and the dancers lined up to take their bows, I did a quick head count to ascertain that there were indeed seven dancers.
Overall, I was impressed with the dancers’ abilities to operate like a set of well-oiled gears. I did not exactly witness harmony among the dancers, but they were all beautifully fluid, if not slightly repetitive. However, the dance was definitely interesting to watch. The choreographer probably had quite a job teaching all those different dances to each individual dancer. I would only venture to suggest one improvement for next time – although I didn’t mind the music terribly, perhaps a more conventional music style would be a better option so that less people would come out of the theater wincing and massaging their ears.
- The music makes everything the actors say sound more significant. Also creates atmosphere: for example, music reminiscent of something ancient/mystical when one of the actors talks about the phoenix.
- Interesting to observe the musicians. They do their work and watch the show when they’re not playing.
- Use of untraditional/non-Western instruments
- The actors’ accents are a kind of music of their own. Gives everything they say an air of importance and causes the audience to listen better to what they say because the accent makes listening to them more interesting.
- Drumming on the wooden pan/drum represents crazy rushed staccato words – creative! (in reference to the Wall Street journal being read by Sammy’s editor, what she says “he’d read so badly”)
- Also use hollow tapping on the wooden pan/drum instrument for rushing, hurried sounds – creative use of music, representing actions
- In a similar vein – I like how the string instrument was used to play short, sharp notes to represent short words or actions
- Turns out the musicians don’t just watch; they participate in the acting too
- Genius – using the string instrument to provide electronic beeping/sound effects for the monitors measuring the brain waves and the printout
- When the pianist was acting as a synesthete in the lab and was instructed to play a piece of Bach he liked – suddenly the air was stolen from the room. I was removed from the play while he gave us a moving little private concert; it was a little bit devastating when it was over.
- Sometimes the music adds gravity or importance to the actors’ words or illustrates the words, kind of like the concept of form follows function. For example, when one of the actors said, “Broad, very broad,” the string musician played a long, wide sound on his instrument that corresponded extremely well with the words.
- The music is illustrative of the story, so the music style changes with different characters. When we hear the story of the man who paints to music, the accompanying music becomes jazzy and notably different than the background music for Sammy’s character.
- Another very clever idea – the painter character turns a dial in midair, and suddenly the volume of the music turns up, and when he turns the imaginary dial to off, the musicians stop playing very abruptly. There is a sudden stark silence.
- The music style is adapted appropriately for each character, so it lends a lot of color to the performers. For example, the music for the card trick magic show fleshed out magician’s persona by establishing a certain mood.
- The music is kind of scenery – each scene has its signature theme so that you are reminded where you are as the scenes change.
- The instruments of the orchestra are props. They ground you in reality because you can see the musicians actually doing their job, i.e. playing in the orchestra in real time while the story unfolds.
- The three ladies’ floating heads – creepy, all of the heads are the same. Effectively turns them into one personality.
- Papageno’s main prop, the flute, mostly achieves selfish means.
- Papageno even acts selfishly with Tamino’s flute – when Tamino first receives it, Papageno keeps grabbing at it.
- Tamino’s flute is much more elegant and sleek than Papageno’s, as is his costume.
- The floating birds and snake and spirits look so ethereal and ephemeral. This effect works nicely because they are not actual characters, just secondary components of the story.
- Papageno’s movements are choppier, more playful, less refined than Tamino’s. Tamino is elegant and graceful in manner.
- While Tamino sings about how his flute charms nature, the floating bears give the scene a rather whimsical feel. They also physically illustrate the point he’s trying to make. They take the place of the comic relief. For example, when Tamino figures out that the flute will be his guide, the bears dance for joy.
- The sounds of the two flutes answer to each other – the flutes draw a parallel between Tamino and Papageno.
- Papageno’s bells have a comic affect as well; they make the threatening slaves all jolly and dancing and remove the danger from them. It seems that the instrumental props of the characters bring a comic element to the story.
Art is Honesty
Art is Contrived