I went into the STEAM festival pretty terrified. Being someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy presentations, I was afraid of how people would perceive our project. Though I loved what we made, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by being in the same room with Seminar 3 students. However, once I got there, I was offered cookies- and cookies are always a good start to anything. I also immediately was to go to the Maker’s Space. Though I didn’t know what to do right away, I eventually made a button, and had fun doing it. I thought that was a great addition to the festival as a whole, just as another activity aside from seeing projects. When it came to seeing the projects themselves, it was interesting to see the variety of topics the Seminar 3 students had, as well as the other Seminar 1 projects. I enjoyed the sense of freedom we had to just go and see other projects, not for a grade but just out of interest. I also thought it took responsibility to switch with my group members between explaining our own project and going to see others, which felt good to have. Overall, it was a great experience, and went by far quicker than I thought it would. I liked meeting people from different years as well as different campuses, alongside becoming more comfortable with presenting as time went on.
Author: Asma Awad
Rubin Museum
The Rubin Museum wasn’t like any other I have ever been to. Based on my previous experience with museums, most of them haven’t been very interactive experiences. In the Rubin, however, we were able to do a lot more listening than we often do talking. Pressing our ears to benches to hear words from the Book of the Dead and sitting in a room of various ohms were just two of the activities we got to do there. Not to mention that a simple video they had playing made me think about how the world, quite literally, is sound. Space, being a realm of complete silence, makes Earth a mass of noise. What I took away from the Rubin, however, is that noise doesn’t necessarily have to be raucous. Noise can have significance, noise can be beautiful chaos. The sound of several ohms being heard at different pitches and lengths may seem chaotic, but altogether sounded almost calming. It was a wonderful experience learning not only about Buddhism, but about what we hear all around us everyday. It made me appreciate everything from the sounds around me, to the sound silence itself can make.
Turandot: Story
Being my first experience at an opera, I don’t have much to compare Turandot to. However, that doesn’t take away from how amazing the experience was in its entirety. Everything from the story, to the way you could hear the performers so clearly (without microphones!) just added to its quality. With a performance as long as Turandot was, however, an interesting story is essential to keeping viewers’ attention. Thankfully, thats exactly what it had. A tale resembling a Brothers’ Grimm kind of story, accompanied by lots of movement and dramatic music, kept me wanting to see it to the end.
The story is set in China, where a princess by the name of Turandot leads several men to their deaths by pursuing their dreams to marry her. A system is set in place whereas one must answer three riddles correctly in order to succeed- or else they die. Though many suitors have faced the executioner being drawn in by Turandot’s appeal, a character known as the Unknown Prince takes the challenge. And though his recently found father and companion Liu try to convince him otherwise, his will to marry the princess overcomes him- and he signals for the challenge to begin.
As Turandot reveals herself, she explains the consequences of failure- a result she has a lot of faith in. She then goes on to read the first riddle, which the Unknown Prince correctly answers. Slightly taken aback by this, Turandot continues to read the second, which the Unknown Prince also gets right. Finally, with the prince’s life at stake having everyone on the edge of their seats, she recites the third riddle. After a moment of pacing, the prince announces his answer, which turns out to be Turandot’s name, as well as correct. Clearly shaken by this, Turandot reveals her reasoning for this system and says he’d be just as those who forcibly married and tortured other past princesses or queens. Seeing her clearly distraught, the Unknown Prince offers a trial of his own.
The prince offers his life once again: he’d have himself killed if the princess could figure out his name by dawn. With a character deemed “the Unknown Prince,” this seems like it’d be a rather difficult challenge- similar to Rumpelstiltskin in this aspect. With everyone in the city commanded to search for any clue to his name, the father of the prince as well as Liu are eventually recovered. In order to prevent the elderly father from facing the lengths Turandot would go to get his name, Liu says only she knows it. Though she puts herself in danger because of this, she makes it clear that her lips are sealed and that she would keep the prince’s name to herself. At this point in the performance its more than obvious that Liu has something for the Unknown Prince. Turandot, not understanding the feeling of love, can’t comprehend why Liu wouldn’t tell her his name, or why she ends up killing herself. The scene was very emotional and clearly a pivotal point in the opera, for dawn follows soon after.
As dawn approaches, Turandot has a moment of venting mainly out of fear of what is to come. Her bad perception of men as a whole causes this, but the Unknown Prince reassures her he only wants to have her happily. He reveals his name to her, and seeing that he is willing to give up his life for her more willingly than before, she feels love towards him. In the end, they end up married and Turandot, known as the princess of frost and ice, is overcome by lovely fire.
Fall For Dance: Lighting
The Fall For Dance was an incredible experience- it portrayed different types of dances, each with their own distinguished movements, music, and lighting. Lighting played an extremely important role in each of the dances, particularly in correspondence with the music. Vincent Mantsoe’s “Gula”, for example, was characterized by sounds often found in nature. The lighting went hand in hand with that aspect due to the earthy tones shown. The Dorrance Dance Company did something similar, whereas faster paced music often played when the stage was brightly lit or colorful. The opposite applied as well; slower music with lower notes was played when darker colors or deeper tones were used.
On another note, the Miami City Ballet and Trisha Brown Company used lighting a bit differently. The lighting remained uniform throughout the Trisha Brown Company’s performance, but it emphasized the sad, almost remorseful feeling of the dance. From the deep red tone to the shadows shaping the dancers’ faces, lighting accentuated the message of the dance extremely well. The Miami City Ballet, on the other hand, utilized lighting mainly through shadows. When there were multiple dancers on the stage, the shadows were made bigger, and portrayed different rows of dancers as one unit each. They also used lighting to really get the audience to focus on a single dancer on stage through spotlights. Although the ways in which the four companies used lighting differed, overall, lighting was essential to making the Fall For Dance as amazing as it was.
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Torch Song: Music
One of the first questions that came to mind about this off broadway play was why it’s called “Torch Song.” A torch song is actually a 1920’s term, referring to a sad or sentimental song, typically about unrequited love. Finding out that the entire play itself was named after this term made me think twice about the role of the music played in it. Everything from the kind of music playing to even the absence of music played a vital role in Torch Song. Moments without background music, such as arguments Arnold had with his mother, were accentuated through the lack of music. Without even the most subtle notes of music being played, the tension of the scene was emphasized immensely. The function music played in the play was vital, even through silence.
Although I can’t say I recognized every part of the soundtrack, I knew for sure the music was picked accordingly to the setting. The play started with what seemed like a disco, 80’s type of music, which fitted the timing displayed in neon lights on stage. Additionally, it ended in such a way that the entire scene revolved around a song playing from the radio, which David had dedicated to Arnold. Though there were was no dialogue, the words of the song finished off the play on an extremely heartwarming, touching note. It was a perfect finish to the emotional rollercoaster Torch Song took its viewers through.
Look, Look Again
Look, Look Again: Web of Life, John Biggers
What initially drew me to this painting was the actual length compared to the width. It was more of a rectangular shape, a particularly long one at that, compared to the other square framed paintings. The second aspect of the painting itself that struck me was the center, a breast-feeding woman. She appeared to be the main focus of the painting, the other facets branching off of her. She also seemed to act as a divider between the left and right sides of the art, which were as different as could be. The contrast between the sides was clear, but the number of factors that contributed to this contrast was more hidden. The left side portrayed a winter night, characterized by cooler colors and a melancholy aura. It also showed women, standing in a strict formation, carrying what appears to be baskets of crops. The right side, on the other hand, was completely different in both these aspects. It displays a spring day, fruitful with life such as the fish and flowering trees. Rather than women, the right side depicted men engaging in agricultural work, in a more scattered fashion. Taking note of all this, I began to attempt to piece the art together in order to understand how these features connected.
Because the piece is titled “Web of Life,” I assumed Biggers was showing viewers a prevalent interconnectedness in life. The men on the right side of the painting could be sowing seeds, as growers do in spring, and thereby introducing life- literally, through plants growing or metaphorically, through crops used as food. The women on the left side, however, could be harvesting what had been grown, returning the land to its barren state. I believe the winter and spring scenes contributed to implying that the right side of the painting symbolized growth and the left side represented death. The woman breast-feeding in the center of the painting is shown underneath the ground, possibly showing how once people are born, they factor into the system of life and death.
