A few weeks ago, Antoine Dodson was a nobody from Huntsville, Alabama. That is, until his sister was the victim in a near-rape incident. As the news report stated, Dodson’s sister was in bed when a man climbed through her window and tried to get in bed with her. Antoine heard the ruckus and came to his sister’s rescue, and the attacker escaped. As soon as the story was shown on television, Antoine Dodson gained in popularity and fame. The way in which he warns everyone to “hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife, and hide yo’ husband, cuz they rapin’ everybody out here” was a hit! I remember hearing his news report being broadcasted on the radio a few days after the occurrence. The noteworthy part is not the news report itself, but rather what came of it. People turned Dodson’s words into an actual song, which held a number one spot on iTunes for purchased songs for quite some time! Antoine Dodson became a celebrity in just a few days–for seemingly nothing! Check out the video below:
I’m not sure what to think of Dodson. Should I be happy that this unknown man suddenly lives a life of fame? Or should I be upset by how easily he came to this state? What is a celebrity? I always used to think that actors, musicians, and artists were among those worthy enough to be deemed “celebrities”. They worked hard to get where they are. On the other hand, Dodson was just giving his report of what had happened, and now he, too, is famous! I guess this just goes to show that anyone can get known by doing pretty much anything at all. And just yesterday I learned that Dodson now came out with a new iPhone Application, warning people about sex offenders and providing them with a way to find such people in their own neighborhoods. If Antoine Dodson can become famous so easily, what’s stopping me?
Recently, a public art installation made completely of lights was set up in Madison Square Park. The artist, Jim Campbell, calls his new piece “Scattered Lights”, and the title speaks for itself. With seemingly no pattern or rhythm, 1,600 of hanging light bulbs suspend from seemingly nowhere, for seemingly no reason.
Using stock footage from Grand Central, the lightbulbs, which are outfitted with LEDs, flicker on and off, resulting in what seems like shadows passing over a thin curtain. Although this installation is probably only going to last a few days (the article makes no mention of how long it should last), I can definitively say that if “Scattered Lights” is still standing in MSP, I’m probably going to make it my one-page essay.
Graffiti of the past is making its way back onto the streets of New York City, but this time with a message. The message is to spread the awareness of graffiti as a real form of art, as well as to give inspiration to struggling teens about their culturally-strong history. This project is the work of a group of graffiti artists who call themselves “Slavery”, and it is appropriately named “Subway Art History”. The main focus of the project is to revive the graffiti of the 80s, with a new creative interpretation. For example, a famous work of art graffitied on a the No. 6 train car in 1980 was that of “Hand of Doom”- the title of a Black Sabbath song and an ominous and extremely creepy message to those who encountered it. The piece has been recreated (this time legally) to read “Joan of Arc”, and rather than a hooded executioner with a time bomb, the image of the martyr is portrayed. Various other pieces of art have also been remade or have been altered, for instance, a piece graffitied to the wall of a coffee shop has been altered from “Dondi” to “Ghandi”. This area of art has been dominated by the competition of artists to become greater and more well-known than their competitors, that it has lost its originality in recent years. This project also seeks to break away from the constant competition and pay homage to those who were dedicated to the quality of their work.
Although a common topic as far as the arts in NYC are concerned, I found this to be extremely interesting and a worthwhile read. Check out the article for yourself.
Shirley’s post about comedian/musician Victor Borge reminded me of my favorite comedian, Demetri Martin. This comedian is an equally talented funny man whose style is a bit unorthodox. He uses an immense amount of elaborate word play and one liners, as well as occasionally incorporating a large notepad into his act. Additionally he often plays music while delivering his standup. You would expect him to play some guitar or maybe some piano(which he does), but this eccentric jokester also throws a harmonica, tambourine,ukulele,toy bells, and glockenspiel into the mix(sometimes many of these instruments at once). Many of you may have heard of him from his Comedy Central program “Important Things” or from his appearances in “Talking Woodstock” or “Flight of the Conchords.” I personally have been to a show of his at Bowery Ballroom and it was incredible. His comedic timing is perfect and his humor is witty and intelligent. I even got to meet him after the show and he laughed at some of my jokes. As you can imagine this made the night even more memorable(it’s like Michael Jordan complimenting your jumpshot). I’ve been looking for another show of his that I can attend and may go to his show this Thursday at the University of Maryland. You all should definitely watch some of his standup online as soon as you can…Trust me.
This just may be the coolest idea ever. So we all know how vinyl records produce analog sound by running a needle over carefully placed grooves, and I’m sure at least a few of us have run over those annoying screech-producing warning strips that border the edges of highways… but it took a true stroke of genius to put two and two together here.
Enter the singing road. A few calculated notches and any ordinary street can be transformed into a record, with any set of passing tires acting as a needle. With some careful planning, one could reproduce entire symphonies and even human speech! As far as I know, only three of these musical roads currently exist (Japan, Korea, and California can claim one each), but this is way too cool not to catch on eventually.
Music is all around us, not only in the form of recorded songs but sometimes even simple tapping noises. A lot of sounds could be consider as music, because much like art there isn’t really a line that is drawn. Many people may disagree with me and have a strong opinion about what is music and what isn’t music, but that is another topic for another time.
Music is very representative, it can tell a complex story that words cannot express. A few simple notes in the right order can convey more feelings that a whole page of words. It also has a profound effect on movies. The “mood” music in a movie, in my opinion, is just as important as the lines the actors speak. The music builds anticipation for upcoming scenes and adds to the scenes. Think back to the last horror film that you saw, wasn’t there some type of scary music that made you more and more nervous by the second? Can you imagine how it would have been without the music? The scene probably wouldn’t have been as scary and wouldn’t make you jump as much. You don’t really think about it, but the effect that music has on films is enormous.
The influence on music is basically everywhere, personally I like to have music playing when I’m doing work (Currently listening to Taylor Swift’s new album). It’s a habit of mine, and it feels weird for me to work without music. Most of the music that people our age listen to has lyrics that tells a story, but sometimes just the music is enough. There are no words needed and at times music can tell a even more beautiful story than words.
At the beginning of the year, Professor Smaldone had each of us write our favorite experience with the arts on an index card. Well, I am officially changing my answer. Last night, I had the opportunity to go with my family to see Woody Allen play the clarinet along with the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band at the Cafe Carlyle. Everything about the experience was incredible. From seeing Woody Allen sitting five in front of me, to the upbeat jazz music that made it impossible to be in a bad mood, to the awesomeness of being in the Hotel Carlyle. This was unlike any concert that I’ve ever been to.
While Woody Allen is probably the quintessential New York film director of the twentieth century, he also happens to one my personal favorite directors. While I always pictured Woody Allen as his younger self out of one of his classic movies, like Annie Hall, it was amazing to see how he has evolved in his later years. While he still makes movies, the 75 year-old Allen also devotes his time to his passion for jazz. As you can observe in the clip below, aside from grayer hair and some more wrinkles, Allen looks exactly the same as he does in his famous movies. His style, glasses, hairdo, and attitude has remained exactly the same. In this short clip, you can see how much energy he still has in his senior years and how talented of a musician he is.
Nevertheless, immediately after he stops playing, you can see that drops his head, looks down, and simply waits until his next part. When the show ended, he walked out as nonchalantly as he walked in. He’s a truly incredibly talented who has excelled in numerous art forms, including filmmaking, playwrighting,comedy, and music. Despite all of this, he remains himself and never changes who he is in his heart.
This is my first vlog for our Arts in New York class! I tried to incorporate as much as I could do into the video: fancy transitions, video and picture, and editing techniques. This program is still very new to me, but I did my best.
In the video, I discuss the musical group Muse and how they developed to where they are today. I also explain what I believe makes them aurally attractive. Since I was seeing them live at Nassau Coliseum on October 23rd, I included a little review of the concert as well.
I hope you learn something new from my video! Thanks for watching!
A new book entitled “Life” is to be released soon. This biography is the chronicling of the life of one of the world’s most famous musicians. Keith Richards, the guitar player for The Rolling Stones, who in 66 years has had an exciting life and has amassed a list of personal stories that someone couldn’t make up. Between the drugs, the women, the music, the fame, the money, etc., Keith Richards personifies the stereotypical rock and roll rebel. This book also goes deep into the personal life and thoughts of Richards. He talks about his childhood and his friendship with Stone’s front man Mick Jagger. A lot of focus is placed on Richard’s addiction to heroin and Richards tells stories of his life as a junky. Another important part of the biography is the discussion of some of the most famous Rolling Stones songs and how they came about. This book is sure to be full of exciting stories, first person accounts of famous events in rock and roll, and important perspective on, arguably, the most famous band in rock history.
It’s hard to explain why, but I love to see artists completely junk the styles that made them famous and veer off in some wild unexpected direction. I guess it must be that I admire their willingness to risk their reputations, for the sake artistic integrity, when turning out “more of the same” held the promise of near guaranteed success…. But reasons aside, I found one such stylistic about-face to love last week when I picked up Sufjan Stevens’ new album The Age of Adz.
Stevens, whose usual wares involve much sensitive poetical singing and quiet banjo melodies, has here released an altogether highly aggressive, synth-laden beast of an album, with one 25 minute track consisting mostly of blaring sirens (which I suppose is to be expected from a man who, after releasing Michigan and Illinois, once planned to write a full length album for each of America’s fifty states). I’m a huge fan of Stevens’ older work, but this departure, explained by Stevens as the result of being “sick of [his own] voice and…sick of the strummy-strum acoustic guitar song and… sick of [his] lyrical approach” is a definite triumph. Take a listen below to compare some of Sufjan’s old stuff with The Age of Adz.
I was surfing the internet to look for an interesting show to go to and came across MoMA’s Performance Exhibition Series which features nine different performance pieces by a collection of artists. The show, which has been going on for almost a year now, is about to come to an end with its last piece called Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano done by the artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla.
In this piece, a pianist plays the famous Fourth Movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony more commonly referred to as Ode to Joy. However, there is a huge hole in the center of the grand piano, which the artists intentionally carved. As a result, two octaves of the piano do not work. The pianist also leans over the keyboard and plays it while bending backwards and upside so that the player, the instrument and therefore the famous melody is transformed.
I think this is a unique idea because it takes a very widely known song and alters it. This is what art does over and over again. It takes a conventional idea and warps it and that is why most art is controversial. We are able to bring up countless debates about what is or isn’t art in this way.
I am constantly amazed by the Danish comedian Victor Borge. Not only does he have a great sense of humor, but he is a great pianist as well. I think this combination makes his musical comedy acts very humorous. Victor Borge was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on January 3, 1909. He started out as a classical pianist, and he went to the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He soon became a well-known musician, and in the 1930s, he started to develop his own sense of style and humor. Victor Borge moved to America in 1940, where he did not know a word of English. However, it was not long before he was able to translate his jokes into English, and he soon had an act in Bing Cosby’s Radio Show in 1941. This was the beginning of his long career in America.
In the video below, Borge is doing a skit with his friend Zhahan Azruni, where they both play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2. What ensues is a their comedic attempts at working together. This was one of the first videos I have seen of Borge, and ever since that day, watching videos of his acts was one of my favorite ways to procrastinate. In his other acts, he makes fun of some of the stereotypical musicians. Then there is his famous “inflationary language” act that doesn’t have anything to do with music at all. But all in all, he is a music comedian. And I think the fact that he is a great musician can be heard through his acts when he plays the piano, but unfortunately, there is only a limited amount of youtube videos of him playing the piano seriously.
Growing up in a Guyanese Indian family, Bollywood movies made up a big part of my childhood. I would constantly play the DVDs my parents bought and dance along to all the upbeat songs the movies had to offer.
Just for anyone who may not know, Bollywood is a film industry in Mumbai, India. A great portion of Hindi cinema comes from this industry (though there is some Urdu in these films as well). These movies are known for generally being very clean (there is almost no on-screen sexuality shown), and for mainly being centered around a love story. Bollywood movies are also known for the wide array of songs in each movie; they’re basically musicals.
I loved these movies. Since I’m speaking in general about them, I cannot properly portray just how much they meant to me. I loved the cheesy love songs that were song on top of mountains, the classical dancing done by beautiful actresses decked out in their saris and henna.
I’ll just give one example of my favorite movie. Devdas (2002) was based on the novel by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, focuses on the tragic story of Devdas, a rebellious alcoholic. Sent away to England at the age of 10, his childhood friend Parvati (which of course becomes his lover) lights a lamp for him which will die out on its own when he dies. Of course, when Devdas returns, his family does not want to make an alliance with Parvati’s family, so the possibility of marriage is eliminated. Furious, Devdas leaves and meets a woman from a brothel named Chandramukhi.
Of course, the rest of the details of this tangled story are too complicated to get into, so I’ll just post a link to one of the songs from the movie (Dola Re) in which both women become friends and speak of their love for Devdas.
By the way, Parvati is the tall one who dances in the beginning, Chandramukhi is the slightly heavier and shorter one.
However, Bollywood movies have been changing noticeably this decade. You can notice in that video above how classical and culturally rooted it is. Also note that Bollywood movies were known for their lack of sexual display. However, I recently stopped watching these movies because of the gradual change that’s occurring. What used to be a beautiful sari is now a short party dress. The mountains and street corners have been replaced by flashing lights at a club. The movies are even getting a little more riskier with that amount of sexual content being played.
I noticed this after watching Salaam Namaste (2005). The first Indian film shot entirely in Australia, the atmosphere of this movie is immediately different. The title song involves a wedding in swimsuits. The dancing isn’t classical, and I honestly think that a talentless person would’ve been able to dance in this particular song.
This isn’t the song with the most sexuality in the movie, I just didn’t know whether it should be posted or not.
Let’s be honest; we’ve seen worse than what was displayed above in American films. However, Bollywood has always had a reputation for being clean, and boundaries have been pushed in these recent years. Understandably enough, Bollywood does have to compete on an international scale with other film industries. In order to keep the money coming from overseas, Bollywood has to keep up with industries from places like the US, UK, and Germany. In order to do so, more sexuality and violence leaks in.
But Bollywood managed to stay clean so many years and still do reasonably well. Why are the movies changing now? If they made money in the past by remaining clean and traditional, could they still not be successful by maintaining those principles now? And if they continue to press on further with this new feel of movies, how much further are they going to keep going?
Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts on Long Island is a regular venue for renowned jazz singer Jane Monheit, and I have been privileged to watch her perform on numerous occasions. When I saw her picture besides an article entitled “A Plush Voice Discovers Some Room to Be Frisky“, I was immediately intrigued.
Jane just recently performed at Birdland (a prestigious jazz club in Manhattan), and according to music reviewer Stephen Holden, she was spectacular, and even more so than usual (which is saying something). She is known for her beautiful, “plush” voice, improvisational skill, and polished performances. This alone is enough to be extraordinarily impressive, but at her Birdland performance, she also connected to her music in ways she had previously struggled. She was confident, at ease, and interpretive.
It is these elements, I believe, which take music and turn it into art.
Kanye West has mesmerized the audience of mainstream music with his new endeavor, Runaway, a half hour masterpiece. His film depicts the story of “renewal and loss,” featuring Mr. West himself and a phoenix, portrayed by Selita Ebanks. The imagery is beautiful, featuring a color scheme filled with reds and greens, and slowed down scenes to serve the aesthetic details of nature to the viewer’s eye. Themes are explored in this film, such as the lack of acceptance and integration in society, as well as love. More importantly, Kanye West pushes the boundaries of music promotion, having six of his songs as the soundtrack from his upcoming album, one being the namesake of the film.
What I found most peculiar about this film was its unconventional nature. There is a scene where dark skinned people dine, while the opposite serve them. The entertainers, ballerinas dancing to the hiphop genre, are also fair. This is a completely opposite depiction of American society pre-Civil Rights movement, where African Americans served and provided the entertainment, taking jobs of lower status. Additionally, the whole concept of a romance between a human and animal is really interesting. The phoenix is shown as a hybrid avian human, a very pretty one. I commend Selita on her superb performance, with the occasional jitter, as well as her expressed effort in performing tasks with talons.
“Runaway” proves to be revolutionary in our generation’s pop culture. Be sure to watch it…you can do so here.
If you have a Youtube account, this should also work (video is inappropriate for minors and requires you to sign in).
Because of the cool project at the Guggenheim (screening videos on the rings of the museum) we learned about in class, I wanted to find out what exhibitions are currently at the Guggenheim. There is an exhibit currently running called Chaos and Classicism, Art in France, Italy and Germany, which focuses on art from France, Italy, and Germany from 1918 to 1936. The Guggenheim promises to take observers on a tour from the armistice of World War I in 1918 through history until the Olympic games in Berlin in 1936.
I am very interested in seeing this exhibit, because it takes visitors through the history of these countries, using art as a medium. You can really get a sense of what people thought and how they felt based on what kind of art was popular at the times. For example, after World War I, many people were tired of Cubism and Futurism, which were very popular during the early 1900’s. People wanted to see art that reflected harmony. And so, Classicism (the art of Ancient Greece and the Italian Renaissance) became more popular.
I love going to art exhibits, or just looking at a piece of artwork, but knowing the history behind it definitely makes it more exciting. Knowing the story behind the art makes it is easier to connect with the theme/ message of the piece, instead of just looking at it and deciding whether you like it or not. I think this exhibit is worth seeing.
Pablo Picasso's The Source (1921)
Pablo Picasso's Girl With a Mandolin
Pablo Picasso’s The Source shows Europe’s preference for Classicism after World War I. This is much different from his earlier work, The Girl With a Mandolin, which he painted in 1910, when Cubism was popular.
If anyone is interested, this exhibit is at the Guggenheim now through January 1st.
The three of the most popular religions practiced today is Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. New York Public Library has an exhibition open now called “Three Faiths” that illustrates all three of them. This exhibition include over two hundred works created over the past 1500 years of writing and art, showing the coming about of each of the religion.
It teaches viewers also that these religions share the common feature of monotheism and that religion revolves around only two factors: humans and the divine. The focus on similarities among the three religions is partly meant to disconnect terrorism from the mainstream Islamic tradition, which I find to be very interesting especially after the 9/11 incident. It is also critical that such an exhibition in placed in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world, to get across such an important message.
Interesting article about the statues of Adam and Eve by Fernando Botero, in the lobby of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. First of all, Columbus Circle is one of those spectacular urban landmarks that serves a mundane function (it is a traffic circle) but raises that function to a higher level by honoring an important cultural figure (Christopher Columbus), but it is also a rather grand monument, (especially when viewed from a car as you drive north on Eighth Avenue). The Circle itself reminds me of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris: placed at then of a broad avenue near a park, a large urban cultural marker for its city.
The Time Warner Center (which also houses the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex) is an astounding high end shopping mall with restaurants, a Whole Foods, high end shops and concert spaces. It includes several large and impressive works of art, among them, these large bronze statues of Adam and Eve by the Columbian artist Fernando Botero. These statues stand at the entrance like sentries, both guarding this temple to consumerism (food, clothing, housewares, jazz, what else does one need?), but also representing our common heritage (i.e. Adam and Eve), the progenitors of all that they guard.
It is funny, ironic and somehow fitting that this little article in today’s paper focuses on a little known “tourist” attraction: having your picture taken while touching Adam’s penis. (They have to have the patina restored on a regular basis, because it gets rubbed off from people touching it). Despite the “fact” that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, his penis would have to represent the source of everything else, no? This was NOT planned this way, but the juxtaposition of the statue (and the extra attention afforded Adam’s virility) with the shopping mall, at Columbus Circle, in New York, In the US, is a spectacular series of self-encased metaphors for power, influence, consumerism and the American Way!
One of the first words that Larry Rohter used to describe singer Concha Buika was ecletic. The Merriam-Webster definition would be: “composed of elements drawn from various sources”, but another way to look at it would be in the words of Rohter: “from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular.” Although Concha Buika has a many influences, such as jazz, pop, soul, flamenco, and African poly-rhythm, her record producer said that “she’s clearly Spanish in the way she feels music and life.”
Concha Buika was born in Majorca, a Spanish Mediterranean Island. Her parents were from Equatorial Guinea, where they fled from the African dictatorship. Growing up in Majorca, Buika was the only African child there, and so she sympathized with the local gypsies, absorbing their style of deep singing and passion for flamenco. About ten years ago, Buika was still having a hard time making it as a singer, and she was in Las Vegas doing imitations of Tina Turner. Now, her latest CD “El Último Trago” is being nominated for two Latin Grammy awards, and she as collaborated with Nelly Furtado and Seal.
Buika has the husky, soulful voice that can get very emotional. She also mentions Billy Holiday as one of her influences (whom ToniAnn talked about in one of her previous posts), as well as Nina Simone,. I feel like anything she sings would sound good, but fortunately, I very much like her music too. Listening to a various songs on youtube, I could definitely hear the different influences in her music. Even though it is a little hard to define which parts come from which influences, I feel like Buika’s music tends to be more on the soft, lyrical, and expressive side. It seems to me that there is a definite Spanish influence in the way she sings as well, despite the fact that she is singing in Spanish.link to NYTimes article
Here is “Soledad” from her album “El Último Trago”, or “The Last Drink”
How intriguing is the above work done by Ivy Baldwin? My favorite part about it is that it could be interpreted as dance or a piece of artwork or theater! The dance company (Ivy Baldwin Dance) that is putting this on is known to perform works that combine modern dance and theater. I get excited when I see the art forms meshing because before this class, I compartmentalized music, dance, theater and the visual arts. Now, though, I feel that since I’m looking out for a combination of the art forms with a more open mind, I’m noticing it done more and more frequently.
Anyway, so this is a new work called “Here Rests Peggy” attributed to Peggy Guggenheim at the Chocolate Factory, which is a museum in Long Island City that features creative, fresh works of various art forms. Peggy Guggenheim was a very famous, big time art collector during the time that she lived and was well known for choosing paintings that she personally thought were beautiful even if nobody else did. She is actually the niece of Solomon Guggenheim, whose famous museum of contemporary art we were just discussing today! It’s also important to note that Peggy is one of the key figures who promoted contemporary works and steadfastly stood by the works of radical artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko through displaying them to the public. This is why the tribute to her looks like an abstract expressionist painting. Her collection, called The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, still exists and is something I’d love to see. I would go to it for our required individual arts outting but may have to wait on it, considering that it’s in Venice!
You know how it is. The kids get to wear cheap costumes and receive massive amounts of candy from total strangers. What can the adults get from this annual holiday? Thrill, fear, and economic profit? Okay, fair trade.
New York City, an already artistically developed area, has become the birthplace of extreme haunted houses. This form of entertainment has been gaining substantial popularity during the past two decades. Because it relies on thrill, it needs to be continually innovative in order to generate dependable revenue. However, this usually entails the fear-factor to become more and more shocking as time passes.
The establishments in NYC are meeting that expectation, by intending to mentally disturb and shock its visitors. In fact, it is so “spooky” that no one under 18 is permitted inside. Examples of these mysterious lairs are “The NYC Halloween Haunted House,” “Blood Manor,” and the previously mentioned “Hotel Savoy.” Like I’ve noted before, I believe that the most effective and impressive productions are those which involve its audiences. Elaborate sets and costumes create mental disturbances among the visitors. Actors play moribund characters that have their own story to tell, and intend to involve you in their misery. These create striking sensations and excitements that will have “victims” talking about the production for days afterward.
Taking these factors into account (set design, artistic costume, interaction with audience, entertainment with profit), is it possible to consider haunted houses as “theater?” Could it possibly evolve into its own distinct art form?
Although it’s early, I’ll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!
On October 10th The National Tour of Spamalot, the musical comedy “lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail“, came to Long Island. The show stopped at the Tilles Center for the performing arts on it’s way through America and Canada. For those who don’t know the movie or the general nature of Monty Python, the show was extremely silly. It was a fun look at the tale of King Arthur and his Round Table knights, and musical comedy in general. I caught the show during it’s run on broadway with the original cast and I can say that the national tour absolutely stacks up to the broadway version. The only difference was, the stage was smaller than the broadway stage and therefore some of the set pieces had to be left out. I didn’t even notice because I was having such a great time. My opinion may be little biased as my theatre director from high school was King Arthur but all in all it was a great show. I don’t know if it is coming back to New York or not but this is Spamalot’s second tour so, who knows? I suggest that if it comes around again you check it out.
The circular outer walls of the Guggenehim Museum will be turned into a video display for the winners of a video contest. the winners will be announced today:
I stumbled upon a project completed by Kansas City Art Institute students, Jeremy Casper, Stuart Bury, and Isaiah Powers, who co-wrote and directed the animation, “Dried Up”. I found this extremely impressive because the whole set plus the dolls were made from materials found at the junkyard. It was also a very inexpensive project too because they only had to use Dragon Stop Motion, a software that allowed them to create this. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that this mini-movie was all directed by hand, literally. The entire animation was shot through still images and the objects had to move a couple of millimeters between each shooting scene. This project took them about four months, but with long days of shooting (approximately 80 hours a week!).
There is also a story behind this animation. In summary, it is about a quiet old man who, surrounded by desolation perseveres to remain true to the nature of his own beliefs and character. The story shows how he attempts to bring hope and life to a faithless, drought ridden old town.
It is no wonder that they won the 37th Student Academy Awards.
Last Wednesday, along with Nicole and Katherine, I sat down in Lefrak Hall for a piano concert by Stephanie and Saar during free hour. Over the past few days, I have tried to come up with the best ways to describe the performance and compare it to previous ones that we have seen as a class. Because I do not have as extensive a musical background or vocabulary as many of our more experienced classmates, I am not capable of the type of analysis that many of you are, but I will try to explain what I found interesting.
The first thing I found interesting was hearing Professor Smaldone’s composition. I have never know a composer before this semester, and it was very cool to hear one Professor’s Smaldone’s works for the second time. While hearing a piece from Mozart or Beethoven can be very captivating, I think it is much more special to hear pieces of music written by composer that you know on personal level. It’s a much different feeling to be able to put the notes that you are hearing into the larger perspective of the composer’s personality. As we discussed in class after visiting the MoMa, you can appreciate so much more about a single work of art if you’re able to compare to it other works made throughout the artist’s career. Although I have only heard two pieces by Professor Smaldone, I am starting to get an idea of his general style. His piece that was performed by Stephanie and Saar was distinctly different from the other pieces they played. The piece was divided into 6 separate sections (Introduction, Out of Eden, Sonata, Secret of the Earth, Django’s Lick, Epilogue), which at times, include series of slow notes with pauses of silence that caused you to contemplate the message of what you were listening to.
Another thing that always catches my attention at every concert that we see is the way that the composers choose to name their works. I’m not exactly sure what Professor Smaldone was trying to convey by the names of each section of his piece, but I definitely felt like a “Secret of the Earth” was being subtly portrayed at times. Another name that stood out on the program was a piece titled “CcHhOoPpIiNn nNiIpPoOhHcC,” which is one of the most bizarre palindromes that I’ve ever seen. It didn’t really make sense to me until Katherine pointed out that it refers to Chopin.
One the most enjoyable parts was at the end of the concert, when the two pianist sat at the same piano and began to play. Overall, this concert was a very pleasant way to clear my mind in the middle of the day, and I hope to go to more of these in the future.
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