Final Question
Matthew Bourne’s version of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake has obviously caused quite a stir by casting males to play the parts of the swans. This decision and implementation is no doubt a “sign of the times,” times of change and integration and acceptance and tolerance and evolution toward a more accommodating society. It is very intriguing to watch and compare the two versions of Swan Lake, classical and modern, on dvd. The thoughts and epiphanies seem to flow from the viewer’s mind as he/she watches females, then males perform basically the same parts in the ballet. Immediately, the viewer’s concentration turns focus from the qualities of the viewed art to what that art says about life. All great art, in some way (or many ways) forces the audience to step back from the art and think about “life,” life’s policies, life’s decisions, life’s moments, life’s events, life’s emotions. The spectator does this because the familiar emotions and thought processes evoked in art are the same ones that capture the spectator outside the realms of visual art. Audiences take the knowledge they have acquired from art and apply it to life, and vica-versa. In this, we create a “Columbian exchange” of ideas and statements, a river that flows abundantly and teems with life as long as we the viewers want it to. We escape from each to the other and, in art, learn from artists who almost totally escaped life and made art, which, ironically, has taken on a life of itself as critical to us as the pleasures and tribulations that accost us in life. The only difference in art is that we control everything: the pace, the concentration, the thought, the tendencies, the methods. We are at our best then, though we might not realize it. It is a great thing to get lost in any art, be it a presidential debate or Swan Lake or The Marriage of Figgaro or how the sun finds a way to weave through the window and flex its muscle to the watchers within. Granted, we seem to be more easily mesmerized by some forms of art than others. But, the question I have taken from this class is this: What is art? Is this art? What about this? WHAT IS ART? The answer is that anything we make art is art, anything from a starry night to dancing swan characters; it is art as long as it makes the audience asks questions. A question like, “Is this art?”
Tired of hearing the word “art”?
Luke