THE ARTS IN NEW YORK CITY

I went into Pamina Devi’s Cambodian dance very skeptical. Not only I am I not very familiar with the Cambodian customs but I had not seen The Magic Flute in its entirety. How was I supposed to judge a mixture of two arts I was not comfortable with in the first place? This turned out to be a good thing because I had no substantial bias or standard by which to set this performance up against.

To be perfectly honest, I really did not like the Cambodian Dance all that much. I thought the dancing was beautiful and how the stroy was incorporated into this very rigid tradition was genius. However, an hour of that type of music and singing left nearly drove me insane.

Pamina Devi did a very nice job in preserving her cultural dance. What makes her attempt risky is bringing a very western story into a tradition with very specific guide-lines. It was very insightful of Devi to recognize the story can be incorporated and related to. The simple scenery and lighting allows Devi to stay true to her culture while the sub-titles allows the western audience to be engaged which is very important if she is asking us to be interested in preserving this tradition.

The trip to the Met was more my cup of tea. I love art and I love to know what’s going on behind the scenes (I’m like that with everything). Ms. Orenstein let us in on how artwork is both preserved and set up in exhibits. Her work is just as important and noble as the efforts of Pamina. Many of the prints or paintings can be faded or destroyed if not handled properly. Her presentations also keep the public engaged in the world of art; showing us not just the Rembrandts but the lesser known artists that are being lost. In a time of photoshop and CGI, art needs to be reserved, people need to remain interested in both the asthetics and the history behind them. Curators definitely help in preserving culture

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 5:34 pm and is filed under