Initially, after reading the libretto, I saw Don Giovanni as a tragedy. Although Leporello served as a comic foil to the character of Don Giovanni, providing many light moments to break the tension, it seemed the greater themes made the story more of a drama. The libretto tells the story of a tragic hero, a womanizer whose pride and reckless, self-centered behavior ultimately causes his downfall. Throughout the story, Don Giovanni deceives and betrays many women and acts selfishly at the expense of others. Betrayal, jealousy, and revenge are dominant themes that seem to ultimately triumph (with Don Giovanni’s condemnation to death for his wicked deeds).
However after seeing the opera, complete with music and actors who added another dimension to the story, I found the story to be much more comedic! There were moments where I actually found myself laughing out loud, especially at Leporello’s side comments. The plot seemed all the more obscene and ridiculous, with characters running back and forth in the madness of it all. Relations between the characters—Don Ottavio’s undying devotion to Donna Anna, Zerlina’s back-and-forth jig between the romancing Don Giovanni and the envious Masetto, and Donna Elvira’s relentless attachment to Don Giovanni—seemed all to be a bit outlandish and definitely amusing. Then there were clearly comical scenes (like Leporello’s switch with Don Giovanni) that were there for the mere purpose of entertainment. Together, all of these scenarios and relationships played out by the performers, accompanied by music, made the plight of Don Giovanni seem like much more of a comedy than tragedy!
There were definitely class differences reflected in the libretto when you compare the relationships of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio versus Masetto and Zerlina. Donna Anna was a wealthy woman who Don Ottavio dotingly followed, whereas Masetto didn’t fawn over Zerlina in the same way. Their relationship was more straightforward and simple; neither worshiped one another and they were together for their modest love for one another. Don Giovanni emphasized the stark differences between the aristocracy and the underclasses. He acted as an entitled aristocrat, doing as he pleased and taking all women as if they were subject to his will and needs. Even though he was so “fair” and “generous” to take women of all shapes, ages, and classes, he generally acts greedily and lustfully towards women (and Leporello too!), as if his wealth justifies his domineering attitude.
The music did a good job of conveying the many characters, moods, and interactions, pulling one scene into the next. The music was used to create both comedic and dramatic atmospheres, depending on the context. For instance, Donna Elvira’s aria was high, long, and trailing, helping to convey her longing for her seducer. Leporello’s solo was light and fast paced, with a lively, storytelling melody –adding to the humor of his aria. The Comendator’s arrival was booming and dramatic, with slow, deep and thundering tones to convey his dooming message to Don Giovanni. Romance, comedy, bitterness, sadness, and misfortune were all conveyed through the music, with its varying pace, harmonies, and range. Mozart used a very dynamic approach in his compositions to make them carry the quickly shifting moods of the story.
I really enjoyed seeing an opera to contrast the many contemporary performances that we saw throughout the semester. I like that it was in many ways over-the-top and impersonal to the audience because it was more of a spectacle. Rather than trying to engage the audience or make us experience some kind of complex emotion or message, its purpose was simply to entertain. And because it is older, there were more standards that it had to conform to. But this is not necessarily a bad thing. Its structure, its drama, it flamboyant costumes and its grandiose music created a kind of complete experience that I really enjoyed. Sure, I wasn’t emotionally or intellectually engaged, but the opera presented a great story in a magnificent setting with lavish visual and audio accompaniment that are interesting to take in and be overwhelmed by. It is always great to see something different to find an appreciation for the captivating elements of each unique kind of performance we saw.
Author Archives: sophielouisesimon
House / Divided
In Dixon’s passage on performance and media, he contrasts the diametric views of Phelan and Auslander – Phelan who says that the “performance’s life is in the present” and Auslander who says that there are no clear-cut distinctions between live and mediatized performance and that the two can blend together to create the performance space. As the reader, Phelan’s view at first seemed too conservative. I thought – why does media have to interfere with the presence of live performance? Why can the two not coexist? But after viewing House/Divided at BAM yesterday, I better understand how the nuance of “liveness” can be lost with the integration of media, which detracts from the real and confrontational presence of simply thinking, breathing, responsive humans.
The show, which overlays John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath over the story of the modern day foreclosure crisis, attempts to blend live performance with digitized forms to show the intersection of the past and present and find a common theme. The financial disparities of both times create helplessness for those who are forced to give up their homes and sense of security. The Joads are a family in post-depression Oklahoma who are forced to abandon their home after the disaster of the Dust Bowl leaves them poverty-stricken. The “modern-day” characters represent wall-street brokers and foreclosure agents dealing with today’s mortgage crisis behind the scenes.
Props and media, however, were heavily integrated to create a complicated, at times overwhelming, experience. A house served as both a setting for Joad family in the early 1930s and the backdrop for an overlay of images: imitating the façade of a house, a billow of storm clouds, and magnified faces and ominous-looking scenes. Meanwhile, in the “present-time” storyline, large overhanging screens flash conveyor belts of numbers and display images of faces, and occasionally documentary-like footage of interviews with real people personally involved/affected someway by foreclosure. Meanwhile, media in the form of sounds was present throughout, as telephone calls blared throughout the auditorium and digit
Caretaker Studies
Both my realistic and abstract poses represented the same person in my life. My dad. He’s actually my step-father, but he’s the only father I’ve known since I was three years old, so I don’t think of him any differently than anyone else thinks of their dad. Sometimes I think I’m more like him than I am my mom.
The first pose with the hand in pocket and the other behind the head is one I see almost every day that I encounter when my dad becomes lost in his thoughts. He is a very reserved, thoughtful person and speaks slowly and in few words when he does choose to speak, giving each word he says more weight. My dad is a mathematician so his mind is constantly finding new problems to dissect, though rarely does he seem to consider minute “everyday problems.” He spends hours alone reading about semantics, computer language, and new ideas in quantum physics… things that only his mind can filter through like a machine, but with human thoughts. When he stands like this, to me he has a very wise and weathered look. His body is loose, his stance relaxed, but his hand scratching his head reminds us that there is a lot going on behind his non-revealing neutral gaze. When he is stressed, he contains a lot of his thoughts within his head. So it’s never quite clear if he is just contemplating life, puzzled by some new mathematical problem, or actually feeling tense or worried. When he scrunches up his face in a squint, you know that he is deep in thought, and most likely, he won’t tell you about it. To others, my dad may seem mysterious and distant, but when I encounter him poised like this, I might ask him what he’s thinking or bothering him, or maybe just leave him be.
The second pose with the slight squat and rounded arms is also meant to represent my dad. I was actually inspired by tai chi, because my dad has been practicing the martial art as a form of exercise and meditation for over 10 years. Tai chi emphasizes the flow of energy, or “chi”, throughout the body. The knees are always slightly bent and the arms convey a combination of fluid and sharp movements. The pose I performed was meant to show stability, calm, and self-contained energy. My feet were solidly planted with the weight equally dispersed from toe to toe, my knees bent, my core straight and strong with my weight centered. I tried to reach a state of perfect balance, for my dad’s presence feels this way–calm, certain, and secure. The reason I rounded my arms was not an embrace, as the class thought, but a shape meant to show fullness and continuity, and well as self-reliance. The arms center his being and show that his thoughts (as I said before) are kept in his own space. And though he is a solitary, self-reliant person, I wanted to create a rounded shape to represent this, to evoke the energy of tai chi, rather than an arms-crossed, closed-off stance. I think there is a large difference between solitary and being closed, and in this case my dad is the former. His company and his words bring me a sense of balance and composure — that is what I wanted to recreate.
Snapshot Day!
On October 11, so-called “snapshot day” I was on my way out of the subway on 23rd street when this image struck me. Maybe not in a deep, emotive sense, but in an awe of the visual conception before me. When last week, we examined the work of other photographers, I was drawn towards the work of Brassai, particularly Backstage at the Folies-Bergere. What held my gaze was his use of a unique perspective, sloping planes and diagonals leading the viewer into the photograph, and dynamic contrast between light and dark. All of these elements seemed to coalesce as I mounted the first stair of the subway exit.
As someone who grew up in the suburbs, what is striking as you step out into the street is that everything always seems to be going “up.” In Manhattan, the towering skyscrapers stand over you and rows upon rows of mounting windows ascend toward the sky. It is impossible to escape the presence of these domineering structures of concrete and glass. So for me, capturing the grandiosity of the rising buildings serves to convey my bewildered yet awed perception of New York, immense and soaring above me.
One other thing that stood out to me in that moment of inspiration was the lone woman reaching the top of the stairs. In the city, it seems unusual not to be packed into a crowded bus or rustling past dozens of strangers on the sidewalk. This was her single instant of solitude before entering the hurry shuffling down 23rd street. I felt like I was capturing a unique moment of respite from Manhattan and all its chaos. The buildings looming over her serve as a reminder that she is only but one of many to be under their shelter, seemingly small and insignificant.
My favorite part of this photo is how the composition came together so naturally. Lines and diagonals play a strong role in the movement of this photo, bringing you “up,” as I wished to convey. The railings guide the viewer up towards the lone stranger and the vertical orientation of the bricks and rising building pull the image upward to really create the sensation of that limitless height. The contrast from the dark stairway to the bright open sky also bring you up from the depths, while the woman’s bright red coat grabs you. I’m really happy with how my photo came out.
Photo Analysis: Backstage at the Folies-Bergere
This is a photograph by Brassai (Gyula Halasz) taken in 1933 called Backstage at the Folies-Bergere. The photo immediately drew me in because of its dynamic composition and contrast. It is rather atypical, not following obvious photographic conventions. The golden ratio doesn’t have an obvious influence over the positioning of the subjects, although the rule of thirds seems to be loosely applied. The women are nicely fit into the left-most third of the photograph, and vertically, the photo can be described in thirds (from top to bottom with negative space, then the five figures, and then the two bottom).
Really though, the picture attracted me because it doesn’t fit neatly into the compositional rules. Brassai’s overhead perspective creates a omniscient viewpoint that makes me feel like I’m looking over a grand scene, but still creates a sense of curiosity because I can’t view the figures fully straight-on. He teases the viewer with a peek at the girls in a mirror, an image which seems almost dream-like and misty, like a painting.
Diagonals lead me into the photograph, pulling me down the axis on the left, and across the axis from the right corner, in towards the back where the girls and men lean against the wall. The wire in the bottom creates yet another diagonal that slices across, isolating the girl. These diagonals cutting across the picture allow us to slide in and catch each detail along the way.
One last component of the picture that I found stimulating was the contrast in tones from light to dark scattered throughout the photograph, from the dark negative space, to the bright lights, to the more muted shades of gray in the mirror’s reflection. Shifts from light to dark make my eyes move across the photograph, and the dull shades of the reflection almost make the mirror’s revealing image the last thing you notice.
This photo makes me want to create a more dynamic image, playing around with diagonals and contrast on Snapshot Day. Sometimes having many objects in a photo can make it chaotic, but in this case, I think it makes the photo more interesting. These are elements I want to incorporate in my photo — especially since the city streets are filled with lines and angles and many points of interest. I may want to capture this.
Roseanne Spradlin’s “beginning of something”
As you enter the performance space you are confronted by a large black raised platform. A nude woman is gently plucking notes on a bass , deep tones resounding throughout the room. The stage is surrounded by reflective objects, mirrors of all shapes and sizes (like one might imagine on the wall any woman’s bedroom) and strings of shimmering silver beads that catch the light glimmering and dancing about. The audience quickly settles from whispers to faint murmurs to complete silence. Whether out of politeness or captivation, everyone in the room is now fixated the woman, wondering exactly what she will do.
In these first moments, I sat wondering what the woman was trying to show. What was her story? Was she sad, contemplative, regretful? She stood up and proceeded to don her silver beaded headdress and strut across the stage. Her expression was hardened and closed off. As she performed her rigid walk back and forth across the stage—strut, pose, turn, repeat—I got this sense of vacancy. She had surrendered her tenderness and innocent longings of the first moments with a self-disciplined concentration. Other women joined her on stage one by one, each at their own rhythm until they moved powerfully in ensemble, pacing across the stage back and forth in perfect unison like a machine. The delicate glimpse we had gotten of each woman as she was introduced was quickly replaced by conformation and this formal robotic movement. As the performers stopped and stood before us, we were confronted with their bodies that insisted full attention and scrutiny. We were presented with this bare, bold view of what we expect to be hidden away. As an audience, we felt ourselves examining the bodies so blatantly exposed, making our judgments.
It was here I began to find some meaning in the piece that was initially quite mystifying.
Though each woman painted her own portrait, when they came together it seemed as if they were showing us the shared experience of all women in our society. External pressures to appear a certain way, expectations, objectification, our judgments forced these women to go into their struts in feigned unnatural confidence. As they thundered by, the women stopped to regard themselves in the mirrors; beneath their apparent certainty was insecurity and self-doubt.
As the show progressed, the women shifted (wildly at times) from this robotic strut, to formal lifts and bends, to complete abandon. As the women turned, trembled, pounded, jerked, and darted their way across the floor, all formalities completely disintegrated to yield this frantic release of emotions. The movements were raw and desperate, showing different emotions than the quiet control and outward calmness that we saw when we first met them. Watching this made me feel slightly uncomfortable at first – being confronted with these strong emotive movements. It’s the part hidden beneath that we’d rather deny is there than to see face on. The women bore themselves in their honest nudity, revealing intense anguish, frustration, and a sense of isolation. The piercing shrieks sent shivers down my body that left me tingling for minutes.
The violent climax of convulsing, screaming, sobbing from the women was shocking and difficult to receive. As an audience member I almost felt personally responsible for their suffering, as the viewer, and as their judge. As I sat protected in the shadows, it was these women who had broken down and exposed their raw and disturbing emotions though this release of the body. It was incredible how these organic un-graceful movements conveyed so much. This was the most resounding part of the piece for me.
I wasn’t very satisfied with the ending to the show but maybe the anticlimactic finish was intended to leave the audience with a restless feeling. To end it in a big glamorous display wouldn’t have fit with Spradlin’s message. At times the piece seemed a bit repetitive but I understood Spradlin’s desire to emphasize her point. After seeing the same sequence so many times, it will be hard to forget. I can’t say that I loved the performance but I have never seen anything like it and was deeply moved by the women’s performances.
-Sophie
Post-modern dance and Steve Paxton
Post-modern dance came into existence as a counter-reaction to modern dance, which had emphasized expressionism and theatricality. The newer style rejects the story-telling and symbolic aspects of dance, instead focusing on the physical components and bare technique. Its purpose is solely to emphasize form and movement. It examines the relation of the body to space and time, in different orientations and perspectives. There is no hidden message to be found or analysis to be made; movement is appreciated for its own aesthetic. Each isolated characteristic of dance–each bend, gesture, shape, and shift–is meant to be viewed simply for what it is.
Steve Paxton’s approach to movement through contact improvisation helped to shape these principles of post-modern dance. He had the idea that dance should be viewed as a demonstration of the body as a machine, working in tandem with that of another. Through direct contact, bodies produce spontaneous movement, displaying physical versatility. His work cast out all the excesses of dance, leaving simply the movement to display the utility of the apparatus of the body. Without music, props, or symbolism—Paxton’s improvisational method experimented with the concept of dance, and what could be considered an art. For Paxton, any ordinary movement was dance, and the body was (is) a vessel in itself for expression.
-Sophie
Review of “Underland”
This is a review from April 2011 of Stephen Petronio’s piece Underland, which was performed at the Joyce Theater.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-04-13/dance/stephen-petronio-venures-into-a-dark-world-chunky-move-lights-one-u/
Linda’s Self Portrait
Linda’s self portrait contrasted most others that we saw because it was performed in complete silence, without any written words or pictures to convey ideas to the audience. She sat down at the table with a simple piece of white paper, and without a word of explanation or even a glance at her audience, she began to work—meticulously folding the paper, creasing it, unfolding it, turning it…. A complex sequence of maneuvers that immediately absorbed her classmates. For three minutes she patiently continued folding, finally transforming her blank ordinary sheet into a tiny origami creature.
What most captured Linda’s audience was not the folding of the paper, but Linda’s attentive, delicate, and precise movements as she transformed it. Linda’s performance may have seemed like a simple (well, really complex) craft project—but it was actually a demonstration of Linda’s character. She showed herself to be modest and gentle in nature, but diligent in completing a potentially challenging task. She showed that she immerses herself in her work, which she carries out with intent and patience, giving attention to each detail. Throughout the process, Linda worked seamlessly, without hesitation, showing a modest certainty in working towards her goal. We can think of these traits that Linda presented in folding her origami as characteristics that define her when she is working towards any goal.
Her self portrait was very successful because Linda subtly told us about who she is by allowing us to share her minutes of silent focus. These still moments that enveloped the class, enthralled by Linda’s meticulous folding and humble performance, let us better understand Linda. It’s not what she was doing, but how she did it that captured everyone’s attention.
Linda’s performance was minimalist and understated rather than dramatic, but I think it really spoke to who she is. Watching her performance, even through the camera, was much different from performing because I became a part of her energy. Everyone in the room fell into a state of calm and concentration, because that was the environment that Linda created. As a performer, you are the one creating the setting for everyone else, and so going up on the stage myself was like standing on a blank slate. It was up to me to set the mood for the audience.
