Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, a contemporary opera that had its American debut last week, tells the story of the stabbing of a thirteen year old boy named Jake and his relationship with the suspect, a sixteen year-old boy, Brian. As my first opera, I had many prenotions of how unbearable the performance would be based on previous classes in classical music. However, the themes, characters and the set really brought the whole piece together in an amazing way.

In Two Boys, the echoed themes involving love, trust and the unknown permeated through the story into the audience. Starting in media res, we are instantly introduced to the character of the Inspector, Anne, and her reluctant acceptance of a case involving minors and murder. Her lack of knowledge with computers and the Internet, although somewhat hard to believe considering this opera takes place during 2001, forces her to delve into the unknown as she discovers this wide and volatile atmosphere where anyone can pretend to be anyone, and talk to anyone he or she wishes. Through her contact with the unknown, we begin to see themes of love form between her and her sick mother, as well as a relationship forming between Jake and Brian. Trust also becomes an echoed idea in this opera, as Brian is constantly having his trust manipulated by the incredibly intelligent Jake in order to carry out the devilish deed at the end of the opera (and beginning) of the opera. All three of these themes are expertly weaved together in order to communicate a warning to everyone in the audience: the Internet can be dangerous if one is not careful with it.

The characters in Two Boys also gave the opera a valuable quality. Every main character had a rich backstory that added to the complexity of the situation. Anne’s character development was possibly the most interesting. As someone who has had no contact with the Internet until the beginning of the story, we are able to follow her journey into the dark, unforgiving unknown. While on this journey, we learn about why she didn’t use the Internet in the past. The two boys also had their own stories, which made them incredibly relatable. Jake, however, had the stronger character. Having been bullied in school, thirteen year-old Jake is also at that moment in his life where he is struggling with his sexuality. His high intelligence coupled with the two aforementioned problems let us feel what he feels as he follows his path to his demise.

The set was quite possibly the most impressive part of the production. The digitally generated images that were projected onto the buildings poetically gave a testament to the capabilities of technology. Additionally, they also helped urge the story along by providing a visual representation of what was happening online. The effect of having the chat boxes on the set immersed the audience. The visual representation of the Internet as a web of connections was also great at showing the audience how overwhelming the Internet could be to anyone, especially someone like Anne who has never interacted with it before. This reminded me of the Steve Dixon readings and the discussion of “liveliness” involving Phelan vs. Auslander and Benjamin vs. Barthes. Although they argued that media and technology is killing the live entertainment environment, I believe that the innovative set used in Two Boys added great depth to the production. Not only did it keep me interested at times, it was also complementary with the story as the story sought to convey the feelings of someone thrust into the concept of the Internet.

Having loved my first opera experience, I recommend this production to anyone that has never seen an opera before, as well as those who are seasoned veterans. Two Boys and its use of set, story and characters, is an incredible production that is sure to captivate its audience, both young and old(er) alike.

-Stanley (Blog A)

Post-modern dance is a large and multi-encompassing movement, as it defines not just a specific form of dance but also dance created during specific time period, in this case following the modern dance movements of the 1950s. Post-modern dance is a very self-conscious movement, meant to be aware of past movements and techniques used in dance and also to act in response to modern dance’s traditions, which were seen as too constricting and removed from the spirit of dance and art. Post-modern dance follows a type of minimalist aesthetic where the objective of the dance is to draw power and meaning from as little as possible instead of as much as possible. Dance in post-modernism is seen as more classical forms of art are today. Almost anything can be art, but not without context. Once the context is in place, the art is properly identified and analyzed as art. Post-modernists identified even simple movements like walking and running as possibly dance, but they only become truly dance when properly identified as such.

Steve Paxton was a proponent of the analytic post-modern dance movement; his primary contribution was the introduction of contact improvization. Contact improvization is a form of dance where dancers move with each other while always maintaing contact. This form of dance focuses on the varied interactions human bodies can have with each other while also interacting with the world around them. Due to the minimalist aspects of post-modern dance, however, these interactions take place not through props but through forces, and the dancers’ greatest tools here are their manipulation of gravity and inertia. Paxton’s contribution to post-modern dance is significant and illuminating, because his dance style both aligned with post-modern dance’s aesthetic ideas and forged new ground in how and what dance can exist.

-Milan Bien-Aime (Blog B)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/arts/dance/alvin-ailey-american-dance-theater-at-city-center.html

Brian Seibert’s review of several of Alvin Ailey’s dance performances under the guidance of multiple directors focuses on the impact the directors and dancers have on the feel of the performances. Seibert’s review mainly focuses on what Robert Battle’s artistic hand brings to the performances as the new artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Seibert describes Battle’s work using Feldman’s model, using the four aspects of dance criticism to accentuate his review. He describes the dancers as large and bare-chested, wearing long skirts and backed by a heavy drum beat. He analyzes the dances to reveal the solid, powerful feel of the dance, and interprets it as overblown and too bombastic. Aspects of the dances, such as silent screams and oddly feminine gestures, are seen by Battle as out of place and too grandiose for an otherwise solid and masculine dance performance. Overall, Battle interprets Alvin Ailey’s dancers as strong and heroic, but a little too stiff and bombastic to fully realize the gracefulness of the dance numbers. Additionally, Battle regards Alvin Ailey as at their best when they are energetic yet precise, acting in bursts of grace and power backed by drum beats and spirituals.

Wendy Oliver’s text helped me greatly with understanding the review, as I have little experience with dance and dance review. Feldman’s model for dance criticism does a fantastic job of explaining how to truly convey the emotions and atmosphere that dance evokes onto text. Through this text and Seibert’s review, I feel as if I have learned how to be able to accurately convey my own feelings and experiences towards dance when I one day go to see a performance.

Milan Bien-Aime (Blog B)

Having interviewed Keith on the first day of class, I immediately knew what her self-portrait was going to be about as I helped her with setting up. Throughout her life – every time she goes to a new school or meets someone new – most people have gotten her name wrong, and Keith showed that in her performance by repeatedly spelling her name wrong and by using question marks to take the place of some of the parts of her name.

What I did not expect was Keith’s linking of her self-identity to her name. The question of “What is your name?” became a question of “Who am I?” for Keith in her performance – and in her life. As you could see during the performance, Keith looked both confused and frustrated, especially when she sat down and looked at the incorrect spellings of her name and when she tore them down, respectively. She turned her canvas, with the question mark on it, over, revealing a mirror into which she looked and determined who she was. With confidence and determination, Keith tore down the papers covering her name – each name having a design relevant to its origins.

Although Keith and I both used the blackboard, I did it to symbolically show that I want to teach languages sometime in my life. I tried to show this, also, through my use of audience participation by literally sharing my love of languages with the class. I believe that the one major difference between the two performances was that Keith’s showed a more confused and frustrated person – until the end, that is – while mine showed someone who was confident in himself for the performance’s entirety.

There were some similarities in both performances, however. Both performances contained a sense of suspense as the audience tried to determine what was the point of our performances, what Keith’s full name was, and what I was writing on the board. And finally, during our performances, Keith and I turned our backs to the audience for the most of the entirety of the performances, showing that our self-portraits were personal to us and isolated.

-John Wetmore, Blog A