Author: myanez13 (Page 1 of 2)

I entered mainstage area for Scaffold Room not quite knowing what to expect, and I left it not quite knowing what I just saw but nevertheless sure that I did not enjoy it. Had I known what those 90 minutes held in store for me, I am not sure I would have had the willpower to sit through it.
But let me stop myself from being too dour right off of the bat- let me talk about something I did like. The two performers, whether or not I was able to follow what they were doing, were obviously very passionate about this performance, and very skilled as well. The stage presence that the first woman had when she was performing in the Amy Winehouse wig was undeniable; the way that the second woman danced around the space was energetic and certainly eye-catching. Every movement they made seemed deliberate and calculated, even a moment that should be as simple as stripping off ones pants or jumping on a bed. In addition, the impromptu dance session with the three men at the very end was fun to watch (the most fun I had in the entire duration, I might add). Despite not understanding the point of them and their routine, it was still entertaining to see them dance. With a background in technical theater, I was very impressed with the technical aspects of Scaffold Room. The projection of the videos as part of the multimedia aspect was well done, not taking away from the performer standing in front of us all but instead coexisting with her. The eponymous scaffold room itself was excellently crafted, if I do say so myself; the scaffold room was the only type of backdrop or set piece needed for the performance. At the very least, all that can be said.
Unfortunately, there is little else that I can praise about this performance. Aside from the three men dancing at the end, whose presence seemed to make no sense in relation to the rest of the performance, Scaffold Room was not a pleasant experience. It left me uncomfortable, and not due to it raising any unpleasant truths or serious questions to think about. It made me uncomfortable because it was hard to identify or follow along with any ideas within it aside from Hurricane Sandy, anal sex, and some man named Peter within the narrative. The piece either confused or bored me, depending upon which exact moment in time it was- and I know I wasn’t alone. Upon the occasional glance around the audience, I saw many people looking baffled or asleep in their chairs, only to be woken up by what had to be about two minutes of someone screaming.
This piece was either over my head, or just genuinely unpleasant. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to assume it was the latter. I did not understand nor did I enjoy Scaffold Room. I am sure someone out there enjoyed it, but maybe it was just not my cup of scaffolding.

Mary Yanez

Sally Banes, in her reading, sets the stage for analytic post-modern dance to be the natural progression in the evolution of dance, following post-modern dance that is. The post-modern dance was a hostile rejection of the definitions and limitation of dance; the next step would be to redefine dance after having expressed their distaste for the old constraints in dance. In analytic post-modern dance, the focus on dance moved away from expressing personal meaning. Rather than putting a personal meaning into the dance, it instead became focused on the movements of a dance- Banes described the focus on body movements as akin to being “goal-oriented”. The dances of this were not very high energy, but displayed a good sense of control over the body as well a more fluid movement (as opposed to the tense movements of other dance styles).

Steve Paxton was the father to the Contact Improvisation dance style, which emerged from the analytic post-modern dance era in 1973. Contact improvisation incorporates many aspects of the analytic post-modern dance, as the style did not have a personal meaning for every single dance. Contact improvisation was and continues to be about a dancer and their body interacting with another dancers as well as with gravity; it is about a focus on the way two partners spontaneously move together while keeping contact. The movements themselves were very fluid and not very energetic- from my time in the contact improvisation class, I was able to see first hand that the dance was like watching two people sliding over and against each other, rolling with the movements of the other. Just as the dance style encourages a more relaxed and free-flowing movement, it also requires one to be able to think kinetically; the entire dance is improvised on the spot, as the name would suggest, so the dancers must be able to take whatever movements their partner is providing and then react accordingly. All in all, Paxton innovated a dance style which fit perfectly into the era which spawned it.

-Mary Yanez

I chose the photo, “The White Horse” by André Kertész. The photo caught my eye due to the aesthetically pleasing nature of the image. In the lower left hand corner, the titular white horse is positioned behind a solid wall. In the remaining space of the photo is a tree which heavilty obscures a woman walking her pet. However, the pet and the woman have their shadows stretching far out from beneath the tree’s foliage. It is a fairly pedestrian image if you were to look at them all as separate elements; to put these all into the same image, however, just seems very striking to me.
With regards to the composition of the photo, I believe that it is very structurally strong. It follows the rule of thirds, as the horse, the woman with her animal, and their shadows are all well placed off center. The white horse is in the lower left thrid of the photo and, as the photo was framed, the eye is drawn diagonally up and to the right. There is adequate space left for the woman and her pet walking on a path through the picture, and there is even more space available for the eye catching shadows they cast to stretch out as well.
I plan on taking my photo with a solid understanding of the rule of thirds. To simply center the subject of a photo is dull and not particularly the most aesthetically pleasing way to take a photo. If the subject of my photo is in motion, I would make sure to position it in either the upper or lower thirds of the frame. There would be enough negative space ahead of them for there to be a visual path for them to follow. If the subject is not in motion, I would ensure that it would be positioned nicely off-center and in a more diagonal manner if possible, rather than dead center and perfectly horizontal or vertical.

Mary Yanez

Gia Kourlas’ review of “Tape” by Kenneth Kvarnstrom was less praise and more dissatisfaction for the dance piece. Kourlas comments on the theme of the tape in the piece, as a grid and series squares on the ground or that the live (not taped!) music played for the dancers. There are moments in the review in which one could mistake the comments for positive remarks and a sense of enjoyment. However, any such remarks are quickly followed by an off handed putdown. The dance is described as looking like a fabric freshener commerical, the cast being talented but ultimately no more remarkable than any other dancer or even the floor, and facets of the performance are referred to as “worse intrusions”. Even the term whimsy is being used with a sense of mockery; the musician playing instruments through the dancers is whimsical, a dancer telling a cake recipie is whimsical, an non-sequiter about almonds being a nut, the title of the review itself- it’s all so whimsical!
Now, the review does not follow much of what Wendy Oliver describes in her writing. There is very little semblance of an actual description of the performance in the review. As the reader, I had little to no idea of what this dance must have been like to watch except for that it was not very impressive. In addition to that, there is hardly any analysis or interpretation of “Tape” in the review. All that this review consisted of was the author’s evaluation of the performance, a less than pleased evaluation that stood on the borderline of mocking and insulting, and a garden variety of general observations about the performance. This review was enough to make me not want to see “Tape”, not because of scathing remarks, but because I learned hardly anything about it and so it leaves me with a feeling of apathy… perhaps, however, that is what Kourlas intended?

Mary Yanez

One work is arguably the most famous pieces in the art world, which people flock from all over the globe to see; the other is a postcard replica of the first work, only doodled on in pencil. These are the Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci and LH.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp, respectively. These two works could be said to lie on opposite ends of the artistic spectrum, considering how one is appreciated as a classic while the other one may as well be akin to… drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa. The two pictures are so similar, though, save for one small detail; what kind of significance could that slight difference really have? It is simple: the creation of the latter work challenges our perception of what art truly is and how we view it, which we can see when juxtaposed with the more traditional Mona Lisa for contrast. 

Mary Yanez

The two pieces of work which I have chosen to analyze for my paper would happen to be Leonardo daVinci’s Mona Lisa and Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. My initial reasoning for choosing these two specific pieces of art are pretty obvious, considering the blatant relationship between the two. I would say to take a look at the Mona Lisa, but it is such a well known piece of art that the image of it has been engraved upon our collective consciousness as a society. It is a famous image of that enigmatic woman, which is seen as beautiful, traditional art. L.H.O.O.Q. is the same picture with a goatee and mustache drawn on and titled with a rude, French pun. To put it simply, I find the latter work pretty funny and am interested in it; when you have to analyze something and write about it, I feel you cannot be bored with it, otherwise those who read your writing will be as bored as you were writing it.
In addition, it’s only fair to mention that comparing the two can lead to interesting ideas being drawn. The Mona Lisa is a timeless and classic work of art, whereas L.H.O.O.Q. was spawned by an art movement meant to spit in the face of traditional ideas of art, or at the very least make people question what it is that we consider to be art. An original and a mockery of it, the accepted and the revolutionary, the Mona Lisa and a postcard with a doodle on top: two pieces that are so aesthetically similar and yet so far apart in meaning.

Mary Yanez

For you to go to a museum of art, as I went to the Museum of Modern Art, to study the works found there, you must be aware of how to really look at the aforementioned works. If you do not know how to look at art without any knowledge of how to do so, all meaning and understanding of it will be lost upon you. The Barnet reading is a good source of reference to be able to look at art and question it in a way which would lead to understanding the meaning of works before you, as well as understand their significance. Continue reading