Author: karlacollaguazo

I have never had the chance to attend an opera before, which is why I didn’t know what to really expect as I walked into the Met Opera House on Thursday. I just knew about the background of the performance from what Alexandra told us the day before. As I took a seat and waited for the performance to start, I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for the next few hours.

As the curtains opened, I was amazed by the set. It was very detailed and grandiose just like Alexandra told us it was going to be. The costumes of the characters were all impressive and very beautiful. They definitely did go all out in the presentation portion of the show. Everybody was clapping and with every reason to do so. I like the fact that this performance was different from all the other performances that we have attended. The music was very appealing and the singing was also great.

Apart from all the costumes and amazing sets, the music was also my favorite part. I think the music evoked and highlighted a lot of emotions. The music never failed to fit with what was going on in the plot. The orchestra did a great job in making sure the music fit the mood of the performance. I remember Alexandra telling us that in an Opera the music was an integral part and without it there would be something missing. I can definitely see why she said this. Without the music, there would be a loss of emotions. The music helps the audience to feel what can’t be felt just from the singing portion of the opera.

All of the characters did a good job with their parts, but without a doubt the character that stood out was Liu. The person playing Liu definitely embodied her character and portrayed it well. The scene in the third act where she killed herself was my favorite. As a member of the audience, I felt the emotions she was trying to convey and I think that she was dramatic but to a good extent. The performers playing Turandot and Calaf were also good, but i think that they were too simple and could have developed their characters more, like Liu, in the performance.

Overall, I enjoyed the performance and it is my favorite from all the performances we have watched before. The sets were amazing and with the music, singing, and costumes, it all came together to make a great show for everybody to watch.

Andre Kertesz
The White Horse, New York
1962

I chose the photograph “The White Horse” by Andre Kertesz taken in 1962. I chose this photograph because I found it to very intriguing. The first time I glanced at it, I just saw horse on the bottom left corner and a person walking a dog on the top right corner. As I looked at it again, I noticed the shadow present and to me it seems like this shadow looks like a person sitting on top of a horse. I don’t know if this was the intention of the photographer but it is something very interesting that I noticed. I also liked this picture because there were two different elements to it. I liked how there was both a white horse and a person walking with a dog at the same time, separated by what seems to be a gate.

Compositionally, this photograph is strong because it uses counterpoint, the rules of third and positions the subjects correctly. The counterpoint can be seen in the different places that the two subjects are placed. The subjects on the top right corner are in the top third of the picture and then diagonally from those subjects, the white horse is placed in the bottom third on the left. This causes two focal points that are both equally important and placed at a proper distance from each other. The photographer also uses the rules of thirds when he places the tree on the top third of the photograph. This allows us to see some of the tree but not all of it which is better than having the tree seen for most of the picture. The photographer also positions the subjects correctly. The white horse is still and is not going to be moving anywhere in the picture. This is why there is not much space in front of the horse or on the back of it. The person and the dog are both moving subjects and because of that they have more space in front of them. This means that we can see that they will be walking towards something and not out of the frame.

Overall, this is a very interesting picture and I think that the difference in the subjects used contributes to that. The fact there is a horse, a human, and a dog present creates a very intriguing view of this photograph. I also thought that the use of black and white, makes this photograph more dramatic. I found this to be a very unique photograph since I have never seen anything like it before.

– Karla Collaguazo 🙂

The dance review that I read was titled “Blacka Di Danca Shakes His Way Through Borough Hall” by Siobhan Burke. I found this dance review interesting because I learned about the BEAT festival, which is something I have never heard about before. The idea of bringing performing arts to nontheatrical sites in Brooklyn such as parks, warehouses, and galleries is something I never knew existed or heard about before. I found this review very helpful and I noticed some of the aspects of a dance critique that Wendy Oliver mentioned in the reading. One of the things I noticed was the description portion of the critique. Burke says, “In the Nuh Linga (No Linger), the foot draws an S-shape on the floor while the upper body snakes and fingers snap. Down the Flank resembles the act of kicking a soccer ball and the Gully Creeper that of sneaking out at night.” Burke did a good job at describing certain steps and creating an image in my head of what it could look like. This was done really well and I liked how easy it was to understand certain steps and how they are carried out without even seeing them in person.

Another aspect of the critique that I noticed was interpretation. Interpretation includes the the writer’s personal views of the entire work or certain aspects of it in order to find the meaning of it. I saw this when Burke said, “The BEAT organizers aren’t always prudent in their pairing of artist and site; last year’s nocturnal performances in Green-Wood Cemetery, for instance, underutilized that locale. “Dancehall in Borough Hall” at first seemed like another mismatch, the bureaucratic vibes at odds with the dynamism of Blacka Di Danca and his sidekicks, Janelle Garvey and Aliyah Ali. But as they settled in for a 15-minute show, followed by a 45-minute class for adventurous audience members (the rest of us could just observe), the sterility of the space fell away. And it didn’t matter that only a few people were watching; a wiry, daring dancer with unlimited charisma, Blacka Di Danca can work a crowd of any size.” Even though Burke had his doubts in the beginning, after seeing the entire performance, he concluded that the overall dance performance was successful and he noticed that even though the place of the performance was odd it ended up working regardless. Burke also shows his final evaluation of the dance performance when he says “Excited to the point of giddiness by the history of his form, Blacka di Danca is keeping it very much alive.”

I can tell by the critique that Burke has looked into Blacka Di Danca’s style and his previous works. This helped him to be able to interpret the dance better and to come up with his final evaluation of the entire piece of work. Just like Wendy Oliver mentioned in the reading, I agree that a critique has to allow the reader to feel well informed about the performance even if they saw it in person or not. A good critique gives specific details but also gives general observations to better understand and visualize the performance being reviewed. I think that Burke could have possibly analyzed the dance performance more, but overall I do think it was a good critique in the sense that it allowed me to experience the performance even though I was not present.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner once said, “It seems as though the goal of my work has always been to dissolve myself completely into the sensations of the surrounding in order to then integrate this into a coherent painterly form.” Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was part of the German Expressionist movement which spread across Europe from 1905 to1920. German expressionism is said to be heavily influenced and even a form of Post-Impressionism, but there is a clear and distinct different between the two movements. Even though, both movements rejected the classic view of art, expressionism was all about expressing what came within the artist and interpreting the pieces of work through the feelings of the artist. Artists did not only capture moments in life but they actually put emotions and experiences of their own lives in their work for the viewers to interpret. The paintings “Self Portrait as a Soldier” and “Blick auf Davos” both by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner are examples of how an expressionist artist portrayed his own emotions and experiences in his pieces of art. Kirchner demonstrates this through the use of primitivism, vivid colors, and rough lines to portray his transition from an unstable and fearful mental state, depicted in “Self Portrait of a soldier,” to that of a relieved and serene one which is then depicted in “Blick auf Davos”.

I have never been to a museum on my own time. Every time that I have gone, it has been a school or program related trip. Now that I got a chance to visit the MoMa on my own time, it was a completely different experience. No longer was I being guided to a certain section of the museum or being told what I was looking at. I would usually just cruise around the different floors and just slightly look at the different art pieces without really acknowledging what was in front of me. After reading the Berger and Barnett chapters, I gained a lot of new knowledge on some ways to analyze art and interpret it.

One concept I used while I was looking at the art pieces in the MoMa was the concept of form and content. In the reading Barnett says, “such things as the size of the work, the kinds of brush strokes in a painting, and the surface texture of a sculpture – is part of the meaning (52-53). When I was looking at the different art pieces I did not just simply focus on what the painting had, but I actually also looked at how big or small the painting was and the different techniques that were used to make it. For example, while I was looking at the painting The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse by George Grosz, I did not just simply look at the man in the painting, but I went beyond that and noticed all the different details that the painting had. This told me that this painting was trying to express not just a man, but rather it was trying to tell us something more about the man with all the detail that was included.

Another thing I kept in mind while I was looking at all the different art pieces was that no interpretation of art is wrong. Both Berger and Barnett discuss that everybody interprets art differently and it is up to the person who views the art to interpret what is going on. Berger mentions that what we see is “the relation between things and ourselves (9)”. Therefore, he is trying to say that no matter what the artist’s intention is, the meaning of the art depends on the person viewing it and what the person can relate it to. For example, while I was looking at the art piece Retrospective Bust of a Woman by Salvador Dali I related it to the difference in gender equality and how women are seen as being less of men, so to me this painting had to do a lot with the role of women in society. To anybody else this does not have to be the case, but to me it is what it seemed like. This goes to show that art can have many different interpretations. The artist could have had a specific intention, but what the viewer actually perceives is what is important. While visiting the MoMa, I was very open minded and ready to see art through a different lens.

This performance was very intriguing. I had never been to a performance like this before and it was a new experience. Since the moment it started, I was trying to figure out what was going on. All the different body movements in the beginning were amazing. It made me wonder how much of it was choreographed and how much of it was just done on the spot. Either way, it was quite interesting. All parts of the body were used in this performance. The two performers, complimented one another on stage and it was amazing to see this. At times I would focus on one performer more than the other, but it was hard to ignore the other performer. It was like I had to multi-task and try to focus on both performers to get the most out of what they were trying to convey.

I was surprised by the stamina of the performers to keep up the show for almost an hour. They kept on going and never lost focus. I also found the calling out of the countries very interesting. I like how it went from very chaotic to more controlled and then chaotic and then a mixture of both. The overall theme of the overview effect could be seen at certain points and I was always trying to decipher how the different movements and actions showed it. The presentation of the overview effect at the end was also very helpful and it helped me to understand better the overall performance.