When we attended the play, I hadn’t realized that staged reading meant the actors would not be dressed in costume and they would not really be acting, rather they would be sitting. I thought that this would end up hurting the play and that I wouldn’t really like it, but it did not detract from the play in the least.

The actors were very good in reading their lines and thoroughly portrayed the emotion behind what they were saying. Many of the questions that came up during our class discussion were answered during the play or afterwards by Stephen Garcia, the writer. The actors were very good at becoming the character they were intending to portray even in the case of little Joe, who was supposed to be 8 yrs old but was played by someone much older. I think this was a result of how well they immersed themselves in the role and acted and spoke in a way that hid their true personality.

Not only did they draw the audience into the play, the actors elicited many responses of awes and laughter. In addition, the monologues helped clarify the scene and shed light onto the following scenes. However, I thought the ending was very sad and I had wished it turned out differently.

The play was different than I had expected, but it was a staged reading. I wonder if my feelings toward the play will change when the actors are in their costumes and the play is actually acted out rather than only written.

For my outside arts event, I decided on the MET. I had never been to the MET and I had tried to go once, but unfortunately when I finally arrived they were closed and I never tried again. They have a wide array of different art pieces and so I thought this would be a great chance to look at any art piece that I liked. My favorite art pieces are those that have to do with nature so those are the ones that I focused on.

The first art piece that I liked was View Of Toledo by El Greco. The Gallery Label stated “In this, his greatest surviving landscape, El Greco portrays the city he lived and worked in for most of his life.” The reason this painting really stood out to me is the way El Greco painted the sky over the city. The sky seemed to act as a veil of darkness covering the whole city. In addition, the city seemed to get darker as you go more in depth. The grass began to die, becoming duller, and the whole painting became almost black as you go further into the painting. The road was winding into the painting. This gave me a sense of difficulty and hardship and a negative feeling of the whole city. It seemed as if the further you went into the city(painting), the more difficult it was to leave and the worse it seemed.

The next painting was a View Of La Crescenza by Claude Lorrain. The gallery label stated “In its immediacy and breadth of handling, this small picture recalls drawings that Claude made from nature in the environs of Rome.” I really liked this painting. It was of trees, hills, grass and other vegetation with a fortress in the background. Even though it was in the background, the main focus of the painting seemed to be the fortress. It was almost as if the fortress was welcoming but at the same time depicted safety from enemies. In the front, there were four trees however, they seemed to bend exposing a passageway to the fortress. This contrasted with the previous painting because it used mostly light vs. dark contrast.

Last but not least, I saw The Titan’s Goblet. This painting really stood out to me since the subject seemed so unusual. In the painting, there was a huge Goblet to the right, with a small sea in front of it and mountains in the background. The nature around the Goblet seemed much smaller compared to the Goblet. The goblet was filled to the top with water and it seemed very old since it was covered in vegetation and water was leaking from cracks in the goblet. Below the Goblet was a sea with ships. This “human world” seemed much smaller compared to the Goblet. The Goblet also seemed unusual in that it fit in but also did not fit in with the overall painting. The vegetation made it blend in with the nature in the painting, but since it was a Goblet it really stood out.

Overall, I really liked the MET and I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. This seminar really changed my perspective on art since I probably would have looked at each painting for less than a second before moving on to the next one. This seminar was not only educational but also interesting.

Thank You, Mr. Ugoretz.

P.S If you press the tittle of the painting, it will redirect you to a picture as a reference to what I am discussing.

I was pretty excited to go to Symphony Space because a. It was about food and b. it had people that I had actually worked for (David Cross and BD Wong from Law &Order:SVU).

Unfortunately, I was not so excited about the traffic that day, which unfortunately resulted in me missing part of the show. I hadn’t realized that we would be hearing stories though, but after hearing in class that it was for a radio show, it made a lot more sense.

Overall, I did like the experience. I noticed that the person reading the story and what type of story it was determined my level of enjoyment. my favorite reader was David Cross (maybe because I really enjoyed his movies). I think the way he read the stories brought it to life whereas some stories were not as good, maybe because I didn’t understand them or the topic didn’t really grasp my attention. I also realized how much detail they put into their stories. When your looking at a painting or watching ballet, there are very few if any words. In the storytelling, they needed a lot of detail in order to help let the audience visualize the scene. This really made me think of how a picture paints a thousand words, which I definitely think is true.

All the events we’ve gone to have really changed my view on art and I’m glad we had this seminar. I’m looking forward to seeing how peopling of New York will impact me.

The Ballet Theatre was another good experience through the seminar. It was my first ever time to watch ballet and I hadn’t expected to like it, because it seemed dull to me..however, it was not at all. I liked all three ballet performances and each one had some aspects that really appealed to me.

In the first performance, Theme and Variations, I absolutely loved the costumes of the performers they really caught my eye. It also seemed to me that it focused alot on the emotions and dance compared to the 2nd performance. It also seemed like the Metropolitan Opera, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in that both showed a romance between the main characters. However, in the ballet performance they used dance as a means of communication, where in Midsummer Night’s dream, they used opera. I also noticed that the moves were very refined, that is compared to the third.

In the second performance, I noticed that unlike the others it had a storyline. The stage, clothing..etc all looked like part of the performance. Instead of acting with their voice, the characters used dance to portray what they were thinking. I liked how there was more of a defied purpose to the second play than the others, but I found the dancing in performances 1 and 2 to be much better. I did however really like the part where one of the female characters began to use ribbons.

In the third performance, the costumes changed drastically. They seemed much more less fancy than the 1st or 2nd performances but they still caught my eye because of the different coloring on both sides. I also noticed that the scene changed into a more nighttime scene. This performance seemed more of pure dance compared to the others. It also seemed to involve a lot more teamwork and a lot of difficult moves.

Overall, I found all three performances to have a different application of dance. I am anxious to see what’s in store next.

-Sorry for the lateness

Since I have never been to either the 9/11 or Vietnam memorials, it was definitely a different experience than reading about it in the textbooks or hearing about it in the news. Both memorials allowed me to connect to the events on a deeper level, but each memorial was different to me.

The 9/11 memorial had a much larger impact. It could have been due to the fact that 9/11 occurred during my lifetime, but I think what really impacted me were the two waterfalls. They immediately caught my attention and I began to wonder why they made the memorial consist of these waterfalls within waterfalls. In addition, the amount of names along the waterfall edges showed me the true magnitude of 9/11.

The Vietnam memorial, on the other hand, was a different experience. Not only did the memorial have a wall filled with personal messages from those in the Vietnam War, it also had a different effect on me. It seemed more personal but also not as personal as the 9/11 memorial, because it did not have the names of all those in the Vietnam war, only a few. It seemed to give a narrower view of the Vietnam War because there were only a few messages to base an opinion about it. However, these personal messages did allow me to connect with those who were in the Vietnam War, more than names can.

Overall, I think both of these memorials had a very large and different impact on me. They are, in a way, a remembrance of those we’ve lost and their sacrifices.