Rahm Emanuel, the chief-of-staff-elect, is a former Joffrey Ballet scholarship student.
Tag Archive for 'The Political'
Wow, look at the streets of Harlem two nights ago. The Lower East Side was nothing like this, though there was a great deal of honking and small groups of people pumping their fists in the air and cheering as they passed you on the street. And people who didn’t know each other hugged in the subways. Which of course is not exactly how New York is often perceived. But looks like Harlem had a regular street party!
See a slide show of around-the-world reactions to Obama’s victory. Photo of Kenyans watching the election copied from Huffington Post.
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
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In the subway stations, and on the train everyone is wearing these little bashful smiles like they can’t hold it in. I’ve never seen the city quite like this.
Although, sad thing, but as I got home to my neighborhood and saw several people asleep on the street, bundled up in building alcoves, it was a sobering reminder of how much he has to deal with now. Then, a homeless man asked me for money — seemed not to have even seen the election, or known there was one.
Obama giving his acceptance speech
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He is, right!? I’m not just really drunk, right!?
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People in bar are nicely applauding mccain though.
Screaming and honking in ny streets
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As cnn declares obama winner.
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I haven’t been this excited in 16 years!
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For friend alyssa’s election / b-day party. Need to be around alcohol and friends just in case…
My neighborhood was nothing like this! At least not mid-day and I don’t think the line was that long in the morning…
Hehe, speaking of Mr. Marshall, I remember 16 years ago celebrating with him (among others) the results of another presidential election. We were both grad students in the same program. Ugh, 16 years ago… Anyway, hopefully hopefully hopefully we’ll both feel like celebrating again in a few hours…
It’s almost time for results to start coming in, you guys!
Great thing having a view of your voting place from your window! I was able to wait until there was no line (early afternoon) and sprint down there.
Ooooh, nervously excited…
Can they come up with something better than having Kym show Warren how a man (in the form of Nick Kosovitch) dances a Foxtrot? These producers have got to come up with some more entertaining filler here!
Warren & Kym: Oh goodness, can you say tense?! Poor Warren: he did not look at ease at all with that Foxtrot! Until he did that teensy tiny jazzy little barrel turn. Then he seemed to come alive. Unfortunately it was all the way at the very end. He was musical and had the rhythm down and all the footwork was good — even did well on those fast-footed grapevine steps. He had the rise and fall too. It just lacked polish and most definitely character.
Susan & Tony’s Paso: ditto for Susan, except without the musicality. Actually, it was there, mainly because Tony was leading her. Notice how Kym will trust Warren with side-by-side action, not always keeping him in the close handhold. The better dancers can take care of themselves out there. But the weaker ones need to be led a bit more. But Susan is sweet and she’s trying. She didn’t follow through with all of her lines though; it looked like she stopped everything a bit short, going on to the next move before she’d finished the prior one. I noticed it mostly with the little dips. She’d let him take her down, then be pulling herself up before she’d finished her lovely leg line (or what should have been such). It’s something I used to do too all the time, though, particularly when nervous. And the long red and black dress, while gorgeous, was too much for her little body; it engulfed her. I know it’s Paso, but she could have had a short dress and just a light bit of fabric in back for a cape.
Maurice & Cheryl’s Cha Cha: best routine of the night so far. Very rhythmic — rhythm’s just in the man’s body — awesome body rolls and hip swaying and circular hip rolling / almost Samba-like action. And notice all the side-by-side / solo dancing. And he’s a very good partner for her. He was very strong in those dips and stretches; she really threw herself out there and trusted him to hold her. Looked like he had a bit o’ trouble getting through her legs there on that little floor trick toward the end. But who cares; he’s so much fun.
Cody & Edyta’s Viennese Waltz: AHHHHH, I LOVE him! He’s a gawky teen trying hard hard hard to be a polished gentlemanly ballroom dancer and I love him so much for trying so hard and taking this very grown-up competition so seriously! Darling boy! What a cutely serious face he had on, huh! Well, he had that footwork down, and he was moving pretty fast in lots of circular floor patterns, with a partner, often in close handhold — so he did damn well and deserves big kudos for that. His lines need LOTS of work — particularly arms. Keep those fingers together! Eeee!
Lance & Lacey’s Rumba: Well, my very first Latin teacher, the excellent Mr. Kelvin Roche, used to play that song (I think it’s called “Wonderland” right?) for our beginning Jive classes. Because it is a jive — a very slow one, and hence perfect for learning the dance. It wasn’t a rumba at all. It was fun though but I totally agree with Len about the shoes. You wear the shoes with the heels (high for ladies, Cuban 3/4 inch for men) to pitch your foot forward to put your weight on the ball of your foot, so that when you put your heel down, your weight tends to shift at the hip. So, he was flat-footed and hip-less. Which is not rumba. I’ll give him the arms though — those bolero-like above-the-head full sways from the shoulder to the fingertips were lovely. And he followed through with the movement, and had nice, full lines. Best arms of the night.
Brooke & Derek’s Foxtrot: Oh, very nice, very elegant. She looked like a real dancer. Not quite as fun as Maurice, and so my second favorite of the night, though I understand the judges’ giving her three tens. Very beautiful lines — I agree with Carrie Ann on that. Lovely how he carried her across the floor in the splits. It was a very basic routine, but basic Foxtrot is hard, and she kept in proper close frame well, and she had the rise and fall, and just overall looked very glamorous and in character. I love the little kiss-blowing. Nice 40s hairstyle.
Okay, now onto these (new to the show) team matches:
Team Cha Cha (Susan, Lance, and Cody & partners): cute. I mean, so these team comps apparently are basically the three couples dancing one at a time with a tiny bit of team work with formations and synchronization. During the brief bits where they all danced together, I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be moving in unison each doing the same steps or if each couple was supposed to be doing its own thing. Carrie Ann seemed to think they were supposed to be in unison. Anyway, Susan looked tense, and hence stiff, again — poor Susan, I think her nerves are really getting to her, and whose wouldn’t when you’re basically the one woman dancing alongside Edyta and Lacey! I agree with the judges that Lance and Lacey were best, most on and rhythmical, but I also like Cody’s effort and stage presence.
Team Paso Doble (Brooke, Maurice and Warren & pro partners): this one was much better, clearly the winner, though Len is totally right about it being much easier to keep formation in a slower marching dance than a quicker-paced Cha Cha. Having said that, excellent formations and everyone was perfectly in sync during the group parts. And each couple was amazing — Brooke and Derek’s continuous pivot turns — badass!!! Whoa! That blew me away. The men were good too — Warren looked much more at ease here than in his Foxtrot earlier in the evening. His tough footballer attitude fits much better with the Paso character.
All in all: my favorites of the night are a tie between Brooke and Maurice. I think, unfortunately — because I like her personality a lot — Susan may be going home this week.
You guys, by the time we see the results we will have a new President. Eeeeee, I’m nervously excited…
If you haven’t already, make sure to read (and listen to) Claudia La Rocco’s excellent WNYC post containing interviews with several NYC dance artists speaking about the role of race in their work and how they view the election. She apparently came up with the idea to do the interviews after an angry back and forth between Time Out editors and readers over the fact that the magazine’s list of top 40 New Yorkers who’ve made the most impact on the city over the last decade is, as Claudia put it, rather “monochromatic.”
At least things are different in the literary world. Check out the list of recent Whiting Award recipients. Also, Galley Cat is doing a series of author interviews about the election. Here’s one with poet Douglas Kearney over harmful language used in political speeches. His upcoming projects sound very cool.
Hehehe, my friend Dea sent this to me. I thought it was too funny not to post 
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In line outside the met for rush tix to the new opera. Not too horrendously long…
Update: Yes, scored an affordable ticket in orchestra! Line wasn’t too bad — I was there for about 55 minutes altogether, and tonight is opening night. I haven’t been to the opera all that often and have almost never sat in orchestra, and this one is modern and about a pretty topical subject that interests me greatly, so I’m really excited. Muchas gracias to Alex Ross for the heads-up.
(picture taken from Ross’s blog)
Btw, I’ll be watching Dancing With the Stars late, and then I have a short story due mid-week that I’m obsessing over, so don’t know if I’ll have time to post on the show much this week. You guys have to let me know what happens and what you think!
(image taken from here)
Last night I was in Brooklyn, and, passing through the Atlantic Avenue subway station, I saw a group near the entrance to the Long Island Railroad registering people to vote. They were pretty busy. This, along with Counter Critic’s post today, reminded me to remind you all to register, if you’re not already. Tomorrow’s the last day in New York to do so for the upcoming election. Go here for info on how to do that; go here for other states.
I don’t have time to write a full review but yesterday I went to the Democracy in America exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory (Lex between 67th and 66th). It’s free and definitely worth seeing. Runs only through this Saturday though. Go here for more info.
I’d gone mainly to see Steve Powers‘ Waterboard Thrill Ride, which had premiered at Coney Island over the summer; I wrote about it here. There really wasn’t much to it; you put your dollar bill into the slot and for just a number of seconds watch a life-sized robot/puppet aim the spout of a flower pitcher at a supine man’s face, which was covered with a wet cloth. The water just kind of dripped out, as if he was delicately watering flowers. I’m thinking perhaps there were too many viewers and the water supply was getting low because I’d have thought it would be coming out a little more rapidly. Still, I found the exhibit pretty frightening and don’t know how Coney Island tourists could have found otherwise.
Here’s a how-to diagram at the entrance to that artwork. Someone graffiti’d it up and wrote on the top, “This exhibit is gay.”
There are a few other interesting installations too, most of them on the main floor in the big room. There’s one by John Hawke of a make-shift shelter constructed with wood. Inside are a series of journal-like entries and pictures documenting where all the shelter was placed — usually busy city streets — who all used it — people waiting for the bus, the homeless, people needing a little place to eat, especially when it rained — and how it was treated by police and other authorities — usually taken down, dragged out to the street.
There’s another exhibit, all of photos, aligning the side wall, by Greta Pratt. The pictures, taken throughout the country between 2007 and 2008, are of various pictorial renditions of the American flag — on bumper-stickers, on sides of buildings, on the cover of a magazine, on someone’s t-shirt, on someone’s mailbox, on the face of a grocery bag, etc. Sometimes the subject paraded the flag with intent, others seemed completely unconscious of it, just happening to don a t-shirt bearing such an emblem for the day. There are hundreds of pictures and it can take you all day to look at them. What I found interesting was that they show such an expansive view of middle America, one that is somehow neither ironic nor nostalgic, or perhaps rather a combination of both.
Third piece of art I had a very visceral reaction to was at the back of the ground-floor room, by Jon Kessler. A big installation involving numerous barbie dolls and tiny video cameras that were projected onto several TV screens aligning the back wall. Barbies (or Ken dolls, rather) depicted men at war, men being tortured. Just imagine all the things you can do with little plastic bodies to show the horrors… It was visually stunning, compellingly, thought-provokingly disgusting.
There are several video exhibits on the mezzanine and second and fourth floors that I found less interesting, except for one, by Carlos Motta, though I can’t say I liked it. The artist is a young Colombian man who shot a bunch of videos of Latin Americans talking about their governments. They are projected onto about ten or so screens throughout the room. On one screen, however, there is simply a starving dog looking desperately for food, nearly unable to stand up. He licks the dirt ground for water. It’s so horribly upsetting, and as a viewer sitting at a remove from the dog on the screen, you’re completely helpless to do anything for him, which is perhaps the point. A shop woman finally throws the dog a chicken wing, which he gobbles down, but still, he’s all bone and fur. It’s so upsetting.
I feel like there’s got to be something legally wrong with this kind of art — with hurting, sometimes killing defenseless animals for artistic aims. Human beings can make the decision to starve themselves for a movie, etc., but non-human animals cannot. I don’t know if Motta found this dog on the streets and just decided to film him, or if he starved the dog himself in order to use him for his little film, but it really shouldn’t be legal. Animal cruelty is a felony, at least in New York, and the artwork is being distributed here.
Plus, I’m not sure that watching a starving or victimized animal or human (the artist has done other projects on human victimization) really leads the average person to think, to be more compassionate. At least public executions in the past haven’t seemed to have that effect.
(photo by Nicole Bengiveno, from NYTimes)
Hmmm, this is turning out to be a bit of a drama. NYTimes chief Sir Alastair weighs in on Alexei Ratmansky’s joining ABT, as does Apollinaire Scherr, who points to this piece of commentary, one of the most interesting in my opinion, by Robert Johnson in the New Jersey Star Ledger.
Johnson is the first critic I’ve read who’s not head over heels in love with the choreographer, but one of his reasons for so being is that he seems to think Ratmansky has somewhat of a Communist streak. He says that during his directorship of the Bolshoi, Ratmansky tried to revive the company, suffering in the wake of Perestroika, by re-staging some successful Soviet-era ballets. Johnson asks what “red eminence” this programming might have. Ratmansky’s own work “Bright Stream,” set to music by Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovitch, and praised by many dance critics here (the ballet, that is, was praised, not Shostakovitch), Johnson calls “a disingenuous frolic on a Soviet collective farm,” then interprets Ratmansky’s latest “Concerto DSCH” which recently premiered at the New York City Ballet as a mockery of Imperial Russia, with Soviet revival style triumphing.
I unfortunately haven’t seen “Bright Stream” or any of these other Soviet era ballets, but of course am now dying to. I did see “Concerto DSCH” and didn’t interpret it at all the way Johnson does.
But, even if you can attribute these underlying, subconscious politicized ideas to the choreographer, which is a huge if, so what? Can’t someone critique the Imperial period without being considered pro-Stalinist? (Johnson reminds of the bloody atrocities committed by the Soviet regime) Has anyone ever seen Peterhof? It looks just like Versailles. Your first thought is, whoa, look at all this opulence, no wonder there was a rebellion. But in any event, can an aesthetic critique be interpreted as a political critique? I personally think not, but even if so, is this reason for threat? Aren’t we post-Cold War now?
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I found that part of the article a bit shocking in a McCarthyist kind of way. But I do have to say, I applaud Johnson for resisting herd mentality and offering the first real Ratmansky criticism. (He does have more bases for criticism; this is just the one that seemed most prominent to me. And, by reading James Wolcott, Laura Jacobs seems critical as well — I’ve got to get a subscription to the New Criterion!) In the end, I do have to say, with all I’ve read on Ratmansky this past week, Johnson most makes me want to run out and see everything I can by the man…
(photo by Jennifer Taylor, of “Bright Stream” from NYTimes)
Oh and, somewhat apropos of the critics jumping on the bandwagon thing, I just want to point people to an interesting discussion, begun by Claudia La Rocco (who is so awesome to comment here ) on fans versus critics down in the comments section of this post.
above photo from Fox News.
Sorry for the posting hiatus! It’s been a long time since I’ve gone half a week without blogging… There’s just nothing much going on in New York right now, and I’m trying to get a couple of writing projects done before the fall is officially underway.
Anyway, this post is about a piece of installation art that I didn’t actually get to see, but just read about via Claudia’s latest Culturist post. Apparently, artist Steve Powers had a small exhibit, called Waterboard Thrill Ride, out on the Coney Island boardwalk, among all the amusement rides and hot dog and cotton candy stalls. Like a peep show, you put a dollar into a slot and peeked through a small window covered with bars to see a couple of hooded “interrogator” robots perform waterboard torture to a robot dressed in orange prisoner garb, in imitation of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The interrogators pour water onto the prisoner’s head for a number of seconds while his body convulses and he yells out things like, “I think I’m dying.” On the outer wall of the exhibit is a cartoon of Sponge Bob having water poured onto his head saying, “it don’t Gitmo better.” Powers said he created the installation in part to make people aware of the controversial form of torture currently used by our military. The writer of this NYTimes article went out to Coney Island on the day the installation premiered and describes onlooker response.
Most annoying thing to me is that it only seemed to be up — by design not because of public response — for one week, from August 6-15. On the 15th, apparently Powers and a couple of lawyer friends subjected themselves to waterboard torture conducted by actual trained officers, in front of the exhibit. This is just the kind of thing I would love to have seen — both in terms of the art itself, how it makes its presentation, how it questions, how it fits within its surroundings — particularly these surroundings — and how the public reacts. It’s now moved to the Park Avenue Armory on the upper east-side, a private museum and collection of antiques that you need an appointment to visit. Seems kind of ridiculous to have a public art exhibit in a private collection, but apparently it is to be part of a larger exhibition at the Armory called Democracy in America, sponsored by the public art fund Creative Time, which will take place September 21-27. Go here for deets. Unfortunately, I likely won’t be in town that week. So, looks like I’m going to miss out. But if anyone goes, or if anyone saw it on Coney Island, please give your thoughts!
How I managed to miss the exhibit while it was here is another issue, for which I’m royally pissed at myself. I have GOT to stop relying on blogs and websites for all my info; I must return to good old fashion newspapers and magazines… And I mean hard copy. You don’t always see everything on the website; you’ve got to make sure you click on every heading, every subheading, every little box. It’s just not the same as flipping through actual, physical pages.
There’s a really good discussion going on over at Claudia La Rocco’s The Culturist about the Olympic coverage — people are even likening it to porn!
I couldn’t help get off on a tangent about male versus female gymnastics. During the last Olympics I remember going out to dinner with a group of my feminist friends and they were bemoaning how women’s sports are taken so unseriously by the public, giving as an example the prominence of the ’silly’ ‘girl-child’ sport of female gymnastics over the more ‘real’ sports of women’s softball, etc. — the team sports. I thought the criticism was so unfair given how incredibly hard those gymnasts work, and I couldn’t understand how anyone couldn’t be in absolute awe of them as they did those impossible-looking tumbling passes and balance beam maneouvers and flying-through-the-air vaults. On the other hand, I’d played girls softball when I was young and felt there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do that the women players were doing without practice. So, why were they privileging team sports — so popular in men’s athletics — over individual sports, which women tend toward?
These friends were all lawyers and feminist legal scholars and I thought it was in large part my love of ballet and dance that made me at odds with them over this, so when I read Claudia (NYTimes dance critic, if you don’t know her) liken the female gymnasts to Jean Benet Ramsey, I thought, oh no!
After watching the women’s gymnastics last night in comparison to the men’s the night before, I did see a difference. The men do tend to be older (20-25), the women younger (16-20). And of course for anyone who watched last night, there seems to be a controversy over the actual ages of the Chinese female gymnasts. The cut-off age is 16 in the Olympic year (so you can be 15 now as long as you turn 16 by December 31, 2008), but no younger, and Bela Karolyi, among others, is questioning that some of those Chinese girls are that old. They did look quite young, but Asians are generally smaller-boned than Caucasians, and, as commenter Meg on Claudia’s blog pointed out, intense athletic training can delay the onset of puberty.
Of course the issue with the delayed onset of puberty caused by intense athletic training (which I hadn’t thought of) is an issue in itself. I’d think that’d be the case with any sport though, including Ballet. Maybe that’s one reason why ballerinas tend to be so thin, and not anorexia… And of course you don’t want to discourage female athleticism; wouldn’t that be sexist if you didn’t say the same for males? Does intense athleticism delay puberty for males though?…
And why favor female athletes so young anyway? Because they’re smaller and won’t go out of bounds on the tumbling passes? Because smaller bodies can tumble higher and get around those uneven bars at more astounding speeds, without fear of hitting the floor? Because as Karolyi said last night, youth doesn’t have as much fear of failure? Why isn’t all this the same for the men then?
The Chinese girls did seem to have more makeup on than the Americans, and they did seem to be jutting their hips and pelvises out and making poses on the floor that we might deem too sexy for their young-looking ages. But Jolene pointed out that that may be a cultural bias, and I agree. I went to an African dance performance with a Ballet friend the other night and she couldn’t stop laughing embarrasingly at the hip and pelvic movement; she’d never seen African before and didn’t know what to make of it, other than laugh at it and feel embarrassment for the dancers. Maybe their style just isn’t something we’re used to. Jolene also pointed out that the makeup seems to be an American thing, and I agree. I rarely see Asian women wearing that harsh bright aqua eyeshadow, yet that was a real fashion statement here in prior decades. They know they’re on TV, the Olympics are heavily dominated by the American press, and they’re trying to be like us. Ironically, it’s backfiring.
Finally, we’re also hearing all these stories about how awful the Chinese are to their children — forcing them into the sport, making them stay away from their families when the little girls really just want to come home, in comparison to the American stories, where the families always insist they’ve let their children decide how much dedication they wanted to give to their sport. Let’s just keep in mind that we’re hearing this all from the perspective of the American press. They assume we’ll feel better about ourselves, about our losing gold medals to the Chinese if we believe our society is so much more just. Not that I don’t believe in being critical at all of other governments; I didn’t have time to write about it, but I attended a reading organized by the PEN American Center of works by imprisoned Chinese dissident writers on the night before the Olympics began. But let’s just remember that our press exercises its own form of propaganda.
Okay, I’m done blabbering! Have a look at Claudia’s post and the responses.
I love this post by Counter Critic. Jacob’s Pillow (the esteemed summer dance festival held in Massachusetts) accepted his friend’s work but then asked her to delete some parts because the venue at which the company was to perform was deemed “for family.” CC covers all the bases: what is “family,” why accept a work then ask the artist to censor herself, why are adults even so hysterical over their children hearing the word “sex,” etc. Taylor mentioned she was attending a discussion tonight held as part of the New York Fringe Festival on issues involved in gearing dance performances to “families.” I wonder if this kind of thing will be discussed…
Here’s a brief OpEd piece I wrote on the trial. Please feel free to comment on Huffington too if you wish — if you can figure out how to log in… I can’t stop thinking about the case; there’s so much to say, so many different aspects from the legal issues at trial, to all of the individual people involved, to the larger social issues…
Here’s another perspective that focuses on the legal history of officer acquittals. On a not unrelated note, here’s an interesting article about race and the death penalty. Thanks to Capital Defense Weekly for both links.
For people (like me) who like historian Howard Zinn, he’s got a new book coming out, this one a history of the U.S. in graphic novel form, which will be followed by a movie, starring, amongst others, Ben Affleck. Thanks to Maud Newton for the info.
I am so sick of the way the media is making the Democratic race into a race and gender war and the terms they’re using to construct it falsely. All I heard all night was that Clinton won among “women” while Obama prevailed among “Blacks.” What exactly are Black women then — doesn’t this language kind of negate them? Just when my blood was boiling over it, the reporter added, “oh and a footnote, a footnote: Black women voted for Obama by …” (whatever the percentage was). “A footnote”? How insulting.
While I’m mostly pleased with the Super Tuesday results, I am thoroughly disgusted by the media coverage, at least on network TV. They act like Hillary’s a big loser for not doing better, when, hello, she secured the most delegates and won the biggest states. On the other hand, the way they talk about Obama, it’s as if they’re patting him on the head, saying ‘good boy, good boy, you did really well, considering…’ Considering what? That he’s Black? That he’s young? It’s like he’s a child or someone with some huge handicap.
And right now on ABC some male jackass pundit is saying the Democratic party needs to decide whether it wants to be forward-looking, appealing to young people aged 30 and under, or looking backward to the good old days, appealing to the 60 plus crowd. Could the party possibly be both, dumbass? Ugh. Idiots. Okay, I’m tired and going to bed…
Happy Super Tuesday, everyone! And happy NY Giants parade, NYers
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!!! Okay, I can breathe again. Haven’t been able to do so for a few days now…
Sitting in the gay man section …
Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
Should be fun!
Update: Actually the whole theater turned out to be the gay section Mr. Parsons is very popular amongst a certain population… Hehe, I can see why; it was a lot of fun and he’s got some very good dancers in his troupe. His piece “Caught” appears to be his claim to fame. In it, a man frantically runs toward various lights shining down from above and dances underneath their heat. But then the lights leave him and focus on another part of the stage. At one point, strobe lights just begin flashing all over the stage, completely overtaking him, and he can’t escape. He dances, doing some amazing moves — continuous grand jetes, high twisty jumps — as the lights continue to flash on him. It’s an amazing visual effect — he looks like he’s literally flying, never coming down to the ground — and he must be very focused to be able to dance in all that chaos. I’ve seen things not unlike this before, but the audience was going completely nuts with applause. The guy next to me said to his boyfriend, “it’s worth the price of admission for that alone!”
Parsons also does some interesting things with the body, the male body in particular. His main muse appears to be male dancer Miguel Quinones, judging from the first program. At one point Quinones does these really jazzy barrel turns, where he kind of shakes and shimmies his whole body on each rotation. He doesn’t always gain as much height as a classical ballet dancer, but it’s incredible that he can move so in the midst of the turn. (I was sitting next to a critic — I think the guy from the New Jersey Ledger. His pen started going the same time mine did at those amazing turns ) At another point, Quinones did a lovely arabesque, but instead of remaining still, he did these body rolls, starting from his hips and undulating up through his waist, torso, chest, shoulders, then out to the fingers of the outstretched arm — all the while steadily balancing on one leg, the other beautifully lifted behind.
Anyway, I’m going to Program B as well, and I’ll do a write up after! They’re at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea through Jan. 20th.
Okay, gotta go glue myself to the TV — Oh my gosh, Hillary won, Hillary won, HILLARY WON!!!
…in giving this film an overall not so fresh tomato. And I mean second literally — everyone is raving about this movie; Lane (my favorite of all art critics) is the only one who hasn’t. Of course I’ve been looking so forward to seeing it, and of course that’s never a good thing, with me at least. With the exception of Alvin Ailey, it seems that everything I’ve looked forward to lately I’ve ended up being disappointed with.
Anyway, this is a graphic film, in French with English subtitles, based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoirs about growing up in Iran during the country’s political turmoil of the 1970s: first the displacement of the Shah, followed by the violent revolutionary war, then the oppressive regime of Khomeni. At the movie’s start, the Shah is being overthrown and of course there are all kinds of imprisonments and murders. Marji’s father and uncle are supporters of the revolution and the movie begins with them telling her (and us) in detail about the politics of the period, and why the Shah is bad for the country. To me, this is not only confusing but becomes very boring very fast: I like my narratives to be character-driven; if I want to know about the politics of a time, I’ll consult a history book. Plus, Marji’s only about four years old when they’re feeding her these views, so how much can such a young child take in anyway? Just showing Marji’s family and friends being taken away and not heard from again from her child’s point of view makes enough of a statement. But, fortunately, we only get this for about the first twenty minutes; then we delve more into the characters.
I think my biggest problem was that I couldn’t fully connect to Marji. Having learned from her outspoken grandmother and mother to speak her mind, she challenges her teachers’ authority when they spout political propaganda in the classroom, then flouts police commands to wear her veil on the streets. Fearing for her safety, her parents send her off to a French school in Vienna. But several other people, including her grandfather who is severely in need of medical attention unavailable in Iran, have been denied passports, so I was curious at how quick and easy it was for her parents to obtain the necessary documents. That’s never explained.
It’s at her school in Vienna where she reaches puberty and begins her studies in earnest, discovering major philiosophers and knowledge she’s been denied in her home country, as well as lipstick, fashion and boys. She falls in with a group of young French intellectuals, which seems to suit her well, she has fun going to parties and meeting new people, and she gets her first boyfriend. But she has problems generally getting along with people. Though most of the students at her school come from international backgrounds, she feels out of place as an Iranian. And her aunt, to whose security her parents had entrusted her, promptly and inexplicably throws her out of her house and into a convent. Marji doesn’t get along with the nuns and their strict rules, so she runs away and becomes a border at the home of an older woman whom she fights with as well. Then, most astounding to me, after surviving the horrors of wartorn Iran, witnessing bombs destroy neighboring houses and their inhabitants, watching relatives be hauled off by the police, and hearing of their murders, she ends up having a breakdown over her boyfriend’s unfaithfulness. In a fit of anger, she leaves the house where she has been staying, begins living on the streets, catches bronchitis and nearly dies — supposedly over the boy. In the hospital, she calls her parents and asks to return.
She returns to Iran grown, the war now over but the oppressive regime firmly in place: the police are everywhere making arrests if women don’t wear veils in public, if they suspect people of going to or coming from a party where there’s been alcohol consumption, if someone is dressed in too Western a manner, etc. etc. Her family organizes a sweet extended family reunion for her, but, having come of age in the West, she now feels disconnected from everyone she knows. She begins seeing a shrink (how middle-class, how American?…) who pronounces her depressed and gives her meds that don’t work. Eventually, she is able to pull herself out of it and begin an Art degree, but after police arrest her and a new boyfriend for holding hands in a car, she decides, at 21, to marry the man and give up her education. And this is where I really felt like walking out of the theater. After surviving all that she has, she makes so many ridiculously stupid choices: nearly killing herself over a cheating boy, getting married and giving up her education because she can’t hold hands with a man in public?… I can’t even understand what she’s doing back in Iran in the first place and I want to scream at her to go back to Europe.
Anyway, eventually a resolution is reached and the ending hints that Marji has been able to find a kind of peace with herself. I’m definitely glad I saw the movie because it does give you a good sense of what it was like to live in Iran during the reign of Khomeni. But as an examination of displacement, exile and identity, I felt it was lacking, that it didn’t hold a candle to something like Andrei Makine’s brilliant “Dreams of My Russian Summers.” When when when are they going to make that into a movie?! (Actually, I have no idea how they’d make a film out of that book — it is so perfect as a novel; I just want everyone I know to be exposed to it, and unfortunately many more people see movies than read…)
But having said all of this, Persepolis has been nominated and received all kinds of awards, and everyone besides Lane is raving about it (and he wasn’t that harsh, for Lane anyway; only said it was “simple”), so I’d be interested to hear what others saw in it, if anyone did?
Today I was invited via an email from the New York City Bar Association to a rally on the steps of the Supreme Courthouse in support of Pakistani judges and lawyers who have been dismissed from their positions, placed under arrest and some even tortured by President Musharraf’s military dictatorship that took hold on November 6th. To be honest, I’ve been so insanely busy lately, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t really know what was going on in Pakistan. One important benefit to being a member of the Bar!
So, earlier this month, Musharraf used his power as Army Chief of Staff to declare a state of emergency and suspend the nation’s Constitution. Non-government TV stations were shut down, as were all cell phone lines. Paramilitary troops surrounded the Supreme Court and all judges were dismissed, replaced by judges who pledged loyalty to the military regime. The President of the Bar Association and civil rights attorneys who protested the crackdown, among others, were arrested. Thousands others have been beaten in the streets, rounded up and arrested.
It was a good rally, organized by the New York County, City, and State Bar Associations, the Muslim Bar, Women’s Bar, and Amnesty International. There were several speakers, including the presidents of all organizing Bar associations and a man whose name I didn’t get but whose father is one of the currently detained judges.
To read more about what is going on in Pakistan, go here and here and here.
Last night I had my first Jerome Bel experience at Dance Theater Workshop in Chelsea. I went to see the latest work by the French experimental choreographer known for refusing to return the money of disgruntled customers, entitled “Pichet Klunchun and myself.” In the piece, which the program says is an exploration of “very problematic notions such as euro-centrism, inter-culturalism or cultural globalization,” Bel and Thai dancer Klunchun (who is brilliant, by the way) sit on chairs across from each other, Bel with a laptop on his knees. Bel first interviews Klunchun, asking him about his work, Thai culture, the type of dance he practices — “Khon” — a centuries-old Thai dance, and asks him to illustrate various moves. Klunchun then queries Bel about the same regarding himself. The first half of the program I found fascinating and I recommend that everyone in NYC go see it (showing through Saturday, the 10th) for that reason alone.
Khon, Klunchun reveals, began with a Thai king, who danced himself, and is a celebration of Buddha. The body is literally like a temple, the Buddha contained within both the center of the body and the center of the temple. So, arms legs, hands and feet, like Thai architecture, are shaped so that the energy flows out from the center, down through the limbs and rooftop structures, and is then re-directed back to the center, to the Buddha of the temple and soul. That’s why Thai dancers hold their hands and feet as such, which the fingers and toes splayed and flexed outward and upward. After he gives this explanation and begins dancing, you can really see the arcs of energy radiating out and back and out and back. Thai dancers practice flexing their fingers backward, and he shows us how. Ouch! Bel tried to flex his own, but to no avail. I tried as well, equally unsuccessful. It looks like it takes as much work as balletic turnout.
I found his this fascinating, along with Klunchun’s illustrations. At one point, he walks slowly slowly slowly across the room, showing how the spirit of a character who has died inhabits the stage (this after Bel asks him to feign dying onstage and Klunchun says he can’t; for a character to die onstage is for the king to die, for the country to die). Anyway, in his walks, the feet slowly lift from the floor, almost toe by toe, then the knee slowly bends, the leg rises, lifts, extends out, bends, the foot slowly drops to the floor, the step only ending when the last toe has touched ground. I can’t explain — you just have to see for yourself — but it was mesmerizing. His movements were so perfectly stylized down to the very last detail, so formalized, not a skin cell out of place. It really made me want to see the Thai dancer in David Michalek’s Slow Dancing films again, especially now that I understand the movement. He illustrated the four main characters of Khon: male, female, demon, and monkey — demon being his specialty; monkey he can’t do to save his life (my word choice of course; his language, like his dancing was very formal and ascetic). At first I couldn’t see the difference between the characters, but after Bel asked him to explain, I understood. Everything is so subtle. You have to watch really closely. And you will because it’s really so breathtaking in its simplicity. When Klunchun finally danced the role of a woman learning that her husband had died, I understood every movement, every discreet but articulated gesture to a tee. Beautiful! Bel thought so too.
Throughout Bel’s interrogatories, there were little culture clashes, most of which I felt were forced and contrived. Bel exclaims to Klunchun that Western dance (meaning ballet) also originated from a king — King Louis. But it’s a superficial similarity, of course, as, far from having the energy re-directed to one’s inward Buddha: the French king demanded that his court dancers have their bodies always turned not straight ahead, but toward him, thus the balletic turnout. “You direct your energy out,” Klunchun says at one point, demonstrating a very funny faux grand jete. “Out, out, out,” he said as he leaped through the air throwing his arms up. He was really quite an actor and could be very funny in his deadpan seriousness.
Then Bel turned the tables and asked Klunchun what he would like to know. After the exchange of some personal details intended to reveal cultural differences (Klunchun doesn’t understand how Bel can be unmarried and have a child, for example), Bel gets up and illustrates his work. He plays music from his computer. The song is “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. Bel walks to center stage and stands stationary, looking out at the audience, eyeing us left to right. After about a minute, he begins jumping around, breaking into an unsophisticated version of club dance. After another minute or two of doing that, he sits. Klunchun, playing the outsider / voice of reason asks him, basically, WTF?? (my words again). Bel explains that in France they had a Revolution during which commoners overthrew all of the royals, sparing no family members. Hence, long live the French principle of egalite. He is deconstructing the spectator / performer dichotomy, showing the audience that he is just like them, no better. “But why then would they pay?” asks the voice of reason. “Well, they sometimes want their money back, in fact,” says Bel. The audience erupts with laughter — clearly these are all Bel groupies in the know about his history. “And do you give it back?” asks Klunchun. “No.” You see, Bel explains, he is a “contemporary” artist — this means not ballet, not Swan Lake, not the Nutcracker. “Contemporary” means there can be no expectations, no preconceived notions. It’s in the present. The government pays him a lot of money to go out and do research on this present state of things, about which he then produces work. He walks back to center stage, throws a vase of pencils and other small object onto the floor, falls down, and pretends to fall asleep atop the objects. Not to sound like a philistine, but I really don’t understand what kind of research one needs to do in order to come up with this, Mr. Bel?
Later, Bel talks about the work I think he is most known for, “Jerome Bel,” in which a man and woman, both naked, come out onstage, stand, look down at their bodies, and begin scrunching together a role of fat from their waists, which they kneed up and down and all around, distributing the fat throughout their torsos. “The body is such a marvel in and of itself,” Bel exclaims orgiastically, “who needs movement!” With this piece, he says, he was trying to explore the bare essentials of theater. What better way to do that than by having a stage with no props, no costumes and hardly any light?
Okay, knowing me, this is the kind of thing I would have thought was brilliant — or maybe not brilliant but something I would have at least been into — when I was in college, so I do see where he has his followers. After last night, I have decided that I am not, however, one of them, if my tone hasn’t made that obvious. Having only seen this one piece of his, though, I could be missing something. Here is another perspective from someone I highly admire.
At the end, Bel has just finished sleeping onstage for several minutes to “Killing Me Softly,” when he gets up and begins to pull down his pants. “No, no,” Klunchun stops him. “I don’t, I don’t want to see you naked, Mr. Bel, it is not right.” “Why,” says Bel unzipping. “Because in Thailand, there are certain people you, you don’t share nakedness with,” Klunchun says visibly distraught. “But, Mr. Klunchun,” Bel snickers, “in Bangkok clubs, there’s lots of nudity.” “That’s different,” Klunchun says, averting his eyes, unable to hide a look of disgust, “they’re, they’re working.” “I’m working too,” Bel says with the tone of a high-schooler. “But in Bangkok, they’re working for tourists.” With this the Bel groupies moaned as if the skies had parted. The international trafficking of women as sex slaves has long been one of the most disturbing social issues to me, so this may well not be everyone’s reaction, but I found it completely insulting that Bel assumed that I didn’t already know the truth of Klunchun’s last line, that that was supposed to be a revelation to me as a white person.
Anyway, as I said, “Pichet Klunchun and myself” is totally worth seeing for Klunchun alone. Who knows, you may up enjoying the deconstructionist French guy as well. Go here for tix.
