papeetepatrick

I like what he said. The stage comes in later. No, it isn't, and it could well be just the thing to force the level up.

I've never seen them, and have decided to go see most of the exotic things around the corner from me at the Joyce. Below is the Joyce website describing the programs. I believe I'm seeing program B, although I know nothing of their repertory, so it's going to all be the same to me. http://www.joyce.org/calendar_detail.php?e...3&theater=1

Indeed, and although I consider myself well-read and -educated, I haven't thought myself 'up on a lot of those blanks' until relatively recently, and still not all of them! including some of the basic ones. I hadn't even read the first two plays of the Oedipus Cycle till about 6 months ago.

Mostly agree, and do think she 'comes right through the camera'. The exception I would want to point out, which I think is pretty obvious, is in the film of 'Appalachian Spring'. Not only was she not statuesque enough to do the Pioneer Woman herself and seem the one partially immortal character in the dance, Turney clearly dominates the film, perhaps along with Stuart Hodes. Graham is marvelous as the Bride, but she is obviously old and has lost some physical flexibility--not that I don't think her Bride is fantastic, I do. But I think, at least in that film, that Matt Turney quietly and without surely thinking to do so, dominates and owns that filmed performance. Whether I would think this onstage I'm not sure, so do agree with D. Jowitt in her film that 'the camera loves her', referring to Turney--just guessing, but Turney so incredibly beautiful both of form and grace of movement, I can't imagine not adoring her euqally onstage--would give anything to have seen that live back then. I also saw Virginie Mycene (I believe that's the name) in the Bride in 2005, and thought she was quite as powerful in the role, if not more so, that Graham. But it is true, I can't imagine anybody inhabiting roles like Jocasta or probably Herodiade, although she's not on film with the latter, as does Martha herself. She didn't try to escape from the horrible things as fast as others do; she could stay with pain and agony long enough to capture it, at least that's how I see why she is so great at the tragic roles she made for herself.

I agree, it's a little late to develop genius at something you've already proved you're not. I'm not a big fan of any of the Martins works I've seen, although some of it has been okay, that old 'Valse Triste' that I saw Patricia McBride and Ib Anderson do. But that probably had to do with the dancers (I saw them do it maybe 3 times.) Otherwise, I can't think of a single Martins work I actually was moved by, although they are not really so much offensive as just pedestrian.

Yes, I've watched this innumerable times, and I think that he is especially so tender and coltlike (with some of his gentle leg movements, I should know what to call them by now, but don't, mainly when the leg is lifted but not so high to the rear). I have seen Nacional Ballet of Cuba do it many times back in 1979 at the Met, and they were exquisite. But there, I remember the corps as being the most perfect part of all.

Oh yes, now it comes back from some of the discussions I've recently read, including an old documentary with Herzog back in 1982. He even calls all of what we usually call 'nature' as 'obscene', meaning he focusses on the killing that occurs. I never had thought of nature that way because that never stops even when you can keep from seeing any of the carnage--say, it doesn't seem obscene necessarily to kill things to eat (even if it's just plants, much less a steak) in quite the way it seems 'raw' at the butcher or at the slaughterhousses or just in survival of the fittest. I'm going to see if I can find the name of that Herzog piece, I'll put up the clip. Yes, this is very interesting for those who haven't seen it, Herzog on the Obscenity of the Jungle.

http://english.cri.cn/4406/2007/09/30/1441@279514.htm There's the painting itself that is then set in motion. And that link has a very good background text for anyone interested, regarding a performance by this group in the Forbidden City. It also clarifies the peculiar website remark, which made it sound like the 'bon vivant' Xizai was fighting corruption by living a dissolute life (that was new, I tell you, I hadn't heard that), rather than giving it up to become a wandering musician. Still. a bit hard to understand since most of the 'play', which it is called in the above website, is concerned with aristocratic refinement. There are tea ceremonies throughout, at the beginning there are ceremonies in two different groups on either side of the stage, so that I thought of Bart's 'watch Chinese dance carefully', since no matter how carefully, you literally couldn't ever see all of what was going on onstage, you had to look back and forth, learn what stage left and stage right mean all right. Finally, you just gave in and relaxed, because there was no way even if you had two heads and four eyes that you could take in all of what was going on because so much of it was brand-new. 1) There were 6 sections, I believe it was in the 5th that you see the instrument that is in the painting, I am sure meant to look exactly like that one, and possibly the same kind of ancient 1000-year-old instrument. It is at that point that one of the women first sings--you hear no singing until toward the end. She then sits and also plays this guitar-sized instrument as she sings for a long time, and which includes dancing by the lead dancers. 2) During the early tea ceremonies on the couches, two of the beautiful girls come to the front of the stage and are at either end, one is very slowly and carefully arranging chrysanthemums (two only). All of the movement of arranging is extremely slow and careful, sometimes objects are moved for no apparent reason except to have them arranged somehow more desirably (but these are not something you could no outside the secrets of the art itself). 3) What the review says about not being able to see the women's footwork due to the long dresses is not quite true, you can see something of them, and the men's robes are almost as longe. What I was remembering about Graham's 'Frontier' is that that dress is still a little longer so that the extraordinary movement that Martha or whoever dances it (I believe Martha is filmed doing 'Frontier', but I've never seen that film) really does happen without any feet visible at all; they are obviously very tiny movements that would be possible without tripping. When you see the men's feet move here, they are often simply twisting both feet to move, not an especially beautiful look when you see the feet, but allows the height to stay the same and without any lifting of the leg. 4) There is, in the 3rd or 4th section, a long passage with both 'tea drinking' sections on either side of the stage still going about their revelry, while the most prominent female dancer and one of the important male dancers are dancing center stage in front and behind them in the center are five women playing flutes and other wind instruments. These are again seated on stools which are covered by their dresses. The Playbill notes call this 'pure flute music', but it was not only flutes, also other wind instruments like Chinese versions of oboes or clarinets, one has to research these to know exactly what they were. 5) Stunningly beautiful pastel and sherbet-coloured costumes for the women, even more ineffable than the kinds one sees in ballet to my mind, the colours are a bit lighter still, the sea-blue-green of the lead female dancer is a startling delicate shade and she has sleeves that hang out at least a foot from the end of her fingers--oh yes, lots of tapering, delicate fingers, we're talking about the kind of refinements that would exist in tandem with footbinding and some of those other extreme things we have learned to think are little too extreme and decadent. 6) Toward the end, there is some unison singing of most, but not all, the character, this is always the same pitch, the men exactly an octave lower. In fact, I think all of the music was a single line at all times, no matter what instrument was being played, although when the 'foot drum' was being used there was variation in the texture of the playing, tthe timbre and intensity of the speed of rhythmic values. 7) At a distace, you could not see the feel of the women moving from backstage at the lowest part of their dresses, so they did seem to just float in a lot, and sometimes this impression was fully conveyed even onstage. Sometimes, there were percusssion blocks which the dancers would click while dancing, and they would make slow clicks with these or make them as richly sonorous as maracas in the sense of a continuous sound in which rhythmic values had been completely dissolved into a texture or timbre. 8) Since most of the dancers played several instruments when they were either dancing or seated, I was slightly horrified to be reminded of that revival of Sondheim's 'Company', in which the instruments were played by the characters (to atrocious sonic effect IMO, not to mention everything else I loathed about that production), and this was a weird thought, because it was like two opposing ends of the universe. 9) The NYTimes review Bart linked to talked about the 'gentle conveying of emotion', but I didn't think of the emotions so much as just what the movements and sounds conveyed as movements ande sounds. That review did not really do much justice to something that is this foreign and rare to audiences almost anywhere. 10) There were occasional 'performances within the performance', which were followed by delicate applause by some of the other seated dancers. They 'clapped' in aristocratic fashion, which reminded me somewhat of the very slow way the British Royal Family applauds, in that slightly absurd, overly slow way, although theirs is not especially delicate, but it certainly is largo. This kind of aristocratic applause was much more graceful, and yet not nearly so weirdly plodding as when you the Queen and Prince Philip applauding as in 2002, there was the Jubilee, I believe. 11) In the 5th Section, there is an even more elaborate tea ceremony, at the front of the stage. The most ornamental-looking of the 'perfect figurine-faced' girls worked with the tea things as two others watched her on each side, for at least 25 minutes. This kind of extravagant time was quite impressive, not boring at all--although there was no way you could no what all of the movements of objects was about, why they were significant. You could 'see the secrets' that were part of all this--orf course, you couldn't know what the secrets were by their very nature, but you could sense that the work was full of secrets. Well, these are some of the 'sweetmeats' you get from this exquisite company and this exquisite music and dance ensemble. There are miracles throughout, but part of it is the truly natural, totally non-contrived blending of dance and musical instruments, because the same figures are able to do both--and at the highest possible level. I hope others will be able to see them in other cities, and I certainly would go to see them many more times. It is like being in a trance for two hours, and you don't resent the lack of intermission at all. This has the look of a lengthy report, but I assure you I've barely scratched the surface of what even an inexperienced eye as my own was with such an unfamiliar art. It was unforgettable. The Joyce, by the way, is especially good value for a lot of things. It might as well be noted that they may well not be selling any better for other companies than they did for this one, and PNB will be there soon. But these $10 'partial view' seats are not nearly as bad as what is called 'partial view' at Lincoln Center. Your eyes are at stage level, but you are in the front row, and then you can move back. I can't imagine a better ticket than what is available at the joyce and will probably go to one ot the later performances of PNB when they are here in the coming months.

That's interesting to say 'nature is terrifying and anti-God', since there's not only 'indifferent nature', which most modern thinkers talk about a good deal and goes nicely with agnostiicism in its more specifically appealing aspects (say, as in a desert if you're not in a life-or-death situation, once I experienced something like this at Santa Cataline, and other times at the ocean. It's a strangely soothing version of giving up one's attachment to the self or individuality). What do you mean by 'having a problem with the great outdoors?' do you mean as in agoraphobia? because the great indoors isn't that much better, or rather they both can be good. I like the line 'nature is Satan's church' just hearing it out of context, although it doesn't sound particularly groundbreaking however useful; it made me think 'Satan is nature's church' as having quite as much validity. Then there's 'Mother Nature', if you want to add some other elements within the misogyny talk around this film (which I haven't seen, and am not attracted to do so especially at this point). But of course nature can be 'terrifying', but with 'indifferent nature' there does seem to be a powerful force in it that is more neutral vis-a-vis God, I suppose Von Trier is saying something specific about nature being 'anti-God', but I don't see how anybody could get very far talking about Nature as 'anti-God' or 'pro-God'. If so, what would be 'pro-God' and 'anti-Satan'? Church? In other words, what was Von Trier trying to say specifically in his pronouncements about Nature in particular? because Nature is unquestionably neutral, no matter what anybody says.

I just finally looked through the Playbill, which I'll transcribe onto here parts of later, but I'm just going to put entries in part, and keep letting it bump up. Too much needs to be said for me to have time to type it all up at one time. I did just notice that Jennifer Dunning saw this group in 2003, and wrote 'I try never to use the word spell-binding', but sometimes nothing else will do. Yes, 'spell-binding', 'breathtaking', a 'fully-realized dream you live in for two hours', things like that. At the same theatre about 19 years ago, I saw the Cambodian Dance Theater, also an opulently produced evening of superb Asian dance, and i believe violinconcerto and I discussed this some about a year ago, but the music was not so integrated with the dance, in that these dancers also play all these instruments (and the variety of wind, string and percussion instruments begins to seem endless, as if one large electric-guitar sized stringed instrument all of a sudden is a much smaller and different one in the hands of one of the women players, and seemed to appear there when you weren't looking--and you can never see all of what is going on at one time in this almost diorama-effect they have with different movements happening in all parts of the stage. We are not talking about, at least in some cases, extremely athletic dancing (although some of the men's is, and it's not quite as arresting as the women's movements IMO), but there is not a hair out of place the entire evening, there is total dedication, up to the levels of what is required in Peking Opera or any of the other great arts, western or eastern, including the greatest ballet companies. Just to start with a sample, and then I must stop for the moment (I have a LOT to say about this incredible evening), there is a moment in which five stunning women go to the front of the stage with drums, that resemble bongo drums or congas, I'm not sure exactly, of course that's not what they are, I don't know what they are. They sit on stools (and all the stools they sit on are almost always shrouded by their gorgeous, incredibly subtly-coloured dresses, so that you don't have to see the stools) and quietly place the drums in front of them. Then they all take off their left shoe and place their left foot on the drum, it becomes part of what controls the sound of the drum. Then there is a lead drummer, with tiny drumsticks, and she starts, and you think, I'll be able to keep up with when the others make their entrances, but the hypnotic spell is so intense, they just seem to enter until finally all are playing, AND they are all using and moving their left foot to control the PITCH of the percussion sound. Now this is just not something I've ever seen anywhere. I am trying to recover from this, and also the outlandish reason I even knew to see it: if I hadn't postponed my dental appointment because of some business with one of my book collaborators, I wouldn't have happened by the Joyce and seen this was there. It is like when I saw the Hallmark Hall of Fame when I was about 7, they did James Hilton's 'Shangri-La' (lost horizon, of course), and this was like finding it again. Note to self for next post: what bart pointed out in review about the footwork of the women as compared to Graham's use of something like this in 'Frontier'.

Easily one ot the greatest evenings I've ever spent in a theater--almost indescribable in its rarefaction, exoticism, refinement, elegance...things so exquisite and rare you'd never imagine them at all. But I'll report, listing things, so as to keep myself from getting too fulsome, and it's going to be bad enough as it is. But the theater only 1/3 full, I imagine this was anyone's one and only chance to see something like this. Even the $10 tickets the Joyce has aren't bad, but you could move back into the pricier seats the minute they closed the doors. Perfect for me, but sad since they deserved much better attendance than that.

There are dvd and vhs available of 'I am a Dancer'. I'm glad to see it, even though not like a live performance or even filmed stage performance. I think it's inspired the way Ashton used the Liszt Sonata, and am crazy about the piece.

He's taken no such vow, but is a poseur. I've been reading him and discussing him with theorists and philosophers for over 10 years--but once in a while he'll have an idea. He's primarily a good 'intellectual trendy'. After 9/11, there were three Verso books commissioned by big 'cyber-names' and philosophers--Virilio, Zizek, and Baudrillard. Zizek's was easily the most appalling. With every new book, he grabs attention by contradicting himself and saying, more or less 'isn't that adorable the way I can play with my own foibles, or whaever you'd call them?' In making things more 'accessible', he often just makes them different and therefore false. I liked him at first, but by now I don't believe a word he says. It's just posturing. Baudrillard did a lot of posturing too, but the method by which you make huge messes in order to find some diamond in the garbage would work for him; he was not the careful and fastidious type of thinker, but every now and then he's come of with something. Zizek stole tons of his ideas and cheapened all of them, especially as regards the hyperreal. Then he contradicts what he last said because he hadn't believed it to begin with. Anybody can 'look theyv'e taken a vow of poverty'. I can assure he has taken no such vow, and feels free to polemicize everybody and his brother. He also has no decent understanding of art, and one of his most idiotic fugues is crap about how art outside its original organic context no longer has any value--typical, because of course it lacks some of its original environmental power, but Zizekians will often tell you that Micheleangelo doesn't mean anything anymore. He's on his way out, though. The 'object-oriented philosophers' are the buzz by now, and they're not paying much attention to Zizek, he's paying attention to them. And what's so great about a 'vow of poverty' anyway? So he can criticize rich people? The point is, I know he's got dough anyway, and can always get more very easily. He's way beyond some ordinary tenured academic like even Jameson (thought I don't mean he's wiser.) Also, talk about 'the loss of culture' is about as convincing to me by now as 'the end of history'. This is just the 'darkening tones' talk of the leftist media theorist, and they've been doing that for decades. I dont' buy it.

Zizek is IMO an ultimate charlatan and fraud. He's shrewd, but he's always got his eye on the trends and will say anything With a little change in the materials 'Soros' has 'given' or 'lives ruined' and slight change to a smaller audience, what he says of Soros is surely true of him. His followers spend all their time guessing what tricks are up his sleeve now, because he is a master illusionist and I don't think serious at all, just very media-savvy and well-educated. His old theses on the 'virtual' are repellent beyond belief, like the stupidest caricature of the much better work done by Baudrillard, and with none of the science of even a nut like Ray Kurzweil, with his Singularity and desire to live 5000 years. Zizek exaggerates everything until it's worn out, then notes that it's worn out, and figures out something else 'the entertaining philosopher' would find profitable. Of course, the comparision ends there. He doesn't consider himself 'rich', so his 'philanthropic contributions' don't even need to be written up. He makes plenty of money from his lectures and has a minor audience for his new books, churned out yearly. They even let him write terrible op-eds in the NYTimes. This is mostly off-topic, but I think that, even though goods ought not to 'ill-gotten' (everybody would say that), almost all of them can be traced back to some kind of exploitation, so it's not worth giving to much credence to except in the most extreme cases. Maybe Phyllis McGuire's Sam Giancana money put into her Las Vegas mansion was not exactly a philanthropic use of funds, but lots of the big industrialists are entirely responsible for enormous giving to the Arts, and this is just part of how life works. The imperial and royal courts throughlut history all stole and exploited from poorer souls, but there would be no ballet without them. So, I'd say 'Everybody has to somewhat vile'. this surely includes ALL property owners, but I'm not the one that has a problem with that. If others do, then they ought not to have houses, etc.

Unbelievable thing to have to hear. He's no such thing, and is just as generous as dirac pointed out. There needs to be all sorts of funding, and that means MONEY. This always includes wealthy private individuals, and it has always needed them. This is so obvious it really seems ridiculous to even have to say it. For one thing, they even want to fund these things. We are not at some ashram with 'living off the land', and most of us who even made a little bow to such things gave that collective crap up long ago.

bart--thanks for putting the review there, which I hadn't even looked up yet! I discovered this in that least likely way, just by passing the theater yesterday and being mesmerized by what this might be. This happens to me very seldom, but it was just something I couldn't resist, and so I got a ticket and will report back. From the review it looks like the ensemble does mean live musicians as well, which will make it a thousand times more wonderful than would recorded music.

Can't wait to see this, but since will see final performance, wanted to put this up so others may perhaps go. I am really looking forward to hearing the music, as I love this sort of thing. Cracked up on how the website describes the plot 'depicting how the politician protested government corruption through his decadent lifestyle.' Time for a Dillettantes Anonymous, eh? THE HAN TANG YUEFU MUSIC AND DANCE ENSEMBLE NOV 3-8 (fall/winter) Watch the famous ancient painting of The Feast of Han Xizai come to life by the Han Tang Yuefu Music and Dance Ensemble. The Taiwan-based company recreates the traditional Nanguan music and Liyuan dance of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), with sumptuous costumes and sets by Oscar winner Tim Yip (Best Art Direction, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). See the dancers and musicians enact this legendary story with subtle drama and refined elegance, depicting how the politician protested government corruption through his decadent lifestyle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/eu...;ref=obituaries Probably a lot of people didn't know he was still alive all this time.

I recall reading something right at the time of his death, and think I remember Von Aroldingen got maybe five of them, but this is relying on just that one memory. I believe I heard her say something about this on a video (it may be on 6 Balanchine Ballerinas--no, that's not it, she's not one of the 6, can't remember where I saw it, she was teaching in a studio in it). Someone recently discussing something about Farrell said she was left two or three, didnt' they? The usual suspects will know for sure, I'm just putting this here to see if I remembered anything correctly.

This is being talked about everywhere now, by my friends, on all the blogs, etc., and someone just mentioned something I already knew but I'd forgotten about it in the flurry of analysis that has appeared. That is that Von Trier has not been to America and wants to make art about it from that vantage point. This does not ever interest me, no matter who is doing it. John Updike's novel 'Brazil' was also written without his ever having gone there, it has his usual skiill but I don't buy it. In this way, I am an extremist and maybe you could say Place Fetishist like Joan Didion, who says 'Places are all I get. There's nothing to me without place'. I am just not interested in someone's 'imagined real place'. Let them go there. My own books about Los Angeles were written after many trips there, and the one about New York after living here 40 years. That doesn't mean everyone would think I got it right, but I wouldn't write about places I hadn't been to. DeLillo's writing about New York is not only because of his talent, but because he knows the real place. There are many bright people who don't have a 'sense of place', especially younger people, and in fact, places are becoming decentered through various processes. I'd be interested to know about this aspect of Von Trier from those who've seen it (and other films), including those who've already commented, to the point of how he perceives America from the vantage point of not having been here. The other themes I have enjoyed reading about (from almost innumerable sources by now) and are important, this is just a thing I have personally--I want something of the Real Place as well as the mythical place. And I don't think you can ever get the Real Place without going to it. I do know that there are other places that I have lived in, though, as Paris for a year, that I don't know how to write about except in brief fragments.

I need to watch it a second time, but there is one moment when Farrell does falter a bit, isn't there? I tend to agree with you that it is not a role I think of her in, and don't even find her temperamentally all that suited for it, although she's lovely--perhaps not quite sylph-like enough by then, by 1982 there was already some putting on weight sometimes; someone pointed that out in 'Mozartiana' when she was doing it then, but I thought it looked good and maybe even slightly Germanic, in the best sense, in that role. But here she is supportive, and I like her better as The Star, because she knows how to do that better. But I think Mofid, of whom I never even heard until this clip, is what this is all about. Also, you mentioned Martins's height, but that wasn't so important in this ballet, is it? At least in some parts it definitely is not. But I do agree Farrell is not shown to best advantage in this clip, however she may have danced it in previous years (even decades, if it goes all the way back to CCNY). I do think she proves her integrity in a very explicity way here by knowing that her role is not the defining one.

I'm a bit slow on some of those lexicons, but I'm glad you said it; because narcissism has to be exuded, but the term 'icy narcissism' is very apt for Martins, and may well apply to him at his best--it makes you so you don't see the obvious bourgeois which he usually embodies if the energy isn't enough. It's why I like some of his dancing, but not nearly to the degree I love Villella's, and others. And the faun, of course, has to be anything but icy.

LOVE this clip, thank you so much for finding it and sharing it. To take nothing away from Mofid, Martins did have an icy narcissism that seemed to come naturally to him (I'm just sayin'...). But could he do the Kiss like that? I was knocked out by his movement toward her face, because there was plenty of narcissism where that came from, so could Martins really come out of it briefly the way Mofid does? Enquiring minds want to know from those who saw both. I really don't see Martins as physically 'the faun', although I'm sure he was fine. Not hidden enough, nothing 'woodlands' about him. Martins is dazzling, extroverted and rather prosaic-ordinary--in no way a secret, poetic, rarefied creature.

I don't think American actors look 'plastic' except on the daytime soaps, where they seem to have been worked on really well for that hyper-gloss look, and are somewhat interchangeable. But I don't know British cable shows that well. Interesting points, though, in other areas, about superiority of American cable drama. Surely The Sopranos didn't go for plasticlook. Also reminded me of the news presenters. I have noticed when watching Italian and French newscasts that they, esp. the Italian, do want EXTREMELY attractive people, like that goddess on ITN a few years ago (may still be(, Maria Luisa ? , can't remember whole name and Beatrice Schoenburd on France Deux (used to wear lovely sleeveless dresses in warm weather, unlike thos hardlooking suits in hard blue and fire engine red worn often here by Margaret Warner, and perhaps started back in the Clinton days with Hillary and Madeleine Allbright.

Yeah, and in fact I don't always even think of her when I think of 'The Great Ziegfeld', but I do love the movie--it's what I'd call 'a gorgeous movie', although I only saw it once.