Avant Garde
Ok, I'm going to try and fill in a bit of the past 5 months...
FIVE months since I've regularly posted... While these few posts may make it seem like I've done a lot, all I can say is that they have been very disappointing personally. (In that I've disappointed myself.)
One of the benefits of being in a place like London is the possibility of meeting people on the cutting edge of art, academia, science, politics... Read the biography of any important person and they seemed to know everyone else who was interesting, talented, or intelligent. Whenever I got to the Bricklane/Spitalfield market on Sundays, I am always a bit jealous of the people there DOING things. Fashion design students from Brazil/Japan/Italy selling clothes that look pretty cool, artists selling paper flowers encased in plastic resin, DJ's and musicians playing at the clubs that have been thumping through the night...
But as for me, I don't seem to know these sorts of people, let alone people who will someday write books, run corporations, or design skyscrapers. So where does that leave me?
I DID manage to cut the edge of the cutting edge however. A friend of mine is studying stage design at the Central School of Speech and Drama. It's not the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but Laurence Olivier and the Redgrave sisters attended.. and lets not forget Carrie Fisher.
In any event, I went to see a 'site specific performance' and it went something like this:
I walked into the main theater and waited in line. Eventually an usher came out and asked a group of us into an elevator. We took it to the top and walked past a girl reading War and Peace out loud. Then we walked down a hallway bathed in red light, to the left was a large picture window, out of which could be seen some Asian girls in red silk dresses doing tai chi. We were then led out of the building.
We walked through a huge open space past the Chinese girls towards a large fountain that resembled a swimming pool with a half inch thick sheet of water flowing towards the "deep end". There were some college girls splashing each other in it.
We walked past a homeless guy into the atrium of the library. There were several "librarians" checking in books, and several more pushing book carts around the room. All of them were moving frantically, and finally dropping books all over the floor and yelling at each other. All of a sudden, red paper parachutes were falling from the balcony containing messages like "Life is all about suffering," and "I want a lover I don't have to love." Finally they instructed us to all enter the stacks.
Up in the stacks, the tables were all covered with sheets of paper covered with verses from the book of Genesis or pornographic pictures. A woman dresses as the typical (non-Wiccan...that phenomenon only seems to occur in the US) librarian was saying, "Will you take this if I give it to you," and of course handing out apples.
Then another librarian handed out slips of paper with call numbers on them... despite the fact that I'm describing this all matter of factly, it was all rather disorienting at the time. So the audience was divided into two groups on balconies facing each other and overlooking the atrium.
Looking across to the other side, they seemed to be watching some of the scenographers set up books like dominoes - On our side, something entirely different happened.
At first a cadre of librarians started "cleaning" the shelves... the were acting coyly and smiling and winking at the men. Next thing you know they were aggressively frotting the guys... the most frottage I've gotten lately. Then they started removing their library clothes and were wearing S&M type gear underneath. They were dancing on the tables and stripping one guy. Then, all of a sudden, they all stopped and adopted dour faces. The "head librarian" said, "GET OUT".
Everyone quietly filed out...past the circulation desk with "librarians" sitting on it miming as if sailing a ship (one was holding a office chair upside down as the ship's wheel).
Outside a woman was walking with huge bouquet of red balloons which she started popping. Suddenly, a homeless man stood up and smoke started coming out of the (outdoor) stairwell he was sitting in and he went on a rant about loneliness and oppression.
Next we were directed back to the fountain which was now crisscrossed with hundreds of strands of red elastic, which we were directed to weave through (in an inch of water). At the other side, there was wine.... It took me awhile to figure out that was the end, since I am NOT that avant-garde.
While my first instinct was to ridicule, and I WILL ridicule the fact that most of these actors want to be the next Colin Farrell or Angelina Jolie rather than to explore the human condition via drama, and they are practicing stripping and rehearsing for "Candid Camera" (I suppose I mean "Punk'd", but I'm old).
On the other hand, it WAS somewhat thought provoking, and even clever dealing with the relationship between guilt, knowledge, confusion and sexuality....
FIVE months since I've regularly posted... While these few posts may make it seem like I've done a lot, all I can say is that they have been very disappointing personally. (In that I've disappointed myself.)
One of the benefits of being in a place like London is the possibility of meeting people on the cutting edge of art, academia, science, politics... Read the biography of any important person and they seemed to know everyone else who was interesting, talented, or intelligent. Whenever I got to the Bricklane/Spitalfield market on Sundays, I am always a bit jealous of the people there DOING things. Fashion design students from Brazil/Japan/Italy selling clothes that look pretty cool, artists selling paper flowers encased in plastic resin, DJ's and musicians playing at the clubs that have been thumping through the night...
But as for me, I don't seem to know these sorts of people, let alone people who will someday write books, run corporations, or design skyscrapers. So where does that leave me?
I DID manage to cut the edge of the cutting edge however. A friend of mine is studying stage design at the Central School of Speech and Drama. It's not the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but Laurence Olivier and the Redgrave sisters attended.. and lets not forget Carrie Fisher.
In any event, I went to see a 'site specific performance' and it went something like this:
I walked into the main theater and waited in line. Eventually an usher came out and asked a group of us into an elevator. We took it to the top and walked past a girl reading War and Peace out loud. Then we walked down a hallway bathed in red light, to the left was a large picture window, out of which could be seen some Asian girls in red silk dresses doing tai chi. We were then led out of the building.
We walked through a huge open space past the Chinese girls towards a large fountain that resembled a swimming pool with a half inch thick sheet of water flowing towards the "deep end". There were some college girls splashing each other in it.
We walked past a homeless guy into the atrium of the library. There were several "librarians" checking in books, and several more pushing book carts around the room. All of them were moving frantically, and finally dropping books all over the floor and yelling at each other. All of a sudden, red paper parachutes were falling from the balcony containing messages like "Life is all about suffering," and "I want a lover I don't have to love." Finally they instructed us to all enter the stacks.
Up in the stacks, the tables were all covered with sheets of paper covered with verses from the book of Genesis or pornographic pictures. A woman dresses as the typical (non-Wiccan...that phenomenon only seems to occur in the US) librarian was saying, "Will you take this if I give it to you," and of course handing out apples.
Then another librarian handed out slips of paper with call numbers on them... despite the fact that I'm describing this all matter of factly, it was all rather disorienting at the time. So the audience was divided into two groups on balconies facing each other and overlooking the atrium.
Looking across to the other side, they seemed to be watching some of the scenographers set up books like dominoes - On our side, something entirely different happened.
At first a cadre of librarians started "cleaning" the shelves... the were acting coyly and smiling and winking at the men. Next thing you know they were aggressively frotting the guys... the most frottage I've gotten lately. Then they started removing their library clothes and were wearing S&M type gear underneath. They were dancing on the tables and stripping one guy. Then, all of a sudden, they all stopped and adopted dour faces. The "head librarian" said, "GET OUT".
Everyone quietly filed out...past the circulation desk with "librarians" sitting on it miming as if sailing a ship (one was holding a office chair upside down as the ship's wheel).
Outside a woman was walking with huge bouquet of red balloons which she started popping. Suddenly, a homeless man stood up and smoke started coming out of the (outdoor) stairwell he was sitting in and he went on a rant about loneliness and oppression.
Next we were directed back to the fountain which was now crisscrossed with hundreds of strands of red elastic, which we were directed to weave through (in an inch of water). At the other side, there was wine.... It took me awhile to figure out that was the end, since I am NOT that avant-garde.
While my first instinct was to ridicule, and I WILL ridicule the fact that most of these actors want to be the next Colin Farrell or Angelina Jolie rather than to explore the human condition via drama, and they are practicing stripping and rehearsing for "Candid Camera" (I suppose I mean "Punk'd", but I'm old).
On the other hand, it WAS somewhat thought provoking, and even clever dealing with the relationship between guilt, knowledge, confusion and sexuality....
posted by akrites @ 10:15 PM
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