|
sbyrne's friends
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 18 most recent friends journal entries:
|
12:51 pm
lionofgod
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/4390350/960460) [Link] |
Google maps goes galactic!
I just found this cool toy:
http://www.google.com/sky/
It is not quite the star map I was looking for, but it's a really fun toy full of gorgeous astronomical pictures. I figured I probably am not the only person who's never seen it before.
Current Mood:  pleased
|
11:52 am
lionofgod
[Link] |
Halloween musings
I'm really looking forward to Halloween in a place that might actually get trick-or-treaters. (To the point that I'm considering doing a little bit of decoration, not so much because I'm enthused about it myself as because I remember how amazingly cool the house with the smoking cauldron was when I was eight.)
I am, however, totally stymied on costumes. ( Costume musings )
Also, I am pondering Halloween parties. The weekend of the 25th is out. I am considering an actual Halloween party on Halloween-- it's a Friday night, which is perfectly doable if I plan the food carefully-- but will anyone want to actually show up *on* Halloween? The parents with kids presumably will be doing Halloween activities with them, and I doubt I'm the only one who loves handing out candy. On the other hand, having a party on November 1st feels, well, cheesy. Halloween is over. I can still do a party, but I'd feel a little silly making it a costume party. And at that point, I might as well wait a week until people are less partied out.
Anyone got a preference?
Current Mood:  thoughtful
|
|
04:06 am
nakor
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/5427308/86479) [Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
09:25 pm
wystel
[Link] |
on dancing and sincerity
Martha Graham’s father told her when she was very young that the body never lies. As a dancer, I have often wondered whether this was true. After all, it would seem that one’s ability to lie through one’s actions is essential to dance (no, that doesn’t hurt. Yes, in fact, I can fly. Also, I am not I, but a flower. Or Clytemnestra.). On the other hand, it also seems that one can ask different truths in different contexts—perhaps not the truth of the miseries of the flesh in the moment of performance, but a truly musical impulse or a true emotional arc. One of the joys of performance—the most sincere joy—is that of intensely inhabiting the present. In rehearsal, the action is always directed towards the future, assessing what has occurred with the impact it may have on what will happen when others are watching—the “real” is always ahead, movements and motives plotted and revised and refined, but not experienced in themselves. In performance, the object of all foregoing analysis arrives: the striving is abandoned, and all that remains is a deep consciousness of being.
(From this, I am tempted to define sincerity as a renunciation of power, a willingness to give up control of our own self-definition and the various ways we exert ourselves to establish it)
(Behaving sincerely is a different thing: feigning interest in people’s babies, pretending to have critical reasons for my research when in fact it only exists for my own diversion. Real sincerity dwells in those ugly moments, responses to appetites, anger. Behaving as the kind of person we would prefer others to think we were)
This past weekend, I performed the same piece twice, an ensemble piece called “Tanagra Goddesses,” choreographed by Jennifer Sprowl in the style of Isadora Duncan. The idea and the beauty of Duncan dancing is that it is both meant to be “natural” and “free,” and yet conform to a classical ideal (the “tanagras” are poses inspired by several Greek statues of women behaving (again) naturally—adjusting their tunic strap, fixing a sandal, carrying a vase, etc) (thus an artifice at least to the third degree—life into art, art into dance, dance back into “life”) (to say nothing of Duncan’s idea that American modern dance should be inspired by ancient Greece). Jennifer wanted the piece to read as a vignette of goddesses relaxing behind the temple, thus, a scene of leisure that still intimates the formality of ritual. The piece opens with a tableau: all of us gathering in apparent conversation. Before the matinee, we actually began talking in our poses, becoming so engaged in the topic that we were still talking as the curtain opened. Lapsing into dance, we had a kind of contact during the piece that we had never achieved during rehearsal. However, during the evening show, when we should have been more relaxed, we were instead more tense: could we replicate the experience? Of course the second you begin to think in this way, any hope of achieving a sincere performance is gone—the pure present isn’t possible with the expectations of the past looming over it. We tried chatting again behind the curtain, but the interval between setting and curtain seemed interminably long; the forays into conversation never transcended (the dreaded!) small talk; we were tense and self-centered; in short, in my opinion, it was a failure.
And yet—is it fair to ask the dancers if a piece “succeeds” or not? Those who should judge are in the audience. The verdict on sincerity: apparently it isn’t apparent.
|
04:04 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
04:05 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
11:58 am
wystel
[Link] |
now onto other things
performance this weekend -- in the suburbs -- with a group i just couldn't take seriously. up at 6:30, on the bus by 7:30, train at 8:40, elmhurst at 9:30, theater at 10. and the day hadn't even begun. a "dress rehearsal" right before the show, then two shows, one at 2 and the other at 7, which meant hanging around in the middle of nowhere (as far as i was concerned) for hours between shows.
and yet -- i found myself enjoying it in spite of how much i hated the commuting and felt unchallenged by the material. these were not hard pieces (technically or intellectually) and okay, so there were only about 40 people in the audience for the matinee -- you finally get absorbed into the work, and even a dingy auditorium with a rock-hard stage gets transformed briefly into a garden. or a cave. and suddenly those hours of idle time mean that you finally get to know these people (one girl boasted about how she's constantly winning prizes for her dancing -- at bar mitzvahs -- another described working as an extra in an upcoming johnny depp film -- a third was dancing in new york before her husband got into acupuncture school here... and were you aware that you can get free clothes from victoria's secret and express if you know how to use your coupons properly?).
was tired and irritable by the second show (from the waiting, not the dancing), but it wasn't awful, either, and got a ride home (!) so was back by 10:30 with more flowers than i've ever gotten in my life for any occasion...
(and still in my mind is the dance i rechoreographed as a solo that i did at the experimental station the week before -- was horrified to see that the entire room was made of concrete (or cement. what's the difference, anyway?)) -- music from a boombox rather incompetently jockeyed -- still, spontaneous and charged. which i prefer)
|
11:41 am
wystel
[Link] |
just to get this out of the way
after the "job seekers" meeting on friday (humiliating in more ways than this one), my suave adviser is chatting up someone from comp lit whose project is on china. he has just been to china, you see, and he is therefore very interested in it. (i am just hanging around waiting to remind him (again) that could he please please update his letter for me to reflect graduation and all that and so am not listening). suddenly they are talking about suicide in chinese literature. he notices me for apparently the first time and turns to ask me, "what about in korean literature? is suicide common in korea?"
me, rather icily, "i am not korean."
(him: "oh. well, do you know the answer?")
(for the record, we have known each other for SEVEN years by now, and he directed my dissertation -- which, by the way, was in the ENGLISH department -- and the other thing is -- i am american. or chinese-american, if you want to get into details)
|
|
04:06 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
04:04 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
06:12 pm
bester
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/38980639/96421) [Link] |
No comment...
Current Mood:  amused
|
04:04 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
02:06 pm
wystel
[Link] | so i said yes.
|
04:02 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
04:02 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
04:01 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
05:20 pm
handofluke
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/36406306/8572612) [Link] |
No rest for the music fans...
( Elvis Costello! )
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: The Daily Show
Tags: concert, music, review
|
04:04 am
nakor
[Link] |
Tweets for Today
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
sbyrne's Friends Page