Two design dumps in one day… I must be getting selfish.

Here are some photos from the production of Eurydice. Photos courtesy of Aude Broos and Susannah Krewson (co-designer), directed by Will Steinberger, starring Jennifer Birnkrant (housemate) as Eurydice, Jack Stanley as Orpheus, Harrison Unger as Father, Matt Reese as Nasty Interesting Man, and Aude Broos, Nicole Holz and Emily Boland as the Stones. Lighting design by John Campbell, costumes by Violette Carb.

The following are Google SketchUp renderings of the set design for Penn’s iNtuitons Experimental Theatre Group’s production of Eurydice (by Sarah Ruhl), from the first designs to the last (before construction). I collaborated with Susannah Krewson in brainstorming and designing, and worked with an amazing set crew and dedicated master carpenter to construct the final product.

NARS’ Holiday 2009 collection is full of rich colors, sumptuous textures, and high drama. Smoldering eyes in autumnal and wintry hues dominate this collection, which is infused with a hint of shimmer and shine.

The Soft Touch Shadow Pencil ($24) is new to NARS, and I have a feeling it’ll be sticking around for awhile. The soft pencil has a creamy consistency, and glides across lids to deliver pigmented sheen. I really like Aigel Noir, a smoky, foresty moss. Those who prefer to go au natural will like Goddess, a fleshy, shimmery light pink. Skorpios, a glittering copper-tinged gold, will light up eyes during the holidays.

My favorite pieces of the collection are the new Duo Eyeshadows ($32) – the colors are just stunning.  Eurydice, Brousse, and Taiga are all amazing — I can’t pick which I like best. Mousson Cream Shadow ($21) is also pretty.

The Multiple in Luxor ($37) is a shimmery pale pink cream stick that works great as a highlighter on darker skintones. I know a lot of women use The Multiple as cream blush. Although this shade perfect for fair-skinned and cool-toned girls, it can get lost on these skin types because it’s very lightly pigmented; there’s barely any color to it. So fair-skinned girls, I’d skip this as a blush. But as a highlighter, it’s still a keeper. For darker-skinned ladies, this is a must; its sheer, shimmery pink is so subtle, yet will really make a difference in illuminating your face. Dab lightly on cheekbones, under brows, and down the bridge of your nose, and you will be glowing. Also looks beautiful swiped across the decolette.

I’m going to pass on the Velvet Matte Lip Pencils ($24 each), but girls who die for red lipstick, this is your bag. The lipcolor glides on lips smooth, is portable, and application has never been easier. Simply fill in lips with this pencil, and you’re good to go. For extra punch, top with gloss. I’d also recommend using a reverse lipliner, which is always a good idea when going red.

Finishing out the collection is Rouge Andalou nailpolish ($16), a gorgeous red flecked with subtle shimmer. This is the most classic red I’ve ever seen; the glossy candy apple finish looks timeless on nails. What better time of year to go for a spin with red? It’s sexy, fun, and alluring.

Hello All.

I didn’t abandon you, I swear. Between Eurydice, school and being sick (I was sick for 3 weeks, tech week through the end of show. That was fun.), things got crazy. But I’m back! I hope you’ve missed me as much as I missed you.

So Eurydice is over. It went exceptionally well. The audience loved us, reviewers loved us, and we got great press coverage.

Well…sort of…

Back flash to the end of October: A local journalist wrote an article about the show the week before opening night.
It had lots of pretty, colorful photos; our poster was on the cover of the entertainment section.  I looked good in those press photos!

But while the article wasn’t exactly slander, it wasn’t a compliment.
But I couldn’t be insulted.  There were pretty colors and photos (did I mention I looked good? Oh…right…)

For me, the insulting part was the comments that people left on the website with the article.
They were ignorant comments, but still hurtful.

After obsessing about the comments for a little while, I just turned my computer off and made myself forget about it.
After a few hours, I was over it.  Honestly, they’re pretty funny.  The banter goes on for 25 comments, and all the negative comments are anonymous.  Brave little critics we have.

But I now understand why celebrities are encouraged not to read magazines or reviews about their work.
Your characters aren’t you, but you put much work and emotion and dedication into them, that pieces of you shine through in these characters. If you’ve done your work correctly, you should pride in these characters. And to have someone dislike it sometimes feels like they dislike you.
I know that’s not fair – sometimes actors are good; sometime they’re not good.  But it’s a reason for why someone calling Eurydice a “Rusty old myth” would bother me.

We went on to get great comments from judges and a very nice review of the show in a different local paper.

As we closed the show, our equilibrium was restored: we survived the bad and thus were reward with good.

Now, on to the next: The Vagina Monologues!

Doesn’t seem like any of this is real, yet it doesn’t phase me, or seem at all out of the ordinary – Frank Sinatra and various other artists of that era playing from a loudspeaker across the street – Italian Market, Philly, PA – It’s the end of the century, my life so far a brief flare, a minuscule swelling, I am nothing though I wanted to be a star.

I went out last night – before going to the event design company – some Art school party. I seem to have lost the knack of having people avoid me – or maybe I ain’t so bad after all.

The voice of screeching, screaming obscene unintelligible anger seems to have subsided. Does this journal count as work? At times it’s all I have. Lying flat on a sheet of ice. Further to fly further to fall. A three-quarter moon floats above power lines. The day is beginning to end, the afternoon’s light has left the sky and I have only been up for little more than an hour. I am afraid, sitting here in fear, I don’t want to move, think, as long as I keep writing everything will be ok. Something might be creeping up behind me. Lingering in the corners of my range of vision. I must get something done – but late assignments like the coming of a flash flood that doesn’t rush at you unless you look at it.

Part of this: one of the reasons I once thrived on Art School was that it made me feel attractive – through V it became (my work?) something that caused me to lose her. But this is completely wrong.

All of first semester freshman year I did not really feel attractive or unattractive – just out of place – but better – or at least outside the entire bullshit art school reality. Who would have thought I would end up living with E_ from foundation section five (I think) and her boyfriend – in this state of fallen grace. I am a fetal worm recently dropped unwanted from the stinking slime of an unknowable mother’s genitalia.

I cannot work because I am afraid. What am I afraid of? What is it that I am so reluctant to face? The hours of unending pain, no, this is not fun anymore. I fear losing my identity. Spending hours working inefficiently mulling over a piece endlessly and really accomplishing nothing.

What am I waiting for? What happened to my acolyte identity, my hard working humility? I was thrilled to be out of the southwest, away from D_ and the past, thankful for everything. I’m now punishing myself. I am destroying the idol of E. Why? I am rebelling against my fate. I do not want to be king. I want to be loved as I am.

Now I am taking poor advantage of the opportunity I was once so thankful for – because of the one massive wall I have not yet scaled, sex, woman, relationship.

Whatever happened to doing art and working hard on assignments simply because I thrived on the work? Why does it now seem false, meaningless, empty? Why do I feel so out of place? Comfortable only in the company of literature and museums.. which would be fine if only that life weren’t so devoid of human contact.

Smashed me elbow in the bathroom earlier today, hurts like hell.

I hate it here. My entire life is ruined. I don’t have shit and people keep stealing my few remaining material possessions. I don’t like this freezing apartment. I wish we at least had heat – there’s a big hole  in the wall to the downstairs where a cold, nasty draft comes through because the electricians never finish. I can’t work, I just don’t ever seem to be able to get around to it. I’ve spent all of my money on prostitutes, booze and gambling, taking pointless taxicab rides to nowhere, creeping around abandoned monastery grounds in fishnet stockings, smoking opium and signing mysterious pacts with smugglers. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it thorough the rest of the semester. I need to do some very crappy work just to get it done, but I can’t get started on anything.

I am brittle, crystalline, new-born, innocent and afraid. I don’t know if I should be drinking scotch and smoking cigarettes right now.

No one has ever treated me as poorly and as unfairly as V – in this sort of deal – I wouldn’t allow it, I guess, but I let V – because I thought she was worth it – which she wasn’t.

But enough of that. Maybe I curl up in bed and read.
When I worked at Taco Bell in Flagstaff I was low, but I knew that someday, somehow, I would make it. I back down again, backed into a corner. I know that someday, somehow I will make it. Fuck all this shit that I’m going through now. Fuck it. I am stronger than this, stronger than every infected orifice echoing V. Stronger than her voice, her words, her presence tainting every breath. I’m infected but I will survive, thrive, I will be strong again. I will lift myself up out of this pit. I will not look back.

Only, I wish I had Antigone to help me on my way.

I have not yet known Eurydice…

Or perhaps I have – once long, long ago – years before now, long before Philadelphia, art school, my last mistaken attempt at a relationship.

The week goes by so fast – surviving Wednesday, the crux a steep ascent. The sudden incline, rapid succession of classes – film: Triumph of Will and Night and Fog. Stunned horror translating later into a dull roaring anger. Anger directed in all directions, at every object and subject, but focused more intensely on me – my every act and thought cause for contempt. Faded after dinner but echoes now as I write – anger at my writing.

To A: Have you seen Betty Blue? Perhaps Zorg is my inevitable fate. But if you haven’t seen that film perhaps you shouldn’t, maybe you should. Perhaps each moment is a rehearsal for that final act – perhaps I should and shouldn’t see the film again, re-read, re-live – no, this is not possible. Where then is my great work? I have started it here, in these pages a superimposed alligator snapping at the buttocks of my vision. But my vision, she is unattainable, the never tasted Eurydice, but when she is kissed on film I am kissing her. When the camera strips her bare for all to see I am her sole worshiper. Fuck the whore. Who needs her anyway. she who prostitutes the essence of all my hopes and dreams. She whose smile slays me, slaps me, killing prose, dead fish and bloated, molting eyelashes strung from hot wires. A descent. Away! Away! While I am cursing I might as well tell a lie.

To A: well, today I talked to that one girl and finally had enough nerve to ask her to coffee. She said that she didn’t really go for coffee.

“You don’t like coffee?”

“Not really.”

“What do you like then?”

“Well, since you asked, I like to have my cunt stretched by big, massively muscled, well-hung black men, so I really don’t have any use for a skinny white geek like you.”

Racist? No question. Sexist? See above. What else? No comment. Why? End of a nightmare.

I dreamt recently that I had AIDS.

I’ve managed to stay up until two am again. I wish to build a monument. One greater than the sour crevices between my toes. One better than André Breton’s bowler hat. Better, further, higher than an historical exegesis. Heavier than a dictionary but useful for taking trips in.

Fate’s poker face. E’s bluff. Trying to stare down the future, just like Davy Crockett taming a bear. Playing chicken with an oncoming train, riding a bicycle made from human teeth. Hear the wheels clatter across the railroad ties while your swollen, itching eye scratches on the screen door and begs for a crust of sex. Spare change spare change spare change. I’ve been anticipating – waiting, but on a train bound for nowhere I met up with a gambler, and in his final words I found an Ace that I could keep.

I fold.

Deal me in for another round.

After another month of writing, I have enough for yet another big purchase. I’m typing on my HP Mini right now, and yes, I absolutely adore Eurydice, but now I have someone/something else on my mind. There’s something I’ve been wanting for a few months now, and right now it seems unbearable to me that I don’t have him (it) yet.

Pandora just isn’t cutting it anymore. This little square 4 GB iPod that I received for my fourteenth birthday was the light of my life for so long. But, in the past month, Pandora has seen more of the ground than she had throughout her entire two year existence. I was the first one in school to have the first video nano, but now it’s outdated and doesn’t have enough storage. She’s right next to me in her little pink leather jacket and is connected to my record player’s iPod jack so I can hear some Tilly and the Wall at a higher volume. But, at the moment I’m really craving some of The Submarines, whose music I did not have room to fit on Pandora.

For about a month I contemplated what iPod I would get after I got my laptop. My first choice was always the iPod Classic. I realized that the iPod Touch is basically for people who just want the apps and aren’t all about the music, which is the sole purpose why I want/NEED a new iPod. I considered the new iPod nano (Chromatic), but then realized that having a video camera on an iPod with so little storage would be tempting and stupid at the same time. Once again, I would be too busy monkeying around with that rather than listening to tunage. I do plan on purchasing an iPod shuffle in the future, just to have to run with or whatever, but it’s not going to be my main man.

And so, the choice was unanimous. Next week when I get my check, I’m off to the Apple store to pick up Orpheus and let him join my electronic family (Pandora, Narcissus and Eurydice; I have yet to name some other things). I will most likely end up buying the silver iPod classic, just so it’s not identical to my brother’s black one. He and Pandora will have to share my iHome, but I think I’ll put Pandora into retirement for a little while. She’s done a good job for two years and deserves a break. I’m just excited to finally be able to go from every Brand New CD to Paramore’s released and unreleased music to Vampire Weekend to John Mayer to Lady GaGa all on the same iPod. The thought of having my entire music library in my pocket is exhilarating. I can’t wait to put song after song on an iPod without having to take something off, first.

In the great stories, looking back over your shoulder is emotionally understandable.  But it often ends up badly.  Ask Eurydice; ask Lot’s wife. 

But I am having a hard time parting from my videos of the 2009 Jazz at Chautauqua, so I thought I would post yet another set, recorded at 10:30 Sunday morning, undiscovered territory for most jazz musicians, nocturnal by occupation and habit.  Some of the players look unusually impassive, but even in the unaccustomed bright light, the set has an undeniable casual splendor.

On the stand were Duke Heitger, Andy Schumm, Dan Barrett, Scott Robinson, Bob Reitmeier, Ehud Asherie, Marty Grosz, Frank Tate, and Pete Siers — gathered together for a medium-fast one, a ballad medley, and a short romp through an ancient Good Old Good One.

Here they are, caught a few bars too late, into LINGER AWHILE, a song I always associate with the 1943 Dicky Wells recording featuring Bill Coleman, Lester Young, Ellis Larkins, Al Hall, and Jo Jones.  You’ll admire Pete’s splashing cymbal work, the neatness of Dan’s solo, Scott’s winding lyricism, and the way a hidden Andy comes from nowhere:

One of the highlights of Jazz at Chautauqua is the opening ballad medley, where just about everyone is asked to play one chorus at a slow tempo of a ballad — the musicians climb on and off the stand, the rhythm section learns at short notice that the next endeavor is, say, SKYLARK in F, and everyone handles it magnificently.  (It’s so much more rewarding than asking everyone to play BODY AND SOUL for twenty minutes.)  Duke decided to repeat this treat in miniature, beginning with his own MEMORIES OF YOU, followed by Bob playing STARDUST, Scott weaving his way through PRELUDE TO A KISS, Andy recalling Willard Robison on OLD FOLKS, and Dan Barrett bringing everyone together to intone IF I HAD YOU.  But the bad news is that YouTube wouldn’t let me post it: it ran longer than ten minutes.  Grrrr.  But here’s some consolation — an ideal get-off-the-stage performance, a brisk CHINA BOY, compact and hot:

How many days is it till Jazz at Chautauqua 2010?

Välitän myös oman blogini kautta tämän mielestäni tärkeän linkin  eurooppalaiseen selvitykseen. (Löytyy myös sivustoni Linkit-osiosta; kohdasta “Muita julkaisuja”). Mikko Hartikainen Opetushallituksesta välitti viestin alkuperäisesti Kuvisope-sähköpostilistalla.

(Kuvisope-sähköpostilistan postitusosoite on kuvisope@taik.fi. Sille voi liittyä lähettämällä yksikertaisen viestin samaan osoitteeseen. Lista on mukavan epämuodollinen ja käytännöllinen, mutta välillä kiivastakin sisällöllistä keskustelua käyvä kuvataideopetuksesta kiinnostuneiden foorumi = meikäläisen oma kuvaus listasta.. )

“Tiedoksenne taideaineiden ja kulttuurin opetusta koskeva laaja eurooppalainen selvitys ”Arts and cultural education at school in Europe” (Eurydice) julkistettiin eilen 14.10. Brysselissä. Raportti löytyy osoitteesta (pdf)
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/documents/thematic_reports/113EN.pdf

Lehdistötiedote (keyfindings)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1517&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/448&type=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Raportti tarkastelee taideaineiden asemaa eri maiden opetussuunnitelmissa sekä opetuksen tavoitteita ja toteuttamistapoja, oppilasarviointia ja opettajankoulutusta.

“This study presents up-to-date, comprehensive and comparable
information on arts education policy in 30 European countries. It
gives a detailed picture of the aims and objectives of arts education,
its organisation, the provision of extra-curricular activities as well
as initiatives for the development of such education at school. It
also includes information on pupil assessment and teacher education in
the arts. Besides the comparative study, detailed country descriptions
on all topics covered are also available.”

Eurydice http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/index_en.php

Eurydice on tiedonvaihdon verkosto, joka koostuu kansallisista yksiköistä ja Brysselissä sijaitsevasta Euroopan yksiköstä. Verkostoon kuuluu tällä hetkellä 31 maata – EU:n 27 jäsenvaltiota, Norja, Islanti ja Liechtenstein sekä Turkki. Suomen Eurydice -yksikkö sijaitsee Opetushallituksessa.“

LISÄYS 23.11.2009:

Taideaineiden asema heikko Euroopan kouluissa (18.11.2009)
Taideaineiden asema opetussuunnitelmassa on useimmissa Euroopan maissa verraten heikko varsinkin oppivelvollisuuskoulun loppupuolella.  Kuvataide ja musiikki kuuluvat opetussuunnitelmien pakollisiin oppiaineisiin lähes kaikissa maissa, toista ääripäätä edustaa arkkitehtuuri. Taideopetuksessa näkyy jakautuminen erillisiä oppiaineita tai integroivaa lähestymistapaa painottaviin opetussuunnitelmiin.

EU:n koulutustiedon verkosto Eurydice on julkaissut selvityksen taideaineiden opetuksesta 30 Euroopan maan oppivelvollisuuskouluissa. Julkaisussa käsitellään muun muassa taideopetuksen tavoitteita ja asemaa opetussuunnitelmassa, taideaineiden arviointia ja opettajankoulutusta sekä ajankohtaisia kehittämishankkeita. Raportissa taideaineisiin luetaan kuvataide, musiikki, käsityö, draama, tanssi, mediataide ja arkkitehtuuri.

Julkaisu on osa Euroopan luovuuden ja innovaation teemavuotta, mutta aihe on Suomessa ajankohtainen myös perusopetuksen yleisten tavoitteiden, tuntijaon ja opetussuunnitelman perusteiden uudistamista koskevan keskustelun kannalta.

Taiteet sivuroolissa opetussuunnitelmissa
Selvitys tukee aikaisempia tutkimuksia, joiden mukaan taideaineiden asema opetussuunnitelmassa on varsinkin oppivelvollisuuskoulun loppupuolella verraten heikko. Useimmissa maissa taide sisältyy pakolliseen opetussuunnitelmaan ensimmäisen asteen koulutuksessa (Suomessa perusopetuksen vuosiluokat 1-6), mutta alemman toisen asteen (perusopetuksen vuosiluokat 7-9) viimeisinä vuosina taideaineiden opiskelu on pääsääntöisesti valinnaisuuteen perustuvaa.

Myös taideaineiden kesken on havaittavissa selvää hierarkiaa. Eniten painoarvoa saavat kuvataide ja musiikki, jotka kuuluvat opetussuunnitelmien pakollisiin oppiaineisiin jokaisessa tutkimukseen osallistuneessa maassa Hollantia lukuun ottamatta. Toista ääripäätä edustaa arkkitehtuuri, joka mainitaan vain harvoissa opetussuunnitelmissa.

Taiteiden opetukseen on maasta, koulumuodosta ja taideaineesta riippuen erilaisia lähestymistapoja. Niitä opetetaan pakollisina tai vapaaehtoisina, erillisinä oppiaineina, suurempina aihekokonaisuuksina tai muihin oppiaineisiin integroituina. Varsinkin draaman ja tanssin opetus on usein integroitu muihin oppiaineisiin. Taideopetuksessa näkyy jakautuminen erillisiä oppiaineita tai integroivaa lähestymistapaa painottaviin opetussuunnitelmiin.

Suomessa erillisiä taideaineita perusopetuksen nykyisen tuntijaon mukaan ovat kuvataide, musiikki ja käsityö, joista viimeksi mainittu nähdään tosin yleensä ensisijaisesti taitoaineena. Draama on sisällytetty äidinkielen opetussuunnitelmaan, tanssi liikuntaan, mediataide ja arkkitehtuuri kuvataiteeseen.

Suunnilleen puolessa vertailuun osallistuneista maista taideaineita opetetaan vuosittain 50-100 tuntia ensimmäisen asteen koulutuksessa  ja 25-75 tuntia alemmalla toisella asteella. Varsinkin alemmalla toisella asteella taiteiden suhteellinen asema on heikko: useimmissa maissa tuntimäärä jää alhaisemmaksi kuin esimerkiksi vieraiden kielten tai liikunnan.

Suomen osalta vertailua vaikeuttavat perusopetuksemme erityispiirteet: yhtenäinen 9-vuotinen perusopetus sekä taide- ja taitoaineiden yhteinen opetusaika (nk. välystunnit) ja nk. nivelvaihe 4. ja 5. vuosiluokkien välissä. Perusopetuksen vuosiluokilla 1-4 taideaineiden opetusta on keskimäärin noin 470 tuntia ja vuosiluokilla 5-9 noin 527 tuntia. Raportin tarkastelun ulkopuolelle jäävät sekä taideaineiden valinnaiset opinnot että muihin aineisiin integroitu taidekasvatus.

Arviointi usein vain koulujen vastuulla

Raportin mukaan taideaineiden suhteellisen heikko arvostus näkyy myös arvioinnin puolella. Myös niissä maissa, joissa oppimistulosten ulkoisella arvioinnilla on suuri merkitys, taideaineet jäävät useimmiten kansallisten kokeiden ulkopuolelle.

Vain harvoissa maissa on opettajan tueksi tarjolla kansalliset taideaineiden arviointikriteerit. Taideaineiden oppilasarviointi on usein muita aineita selvemmin vain yksittäisen opettajan vastuulla. Hylätty suoritus taideaineissa ei useimmissa maissa johda luokalle jäämiseen, mikä raportin johtopäätösten mukaan heijastaa taideaineiden toissijaista asemaa.

Johtopäätökset eivät sellaisenaan ole sovellettavissa Suomen perusopetukseen, jossa missään aineessa ei ole käytössä kansallisia kokeita ja luokalle jääminen on joka tapauksessa harvinaista. Perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteet sisältävät kaikkien pakollisten oppiaineiden osalta hyvän osaamisen kuvauksen ja päättöarvioinnin kriteerit, joten taideaineet eivät siinäkään suhteessa eroa muista oppiaineista.

Opettajien pätevyys vaihtelee

Oppivelvollisuuskoulun alemmilla luokilla taidekasvatusta antavat pääsääntöisesti luokanopettajat, jotka eivät välttämättä ole saaneet tarkoituksenmukaista koulutusta kaikissa opetettavissa taideaineissa. Yläkoulujen puolella opetuksesta vastaavat useimmiten taideaineiden aineenopettajat.

Useissa maissa, kuten Suomessa, kouluilla on mahdollisuus hyödyntää aineenopettajan erityisosaamista jo alakoulun puolella. Erityisesti musiikin opetus on usein jo ensimmäisen asteen koulutuksessa musiikkiin erikoistuneen opettajan vastuulla. Useimmissa maissa koulut tekevät taideopetuksessa yhteistyötä esimerkiksi ammattitaiteilijoiden kanssa. Vakinaisen taideopettajan toimi edellyttää kuitenkin lähes kaikissa maissa muodollista opettajan kelpoisuutta. Tätä tarkoitusta varten esimerkiksi Suomessa taidekorkeakouluista valmistuneiden on mahdollista suorittaa jälkikäteen opettajan pedagogiset opinnot.

Julkaisu:
“Arts and Cultural Education at School in Europe” ja siihen liittyvät kansalliset kuvaukset Eurydicen verkkosivuilla:
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice/thematic_studies_en.php

Painettu raportti ilmestyy joulukuussa, ja sitä voi tilata Opetushallituksen Eurydice-yksiköstä:eurydice@oph.fi

Lisätietoja Opetushallituksessa:
Opetusneuvos Mikko Hartikainen, mikko.hartikainen@oph.fi
Erityisasiantuntija Petra Packalen, petra.packalen@oph.fi

This is just a short post to congratulate Richmond Shakespeare’s cast and crew of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on their RTCC award for Best Ensemble Acting, and also to congratulate Joe Inscoe on his RTCC award for Best Actor in a Play for his work in Eurydice.

I had the pleasure of seeing both performances and wholeheartedly agree with these selections.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a cast so perfectly in tune with one another than that of ‘Midsummer,’ and Joe Inscoe’s work as Eurydice’s father in Sarah Ruhl’s phenomenal play was perfection beyond description.

Congratulations to all of the award-winners!  While awards ceremonies aren’t the be-all and end-all in my book, it is certainly wonderful to have an opportunity to recognize those who have such talent and such heart that they so willingly share with all of us.

Eurydice posters are in!

And I’m on them!

Eurydice runs Halloween weekend and the weekend after at the Clark State Performing Arts Center Turner Studio Theatre in Springfield, Ohio.

October 30, 31, November 6 & 7 at 8:00 p.m.
November 1 & 8 at 3:00 p.m.

Tickets are on sale now!  Call 866-PACTKTS or get them online at pac.clarkstate.edu

It’s going to be awesome.

Here are two versions of the Orpheus image, each on a side of the same piece of paper…when I was living in Paris in the early 1990s, I didn’t have much money, & it was also a long trek on foot down Rue des Archives to the art dept. of the BHV department store, which is where I bought my sheets of good quality drawing paper. So, I would quite often use both sides of a sheet of paper, especially if I was not particularly happy with the outcome of the first drawing…in this case they both turned out pretty well…

Split Orpheus, 1992, brush & ink on paper, 25.5" x 19.75" approx.

Orpheus and Eurydice, 1992, 25.5" x 19.75" approx.

In my quest to better understand Persephone, I have found myself pausing at this particular point. Why is it that Hades chose Persephone—or Kore—to be his wife? It was not merely her maidenhood, her sexual innocence; and nor was it her gentle, sunlit nature. To boil it down to her as the ‘essence of spring’ does an injustice to this goddess – for she is the embodiment of change, of all of the seasons, of the natural order. But as Kore, she was not such things. She was just Demeter’s daughter, just the maiden accompanied by nymphs. And yet Hades saw something in her, this girl—or rather, this pretty puppet, a flower not yet opened—and he fell in love with her. The heart of one such as Hades was warmed by her and, inflamed by Eros’ eager smiles, he stole her away.

I believe that Hades recognised his equal in Persephone. He did not part the earth and incite Demeter into almost killing gods and humans everywhere just so that he could have a pretty little doll sit on his lap. No: he brought her into the Underworld and helped her become his equal. And she, in return, accepted the pomegranate seeds—Hera’s seeds; the seeds of marriage—and they were wed.

One might wonder how, and why, Hades and Persephone are equals. Prior to his abduction of her, they were not: in spirit they were, but in terms of influence they were all but opposites. Persephone was responsible only for spring growth, for the gentle blossoming of flowers; and Hades was the King of the Underworld. Persephone was also living her immortal life in Demeter’s shadow; she was watched constantly by her, and those that vied for her hand were turned away by her mother, not by her. If Hades had not abducted Persephone she, arguably, might never have reached her full potential: she would have likely lived forever in her mother’s shadow, responsible only for the beginning of spring.

With the help of Zeus and Gaia, according to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hades was able to steal away Persephone, unnoticed by all but Helios and Hekate. There is significance in this: Helios, lord of the sun, sees everything that occurs throughout the day; Hekate, queen of necromancy and ghosts, would know of everything that occurs throughout the night. Thus the transition of Kore to Persephone—girl to woman—is echoed not only in Persephone’s annual return from the Underworld and the awakening of the earth, but also in the time in which she was taken: at dusk or dawn, the in-between times.

In art and myth, Persephone is often described as a “young” goddess. She is a youth; stolen from the sunlight before she can achieve her true form, and yet she is not a child. She is at the in-between stage, the ‘dawn’ of womanhood: she is the quintessential woman-child. In abrupt, modern terms, she is a teenager. She does not yet know the delights and sorrows of being a woman; she is not a matron, and she will never be a crone. She is caught at a stage of hormones, a twist of cool logic and sharp emotions – and thus can be seen in how she behaves as Queen of the Underworld.

Persephone’s relationship with Adonis (which I will discuss in more detail further on) is an echo of this transition. After his death, he spends half of the year in the Underworld with her, and half with in the world above with Aphrodite. To coincide with this, Adonis would spend the autumn winter months with Persephone, and the spring and summer months with Aphrodite: thus their relationship echoes the themes of life-death-rebirth that are so common in the Greek mythologies.

When Persephone is stolen from the world, Demeter proves that she is willing to go to any lengths to get her back. She refuses to let the living things taste fruit and feel warmth—both fruit and heat here symbolising life, as food and energy are required for most, if not all, life-forms. (It is also ironic, then, that the only fruit that can be found in the Underworld—the pomegranate—still grew without Demeter’s influence; if she had killed that, too, Persephone might never have become the Queen of the Underworld.) Thus both Demeter and Persephone are here goddesses of winter; of the hard, cruel, cold months where—and this would have been particularly true in antiquity—jagged, icy death reigns and humanity becomes the prey, rather than the predator.

And then, when Persephone returns from the Underworld, she and her mother bless the earth with life – the flowers begin to grow; the fruits shine; the snows recede. Demeter and Persephone, then, are goddesses of the seasons—for Demeter brings about the changes of summer and winter and Persephone rules spring (as Kore, the maiden, goddess of spring growth) and autumn (as Persephone Karpophoros, the bringer of fruit, goddess of the harvest).

As Queen of the Underworld, Persephone is a much more merciful, benevolent ruler than Hades – and such is shown in how she treats the (would-be) heroes that find their way into the Underworld. When Herakles entered the Underworld, he was ‘welcomed like a brother by Persephone’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History); and according to Apollodorus in his Bibliotheca, Herakles passed up victory in his wrestling competition with the Underworld god Menoites ‘at the request of Persephone.’ When Psykhe reached Persephone’s palace, she ‘declined the soft cushion and the rich food offered by her hostess,’ (Apuleius, The Golden Ass) and when she reported the trial that Aphrodite had tasked her with, Persephone immediately filled the box of beauty for her. Persephone took favour on Sisyphus and released him from the Underworld; and when Orpheus sang of his love for Eurydice, he ‘persuaded her to assist him in his desires and to allow him to bring up his dead wife from Haides’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History).

However, Persephone also proves that she is not a goddess with whom one can trifle with; when Peirithoos plans to kidnap her from the Underworld for his wife, the youth Persephone blossoms into a woman and deals swiftly with him: ‘Peirithoos now decided to seek the hand of Persephone in marriage, and when he asked Theseus to make the journey with him Theseus at first endeavoured to dissuade him and to turn him away from such a deed as being impious; but since Peirithoos firmly insisted upon it Theseus was bound by the oaths to join with him in the deed. And when they had at last made their way below to the regions of Haides, it came to pass that because of the impiety of their act they were both put in chains, and although Theseus was later let go by reason of the favour with which Herakles regarded him, Peirithoos because of the impiety remained in Haides, enduring everlasting punishment; but some writers of myths say that both of them never returned.’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History).

In discussing Persephone and her transition—after her abduction at Hades’ hands—from child to woman, it is inevitable that one must discuss who she has ever taken as a lover. Unlike many of the gods, Persephone did not have numerous lovers – only Hades (to whom she gave birth to the Erinyes, according to the Orphic Hymns 29 and 70), Zeus (to whom she birthed Zagreus, according to the Orphic Hymn 29, Hyginus, Diodorus Siculus, Nonnus and Suidas; and Melinoe, according to the Orphic Hymn 71) and Adonis.

Persephone’s infamous love-affair with Adonis produced no children, and, strangely, did not incite the jealousy or wrath of her husband Hades (though Ares, only the paramour of Aphrodite, was envious enough of Adonis to kill him, according to some classical writers). It could be argued that Persephone’s relationship with Adonis is symbolic of the process of rebirth. Before his death, Adonis spent a third of his year with Persephone—I suggest that this third was the very end of autumn, the whole of winter, and the very beginning of spring. As such, Aphrodite would be cold and in mourning in the months when sex and love would, especially in antiquity, have not been at the forefront of the minds of humankind; and his emergence from the Underworld would coincide with Persephone’s own. Thus the relationship of Adonis, Aphrodite and Persephone would symbolise the entire theme of life-death-rebirth: Aphrodite as the ruler of life, Persephone as the ruler of death, and Adonis as the transition between their realms. Adding to this, both Aphrodite and Persephone share the epithet Despoina—the ruling goddess, or the mistress—and this, I think, lends further credence to the idea proposed.

Persephone’s relationship with Zeus was one of the most devastating of unions: the King of Life and the Queen of Death. As such, perhaps Zagreus was doomed from the very offset – born of trickery and lies, for, according to such authors as Nonnus, Zeus took the shape of a drakon (a dragon; a serpent) and ravished Persephone. Zagreus was a colossal explosion of Fate—for Zeus and Persephone both influence it, and have been influenced by it—as well as the primal stirrings of desire. Thus Zagreus—and, in turn, Dionysos—is a god with influence over life, death and fate, for he commands his followers to take their destinies into their own hands and twist them into oblivion.

In answer to the question proposed by the very title of this essay—Why Persephone?—I give this: Hades chose Persephone because she was his perfect opposite: feminity to his masculinity, warmth to his cold and light to his darkness. Between them, Hades and Persephone are, also, the very embodiment of two principles that rule supreme in the psyche of humans – the notion of life after death, and the promise of rebirth. They are fair rulers of the Underworld and just governors of fate; and in their capable hands, I am assured that the flow of life, death and rebirth will continue as long as the Moirai—the Fates—see fit.

So Eurydice rehearsals have started.  I love it.
I’ve been incredibly busy; between school, two jobs, rehearsals and basic needs (e.g., this crazy thing called “sleep”), I hardly have time left to myself.

But I love it.  I love everything I’m doing…except maybe my Organizational Behaviors class (insert yawn here).

Eurydice is already proving to be an awesome experience.  Everyone is excited about being a part of it, and it shows; the cast is progressing incredibly, especially for how early it is in rehearsals.

And who can blame them?  The set design is awesome, the costumes will be wonderful, and the cast is awesome.
It seems like everyone for this show is going above and beyond the call of duty – with script analysis, physical preparation, technical needs, everything.

Even yours truly – a prime example of overachiever – has done more than usual.
On top of my usual measurements (writing journals, finding a signature, interests questionnaires, etc.), I’ve created a personal soundtrack for the entire play.
Sometimes, the songs are meant to represent an entire scene from the play, sometimes, it’s just some of the lines, or the mood of the scene or character.  I’ll specify as I list them.

Eurydice - First Movement

1. Ralph Vaughan Williams – \”The Lark Ascending\” pt. 1 & Ralph Vaughan Williams – \”The Lark Ascending\” pt. 2
   This is one song, but I could only find it on YouTube in two parts.
   Scene 1. This piece really sets the mood for Orpheus and Eurydice’s relationship: beautiful, passionate and blossoming.  That and it only seems proper that a play that the first line is, “All those birds? For me?” would have an opening song about birds.
2. Sigur Ros – \”Straumnes\”
   Scene 2. This song is pretty and gentle, and reflects the tone the father has while writing to his daughter.  The use of organs and the rushing sound at the end of the song reminds me of drains, which is a nice comparison to the Underworld.  The father mentions that there’s a high-pitched sound, “like a tea kettle always boiling over”.  With this song, the audience could imagine how he would hear these sounds.  The difference between the deep sounds of Sigur Ros and the thriving sounds of Vaughan Williams’ song.
3. String Quartet Tribute to Death Cab For Cutie – \”Marching Bands of Manhattan\”
   Scene 3.  If you know the original song, you know how much the lyrics relate to this play.  (“But while you debate half empty or half full/it slowly rises, your love is gonna drown.”)
   For those that know the song, it’s an awesome foreshadow.  For those that don’t, it sounds like a gorgeous wedding march.
4. Andrews Sisters – \”Don\’t Sit Under The Apple Tree\”
   Scene 4 and half of Scene 5.  Given in the text.  Such a cute song.
5. The second half of Scene 5, Scene 6 and part of Scene 7 are silent.  I think after all this music, a moment of silence really gives these scenes the attention they need.  This is the part where the audience says quietly to their neighbor, “Shit just went down.”
6. Vivaldi – \”Four Seasons: Winter II\” & Sufjan Stevens – \”Year of the Horse\” overlapping.
   Scene 7.
   The Nasty Interesting Man is supposed to turn on Brazilian mood music, but I like to bend the rules a little.
   I think Vivaldi’s piece paired with Sufjan Stevens makes an eerie pair.  They contrast, but sync up in some LSD-induced manner.  Try playing them at the same time and see for yourself.

That’s all I have for now.  Second and Third Movement soundtrack will come later.

So auditions are over.  I auditioned for Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice.  It’s a contemporary play based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

I can’t say I feel confident with how I did (I’m still working on the confidence thing), but I feel good.  There were things I did well, and things that I need to improve.  But overall, I think that I did what I could to show my abilities.

And now…we wait…

The cast list will be posted sometime between this evening and Monday morning.
So while the rest of you enjoy your warm and sunny weekend, I’ll be sitting near my laptop, refreshing my email and facebook page every 5 minutes to see if the cast list has been posted.

And we wait some more…

How do handle the anxiety of the period between auditions and cast list?  That part where you don’t know whether to clear your schedule for the next six weeks for rehearsals or start looking around for other auditions.  Whether the junk food you’ll inevitably buy will be for a celebration or a pity party.

And wait…

There has to be books or workshops on how to deal with the stress.  Actors should be provided free yoga lessons or strong alcohol to help curb the worry after auditions.

But we’re not.  And I have a life that, unfortunately, won’t wait until I know whether I got a role.  So I have homework to complete and a job to go to.
So while I’m waiting, I guess I’ll live…

Yup…

The summer of 2009. In Red Cloud Nebraska. This summer there was a bunch of students from New York University who were putting on a play. Paper Plane Theatre Company, a New York City based troupe of artists, presented a production of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice to Red Cloud. Who exactly were these guys?

Spending time and money on a production. Then came the critics. People like Frank Rich. Who exactly were these guys?

Critics. And art. And politics. In the summer of 2009.

Community organizers. Who exactly were these guys?

The summer of 2009. The health care reform debated. So was the debate about health care reform or reform how health care would be paid? These pro-choice Democrats who all agreed politics did not belong in the bedroom were now suggesting they belonged in the bed when a loved one was dying?

Those Tea Parties. Who exactly were these people that showed up at town hall meetings. The ones that the community organizer seemed to be promoting. There was a certain irony in all of this. Compared to the Boston Tea Party which was a lot more than a discussion. Compared to community organizers. So thiution?s was an overhaul or a revolution?

Budgets. Spending time and money on a production. Now having to pay attention to the money. Like in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Those art critics neverr paid much attention to the accounting of the cost of a production.

Some of the accounting involved no health care benefits for the illegals. If some kind of bloodless health care bill was going to get through Congress. Yet to me, there was a real sense of irony that these same Tea Party advocates do not question fighting a war, 2 wars, across the sea. There seemed little accounting to the purpose of it all. Taxed incomes to fight wars overseas, seemingly to export democratic values, yet not extending some basic ideals to people within borders on other life and death issues..

Health care according o the elected president in campaign 2008 was a basic human right. Yet so few humans ever had had this basic human right in human history. Anywhere.

The search for identity, when the leader, as an organizer, did not know what to do after he was organized. Community organizers to much beholden to others, without quite knowing his own self. In an era when the foundation of American ideals were shaken. By his predecessor.

Immigrants. Illegals. Critics and art. And politics. In the summer of 2009. When immigration, abortion, bailouts, and accounting departments all came together. In health care reform. With deadlines.

Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. With no intermission.

A whimsical retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus, Eurydice is the story of two lovers who strive to love each other as much as they love their ideas. Told from Eurydice’s point of view, this myth becomes real as it tracks the bittersweet passage from father to husband. From boardwalks to the Underworld, wedding receptions to houses made of string, high-rise apartments to the River of Forgetfulness, the profound humanity and sensory spectacle of Eurydice promises to carry us to new worlds. It is quite a show.

The critics seemed to have gone a bit soft, because one of the organizers was one of Nebraska’s own. A lot like Frank Rich in the summer of 2009. About promises to carry us to new worlds. Without a concern for the accounting department.

Εὐρυδίκη ! Εὐρυδίκη !

Eurydice ! Qui en parle, autrement que pour la dire perdue ? qui l’évoque, sous un autre jour que celui de l’irrémédiable absence ?

Les chants d’Orphée ont séduit son âme de dryade car sans doute étaient-ils aussi vrais que la sève, aussi grisants que les vents. Lui trouva en Eurydice l’épouse, dit-on.

Émue, frêle, dansante, couronnée de fleurs, elle était l’image de la beauté, de la jeunesse, du bonheur. Le temps suspendu frémissait, prisonnier, entre les cordes d’Orphée.

Et dans ce temps suspendu se glisse la faille, la blessure, l’irrémédiable, l’instant funeste. Un cri.
L’épousée, mordue par un serpent, va quitter la scène. La musique s’assourdit, le corps s’affaisse. Pas de douleur, plutôt une sourde pulsation dans le corps hébété, d’où la vie sourd lentement.
——
Source image : Nicolas Poussin, Paysage avec Orphée.

…and as I turned, I saw my beloved Eurydice vanishing

[click on photo to enlarge]

© Stampfli & Turci

Last night MOTH tattooed the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-On-Sea in white stripes and quivering lyre strings. This was the latest chapter in a story that started way back in November 2008 with the Cybersonica AV Lab. For one day of the week-long programme, a group of digital artists were given the freedom to explore the DLW and devise AV installations for the space. VC_Kristi and I sat on the top floor talking and watching the sea, rubbing contact mics along chairs and stairs, and scribbling in notebooks, and by the end of the day had a rough plan for was what to become Plinth.

From the programme:

Commissioned by the 9th Earl De La Warr in 1935 and designed by architects Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, the De La Warr Pavilion was the UK‘s first public building built in the Modernist style. Pioneering in structure as it was in spirit, the purpose of this steel and concrete Pavilion was to provide accessible culture and leisure for the people of Bexhill and beyond and so regenerate the economy of the town and the surrounding area.

In 1935 when the De La Warr Pavilion was being finished, Serge Chermayeff, one of its two architects, envisaged a 10ft statue of the ancient Greek goddess Persephone for the front of the building overlooking the seafront Lido. Neither the statue or the Lido were ever made – a marble bust of Persephone was commissioned, but it was decided that this kind of classical decorative flourish was out of step with the clean, modern streamline design ideal that the Pavilion embodied, so the full statue was never built.

UP Projects, an independent public art agency has commissioned MOTH to create a site specific audio/visual performance that responds to the De la Warr pavilion. Inspired by the myth of Persephone and the story of the statue, they have developed Plinth – a video graffiti theatre trail inspired by the Modernist architecture of the De La Warr Pavilion, with music created by capturing sounds from inside the building itself as well as live audio sung by Voice Controller Kristi.

The story follows Orpheus, a musician, as he leads the spirit of his wife Eurydice from Hades, after Persephone, Queen of Hades, makes a deal with them. Eurydice can leave the Underworld and return to life by following Orpheus, but only on the condition that he doesn’t turn to look at her before they reach the surface. If he does, he will lose her forever.

The central conceit of the piece was to supply the finishing sculptural touch to the building design, the unfashionable classical flourish that was envisaged from the start. By manifesting the sculpture and the mythology digitally on the walls of the structure, through visuals inspired by the architecture and using sounds captured on the surfaces of the concrete and wood, the performance takes the role of the statue, and the Pavilion its plinth.

On the morning of the performance we also ran a workshop with local art students, demonstrating how we created the show, what we do, and giving them the opportunity to participate in a green-screen shoot and appear in the evening’s show. We had some fun creating hermaphroditic spirits trapped in the afterlife, then treated the footage in post-production so it would fit in with the rest of the film.

Thanks to Emma, Laura and Sarah from Up Projects, Rebecca, Laura and Polly from the DLW, Nathaniel and Kristi for their star turns, to Jacob and Mike for their photography and film (and fuses…), to Amy for making a podcast of the evening, and to the 90 or so people who took the journey out of Hades with us.

Plinth - animation still. 2009

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Orpheus’s conversations with Eurydice are like
a séance. She only answers questions. And she
answers them yes or no. And adds no gratitude
and no congratulations. No nod, wink, or wave to her
bygone physical presence in his world.

One day he led her out of low-ceilinged “yes or no” into
the shining “I’m well, how have you been?”,
only to answer her with a look of love that
scared her away.

There’s a moment in Marie Chouinard’s Orpheus and Eurydice when, all the dancers onstage, a complexly and articulately-writhing energy comes over the ensemble and turns it into a mad bacchanal herd of grimacing, bug-eyed, hissing demons. It’s so sensorially overwhelming (it’s directed, like all of the piece, to play straight out into the house) one feels, without abstraction, like a witness to any given Sunday in the furnaces of Hades. It’s the hell-as-sexy-dungeon that’s become as common as the fire-and-brimstone nightmare of the Bible. The design palette is narrow, stage dressed as a white box, dancers changing in and out of their own personal wardrobes by Liz Vandal (baggy denimesque overalls worn bib-down, hotpants matching or in gold lamé, white fur accessories, and gold pasties) for nearly every scene. And there are a lot of scenes, far more than there are transitions between them.

Manuel Roque, James Viveiros, Carla Maruca, Dorothea Saykaly, Carol Prieur and Mysterious Hairy Ball. Photo by Marie Chouinard.

It’s an odd choice to take a story with such a simple, iconic arc and interpret it as a succession of often-looping tableaux. But Chouinard isn’t interested in retelling the story. She does that as well, early on, charging Mark Eden-Towle with the task of hitting the plot points in a screwed, distorted voice spilling up out of compulsive, agonizing restlessness. To perform Chouinard’s movement is to be infected by it: Her vocabulary, classically-grounded as it is, is dance-as-possession, reminiscent of Jennifer Carpenter’s choreographic approach to the same in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. But this Orpheus consists mostly of these tableaux alone, studies on and extrapolations in movement of the myth’s central themes and images. Which is fine. When done in dance it’s traditionally a one-act; some kind of dissective approach needs to be taken in order to present Orpheus and Eurydice as an evening-length that isn’t just glacially-slow, and so Chouinard gives us stage pictures and motifs that fold the story over and over on itself, much like Orpheus must have forever relived in torture his ill-fated decision to turn and look. (As Sharon Hoyer mentions in her preview of Orpheus at NewCity, much of the material in this show existed in process in advance of the decision to use the myth as a framing device—this explains a great deal.)

Lucie Mongrain, Kimberley de Jong, Carol Prieur, Carla Maruca, and Dorotea Saykaly. Photo by Michael Slobodian.

The representations she chooses—three dancers making a Cerberus, a frieze-like walk out of the Underworld for two not linked by arms reaching forward and back—are clear upon every reprise, allowing her to repeat them in modified form, switching gender for example. Eurydice isn’t played by any one dancer in particular, nor even always female and, on a couple of occasions, it’s suggested that we the audience are Orpheus and the dancers (Chouinard?) Eurydice (although whether we’re damning the work by observing it, or what that even means, is never made clear).

There are an interesting pair of objects that have remained stuck in the teeth of my mind: Before the piece begins, the only thing onstage is a white cube lit from within, a zygote that shines with what’s to come. There’s also a brief appearance by a large, bouncing black ball with hair, like an SEM image of a virus or bit of pollen. I can’t quite place them into the context of the rest of the piece, but they’ve stubbornly stood out as two of this Orpheus‘ most enduring images. One thing I appreciate about Chouinard’s work is her maintenance of mystery. It’s an important piece of the puzzle, and to keep a secret, a good secret that feels pregnant with meaning never revealed, is enough understatement to temper here, at least somewhat, an otherwise unforgiving barrage of input.

A climax of sorts comes when Lucie Mongrain as Eurydice leaves the stage and climbs over chairs up through the audience; standing on armrests and seatbacks draped with coats, it was absolutely harrowing to watch her make her way up the MCA’s incredibly steep, nearly-full house. As she passes, two men (James Viveiros and I think Masaharu Imazu) yell at anyone that turns to watch her ascend, screaming “don’t look back!” in multiple languages. Chouinard’s piece turns a corner here; bringing the action offstage is probably the only way to sustain the fever-pitch she refuses to let up, and breaking the fourth wall breathes new life into the remainder of the show, which I found much stronger than the unmoored gratuitousness of its multiple overtures. For all the aggressiveness it has coming out of the gate, not until Eden-Towle’s monologue—a good fifteen minutes in—does it feel like it’s actually begun. For anyone not shocked by honking, dissonant music (by Louis Dufort, which I actually liked quite a bit), nudity, men in platform shoes and strap-on dildos, simulated hardcore fucking in creative arrangements, yelling, screaming, guttural utterances, jingle bells pretend-inserted into vaginas and worked through gesticulation up into and out of the throat et cetera, there’s not a whole lot going on. If you’ve seen CMC before, and I have, none of this is telling you anything new, nor is it all that germane to the work’s agenda. The first quarter of the piece feels as unnecessary as the last three-quarters feels lean and vital.

Carol Prieur. Photo by Michael Slobodian.

But these dancers, all of them, inspire awe. Even those not given a star turn focus like lasers and bore pure intention into your assaulted retinas. That said, Carol Prieur and Manuel Roque (who, curiously, is only mentioned by name in one corner of the program and doesn’t have a headshot and bio like the rest of the cast) stand out as genius. They’re monsters, machines and poets, vessels through which every shred of potential in their roles is not only exercised but exhausted. To watch them is to stand in the wind tunnel of their talent, your face peeled back to the skull.

Over thirty years in the game, Marie Chouinard is still proving her commitment to dancemaking of uncompromised intensity and visceral engagement. Someone’s got to be willing to go further than anyone else and, without artists who define boundaries by obliterating them, the form has no sense of history. Love it or hate it, Chouinard’s work is made in and about the present moment, even as it drills into the universal truths of a story over two thousand years old. Orpheus loses Eurydice irreversibly due to a concern so full it causes him to forget the terms of her safe return; this, his second chance, he earns only because of his mystical and entrancing talent with music and verse. Mystical and entrancing talents won’t get you out of every pickle, and some mistakes can’t be unmade. Running fragments of this lesson through a series of sexual preoccupations, a compulsion for provocation, and using them to source a choreographic slideshow framed by signifiers of a mythic era (Grecian costumes, those frieze-like processions, pared-down design that echoes the timeless minimalism of true Classicism) in the end just give the lesson a new outfit to wear instead of a voice with which it may speak to our time. This makes a compelling contrast to the profound, genuine embodiment these dancers give every moment of this work.

Compagnie Marie Chouinard’s Orpheus and Eurydice repeats tonight and tomorrow afternoon at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

“What is life to me, without thee…..”, deze aria van Orpheus (van Von Gluck) spookt me al de hele dag door de kop. Vanmorgen een vulling voor Robs pen gehaald bij de boekhandel en dan kom ik langs de praktijk van dr. Van der Kouwe, de vader van Marlies. Zij was het meisje dat op Bonaire werd vermoord door Ryan P. En gelijk moet ik denken hoe moeilijk het me lijkt een leven te hervatten na zo iets. So wie so het weer oppakken van een draad na het verlies van een geliefde, een kind, een dierbare. En dan nog iemand die op een dergelijke wijze is vermoord…. Hoe vind je weer de zin in je leven en vind je die überhaupt wel weer? Het slijt, maar o, zo langzaam en altijd ligt die koude steen op je hart.

Ik heb nooit een antwoord, ook niet in mijn eigen leven. Wel is er een gigantisch mededogen met een ieder, want iedereen heeft wel in zijn leven een dergelijk verlies, een verdriet, een afscheid, een scheiding, dood….. Er is geen maatlatje wie het meeste lijdt. Je eigen verlies is voor jezelf het ergst. Het is niet te vergelijken, het is geen wedstrijdje wie het meeste verdrietig is.

Zelf word ik ook wel eens gek van verdriet, soms…. Soms mis je je dierbare, je lief, ook erger dan op een ander tijdstip. Een geur, een bepaald licht, in mijn geval muziek, en je wordt ineens zo immens geconfronteerd met het ontbreken van degene die je zo lief en dierbaar was. Ze wonen allemaal in mijn hart, maar zou je ze niet liever gewoon even knuffelen, ruiken, aanraken….. En zo moest ik maar denken aan dr. Van der Kouwe, iemand die ik niet eens goed ken. Maar verdriet is universeel. En ik blijf de hele dag in mijn hoofd de hartekreet van Orpheus horen:

“What is life to me, without thee?
What is left if thou art dead?
What is life; life without thee?
What is live without my love?
What is life if thou art dead?

Eurydice! Eurydice!
Ah, hear me! Oh answer!
Oh answer!”

Ik stop even met dit blogje, ik word te verdrietig.  Hieronder nog even het hartverscheurende lied door Kathleen Ferrier op YouTube. Jammergenoeg geen versie door Aafje Heynis, de vriendin van mijn vader (dacht ik vroeger, want ze leek zo op mijn moeder). En ik draag het op aan alle lieve dierbaren die ik verloor en die met zijn allen heel warm in mijn hart zitten besloten (om het te horen, moet je er even met je muis overheen gaan en dan aanklikken):

What is life to me without thee….

Aafje Heynis, die zo mooi kon zingen, zo warm, is nu dement. En als ze dan zichzelf hoort zingen, dan zegt ze, met een verwondering op haar gezicht: “wat zingt dàt meisje mooi!” Een foto van deze fantastische, onvergetelijke zangeres:

Aafje Heynis

“Black Orpheus” (1959), also known as “Orfeu Negro”, is a French-made, Portuguese-language film that tells the old Greek love story of Orpheus and Eurydice but set in black Rio at the time of the Carnival. While it does present blacks as childlike, you do get to see Carnival and hear music by bossa nova great Tom Jobim.

The film won a Golden Palm at Cannes, an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

Like “Carmen Jones” (1954) it uses an all-black cast and music to tell an old story.

The story (spoiler alert) appears in Ovid, Plato, Rubens, Titian, Monteverdi, Cocteau and even Neil Gaiman. In both the Greek story and the film, Orpheus plays amazing songs on his stringed instrument (lyre, guitar). He falls in love with Eurydice but then she is killed (by a snake, the electric current of a tram line). Orpheus goes to get her back from the dead (Hades, voodoo woman) but he is told that if he looks back at her before he leaves he will lose her forever. He looks back. Orpheus carries her body and is killed by some women who have gone mad.

Eurydice was played by Marpessa Dawn, who is not from Brazil at all but Pittsburgh! Although she is a light-skinned black American woman, in some of the posters she is pictured as a white woman. Not sure how they got away with that. She died in 2008 just 42 days after Breno Mello, who played Orpheus (and is from Brazil).

The film comes up in Barack Obama’s book “Dreams from My Father”. When he was going to Columbia University his mother and sister came to visit. One night “Black Orpheus” was showing. It was an old film that his mother loved, so they went.

His sister thought it was “kind of corny. Just Mom’s style”. Barack could not stand the way it pictured blacks and wanted to leave. He was about to get up and go but then he saw his mother:

But her face, lit by the blue glow of the screen, was set in a wistful gaze. At that moment, I felt as if I were being given a window into her heart, the unreflective heart of her youth. I suddenly realized that the depiction of childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad’s dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different.

“Black Orpheus” had come out just before she met his father at the University of Hawaii.

Obama concludes:

The emotion between the races could never be pure, even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.

See also:

• Ovid
• Brazil
• Obama at Columbia
• film
• exotic women
• Carmen Jones: Dat’s Love