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tutuandscoot · 1 year

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I wanna preface this by saying I mean no offence to the skaters and people I’m about to mention, just the programs, costumes, overall spectacle..

So.

What a freaking mood kill it must’ve been watching the 2010 FD event live (there in person but on tv as well) to watch VM deliver THAT performance, in their home country with the crowd going nuts, then to follow with the two programs by BA and DS..

It’s like stepping back in time 10 years in a matter of moments. The contrast between the future and the past in just.. 15 minutes or so. Now it’s not as though the atmosphere in the arena totally dies in tha arse.. being two top teams there was a fair amount of applause, it’s just the artistic mood kill it must’ve been. Like going from watching a performance of Swan Lake, to… some low budget horror movie. I watch it and just think what the hell were you people (these more dated style teams and their costumers/choreographers) thinking?? Was it not embarrassing to come out after VM- a boy and girl dressed so simply in a blouse and trousers and a white dress wearing…. What they were wearing?? For DS: a trash bag looking cape thing??, BA: him in that all white… elvis-esk get up. THE WHITE SKATE COVERS 🫣🫣🫣. (Also the first two teams in the final group-DW and FS were dressed more simply/appropriately to the sport and character of the program.. not to just say VM are the only ones who get it- but they ARE the best example).

I was watching 2002 worlds the other day- the one after the Salt Lake olys and Rod and Tracey are talking about the “costumes” and how something needs to be done about it (Rod asking ‘wasn’t something done about’ it and Tracey responding ‘yes’ but clearly no one listened) and/or teams should be penalised for excessive costumes. Part of me thinks, as the person skating in this stuff, just.. how do they do it?? Like isn’t it uncomfortable, restrictive, a headache to partner in?? And then the spectator in me thinks you look like idiots! I find it so difficult to watch bc you can’t make out hardly anything that’s happening. These were two (at the time) highly ranked teams with obviously good skating skills but just the visual- the first thing you see- those costumes already gives you the impression of sloppyness. I’ve said before, it’s not like these people are on stage with sets and lights and other people dressed like them so it makes sense, they are just two people in a sports arena with no prior context for what they are portraying, coming out dressed, as these two teams (and there were many more at this event, I only point out these two bc they skated after VM and were medal contenders) did… it just looked ridiculous.

VM come out just as themselves dressed stunningly and there is no distraction whatsoever to their skating and dancing, even in other programs of their’s- more specific character ones the costume is never a distraction- it always aids in it.

BA were skating to Ava Maria, now why couldn’t they dress in something like VM?? White- the angel/heavenly. There could still be some reference to wings or whatever, but not to the point where it is a complete distraction.

DS.. just.. omg. That PLUS the aboriginal dance (like guys it was so bad there were Aussie news reports with aboriginal elders talking about how offensive and not representative of their culture it was). So their music/ story was ‘the double life of Veronique’. I looked it up and apparently it’s a movie about a woman who leads a double life/has an identical twin? Idk.. Now why did they dress like a fabric shop went through a garbage disposal machine??? There were rhinestoned faces on both their costumes but you could only make those out up close. Why couldn’t they just dress her in a simple dress and him in something similar (maybe different colours) to Scott and tell the story through movement.. bc the program makes ZERO sense.

[Also: nothing says you have to use music from a movie or theatre show or ballet and skate as the character/s from said production. You can use the music just as music and create your own story, or have no story at all (VM once mentioned this about wanting to skate to R+J but we’re told they were “too old” (which is bullshit) but considered using the music and just dancing to it.. SEE WHY I YELL SO MUCH ABOUT VM GETTING IT). ]

Take something like VM’s Moulin Rouge. Their costumes are reminiscent of the film/stage show, but they weren’t confined to that story in those costumes- they could’ve worn them for a number of different stories/music selections. But they told the story through their movement and interactions together. The lifts (as I’ve detailed) tell the story. The way they touch and hold each other, look at each other. It makes complete sense yet it is also up for interpretation.

With these older programs.. this ‘style’ there is so much going on; either the program doesn’t make sense, they try so hard to make a vague theme seem literal that the skating and athleticism suffers… it’s one thing watching it in 2002, people saying this is ridiculous, but most teams were doing this sort of ‘style’, but in 2010.. I mean VM really were the most “bare”, simple team.. and did it not look the best?? To the untrained eye who can’t really tell skating details apart (me): it is soooo much more pleasant to watch Valse Triste over the majority of programs that year. Just a girl and boy dancing to beautiful music, dressed beautifully- showing off their beautiful posture, long, straight pointed legs and feet, no distractions from their musicality and connection to each other. Stripped down to the bare minimum and everything that should matter in their judged sport can be judged without distraction. Same with Umbrellas, but this time with a theme and story. Same with Pink Floyd- (worlds) themeless, all about the movement and musicality. Same with Mahler.. are we seeing a pattern here?? SAME WITH ALL THEIR PROGRAMS. Every time they came up against (top) teams wearing too much with two much going on.

I guess my gripe is; how did it take this long to realise dressing like that looked ridiculous?? It’s just crazy to watch, and getting back to the original point, it must’ve been so strange, and I wonder if people watching live could make that distinction that just visually, forget athletically, what VM were doing was stratospheres better. And STILL stands up today as one of the greatest ice dance performances of all time.

So yeah…

Here’s VM expressing my exact reaction:

#just wee little rant #VM really did revolutionise ID didn’t they..#my beautiful dancing bbys #please go watch these other skate after VM on the full replay #SS don’t do the disaster justice

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sarahjart · 5 years

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UNIT EIGHT- AUDIENCE/VISIBILITY- SLSL: REFERENCES: HOW TO TELL STORIES

There are millions of ways to tell a y. For this project we are being encouraged to think about the specific mechanics of how you can tell a story- broadening the perspective of my horizon as an illustrator. I have taken most of the artists given in the brief document to explore some of the more ‘event’ friendly ways of telling a story.

Janette Paris- ANIMATION AND STRIP COMIC

Janette Paris creates bright and punching strip comics and animations based in Peckham. Although I am not a big fan of the style of her work, I appreciate how effective this medium is at telling a story concisely.

The Paper Cinema- PAPER ANIMATION

This was my favourite reference artist given by the brief. The Paper Cinema is a company who make films, mostly of classics or Shakespeare, using paper. the paper is moved freely in front of the camera, not using stop motion, and cleverly manipulated to tell the story. I absolutely love the aesthetic of this piece and am inspired by it to possibly make a film.

Manga Kamishibai- AN ILLUSTRATED ‘SLIDESHOW’

Kamishibai (Japanese: 紙芝居, "paper play") is a form of Japanese street theatre and storytelling that was popular during the Depression of the 1930s and the post-war period in Japan.

Kamishibai was told by a kamishibaiya ("kamishibai narrator") who travelled to street corners with sets of illustrated boards that they placed in a miniature stage-like device and narrated the story by changing each image.

I like the idea of this as an almost hand- illustrated television. I think this style of storytelling would work well at the event, however you have to have the confidence to embody the role of narrator, which I unfortunately cannot do.

Samizdat- SELF PUBLISHED BOOKS/PERIODICALS

Samizdat ("self-publishing") in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade official Soviet censorship was fraught with danger, as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials. Vladimir Bukovsky summarized it as follows: "Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend time in prison for it myself."

This is an interesting format of storytelling because it requires the use of reproduction through multiple people, perhaps producing a sort of Chinese whispers style warping of the final document. I like the idea of the story evolving and being told through reproductions. However, I don’t think any of the stories I have collected from the ice rink are really appropriate for this form of storytelling.

Broadsides- NEWSPAPER STYLE

Elizabethan poetry ‘ballads’ where produced on large sheets in the paper called ‘broadsides’. they were accompanied by gorgeously stylised illustrations. I think this is an interesting way to possibly tell a story- perhaps even in ballad form! however I’m not sure how good this would be for an event as it isn’t very interactive.

Theatre- PERFORMANCE ART

Long has the art of theatre been used to tell stories. Looking into it, I could use multiple elements of theatre, without using theatre itself, to tell stories, for example the sets, staging and costumes, tell stories for themselves.

Spoken Word/ Rap songs- MUSIC AS A WAY TO TELL STORIES

The Liverpool Poets are a number of influential 1960s poets from Liverpool, England, influenced by 1950s Beat poetry. They were involved in the 1960s Liverpool scene that gave rise to The Beatles.

Their work is characterised by its directness of expression, simplicity of language, suitability for live performance and concern for contemporary subjects and references. There is often humour, but the full range of human experience and emotion is addressed.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:

Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest punk rock group based in Moscow. Founded in August 2011, it has had a variable membership of approximately 11 women [1] ranging in age from about 20 to 33 (as of 2012).[2] The group staged unauthorized provocative guerrilla performances in public places, performances that were filmed as music videos and posted on the Internet.[3] The collective's lyrical themes included feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the group considered to be a dictator, and his policies.[2] These themes also encompassed Putin's links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church

Music is a very powerful tool to get across emotion in the telling of stories, however, I don’t have any musical bones in my body so this isn’t really an option for me!

Shadow Puppetry- PERFORMANCE WITH PROPS

The Sbek Thom is a Khmer shadow theatre featuring twometre high, non-articulated puppets made of leather openwork. Dating from before the Angkorian period, the Sbek Thom, along with the Royal Ballet and mask theatre, is considered sacred. Dedicated to the divinities, performances could only take place on specific occasions three or four times a year, such as the Khmer New Year, the King’s birthday or the veneration of famous people. After the fall of Angkor in the fifteenth century, the shadow theatre evolved beyond a ritualistic activity to become an artistic form, while retaining its ceremonial dimension.

The puppets are made from a single piece of leather in a special ceremony for each character representing gods and deities. The hides are dyed with a solution made from the bark of the Kandaol tree. The artisan draws the desired figure on the tanned hide, then cuts it out and paints it before attaching it to two bamboo sticks enabling the dancer to control the puppet.

Shadow puppetry in all of its forms has long been a fascination of mine, along with simple puppetry itself. I think it is a really interesting way of telling a story and it is something I would consider for my project.

Immersive Theatre - THEATRE WITH A THEMED ENVIRONMENT

Phantasmagoria was a form of horror theatre that used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens, typically using rear projection to keep the lantern out of sight. Mobile or portable projectors were used, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, and multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images.

In many shows the use of spooky decoration, total darkness, (auto-)suggestive verbal presentation, and sound effects were also key elements. Some shows added all kinds of sensory stimulation, including smells and electric shocks. Even required fasting, fatigue (late shows) and drugs have been mentioned as methods of making sure spectators would be more convinced of what they saw. The shows started under the guise of actual séances in Germany in the late 18th century, and gained popularity through most of Europe (including Britain) throughout the 19th century.

Theming in an environment, for example stage sets of theme parks, has long been a passion of mine. The more immersive the better. I love the idea of this type of production and think I might use elements of it in my own work.

Sideshows

In North America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair, or other such attraction.

I think the most interesting thig here are the painted signs leading you to the sideshows. They are such an old fashioned art form. I have previously done a huge project on circus signage so am very interested in painting signage for my project too!

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maggotmouth · 6 years

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hullo it nora, back for more mess. this unhinged little nightmare is cecily who i first birthed around 3 years ago and i am so excited to finally be playing her again. feral wolf girl who loves silk babydoll dresses and bubblegum but would also cut your femoral artery if she was bored. is the eptome of that “somethin dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls” trope. amma crellin meets harley quinn meets addy hanlon. ( pinterest )

APP.

( nora. 22. gmt. she / her. ) it might be HER FRESHMAN year but I still think CECILY DE ROSA looks exactly like FREYA MAVOR and sometimes I think the FEMALE is actually them. Of course I’m wrong, as they’re 19 and studying THEATRE while living in FIDELIS here at Lockwood. The GEMINI can be rather PUCKISH and CANDID, but also kind of SELF-CENTRED and HYSTERICAL. Their most played song on Spotify was CELL BLOCK TANGO by CATHERINE ZETA JONES AND THE COMPANY OF CHICAGO, so I think that says a lot.

BACKGROUND.

tw death suicide murder proceed w caution

born as ‘lamia romana’ in italy to catholic parents. her father was a struggling alcoholic and incredibly depressed. when cece was 4, and her brother was 3 her father fed the gas pipe through the back of their car whilst they prepared to go on their family holiday because he knew suicide would leave his wife and children penniless so he decided the most selfless thing would be to take them with him

cecily (lamia) and her brother luc by some miracle survived the accident, but were left orphaned. they were sent to a convent where they were raised by nuns. cece was incredibly religious. it became her whole life. she was devoted to god completely, almost crazed, because in the absence of parents she transferred the need for a guider and protector onto this spiritual other evoked by her religious beliefs.

she always had a strained relationship w her brother because she believed he wasn’t as devoted to catholicism as she was. when she was 13 he claimed that god wasn’t real and that she was a freak, and in a violent rage cecily thrust a crucifix through his throat. it was completely out of character for her. she screamed until her throat went dry. eventually, when the nuns managed to tear her away from her brother’s body, she was taken to a psychiatric hospital in manhattan where she stayed for two years. driven to madness, she convinced herself that she had been possessed by the devil the moment she killed her brother, and soon she began to accept her fate, as not holy, like she had anticipated, but in fact it’s ungoldy antithesis

when she was released, she was adopted by an american distant aunt and uncle and sent to a manhattan boarding school under the new name ‘cecily de rosa’. see also: st. trinnians. lifted of any religious obligation, cecily grew wild. she delighted in acting up, cheeking her superiors, causing havoc and chaos, terrifying the other girls. sex became her weapon – she would seduce the boys from the local comprehensive and drop them like flies. to her, it was merely a game.

uses sex as a weapon, a way in which to manipulate men, having filmed sexual liasons with both a former acting coach and a TA to use for the purposes of blackmail.

her expulsion from school was threatened after she streaked the school naked and doused in pig blood, but her academic prowess was an asset to the school, so they learnt to put up with her antics. she applied for yale but didn’t get in.

she atended juliard for a year but was thrown out for indecency

theatre-wise, one of Cecily’s most commendable traits is her sheer tenacity and lack of inhibition – she is willing to do whatever it takes to climb to the top, and kick as many other people down as necessary on her way there. tthis unhinged hunger for success was evidenced when, in her breakout role, cecily played Tamora in Titus Andronicus. feeling the presentation of one of shakespeare’s most terrifying women was ‘pussy-footed’ and dulled down for a male audience, cecily took matters into her own hands, and during the famous banquet scene where Tamora is fed her own sons, she ate a pig’s heart live on stage – receiving both awestruck and horrified press reviews for her performance -- and getting expelled from her drama school. (thats why she is now at lockwood)

she is in a sorority house n the gymnastic squad. she speaks fluently in four languages. the kind f sociopathic lana del rey writes songs about.

was raised Roman Catholic, and although she is now estranged from religion, it’s still an integral part of her identity. She holds it partially responsible for the need to repress emotion she still experiences. The only time she allows herself to truly feel, without perceiving it as a weakness, is when she’s performing

cecily was raised with dual-nationality and is multi-lingual. Her parents frequently spoke both Italian and English around the house, leading cecily to do the same. She is also somewhat familiar with Latin, having studied it alongside Literature, Contemporary Dance and Theatre at a manhattan-based performing arts boarding school.

ethereal wood elf. plays flute and does ballet. her favourite tv shows are making a murderer and dance moms. she is big on Tchaikovsky and Bukowski. poetry to cecily is soup of the soul, despite the fact that the only things she really feels are apathy and mild disgust. her poems mostly centre around the beauty of violence -- writing about it often prevents her from committing violent acts -- and also her cat.

loves gettin fucked up. always high on sometin -- cocaine, ecstasy, love, her own ego.

had her first taste of alcohol at 15 and has stayed fond of spirits ever since. likes literature of the macabre, isn’t fond of social media, and loves knee high socks and glitter. she bites her nails, will only take cold showers, and doesn’t drink coffee. loves cats. is vegan.

she sleeps like a cat, regularly but short amounts of time, and is usually found awake at night stalking the streets in the pursuit of self-destruction. she views herself as pansexual because she is attracted to people rather than genders but she thinks men are trash. probably biromantic or homoromantic. she loves the chase. she likes meaningless sexual liasons, but if hearts are broken in the process, even better. hearts are breakable and she believes those who have them are foolish.

aesthetic: peroxide hair in a bathtub, bleach, glittery socks under spaghetti strap heels, silk slip dresses, glitter smeared beneath eyes, split knuckles, nose bleeds, a bubble of blue gum snapped against cherry flavoured lips, orange peel, knee-high socks, tartan two-piece skirt and blazers, kate moss posters ripped out of vogue, littering a bedroom wall, yearbook photos tacked together with red thread, clip in highlights, stick on earrings, french music humming from a crackly gramophone, a hip flask covered with hello kitty stickers

PLOTS.

i currently have NO PLOTS for her so everything is open. if you want a cousin / ex-lover / friend with benefits / bully, or are dying for a specific connection, let me know or like this post and i will msg you!! LOVE U ALL xoxo

more plots all of these are plagiarised:

“you were drunk and you climbed in through my apartment window and I’m not really sure how you managed it because not only is the fire escape broken but you are really fucking plastered wtf please, teach me your skills?”

“i set your kitchen on fire ‘by accident’ because i hate your guts, and you know it was me but you have no evidence”

“we’re in a breakfast club style all day detention”

“you came over for ‘help studying’ and my roommate came home five minutes after we were done hooking up and you got roped into a conversation about her dogs and everyone is uncomfortable”

“we’re friends but it’s a really toxic relationship made up of trying to one up each other all the time”

“I caught you writing gay porn in the library and now you’re terrified i’ll tell everyone, but really i’m just waiting for the next instalment”

“i asked you to help me sneak my cat into my dorm but we got caught by the janitor and now we’re both in the principal’s office”

“you saw me come back to my apartment covered in blood one night, but you’ve never asked about it because you’re scared that yours might be the next blood i’m covered in”

“you broke into my apartment while I was out for whatever reason and when I came home I knocked you out and now you’re unconscious on my floor and idk what to do?”

“i just decked you in the face because i’m drunk and you were pissing me off but ow my hand really fucking hurts i think i might have broke it and oh look your nose is bleeding and now we’re both sitting awkwardly in the hospital while i glare at you from across the room. but wait are you giving me sex eyes?? stop that i’m supposed to mad at you??”

“you keep dragging suspicious sacks up to and down from your apartment and I don’t know what your deal is or why I still wanna bone you”

“we’re in the same rocky horror troupe”

“i stayed over at your house and woke you up in the middle of the night to have sex while your roommate is asleep and every time, your room mate yells “STOP FUCKING, JESUS CHRIST” right when we’re about to finish”

“we used to have a thing but now we hate each others guts and can’t be in the same room without yelling at one another”

“i had a drunk one night stand with your brother last year and i threw up in your room, and now we’re in a class together and it’s really awkward.”

#tw:intro #tldr - crazy bitch like 4 plots

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erinmason-blog · 3 years

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An Exploration of the Relationship Between Major Studios and the Arthouse Moviegoing Experience

While learning about the inner-workings of the independent cinema industry over the course of the semester, I have taken an interest in class discussions and coursework related to arthouse theaters, their history, and what sets them apart from commercial theaters. During the spring 2020 semester, I was a part of the Stonehill in the City program in Los Angeles where I interned for the In-Theater Marketing Department at Paramount Pictures (during my time spent in CA from January to March.) The In-Theater Marketing team primarily manages the promotion of new films within the theater environment (through the implementation of physical displays, trailer spaces during movie previews, and promotional offers and events,) elements related to the consumer’s movie-going experience, and correspondence between theaters and the studio.

In my research, I aim to explore the relationship between major studios, such as Paramount, and the arthouse moviegoing experience. This blog will investigate a general history of arthouse film exhibitors, how independent titles and theaters fit into mainstream entertainment, and insight into the link between studios and in-theater moviegoing from the perspective of Juliet Conroy, my former supervisor at Paramount, and from my personal experiences. I had the opportunity to interview Juliet over the phone, and she was also able to detail how the experience of physically going to the movie theater has permanently shifted due to COVID, and how the pandemic has impacted the status of both corporate and independent exhibitors.)

Digital Cinema Initiatives: An Example of the Relationship Between Major Studios & Exhibitors

Because a significant part of the consumer appeal to pursuing the arthouse theater experience is nostalgia, maintaining tradition, and breaking away from the hyper commercialized, digitized climate in which modern entertainment often lives, independent theaters frequently struggle to compete with larger corporate and franchise competitors. In a 2012 study conducted by Lisa Dombrowski, a Film Studies professional based at Wesleyan University, she analyzes the backgrounds of various Miami-area arthouse theaters, focusing on a “two-tiered exhibition sector: DCI-compliant art cinemas able to screen studio fare and potentially compete with commercial multiplexes vs. non-DCI-compliant art cinemas that are unable to digitally screen studio-affiliated films and thus focus on more independent or alternative programming.” DCI stands for “Digital Cinema Initiatives” and refers to an organization comprised of seven major film studios (MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros) that was established in 2002 to regulate the uniformity and quality of film exhibition in theater spaces. This organization is a key element of the connection between major studios and arthouse film exhibitors, as it has set an industry standard that needs to be met by any theater owners who wish to have the freedom to show potentially lucrative blockbuster titles. It is vital that arthouse theaters have the option to offer more mainstream titles to audiences, as a balance between niche programming and popular pictures is typically what creates the space for them to set themselves apart while financially staying afloat.

Following the annual state of the industry address delivered by John Fithian, the President of the National Association of Theater Owners, at the CinemaCon convention in May of 2011, Dombrowski summarizes that “while a predominantly digital future gets closer for exhibitors of all kinds, the motivation, means, and models for the arrival of digital projection in first-run commercial cinemas are distinctly different than those for art houses.” This creates a point of contention for arthouse cinemas, as “issues of access and programming flexibility inspire the art house drive to digital, while the financial challenges inherent to conversion have led to a much wider range of options regarding how digital copies of films will be distributed and exhibited.” This desperation to experiment with adapting more antiquated methods of showing film is “driven by the major studios’ desire to reduce the cost of printing and shipping film, the appeal of new 3D technology, and the promise of superior image quality without print degeneration,” as corporate theater chains have more economic and technological flexibility than independently run arts institutions.

When faced with such a predicament, several of the Miami area arthouse cinemas featured in Dombrowski’s study pursued creative options to remain open and in healthy competition with commercial exhibitors. Some have sought out strategies like including both “non-filmic ‘alternative content’, such as live music performances, sports, opera, theater, and ballet” and films shown on both 35mm and digital on their theater calendar. According to Ira Deutchman, the co-founder of Emerging Pictures (a digital theater network,) “It’s gotten easier convincing the art houses that they need digital. At the beginning it was like pulling teeth. Art houses are now sizing up when and how, not if.” Although undergoing the transition to install DCI-compliant entertainment systems is often a financial burden for independently run theaters, it ultimately allows for more effective discourse between struggling arthouse cinemas and major studios (and therefore, allows for them to thrive when faced with corporate competitors.) The establishment of DCI standards has also led to the growth of “larger commercial art house chains, such as Landmark Theaters, Sundance Cinemas, City Cinemas, Laemmle Theatres, and Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas” because they “rely on films from the major studio affiliates” whilst offering more streamlined, specialized content for niche demographics that prefer the arthouse movie-going experience.

The frequency and lower price range with which independent film titles are released on digital (as opposed to the traditional format of 35mm film) is another convenient allure for arthouse cinemas to make the switch. This flexibility gives them the freedom to “more easily hold onto a film for several weeks and build an audience or roll it out in any number of release patterns” so they can “help operators to nimbly take advantage of unanticipated crowd-pleasers” (and therefore, avoid being cornered into making potentially inaccurate guesses about projected revenue.) Joining the majority of theaters (both arthouse and commercial) in exhibiting films on digital also allows for independently run arthouse cinemas to welcome more programming opportunities, “for example, one hundred art theaters around the country might premiere a film on the same night, and all link up via satellite or Skype for a Q & A with the film’s director afterwards.” Overall, although the establishment of DCI standards is costly and has hindered the ability of some arthouse cinema directors to maintain the implementation of traditional film exhibition methods, in the long run, the standards will hopefully aid in fostering a more inclusive and less monopolized environment within the movie-going industry. Possessing DCI-compliant equipment is the key to upholding the studio-exhibitor relationship.

Perspective from Working at a Major Studio

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Juliet Conroy, the Director of Material Logistics in the In-Theater Marketing Department at Paramount Pictures (and my former internship supervisor.) It was really engaging to hear about her personal experiences and the experiences of her colleagues related to the comparison of smaller indie exhibitors to larger corporate exhibitors, how major studios are connected to the cultivation of the consumer’s movie-going experience, and how COVID has affected (and will forever change) the tradition of film exhibition. I was also interested in hearing how so much of her professional involvement is directly relevant to subjects that have been touched upon in our study of independent cinema throughout the semester.

According to Juliet, the studio has more limited contact with specifically indie exhibitors; however, they work directly with franchise arthouse cinemas such as Alamo Drafthouse. These chain arthouse theaters are smaller so they are more flexible and can cater to a more specific audience; however, they are private, so they have more limited opportunity for income from stockholders. A major issue being faced by independent theaters is the financial burden of continuing to pay for rent whilst unable to open at a high enough capacity to generate a sustainable income. Because theaters are technically allowed to reopen, landlords and corporate real estate companies that rent space in expensive areas often immediately demand rent payments, even if theater owners choose not to instantaneously reopen. Juliet lives in Culver City, a more residential neighborhood within Los Angeles, and she says many arthouse-type theaters have been driven out of the area because rent has been driven up since companies like Amazon, Apple, and Sony have moved in.

Larger, corporate theater companies also struggled during the pandemic, as AMC experienced a spike in stockholders that narrowly saved them from filing for bankruptcy. Both independent and corporate theaters were forced to find creative ways to bring in audiences when studios weren’t comfortable debuting major titles. Some theaters introduced promotions in which they customized some screenings to more specific audiences, and major studios began selling them repertory titles (such as successful classics and horror films.) Additionally, some theaters (such as the infamous Arclight Hollywood) owed too many studios money for titles and could not keep up with the accumulation of costs (and were unfortunately faced with too much debt to remain open.)

Juliet is confident that major studios are “never going to have this opportunity to change the way business is done” again – “it’s time for studios to rethink how they want to spend their marketing dollars, inside the theater and outside the theater, and whatever makes it most worthwhile.” This unique opportunity to restructure the movie-going experience has cultivated an environment in which streaming and in-person entertainment can begin to coexist more harmoniously. Typically, lower-rated films peter out quickly, and more successful blockbusters live in theaters for about 90 days. Now, following a Viacom shareholder meeting, Paramount officially plans to select certain titles (that are predicted to be successful and draw consumers) to live in theaters for 45 days and then be introduced to streaming. Soon after, Warner Bros. announced a similar plan for their 2022 release calendar.

Recently, Paramount introduced their own streaming service, Paramount Plus. Juliet claims that the introduction of the streaming service has not really affected her department, and from her perspective, the studio created the platform with the intention of having more flexibility with releases in the future. She says the studio is not typically exclusive with their content (like Disney Plus and HBO Max,) but rather, they evaluate each release on a case-by-case basis and “always do what’s best for the studio and the fans.” For example, recently, Paramount sold off titles like Billie Holiday to Hulu and Coming 2 America to Amazon.

In the last few weekends, box office numbers have been significantly higher, and for the first time, the numbers are comparable to the weekend prior to the commencement of COVID shutdown. Godzilla vs. Kong has been doing notably well as one of the first major films to exclusively debut in theaters since COVID affected the industry. Juliet says “there’s still a want to have the shared experience of watching the big screen,” so despite the obvious spike in popularity of streaming services over the past year, as more reliable safety protocols for theater cleaning, keeping customers and employees safe, and increasing public comfort have been developed, we will begin seeing major titles be debuted in titles again this summer. Juliet explained that as of right now, after Memorial Day weekend, every weekend of the summer has a major title scheduled to debut in theaters. She also disclosed that Disney keeps shifting the opening dates for their titles, which creates a domino effect in which other studios question their decision to debut their major titles and then shift their opening dates. Paramount is opening A Quiet Place 2 in theaters on Memorial Day weekend after it was originally supposed to debut in March of 2020, as the studio hopes to maximize the potential income from the film franchise and make a notable comeback as COVID restrictions are more drastically lifted.

Overall, after considering some of the ways in which major studios are tied to both independent and corporate exhibitors, it is evident that flexibility and creativity between both parties is necessary to the existence of the movie-going experience. As pandemic restrictions are gradually adjusted, vaccine numbers increase, and audiences decide to take advantage of our return to “normal,” we will see that no matter how convenient and accessible streaming content is, consumers will always return to traditional movie-going.

Sources

Dombrowski, Lisa. “Not If, But When and How: Digital Comes to the American Art House.” Film History, vol. 24, no. 2, 2012, pp. 235–248. JSTOR.

Zhen-Song Wang et al., "A Digital Cinema Playback system compliant with the DCI specification," 2009 Picture Coding Symposium, 2009, pp. 1-4.

Symeou, Pavlos C., et al. “Cultural Agenda Setting and the Role of Critics: An Empirical Examination in the Market for Art-House Films.” Communication Research, vol. 42, no. 5, July 2015, pp. 732–754.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/quiet-place-part-2-first-reviews-reactions-1202215892/

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-vs-kong-movie-review-2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/07/amc-ceo-adam-aron-raved-about-its-reddit-investors-on-an-earnings-call.html

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/24/22299615/paramount-plus-launch-date-price-cbs-all-access-shows-movies

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/movie-theaters-covid-reopening-attendance-questions/

https://www.verywellhealth.com/movie-theater-covid-fully-vaccinated-5120468

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showmethemon3y · 4 years

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What Black History Month means to me - guest post by Pauline Mayers

So it’s October, and as usual I’m having a lot of thoughts about Black History Month. In advance of my conversation with the wonderful Pauline Mayers tonight for Real Talk, we got talking on the subject. When she told me about this piece she had written, I wanted to read it. And then when I read it, I wanted to pos it. So thank you Pauline for the gift of your words and experience. I will post the rest verbatim from her text here.

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What Black History Month Means To Me by Pauline Mayers

Originally written 1st March 2019

The furore over the apparent rebranding of Black History Month (BHM) to Diversity Month by some London boroughs last year (2018) is of no surprise to me.

I remember when the idea and subsequent rolling out of BHM across the UK began in 1987. The following year, I began my dance training at the internationally known dance conservatoire, the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. Being a young Hackney girl and just turning 18 at the end of the 1980’s this was a big deal for me. I decided to specifically audition for the school as I had watched the associated Rambert Dance company and noticed there were no dancers in the company that looked like me. Without really thinking about it, my audition and subsequent training at the school was a challenge to the status quo. Much like BHM in its very beginnings.

BHM was a challenge to the UK perception that black people were muggers, thieves and rioters, not to trusted and certainly not to be tolerated. Not that I noticed any of this at the time. My awareness of BHM was consigned to a footnote accentuated by seeing Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant every so often on the news. My attention was very firmly placed on becoming a dancer.

In hindsight, my training was the real beginning of being othered. At the school, I wasn’t seen as a pioneer from Hackney, the first cockney girl (to my knowledge) to attend the school. I was viewed by some of the staff as simply a ‘black body’ who was attempting the impossible. ‘Black People don’t do ballet or dance’ was a mantra that was very definitely felt by me. It’s a mantra that Cassa Pancho MBE, creative director of British ballet company, Ballet Black has spoken of recently. And one that still exists today despite the presence of the extraordinary Dance Theatre of Harlem who were a company of twenty years standing at the point I was in training. This was a fact that school staff at the time seemed to have ignored. For teachers who in theory were experts in the ballet world, this omission is rather startling. Indeed, thirty years after I had begun my training, Ballet Black working with Freed of London have launched ballet shoes for darker skin tones. Which tells me by the omission happened.

Given I had begun my training at a local youth centre and went on to train at the Weekend Arts College I had up until this point always been around people who looked and sounded like me. Being a British black girl at a world renowned ballet school was not the ‘Fame’ experience I was expecting.

I never imagined for a second, the colour of my skin would have such a impact on my every day experience at the school. Born and raised in Hackney, it never occurred to me that being British and black would become a serious bone of contention. A couple of teachers seemed to take some sort of exception to my presence at the school. It certainly wasn’t ALL of the teachers... sounds familiar...

There were however, two teachers who made a massive difference to my experience at the school. With staff that had no POC representation, and students predominantly white European, with some students as far afield as Japan, Canada and the US, seeing examples of black excellence in dance was challenging. I needed to see people who looked like me succeed in the arena I had chosen to live my life, to keep going, to be inspired, so that I didn’t falter. Thankfully the director of the school had cottoned on to how I was feeling and gave me a gift, one I have treasured to this day. The biography of African American performer, activist and French resistance agent Josephine Baker called Jazz Cleopatra. It was about how she who took Europe by storm at a point when the idea of a famous black woman seemed impossible. I read the book until it fell apart. And then bought it several times more.

In much the same way, BHM was a way of celebrating Britain’s black community and its contributions to the U.K., which is a home from home. The reach of what was once the British Empire has morphed into the Commonwealth countries, extending to the Caribbean, where the British had ruled for centuries, leaving it’s mark through the Privy Council which various parts of the Caribbean still adhere to today. West Indian citizens had been told through their educational, legal, and political systems for 400 years that they were British. A fact seemingly denied upon independence from and entry into the U.K. during the 1960’s. The British decided that being black and from the Caribbean meant you were not of Britain but something else entirely, “no Blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. And this way of thinking remains to this day as we have seen with last year’s breaking of the Windrush Scandal. Make no mistake, the illegal deporting of Black British citizens had been going on for decades before The Guardian newspaper shed a light on it.

BHM came after the race riots of the beginning of the 1980’s when the black community railed against the overuse by the police of the SUS laws on young black men around the country. In my recollection BHM was a way to build bridges that had been burnt by shining a positive light on the contributions of the UK black community. The recent return of such rudimentary and abusive laws now come in the form of stop and search which has shown, yet again, to disproportionally target the black community… sounds familiar?

My awareness of BHM really came into being as my dance career took off. Cool Britannia was in, as was Suede, the Gallagher Brothers, etc. Soul to Soul, the Young Disciples and Mark Morrison were showing the world that black music didn’t only come from America it was a part of British culture, the MOBO’s were in its infancy and the U.K. perceived itself to be multi-cultural. Everyone was welcome and could be whoever they wanted to be. Britain was in effect was open to all.

My first offers of working on BHM projects came in 2001 at a point of unemployment. Theatres and venues I didn’t know somehow managed to find my details, making enquiries about my availability for October with a view to making collaborations with Black History as a focus. The only downside was there was very little preparation time (enquiries began in August) and not much money. However, I believed it was worth it, considering the opportunity to work with such established organisation could foster new lucrative relationships. I felt at the time the opportunity to work during BHM was a chance for organisations to see the way I worked and witness the success of my projects. They were opportunities that couldn’t be passed up…. or so I thought.

After three years of repeated promises to work in a more sustainable way across the year instead of the one month lead up to BHM and then working across the month for very little money, I decided this particular avenue was like a parasite. BHM was feeding off my very presence. It began to signal to me Whiteness’ attempt to validate its existence by delivering BHM as a means to an end. The idea to working longer term with me would literally disappear into the shadows for the following 10 months without even so much as a thank you for some of the frankly Herculean efforts I was making for such low wages. I know I’m not the only one, this was and is being replicated across the country. At the time, BHM seemed to be nothing more than a way to service the system and give the illusion of a non-existent cohesion. Besides, I was growing tired of the slave narrative that seemed to dominate BHM.

It’s the same slave narrative that keeps being brought up as ‘black history’. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not. It’s history. British history to be exact.

The slave trade is the history of colonial white European domination inflicted on the world. It’s the story of how the British along with the French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese amongst many others fed and gorged themselves until bloated with gout upon the profits made from enforced “free’ labour entwined with the horrors of enslaving millions of africans for centuries, and how the accrued wealth turned turned Britain into a super power, gifting it an empire which ruled over 23% of the world’s population at it’s height. It’s the continuing narrative of how Britain’s educational, legal, political, financial and social systems were aided by the profits of the slave trade, indeed the rise of the industrial revolution could not have happened without the slave trade. None of this is ‘black history’.

The black history I want to understand speaks of kings and queens, education and empire on the African continent, a time before the europeans enslaved Africans on a mass scale. The black history I’ve come to understand speaks of Bussa, Nanny Maroon, the Haitian Revolution, as well as many other uprisings by the enslaved which continued throughout the entire period of the slave trade against the colonisers who refused to see human beings. It speaks of the British Civil Rights movement (not American) with events like the Bristol Bus Boycott, and hear the stories of activists like Olive Morris. This is the black history I want to see. Others agree with me, indeed Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement for Labour’s proposals to change the way Black history is taught in the U.K. shows there is indeed some sort of a will to do things differently. I want to see such history embedded in the British education system. But this I believe will never happen in my lifetime, not least because it disproves the notion of black people being knife-wielding, uneducated, service providers who should be grateful for being here in the UK. And if a black person doesn’t like how they are being treated then they, and I quote “have the means to leave the country’ as Piers Morgan told Dr. Kehinde Andrews. This insipid ‘othering’ is the thing whiteness always does to protect itself. And too many people racialised as white fall into this diatribe with wild abandonment when faced with accusations of racism. I say this with a vague hope that I’ll be proved wrong… although I doubt it.

But, I digress.

As a black woman, I am constantly called to justify my presence in the U.K. to white people who literally don’t know the history of how the black community came to be in the U.K. Every single day, I’m faced with a continual barrage of micro aggressions, pictures and articles from a media hell bent on demonising people who look like me and constantly triggering of racial trauma. In order to navigate my daily existence, as well as having artistic expertise which is frankly outstanding (you can’t say that as a black woman… yeah, I can) I’ve had to become part historian, psychologist and social scientist simply so I can defend myself against the daily assaults of whiteness. Funny how I feel I have no choice but to become a sort of collector of facts whilst all whiteness needs to question my valid criticisms of the U.K.’s continuous attacks on blackness and the on-going racial injustice in general is a ferocity of opinion. I think it’s fair to say that in the thirty years since BHM came into being, the U.K.’s relationship with the black community has at this point fallen to an all time low. BHM has been become a silo, a mouthpiece to keep black people placated. And given the contexts I’ve given, my thinking is being born out by the facts.

The current and blatant attempts to rebrand BHM to Diversity Month seeks to both service whiteness’ wish to erase black people from the British historical canon and maintain the negative perception of the U.K. black community whilst at the same time, promoting through the back door a heightened sense of whiteness’ diversity as proof that we are ‘all in this together’. From the notion of White Jesus right up to the lack of acknowledgement by the U.K. of the West Indies effort in fighting in the armed forces in both World Wars on behalf of Britain, whiteness merely seeks to maintain itself as top of the food chain. White supremacy has been going on for at least three centuries.

My criticism of BHM is not about denigrating the efforts of the many in the black community who year in, year out are called upon to deliver a programme of work, and depending on where you are in the country, for not much money. Working BHM is a thankless task which is not seen as a very necessary and integral way to celebrating a community whose efforts over the centuries have directly contributed not only to the development of the U.K., but to the world. My criticism is about the response whiteness has to BHM. A response which I feel will always typify how the dominate white culture in the U.K will always see the black community. The systems in place demands there is no alternative to the fake narrative.

BHM to me has become a series of wasted opportunities for discussions around how UK society wishes to view itself in the 21st Century. In my experience, it’s a severely under-resourced month of a string of broken promises. And it serves as yet a further reminder that the system of whiteness will do anything it can to protect itself. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s statement October 2018 about the importance of BHM to U.K. does nothing more than give lip service in a vain attempt to deflect criticism.

My feeling is it’s time to do away with this farce. In the face of Brexit, Britain needs to face up to and confront it’s colonial past with honesty and bravery.

I won’t be holding my breath.

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armeniaitn · 4 years

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Komitas: Divine Liturgy Album Celebrates the Musical Mastery of an Armenian National Treasure

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/culture/komitas-divine-liturgy-album-celebrates-the-musical-mastery-of-an-armenian-national-treasure-36829-15-07-2020/

Komitas: Divine Liturgy Album Celebrates the Musical Mastery of an Armenian National Treasure

By, Christine Aghakhanian

Three years ago, Ambassador Tigran Mkrtchyan embarked on a journey to pay homage to the father of Armenian classical music, Komitas Vardapet, resulting in a rich musical album titled Komitas: Divine Liturgy, released by DELOS records on July 10.

After years of planning and collaboration led by the Ambassador, the 150th anniversary concert honoring Komitas Vardapet and his Divine Liturgy by the Latvian Radio Choir, under the artistic direction of composer Sigvards Klava, was held at St. John’s Church in Riga, Latvia. The three-day concert in September of last year, was recorded, giving birth to the newly released album with the musical arrangement of composer Vache Sharafyan, featuring Komitas’ final works just before his deportation during the Genocide.

The Latvian Radio Choir, the first non-Armenian speaking mixed choir to perform Komitas’ liturgies, is accompanied by award-wining soloist Deacon Hovhanness Nersesyan (bass) of the Araratian Pontifical Diocese and tenor Armen Badalyan, both of whom are graduates of the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, soloists at the Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet and vocalists at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral.

Ambassador Tigran Mkrtchyan

Ambassador Mkrtchyan explains that the inception of the project was initiated when he asked the Latvian Radio Choir to perform a few of Komitas’ pieces during their concerts. The performances were such a success, that he was convinced the choir could masterfully perform an entire concert of Komitas’ works. That is when conductor Sigvards Klava decided to travel to Armenia and stay at the Holy See of Etchmiadzin for inspiration, along with the collaboration of famed Armenian composer Vache Sharafyan.

“He [Klava] wanted, he needed to feel closer to the Armenian religious life, spiritual music and Komitas,“ said Ambassador Mkrtchyan. “So, a few days spent in Etchmiadzin and Yerevan, meetings with Komitas scholars, visits to religious sites in Armenia were of immense importance to bring Mr. Klava closer to Armenian culture. Later we invited from Paris, Mkrtich Mkrtchyan, a musician and Komitas scholar, to work with the choir, to present the Armenian musical traditions and Komitas. The singers also visited the Armenian Apostolic Church in Riga and had a meeting with Ter Khosrov Stepanyan, who presented them the Armenian religious traditions and spiritual music. Thus, it took three long years to mature this project, and then it was time to prepare for the recording itself,” he added.

In 1892, Komitas began working on the Divine Liturgy, his final work with ten versions, all of which were created for male choirs. The final version, presented on the album, dates from 1914-1915, just before Komitas’ deportation from Constantinople to a prison camp in Cankin.

Vache Sharafyan

Composer Vache Sharafyan believes that the original male version was written to be sang during church liturgies while the mixed choir version of the musical score he transliterated to Latin is more suitable for stage performances.

“The male choir and mixed choir have very different types of the musicality, timbres, colors etc.,” Sharafyan explains. “It was important to create a version of Komitas’ Liturgy based on his male choir version that could be sang by the mixed choirs, because there are more mixed choirs in the world. Meanwhile it was also very important to keep the music as close to the original male version of Komitas’ idea as possible and also to use the richness of the vocal beauty of the female and male voice combinations and to create a complete mixed choir version. I am sure that if Komitas had a chance to work after 1915, he would have definitely created such a version himself. But unfortunately, after the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and until the end of his life in 1935, Komitas was in the hospital for mental illnesses in Paris and never wrote another note,” he added.

Ambassador Mkrtchyan discussed some of the challenges of having a non-Armenian speaking choir conduct the liturgies and attributes this phenomenon to the fact that the liturgy is written in Armenian for an all-male choir. He also explained how those obstacles were overcome with a lot of hard work and determination.

“Komitas Vardapet has left us one of the most beautiful liturgies in the history of music,” revealed Ambassador Mkrtchyan. “Soloists simply have to be Armenian or be fluent in Armenian as the parts for the tenor and bass can be performed only by such persons. But during our long and painstaking preparations, we managed to address all of these issues, I hope, successfully. First, Mr. Mkrtchyan worked with the choir, also on their Armenian, presented them nuances of Armenian spiritual music. Then a Latvian scholar of Armenian studies, Valda Salmina, worked with them on their Armenian. And eventually Vache Sharafyan worked with the singers both before the concert and during the recording. Therefore, I dare say, the choir sounds like an Armenian choir,” he added.

Composer Sharafyan talked about his experience working on the album: “I had great time working with the Latvian Radio Choir and its choirmaster Sigvards Klava. The Latvian Radio Choir consists of wonderful musicians and has a unique rich timbre and ability to open and express the very hidden spirituality and nuances in the music. It was also very important to have the Armenian wonderful soloists Armen Badalyan and Hovhannes Nersesyan … They helped a lot to keep the Armenianness of the whole sound.”

Komitas

Komitas collected, transcribed and researched more than 3000 pieces of Armenian folk music. Most of it has disappeared and only about 1200 pieces are in existence today. He arranged authentic folk songs of rural peasants turning simple material into beautifully sophisticated polyphony. It is said that Komitas did for Armenia what Bartók did for Hungary. He had a voracious appetite for songs, and his transcriptions reflect a remarkable ear, seamlessly interweaving threads of music, movement, and complex social relationships.

Ambassador Mkrchyan believes it is vital for the next generation to preserve Komitas’ legacy: “I think, the Armenian youth especially needs to know more about Komitas Vardapet’s contributions to the Armenian culture and arts, because Komitas is one of the strongest pillars on which Armenian cultural identity is based,” he said. “Thanks to him, we have several hundreds of unique sacred and spiritual songs, which he spared no effort to collect from around the Western Armenia. At the same time, Komitas having studied in Europe, knew very well what the uniqueness of Armenian culture was in the context of western civilization and how best to present it to international audience. I would say that the more we know his music, the more we know of him, the closer we are to our roots,” he added.

The album itself is accompanied by a booklet featuring the entire text of the liturgy in Armenian translated to English with Latin transliteration, allowing the listener of the recordings to sing along with the album. Also included is Komitas’ autobiography translated to English along with written sections about the life and music of Komitas by Vache Sharafyan and Vache Barsoumian.

“Komitas summarizes the collective consciousness of the Armenian nation, our aspirations and pain,” said Ambassador Mkrtchyan. “As we know all of his music was created before April 1915, before life stopped in the biggest part of the historical fatherland of Armenians, as the horrors of the Armenian Genocide which he witnessed were too much for a human being to tolerate. I hope Komitas gets a much wider and better recognition worldwide,” he added.

Composer Sharafyan also believes Komitas’ work should be better known around the world. He states that the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven is widely known because those men were from European countries where they had the opportunity to create art that was performed for audiences all over the world.

Komitas with his Gusan Choir, May 12, 1913 Constantinople

“Komitas was born in a country where there wasn’t real art life,” said Sharafyan. “There was poverty, occupation, invasion, genocide, war, there was the question of the existence of the Armenian nation and no real art life was possible in such a situation. Komitas studied in Berlin and found and established an absolutely new approach to the music based on the national value and discovered another sense of harmony, polyphony, melody. Throughout history we know many examples when music of the great composers are rediscovered later and I am sure Komitas is the one whose art is deserving to be discovered by the world,” he added.

[embedded content]

According to Ambassador Mkrtchyan, future cultural events and concerts in Estonia featuring the Liturgy of Komitas and Tigran Mansuran’s Requiem in Kaunas with Grammy Award winning choirs have been postponed due the to the COVID-19 pandemic. “From amongst the supporters I would like to thank specifically the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Armenia for acknowledging the significance of this project and stepping in with its considerable support,” said Ambassador Mkrtchyan. “Sigvards Klava was hosted in the Holy See of Etchmiadzin by the invitation of His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Armenian Apostolic Church in Riga and Ter Khosrov Stepanyan did an amazing job in presenting the Latvian Radio Choir with Armenian spiritual music traditions and I would like to thank Ter Khosrov for that. I would like to thank also OrganiQ company, and especially Ovik Mkrtchyan and Mkhitar Mkhitaryan for their generous support without which this idea would not be realized. Aram Arutyunyan was of great support as well. And also I would like to thank our sponsors from Armenia, the Balasanyan Family Foundation whose contribution to the Armenian musicians’ participation in this concert has been vital.

For more information on Komitas: Divine Liturgy, visit: https://delosmusic.com

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Covid-19 #Yerevan #Culture

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anettetheresepettersen · 5 years

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DNA or the Matrix?

Even though I have a hard time finding a way into Tordre, the performance shows how the performing arts stages function as a perverted place for a claimed normative body.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about theatres as freak shows or horror parks. By theatre, I mean stages where the performing arts are shown – including dance – and the freaky or horror aspect of it is the reproduction of an indirectly claimed normative body. Both theatre and dance still tend to favor some specific body types. And the minute a different body enters the stage, this normative body either re-establishes itself through pointing at the different bodies as the other, the bad one, so to speak. Or, the perverseness becomes obvious. This is not a new discovery, but lately I have been thinking about it a lot. It’s a bit like getting a pair of newly washed glasses, and not understanding how you were able to put up with the dirty and slightly foggy version of them, for so long.

As the two dancers in Rachid Ouramdane’s Tordre enters the main stage at Dansens Hus in Oslo, I am reminded of this. One of the dancers (Annie Hanauer) has an arm prosthesis, which influences her movements and choreography. While the other dancer, Lora Juodkaite, is wearing full body tricot, Hanauer is wearing black trousers and a singlet – making the prosthesis very visible.

Apart from this, Hanauer has the costume and posture of the stereotypical contemporary dancer; slightly saggy trousers and tight singlet, whereas Juodkaite looks more like classical ballet with her tricot. The prothesis soon becomes an extended part of Hanauer’s body, refusing to be a symbol. I read in the festival program that the «choreography pushes the performers to find the gesture that makes them who they are». What does this mean, I wonder? What is it that makes us who we are? Is it the bodies we are born with and the manner in which we in different ways alter them? I’m not entirely sure these questions are answered through the performance, but Hanauer and Juodkaite do move differently.

Disney on Ice The stage is covered with white dance matts, surrounded by white walls. From the roof, two giant black t-hooks are hanging, and between them we see a huge cluster of floodlights. The performance opens with a piece of music, a part of the ouverture from the movie Funny Girl (1968). The snippet is played in a rough loop, as a contrast to the smooth texture of the sound. I associate the music with Disney, and as the dancers move with big gestures, they somehow look like two tv-shop hostesses, located in a twisted Disney on Ice-universe.

Soon both music and choreography changes, and the real choreography, so to speak, is revealed. Juodkaite twirls and spins. She’s like an O, or a zero, twirling around her own axis, while Hanauer appears more like a stick, with her arms either hanging down, or floating to the sides, like an I or 1. The more I look at them, the more they seem to be part of some sort of pattern that I’m missing the code to unravel. Instead of looking at a movie, or a picture, I’m maybe seeing the back-end of the internet, of the matrix?

Matrix or dna? I’m having a hard time finding a passage into Tordre. The performance has a very strict and formal set-up, with a range of solos that at times overlap and becomes duets, or, at least moments of togetherness.

Since the movement is supposed to show us who they are, this patterned choreography that they are performing could also be read as strips of DNA. As if the two of them, twirling and spinning, falling and embracing, are DNA molecules? Somehow, I’m rather leaning towards it being a code. But to me, it becomes a code that I unfortunately find impossible to penetrate. I find no way in, no feelings or affects, no angle for the patterns to unfold or linger in me.

As I think back to the performance, it’s as if the main part of the performance erases itself in my memory, leaving me with the opening scene. This Disney on Ice meets TV-shop hostesses, on the other hand, gets my imagination going. In my mind, they will be staying in the building, in this wildly annoying music loop, as a reminder of how perverted the performing arts usually are.

Anmeldelsen ble opprinnelig publisert på Scenekunst.no 18.oktober 2019. Teksten inngikk i en kritikersalong i regi av Norsk kritikerlag, hvor tre kritikere møttes for å diskutere Tordre 18.oktober 2019, under CODA dansefestival. Referat fra og videoopptak av samtalen finnes på Norsk kritikerlags nettsider.

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epacer · 5 years

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Classmates

Yale Strom, Class of 1975 and Elizabeth Schwartz

‘National treasure’ Yale Strom to be featured at 26th annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival

When Yale Strom had his big musical and cultural epiphany while attending San Diego State University, the door that opened for him — figuratively, if not literally — was slammed in his face less than two hours later.

Experiencing both in rapid-fire succession irrevocably changed the life of this acclaimed maverick.

Strom had already earned degrees from SDSU in American Studies and Furniture Design. His musical epiphany inspired him to quickly abandon his plans to attend law school. Instead, he spent a year crisscrossing Eastern Europe as a backpack-toting violinist and amateur cultural ethnographer.

The Mission Hills resident has since become an award-winning performer, composer, photographer, documentary filmmaker, author and playwright. One of this country’s foremost scholars on Jewish klezmer music, which originated in Eastern Europe in the 17th century, Strom has performed around much of the world, played at the White House for President Obama and written a symphony.

Between May 26 and July 11, he will be featured in three performances during the 26th annual Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, including two with his wife, noted singer Elizabeth Schwartz. The festival is the latest chapter in Strom’s career, which traces its roots to the almost concurrent opening and slamming of that figurative door.

“Yale went to a concert here by The Big Jewish Band and he had never heard a live klezmer group before,” recalled longtime friend and collaborator Todd Salovey, who is the Associate Artistic Director of the San Diego Repertory Theatre and has overseen the Lipinsky festival since its inception.

“Yale was mesmerized. At the end of the concert, he asked if he could join The Big Jewish Band. The leader, (San Diego Symphony cellist) Ron Robboy, said: ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’!”

Strom remembers this memorable encounter with Robboy, now a friend, as if it took place last week, not 38 years ago.

“It was March 1981 and The Big Jewish Band was playing downtown at Sushi (Performance & Visual Art),” Strom said. “Ron didn’t welcome me with open arms when I asked to join, but he did me a big favor. I went home, and said: ‘OK, I’m not going to join this band, so I’ll form my own!’ Then I went to the library and dug into the archives.

“At the end of the summer of 1981, I bought a one-way ticket to Vienna, Austria. I thought I would go to Europe for a few months. I stayed a year.”

Storm traveled through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and Soviet Ukraine. He spoke Yiddish and some Swedish.

But it was music — and his four-stringed instrument, specifically — that enabled him to open doors and communicate with Eastern European Jews wherever he went. He learned first-hand about klezmer music and about the struggles and triumphs of Jews in countries where the horrors sowed by World War II remain palpable.

‘The language of our hearts’

“I often say that Yiddish is the language or our minds, and the violin is the language of our hearts,” Strom said.

“I was able to make myself understood in Europe. But the key for me is that I was doing ethnography — and I didn’t even know the word at the time. I just did it from my gut.”

Strom is now one of the foremost ethnographers on klezmer and an authority on the Roma music favored by European gypsies. Since 2006, he has been a professor at SDSU, where he serves as artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies program and teaches classes in the school’s history and anthropology departments.

He has written a dozen books and made nine documentaries. His latest film, 2018’s “American Socialist: The Life and Times of Victor Debs,” profiles a pioneering World War I protester. Strom also composed and arranged all of the music for the film, which features a folk and Americana soundtrack.

More recently, he and internationally celebrated San Diego jazz saxophonist Charles McPherson were commissioned to compose separate pieces of music for San Diego Ballet’s “Song of Songs.” It debuts May 24-26 at downtown’s Lyceum Theatre. The May 26 performance will kick off this year’s Lipinsky festival.

“To share the bill with Charles McPherson is quite the honor,” Strom said. “I’ve been a follower of his musical genius for years. So to be part of this ballet with him is something I am very proud of.”

Strom’s multifaceted talents and devotion to his craft are a matter of record. Yet, even some of his closest friends and collaborators — including bassist, composer and arranger Jeff Pekarek — note that his success was hardly a given.

“No, it wasn’t,” said Pekarek, who befriended Strom when both were students at Crawford High School. They have been musical partners since they started playing bluegrass together in the 1970s.

“Being a musician is hard,” Pekarek said. “Being an independent filmmaker is hard. I don’t think anything Yale has done has been less than hard, because it’s all been uphill. I’m pleased and proud to be his friend. But it wasn’t like there was a big breakthrough moment that made me say: ‘Oh, here comes the sun, breaking out through the clouds for Yale’!”

With or without a breakthrough moment, Strom’ has worked at a seemingly nonstop pace. He is so busy that his wife, Elizabeth, half-jokes: “if I didn’t work with Yale, I wouldn’t see him that often.”

Growing more serious, she said: “Before I met Yale, I was a film executive in Hollywood and worked with a lot of creative people, especially writers. I think you can be honest, in a kind of polite way. But people ask your opinion because they want their work to be as good as possible. With Yale, I’m kind of the in-house singer, editor and producer.”

Schwartz will sing with Strom at two of this year’s Lipinsky festival performances, both as a member of his band, Hot Pstromi.

“Elizabeth is a really terrific collaborator and a great artist in her own right,” said San Diego Repertory Theatre veteran Salovey. He has featured Strom and Schwartz in the festival’s annual Klezmer Summit concert for the past 18 years.

“What’s also fun about Yale and Elizabeth working together is they don’t always agree; they have different perspectives and they are not afraid to share them with each other,” Salovey said.

“I think Yale is a national treasure. There are very few people in the U.S. today who have as broad a knowledge of music history and the people who have created the Jewish music of the last 100 years. He’s a bridge between the music of Eastern Europe, before World War II, and music today.”

Strom and Schwartz have a 21-year-old daughter, Tallulah, who is a senior in cultural and social anthropology at UC San Diego.

Beginning Wednesday, Strom will be in Czechoslovakia to teach his anthropology class, Music & Culture, to SDSU students in Prague. After that, he and Elizabeth will resume work on their next film documentary, “Recordially Yours,” which profiles recently deceased San Diego music legend Lou Curtiss.

“I like to have one or two projects to work on, as well as being a husband, father and teacher,” Strom said. “And I’ll play at weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and parties. They’re fun to do and bring pleasure to others.” *Reposted article from the UT by George Varga of May 18, 2019

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korean-words-blog1 · 7 years

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backtofronttheatre-blog · 8 years

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CV’s

Chloe Steadman:

Before joining university I studied Drama at both BTEC and A Level and took part in various productions (such as Blood Brothers, Little Mermaid, Chicago, Shakers, Our Day Out).

I have been part of a dance school for 16 years, and two youth theatre groups for 8 years. Through my dance school I have participated in 16 public dance shows and have taken various examinations in Jazz, Modern, Tap and Ballet. Through my two youth theatre groups I have taken part in 8 Theatre Productions; including cabaret shows and full productions and pantomimes (Bugsy Malone, Snow White). Across the dance school and youth theatres I have completed over 20 qualifications across dance and musical theatre and have competed in 3 dance competitions.

While at this university and prior to this company, I have performed monologues, performed in groups, and directed. I recently overcame my fear of singing on stage and performed in a mini musical as part of my musical theatre production. While directing a scene from Blood Brothers in my first year I found that directing is something that I really enjoy, and actually something I feel I am strong at.

As a company we have created 3 pieces of theatre, including an adaptation piece, an experimental piece and our final performance of Fefu and her Friends; an adaptation comedy.

The adaptation of The Outsider we created was when I feel we really found ourselves. During the work we did on this piece we became very close to one another, and realised how much commitment is needed for the Theatre Company.

This Theatre Company originally started as a group of 7. However, due to one member being involved in student exchange and due to commitment issues from two others in our group, we have entered our final production as a small group of 4. I feel this has made us stronger and closer, and has pushed me to make sure that I am fully committed to everything that we do as a Theatre Company, so that I not only do not let myself down, but also so that I do not let the others in my group down.

Anna Petitdemange:

In the early days of my education I studied Drama and did dance and theatre as extra curricular activities after school and college. For enjoyment purposes our college put on a show of Calamity Jane and Grease. Not only was I involved in both of these pieces but I also helped run the tech and create the setting for both of these productions. This was because I enjoyed working with the cast and the company and wanted to spend more time with them.

Through my education I worked with a group called ‘Remix’ this is a physical dance group that caters for people with and without disabilities. It has really helped me take a different approach to the ways other people see theatre and how our differently our bodies move. This physical dance group has helped me to learn the true meaning of patience as at times it could become difficult, but it was really important that I stayed calm. As well as being a part of ‘The Remix’ I have danced ever since I was a child, from around the age of 4. I did Ballet, Modern and Jazz. I managed to get up to grade 5 with all of these. Not only did this help my confidence but also enabled me to think of incorporating movement and dance into any piece of theatre that I later on went to do.

Whilst at Uni I have performed in a piece that myself and my musical theatre company created, it was based on becoming the university president. This enabled me to conquer my fear of singing in front of a large crowd but also I worked with a group of people who I hadn't met before and this showed how I can be put into a group with anyone and still work to my best ability. As well as this I directed my own show called: The Butterfly Kiss. This gave me the courage to take control of a group and see a different side to theatre.

Prior to the theatre company I am involved in now ‘Back to Front’, with two of the same people involved in this company, we created a an adaptation of ‘ Constellations’ This was a very interesting play that showed parallel worlds to the ones we live now, like a dystopian world. This was great fun to do. In addition to this, Nick, Megan and I joined with 4 other people to create the company ‘Back to Front’; however due to three of these members being uncommitted it ended up just being the four of us: Megan, Chloe, Nick and I. Although, at the time this was hard for us, I think it only made the four of us stronger and more committed.

As a group we were involved in two pieces, one being ‘The Outsider’ and the other ‘Credible Likeable Superstar Rolemodel’. In ‘The Outsider’ we created a piece that showed the journey of a mans mental state and what this meant at the specific time period. Using physical theatre we created a movement sequence that reflected the breakdown. Similarly, In ‘Credible’ we created a physical movement about how money is consuming us as people. From researching into this play we realised it was a focus on dramaturgia, this meant that the money was a focal object for us, hence having the money put in the middle and as something to move around.

Our last performance ‘Fefu and Her Friends’ was a played based around women in the 1930′s oppressing their true feelings. This was a surrealistic play that we all found extremely hard to get into the dramatic and over the top characters, this play meant that we were able to come out of our shells as a group and become characters. We learnt the importance of understanding each specific line and that every little tiny details has a purpose.

Megan Mellish:

I have always studied drama, from primary education and extracurricular to a-level and now degree level. While in secondary education much of the focus was on devising and creating new theatre, however, I have starred in productions such as Grease, Oliver!, Little Shop of Horrors, The Importance of Being Earnest, Blood Brothers and Too Much Punch for Judy.

I have a long history of performing through not only drama but also dance and music also. I have competed in contemporary dance competitions and performed all over the UK in a band that I was in from the age of 16-18.

In my time at university so far, I have participated heavily in drama societies and have applied myself to my drama modules that make up half on my degree. I have starred in pieces such as The Seagull and more for directorial pieces in first year. Throughout first year, I was also a part of the Bath Spa Musical Theatre Society and starred in their musical St Trinians as a principle role. Throughout second year we have focused a lot on adaptation and so I have starred in a handful of pieces based on plays such as The Outsider, Credible Likeable Superstar and our final performance piece Fefu and Her Friends.

Nick Walker:

I’ve been involved in Drama ever since GCSE’s in some for or another I have been in multiple shows such as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Goldoni’s A Servant of two Masters. I am used to working with a range of genres from farce to Brechtian to Realism. This broad understanding of different styles of Drama has really helped me gain a better understanding of how each of the different styles work and what makes them good has helped me become a more well rounded actor.

Whilst I have worked on stage I have also worked backstage teching a load shows. I once was the sole sound engineer for a school production of Bugsy Malone which involved me creating and running every single sound effect in the show. I have done this with many shows since not just Bugsy Malone. I also have knowledge of how to create and use lights to create a desired effect. This has also given me a newfound appreciation of how much work goes into teching shows and how much time is needed to get it right.

Not only have I been in and teched shows I have also written my own short play called Unprepared which was about 3 people looking after a baby when they have no idea what to do.

#thecompany

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