Saturday, June 5, 2010

MyTwoLeftFeet.net

This blog has been transferred to a new website. Please visit MyTwoLeftFeet.net for updated entries and an archive of dance writing.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

2010 Academy Award Reflections

Usually this blog is devoted to all things dance. However, growing up in a home where the Academy Awards is a revered and highly anticipated event, my family traditionally exchanges thoughts and reflections on the nominated films. While I support the Academy's decision to expand the field to ten nominees for Best Picture, I simply didn't get to see them all. As follows, a ranking and justification for those that I did see and a shout-out to two special films that deserve a bit more recognition...

6. Avatar - I don't mind that the story didn't have an original bone in its body. The tale of colonialism in which the white man threatens the existence of an indigenous culture, only to realize its beauty and power and unique relationship to nature is a tale oft repeated throughout history and to this day. Just because Fern Gully did it first, doesn't mean it’s not worth a gloriously realized retelling in the extraordinary world recreated here. But that's no excuse for a script that lacks any nuance whatsoever, characters as flat as the employment recovery rate, and an ending as predictable as the coming mid-term elections.

5. Up - Charming, poignant, delightful. Pixar scores again and reminds us that sometimes cartoons can feel more human than humans. The wordless opening montage doesn't surpass the brilliant first 45-min of Wall-E, but still manages to capture the same sense of wonder. Though entertaining to the last drop, I couldn't help being conscious throughout that I'm watching a Pixar film with a Pixar formula. Even films this fresh can start to feel stale in the context of the animated lineage they're apart of. (See Honorable Mentions)

4. Up in the Air - A clever film with a smart script and fantastic performances across the board. I wanted to love it. But I ended up just really liking it a lot instead. Yes, it's a film that speaks volumes about our current transitory culture: the ever-shifting corporate and personal realities, the inexplicable drive for a goal that ultimately feels empty when one considers what has been sacrificed along the way, the roles people play to escape the lives they have created for themselves. It's all very well-told and reflective and relevant and insightful. Perhaps I need to watch it again, but I came away really appreciating this mid-life crisis story and wishing I had been a little more surprised by it.

3. Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - I resisted seeing this film, despite the huge pre-release buzz and the post-release accolades. I knew what it was going to be about and how it would make me feel and thus it was hard to find an afternoon when I would allow myself to sit and be depressed for two hours. Except when I walked away from the theater, I had a strange feeling of contentment and not a small bit of inspiration. Precious' situation is devastating indeed and the world depicted of the cyclical struggles of inner-city life leave little room for hope, but Gabourey Sidibe's centered presence and quiet strength propel the film past the pity fest it could have been and into a humble call for determination. And Mo'nique's performance is deserving of every award bestowed upon it.

2. A Serious Man - Of course I'm biased. I'm an American Jew who had a Bar Mitzvah. This is my world, and my father's world, and my father's father's world. But my respect for this film goes far beyond mere self-identification. The Coen brother's visit a time and place that is part-parody, part period throwback, and part prophecy. It's a saga of Biblical proportions told on an intimate scale. Sandwiching the story between a haunting yet humorous 19th century shetl prologue and that brilliantly chilling final image gives this sometimes silly domestic tale a vast and varied scope. Once again, the Coen Brother's expertly turn a deceptively simple story into an epic cautionary tale.

1. Inglorious Basterds - Perhaps the most frightening fairy tale in recent memory, Tarantino's visual feast walked the blurred line between fantasy and horror. Each scene drips with atomic tension and uber-stylish attention to detail. Fueled by the terrifying performance of Christoph Waltz, an instant classic and new cinematic standard of evil, the film is at once a gracious nod to thriller noir of the past, a quintessential Tarantino romp, and an audacious revenge flick that defies categorization in its beauty. But the real power of the film is that the outrageous premise of rewriting history also felt, even if just for a moment, strangely possible. It forces us to consider what might have been and in doing so, transcends the typical Hollywood history lesson, going beyond mere re-enactment to a much darker place of reflection where we are forced to reckon with our actions and in-actions and to look around us today and consider the same.


Honorable Mentions:

A Single Man - Some may call it a two-hour fashion ad, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Tom Ford's impressive debut turns style into substance by making sensuality the main character of the film. The cinematic tricks of the moments of heightened awareness could have felt gimmicky but instead allow us to taste, smell, touch, and feel the everyday in a new light. And even if you can't allow Ford the visual brilliance of the film, you cannot ignore the stunningly nuanced and sensitive performances of Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, the latter of whom was robbed of the recognition deserved this simultaneously outrageous and heart-breaking performance.

Coraline - Pixar can do no wrong. Year after year, the company pops out a fantastically original, fully realized film that is always fun and cuddly yet intelligently layered. But one thing Pixar doesn't do is dark. Welcome Coraline, a feisty heroine and fearless adventurer who stumbles into a parallel universe that quickly turns from paradise to hell. Referencing the underworlds of Tim Burton, Coraline achieves an eerie surrealism while still clearly appropriate for its youthful target audience. That doesn't mean its mere kiddie fare. With illustrations that take a surprisingly minimalistic turn in the exciting finale and with characters that are deliciously strange throughout, Coraline makes a strong statement that there is animated satisfaction if you dare to look down, instead of Up.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Getting Up Close to Batsheva

MAMOOTOT
Batsheva Dance Company
Choreographed by Ohad Naharin

During a performance, dancers generally don’t stand a foot in front of you and stare deeply into your eyes, or hold your hand for an unexpectedly long time, or sit next to you while one of their fellow company members performs a solo. But in Mamootot, they do.

With the audience set up on all four sides of the small performance space, and with a lighting design that keeps everything brightly illuminated throughout the hour-long work, the spectators across the way become the set and become performers in their own right. Watching people react to what’s happening in the center of the room becomes part of the experience of Mamootot, which ultimately is a visceral and intimate one.

Like several of his other recent works (Three and Max in particular), Ohad Naharin plays with extremes of all kinds – groupings, dynamics, musical styles, and costumes… or lack thereof. The impression one gets is that there is a connective thread between these recent works. But rather than feeling repetitive, they end up feeling like explorations of different aspects of a related theme. What that theme may be is the question and Mamootot, the first of the three works to be created, may hold a clue to the puzzle.

A long solo initiates the piece, comprised of Naharin’s signature quick gestures that while mostly abstract and spastic, contain hints of something familiar and personal. Amidst a series of thrusting arms and random leg positions might sit a moment that suggests some type of interaction or relationship. After a second it’s gone, but we’re left with the impression that there is something human within this chaos.

The same might be said of the work as a whole. Naharin shifts quickly and effortlessly between complicated group sections, done in perfect unison (in a way that no other company can approach), to solos that marry abandon and control in surprising harmony.

The music similarly may be the blaring beats of a pop song, the driving rhythms of an electronic recording, or barely audible atmospheric sounds, or non-existent altogether. Naharin often pairs the loudest parts with the stillest sections and the most virtuosic parts set to silence. Extremes like this show up at all levels of his work and just because it starts to become a recognizable pattern doesn’t mean it’s predictable.

It’s a tool that defines Naharin as a choreographer, forcing the audience to shift quickly to new realities, always refocusing attention (now look at one person, now look at nine moving as one, now listen to the heavy breathing of the dancer suddenly sitting to your left).

And as a result, Naharin creates extremes of possibilities and the space in between where anything can happen and meaning is left ambiguous. Throwing viewers from one end of the spectrum to the other of unrelated and nonsensical movements forces us to fill in the gaps of how they relate and what it all amounts to. And while you may not walk away with an answer, Batsheva inevitably leaves an impression that, indeed, there is something human within this controlled chaos after all.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Diary of a Traveling Dance Enthusiast

When great dance comes within a stone's throw of San Diego, what's a dance enthusiast to do but take a breath and battle it out with the 5 Freeway on three consecutive Friday afternoons to see what the world of dance has to offer?

http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-10-22/blog/culture-cruncher/brian-schaefers-diary-of-a-traveling-dance-enthusiast

Monday, September 28, 2009

San Diego Dance Emerges

Watching the established San Diego dance companies, and even many of those dancers who try their hand at choreography, one can't help but seeing some similarities. There is definitely an SD dance aesthetic that, as dancer/choreographer Rebecca Bruno (formerly of SD, now based in LA) rightly calls "silky-smooth." It's pleasant and pretty, but not always provocative, exciting, and fresh. The Emerge Dance Festival seeks to find the next voices in San Diego Dance. Here's hoping for something truly new and innovative...

http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-09-28/things-to-do/emerge-dance-festival-celebrates-emerging-talent

Taking a Look at Peter Chu

Check out my recent article about the San Diego Trolley Dances, a So. Cal dance institution that has been around for over a decade. I interviewed talent up-and-coming choreographer Peter Chu, a guest choreographer at Trolley Dances this year.

http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-09-21/things-to-do/trolley-dances-track-excitement-near-the-border

Monday, September 14, 2009

Reflecting on hair and "HAIR"

San Diego gets its fair share of Broadway – from local productions at the Starlight Theater in Balboa Park to the Lambs Players on Coronado, and of course the big touring productions that land at the Civic Auditorium compliments of Broadway San Diego. This summer brought us a surprisingly relevant “Fiddler on the Roof” (related article here) and another visit from the witches of Oz in “Wicked”.

In addition to hosting national tours, San Diego has a nice reciprocal relationship with the Great White Way, sending a good chunk of new shows back East to meet their fate, including the hits “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (Old Globe) and “Jersey Boys” (La Jolla Playhouse). The new Playhouse production “Memphis,” which was inaugurated in San Diego last season opens in New York this fall.

Still, there’s nothing like seeing a musical on Broadway with the energy of packed sidewalks minutes before curtain, the bright marquees that line the streets around Times Square, screaming enthusiastic reviews and boasting of Tony wins. The intimate theaters offer an experience completely unlike the cavernous Civic and the legendary performers remind us what star power truly is (you haven’t seen “Gypsy” until you’ve seen it with Patti LuPone).

Over Labor Day, I found myself in New York for a few days of eating, catching up with friends, and not a small amount of debauchery (which the city simply seems to inspire). True to form, I packed my schedule with as much theater-going as possible.

Friday night brought me to an old steamboat in the Hudson River, participating in a guided production of “The Confidence Man,” produced by the Woodshed Collective, a series of vignettes that piece together a tale of trust, faith, and deception. New York had hit a streak of perfect weather and I got an important lesson in looking beyond Broadway for stimulating (and free) theatrical experiences.

Sunday morning I hopped out of bed (relatively) early to wait in line at the TKTS discount ticket booth to score a ticket to “Next to Normal”, the new musical about depression and bipolar disorder that has been making waves since it’s debut. A refreshingly original production (one of the very few currently on Broadway that is not a revival or an adaptation of a book or movie), “Next to Normal” is a dark, devastating, and brilliant story about a family desperately trying to stay together and stay sane. Happy, it is not.

What struck me about the show was how surprisingly effective the medium of musical theater was for the topic. Psychotherapy, attempted suicide, ethics in modern psychiatry, electro-shock therapy: these are not the typical source material for a musical. Yet the fact that the Tony-award winning rock score dramatically and profoundly sheds light and clarity on these issues suggests both that musical theater is a serious and seriously adaptable art form, and that it is capable of addressing weighty contemporary social issues with insight and compassion.

Now to jump back to Saturday night and nearly four decades earlier…

My buddies and I scurried to the Hirschfield Theater to witness the acclaimed production of “HAIR” (Tony Award Best Musical Revival). Seeing the national tour of “Fiddler on the Roof” this summer in San Diego, I wrote about being struck by its relevance to the debate on same-sex marriage and watching “HAIR” conjured similar thoughts about other contemporary issues.

Almost forty years to the day of the Woodstock Festival, the spirit of love, the quest for enlightenment, and the reliance on a wide array of drugs to enhance the journey is firmly rooted in the American narrative. The long hair, the tie-dye, even the style of it all has secured a spot in the nation’s nostalgia.

The look and sound of the era has long been commercialized. To see that culture come alive again on stage feels almost a bit clichéd.

Yet as a country currently engaged in a controversial war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chants for peace and freedom feel relevant and familiar even if the context is no longer the same. The recent anti-war movement has lost much of its volume and urgency with the change in administration, but the echoes reverberate nightly on 45th Street at the Hirschfield.

The story of Claude Bukowski, an idealistic young man torn between a sense of justice and a sense of duty, is a story being contemplated every day by the many service members and veterans of our current military engagements. That many of us do NOT engage in such internal debate is equally telling of our times and this particular war.

The score of “HAIR” is a collection of catchy vignettes, mini-character studies, and odes to the joys of sex and hallucinogens, most lasting only a minute or two. On their own, they don’t much contribute to or further the plot. But together they emerge as the collective voice of a community, a tribe of dreamers who struggle to find a balance between changing the world in which they live and ignoring it entirely to search for personal pleasure and meaning in an alternative world of their own.

In a country that often feels so divided, that type of broad unity feels a bit foreign, something perhaps unattainable these days, despite the hope that emerged for many from last year’s presidential election.

The dawning of a new age of Aquarious? Who knows? But “HAIR” has returned to Broadway to offer a look at a time when people made political statements by simply living outside the norms of society, where the length of ones hair suggested powerful social sentiments. Reflecting on hair and “HAIR” raises the question: Do we still live our personal politics today?