I attended my last fine arts event for the semester tonight, and I have to say, I don’t think I could have picked a better performance to end the semester with than the Nutcracker. The Nutcracker was performed at the Bama Theater by the Tuscaloosa Community Dancers as well as some UA dance majors. The dancers were extremely graceful throughout the entire performance. This is one of the first times I actually noticed the technique some of the dancers had such as the way they extended their leg while dancing. I really enjoyed it. But it wasn’t just the dancers that made this performance spectacular- it was everything involved in making this performance possible. For example, the background music, the lighting, the backdrop, and especially the costumes. I thought the costumes were exquisite- they were colorful and they added life to the dance numbers. The Nutcracker is still being performed Saturday and Sunday. I suggest you try and go if you have the time – even if you have already attended all your fine arts events for the semester. This truly was a special performance.
Oh and I had the added bonus of sitting near two little kids. The comments they made about throughout the performance and the questions they kept asking their parents made me enjoy it all the more. They seemed really inspired by the dancers. One of the little girls wanted to go straight home after it was over to put on her bathing suit and a pair of tights! I think we have a future ballerina in the making!
So I went to the Bama Theater on Friday night expecting to see the Nutcracker, and I was surprised to find out that they got the dates wrong on the website. What was showing instead was the Bad Boys Blues Tour. I had never attended a blues performance, so I thought, why not? The Bad Boys Blues Tour featured four blues artists – Jeff Floyd, Vick Allen, Wilson Meadows, and Omar Cunningham. It turned out to be a very interesting experience. I never thought I would enjoy the blues that much. The notes that the performers could hit while singing astounded me. The atmosphere created by the performances was unlike any other I have ever experienced. The music placed me in an oddly calm mood, and I felt enchanted by the music. My night started off with me being disappointed about being given the incorrect date for the Nutcracker, but ended with me being glad I got to attend a blues concert. It is definitely different than anything I’ve ever attended.
Today I attended “Painting with a Purpose” at the Ferguson Center Ballroom. This evening was in honor of the tornado victims and was sponsored by the arts department at the University of Alabama. One of the tornado victims, Megan, was an art student at UA, and her parents attended this function and displayed some of her artwork. Everyone who attended got their own canvas that they got to paint on. There were two artists, a husband and a wife (Caleb O’Conner and Ruth Jatib), who helped out with the evening by instructing us on how to paint. We painted an outline of the state of Alabama with a Cahaba Lily in the middle. The photo above is a picture of what I painted. It was a lot of fun trying to express myself by mixing paints and trying to recreate the image that was up on the screen at the front of the room. I liked this fine arts event because it was more interactive- I was able to participate in it. It was a pretty intense evening, however, because it did bring up memories from the April tornado, and I wasn’t really prepared for that. However, I am still glad that I went.
I went to see a performance of Cinderella performed by the T.A. Players (a group of high school students) at the Bama Theater this evening. It is refreshing to see that the youth are still getting opportunities to become involved in the arts. The high school students did a pretty great job with the show. Some of the best performances of the night were given by Jenna Sherman who played the fairy godmother, Elizabeth Moseley who played the fairy godmother’s first helper, and Anna Grace Marshall who played the fairy godmother’s second helper. The students seemed like they had a great time on stage which is excellent and hopefully they will continue to get involved in the arts after having such a positive experience performing Cinderella.
So I went to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at H.M. Comer the other evening. It was a performance put on by COE Does Art, a student organization sponsored by the College of Engineering. The performance was put on by 3 students, Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield, who managed to have the entire audience roaring with laughter throughout the entire duration of the performance. They started off with Romeo and Juliet, and Adam, Daniel, and Jess attempted to play every single character in the play. As a result, what should have been a tragedy turned into a comedy. When they said the performance was an abridged version of Shakespeare’s works, they weren’t kidding. The entire performance was basically a fastforward version of all of Shakespeare’s plays, with all of his comedies combined into one single play, while Shakespeare’s historical plays were all combined into a football game. During intermission, the audience was invited to join in on an impromptu yoga session, before the actors wrapped up the evening with Hamlet. They went through Hamlet 3 times, each time faster than the last, ending the entire performance with an attempt of performing Hamlet backwards. The entire evening was hysterical. Adam, Daniel, and Jess definitely took some creative liberty for this performance (actually a lot of creative liberty), but it seemed to work. They did a great job on engaging the audience by getting them to participate in the performance. It was an odd performance, but I loved it all the same.
I went to see City of Angels the other evening at the Allen Bales Theater on UA campus. So if you’ve been to the Allen Bales Theater before, you already know that the stage is a pretty small one; however, I was absolutely amazed by what the UA theater group was able to accomplish with it! They reused the same set throughout the play, creating new scenes by rearranging the props on stage which was extremely clever. City of Angels is a comedy about an author who is trying to write a screenplay for a producer who has bought the rights to the play. The producer is the most obnoxious character as he keeps trying to change lines in the play, driving the writer crazy. The cast did an amazing job getting the audience involved in the show by actually going into the audience during some of the scenes in the show. UA definitely has some incredibly talented theater majors. The singing in this musical was Broadway worthy! This was definitely one of the most enjoyable fine arts events that I have attended all semester. City of Angels is still showing through the weekend I believe. I recommend you try and catch the show if you haven’t already.
As I mentioned in previous blogs, I am not a huge fan of art galleries. I typically find them dull compared to the live action of plays or dance recitals. Since the Willie Cole exhibit pleasantly surprised me at the beginning of the semester however; I decided to try going to the Paul R. Jones Gallery in downtown Tuscaloosa.
The gallery is named after Paul Raymond Jones, an African American art collector who has a rather interesting back story. He wanted to African American art to gain more recognition. To achieve this goal he began collecting pieces he liked from African American artists he met, and hosted receptions at his house to encourage colleagues to buy artwork and put pressure on museums and galleries to display African American artwork. His collection eventually amassed to around 2,000 pieces, most of which (around 1700 works) he generously donated to the University of Alabama. He only asked that the university share and circulate the artwork. Throughout his life, Paul R. Jones also worked tirelessly to improve interracial relationships. He was one of the most respected collectors in the African American community.
When I visited the Paul R. Jones Gallery, I saw artwork by the artist Sheila Pree Bright, a professional photographer from Atlanta. Her work explores suburban life within the African American community by exploring the media’s depiction of the African American community versus the more realistic and common ideology of the African American lifestyle. Her work explores stereotypes that exist, aiming to subvert them, rather than accept them.
I saw works from Bright’s Dolls and Girls Series and her Preaching Soul Series. The Preaching Soul Series featured photographs Bright took of African American preachers on the streets of Atlanta. Bright asked the preachers if she could take photographs of them, and she stayed on the streets with them, taking pictures of what she saw. She often became friends with the people she photographed. All of her photographs were in black and white.
I was actually more interested in the photographs that were part of the Dolls and Girls Series. These were some of the most interesting photos I have ever seen. The pictures were half plastic doll, half real girl, and showed a sharp contrast between the image girls try to live up to versus the way real girls look. The pictures moved me because there are so many little girls who strive to look like “Barbie” and their self esteems are destroyed when they cannot attain that impossible image because they don’t understand that Barbie isn’t real. These photographs clearly showed just how fake the image girls try to achieve is- like plastic.
One of the pictures I adored the most was not part of any collection, and was titled “Reflections of an Empty Room.” The title of the photograph describes it perfectly. It was a picture of the reflection of an empty chair with a desk and lamp next to it in a mirror. The photograph conveyed sadness, as if someone used to sit in the chair, but they are now gone, so it is empty. The photograph, while sad, was oddly soothing, because I got the feeling that the person who used to sit in that chair lived a full life.
I am glad that I went to this art gallery. I strongly recommend that everyone try and visit it if they haven’t already. Help Paul R. Jones’s dream of exposing African American art and bridging gaps between races live on.
Last week I went to a reading of a MidSummer Night’s Dream at the Bama Theater that was performed by Improbable Fictions, a staged reading series at the University of Alabama that is organized by Nic Helms and Alaina Jobe Pangburn (graduate students at the University of Alabama). The aim of Improbable Fictions is to reproduce and reinterpret Shakespeare’s plays by giving them a more contemporary vibe so that anyone can enjoy them.
A MidSummer Night’s Dream is a comedy that includes love, magic, mischief, and adventure. The play centers around preparation for the wedding of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of Amazon. While this is going on, two lovers, Hermia and Lysander wish to be married, but Hermia’s father, Egeus, has another man in mind to marry his daughter-Demetrius. Egeus goes to the Duke of Athens to ask him to uphold the law that requires his daughter marrythe man of his choosing or else be put to death. The Duke gives Hermia another option, to worship the goddess Diana as a nun for the rest of his life. He gives her until sundown the next day to make her decision. As a result, Hermia and Lysander decide to run away to be able to get married and live their lives elsewhere. Before they leave, Hermia tells her bestfriend, Helena, of her plan. Helena, who is in love with Demetrius, informs him of Hermia’s plan. Demetrius chases after Hermia and Helena chases after Demetrius.
While all this is going on, Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, and Oberon, the King of the Fairies, get into an argument in the middle of the forest because Titania refuses to give Oberon the baby that is in her charge so he can use him as a henchman. Oberon wants to punish Titania for her disobedience, and so he requests that Puck, the court jester, to apply a magic potion that is obtained from a flower to Titania’s eyelids while she is sleeping. The potion would make her fall in love with the first thing she sees upon opening her eyes. Puck causes a lot of mischief because he stumbles upon Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena who are all sleeping in the forest, and he applies the juice to the eyelids of Lysander and Demetrius as well. Demetrius and Lysander both see Helena when they first wake up and proceed to chase after her. Hermia chases after Lysander, confused as to why he is suddenly rejecting her. When Oberon sees what happened, he becomes angry with Puck because he has ruined the true love that existed between Lysander and Hermia, and requires that Puck give Lysander the antidote. This resolves the issue. Lysander and Hermia are in love again, and Demetrius now returns Helena’s love for him. The four lovers return to the Duke, who informs Egeus that since Lysander and Hermia both want to marry one another, and Helena and Demetrius wish to marry, then he shall allow it. The play ends with the four lovers getting married and joining the Duke and Dutchess of Athens for their wedding celebration.
The reading I attended at the Bama Theater was quite different from a play. All the performers held their scripts in their hands, and there was no scenery, just a bare stage. I never thought that I could enjoy a reading as much as I did. The reading was raw and powerful. The performers made mistakes, making the reading all the more comical. The performers were brilliant, and they owned their mistakes. I actually thought that their mistakes were intentional.
There are two performances worth mentioning as well as some notable moments. First was Joey Gamble, a University of Alabama student who played Lysander. You could feel his passion while reading, and when he came out on stage using a pink laser as a prop for a sword, my day was made. Another person whose performance was just brilliant was the guy who played Puck (his name escapes me at the moment). The way he was able to bounce around and tumble on stage, while speaking at 90 miles per hour was pretty amazing. It was true talent. Another notable moment was when Joel Ingram, another UA student who played Francis Flute, walked on stage in a dress. The entire reading was hysterical.
The cast of A MidSummer Night’s Dream took the words from the pages of Shakespeare’s play and brought it to life. I never felt so involved with a story. They even added live music to the show. I could not stop laughing the entire time, and I did not want it to end. I felt inspired to join Improbable Fictions so that I can have a chance to be apart of what I witnessed that night. I honestly wish that the rest of you guys in FA200 could have seen this reading.I was a bit apprehensive about attending a reading, I honestly thought I would be bored, but after attending the reading of A Mid Summer Night’s Dream, I am glad that this course pushed me into attending a reading. It would have been a shame if I had missed it.
On Monday, I attended the Bollywood Film Festival at Riverside. The movie showed was Phaeli featuring a well-known Bollywood actor named Shahrukh Khan (who played Kishen) and his co-star Rani Mukerjei (who played Lachchi). The movie was an Indian ghost love story.
It started out with Lachchi getting ready for her wedding to Kishen. She is a nervous bride as she has never left her mother’s house before. She travels back to her husband’s house, the wedding caravan stops in a small so they could rest and have some food. While they are in the small town, Lachchi goes to freshen up at the watering hole, where a ghost sees her and becomes enchanted by her beauty and is distraught when she has to leave. Lachchi finally reaches her new home only to learn that her husband will be leaving the next morning to go away on business for 5 years for his father. On his way to his destination, Kishen passes through the ghost town again, where the ghost sees him, and learns that he left Lachchi alone for 5 years.
The ghost assumes Kichen’s identity and goes to Kichen’s house. Kichen’s family is surprised by his return, but they are very pleased to have him back. The ghost keeps Kichen’s father happy by using magic to provide him with 5 gold coins every morning. He also uses magic to improve the lives of everyone around him. He, however, is honest with Lachchi from the start about who he really is, and she quickly falls in love with him because of how kind he is to her. They have a good 4 years, until Lachchi gets pregnant, and the real Kichen hears this news. The real Kichen is stunned by this news, and decides to return home to check it out and finds the ghost who looks like him living with his family. The family is shocked and unable to determine who is the real Kichen. As a result, the men in the family take both Kichens to visit the king so that he could tell them who is the real Kichen. While travelling through the desert, they run into a wise man, who settles the issue for them by giving both Kichen three tests. The tests work, and the family finds out that a ghost has been living with them for the last 4 years. When the men return home, Lachchi is distraught by the news that the ghost she has fallen in love with is gone forever. The movie ends with Lachchi telling Kichen that she always knew the true identity of the ghost and that her heart would always be with the ghost. Kichen then tells Lachchi something that only the ghost knew, and it is revealed that the ghost is now living in Kichen’s body because it is the only real way he and Lachchi could ever be together. Lachchi, Kicheh, and their new daughter (Looni Mai) live happily ever after.
The story is meant to be an old-wives type tale. Periodically throughout the movie, two dolls appear (who are the parents of the ghost), and they add commentary to the story. I felt like this brings something unique to the film because it points out some of the inner thoughts and motives of the characters, offering the audience a different perspective while watching the movie.
As in every Indian movie, there were several song and dance numbers throughout the film, all of them with traditional Indian-styled dancing. The dances were amazing. The movie also exposes the audience to the rich Indian culture. For example, in Indian, it is tradition that the bride lives with her husband’s family after getting married. Additionally, the way the characters dressed, spoke, and behaved all reflected parts of Indian society.
While the movie did contain sexual innuendo, all of the scenes in the movie were more on the conservative side. This also emphasizes an important aspect of Indian culture. A lot of Indian movies, typically do not show very physical scenes between the characters because it is not culturally acceptable. I recall reading an article a few years back about an Indian filmmaker who produced a somewhat racy film, stirring up quite a controversy in India.
I felt like the movie may have lost something in translation. It was sweet, yet some of the dialogue and song lyrics (when translated) were extremely comical, although I am quite sure that they were meant to be poetic. Overall, however, the movie was entertaining and interesting. I enjoyed watching it.
More Bollywood movies will be shown in Riverside all the way up until Halloween. I recommend that if you haven’t seen a Bollywood movie yet, that you do so. The Bollywood movies being shown are all Halloween-themed in honor of – what else – Halloween! Hope you can make it to at least one. Traditional Indian food will be provided at each of the movies. The food is from a restaurant called Sitar (which I think may be near the strip). The next movie will be on Wednesday, October 19th, so try and make it, and have fun!
Last night I attended a dance recital that was held in Morgan Auditorium which is the oldest theatre on campus located in Morgan Hall on campus. Dance recitals are held there throughout the year. The recital was the Fall Concert given by Dance Alabama and is still showing through Friday, October 7th.
Dance Alabama is a student-organization that choreographs concerts to expose people to the arts by showcasing the talents of UA students and is currently in its 12th season. It had 21 performances total, with dances ranging from ballet to lyrical to burlesque to tap. The show was, in a word, spectacular.
I do not know much about dance, but the performances tonight moved me. Each performance was choreographed to tell a story, and the movements, in combination with the dancer’s facial expressions, the lighting and music conveyed each story perfectly. The show opened with a piece titled “Last Round of Goodbyes,” choreographed by Jamarious Steward and danced to Jon Hopkins’s Vessel. The number started off with all the dancers standing in a line, each of them moving in sequence, almost like the way a line of dominos fall, one by one. The dancers each had unique, beautiful moves throughout the performance, before finally rounding back and standing in the same position they started. The show ended with what ended up being one of my favorite pieces in the entire show- a tap dance number, titled “Certified Tap Dance Material,” choreographed by JJ Butler to edIT’’s Battling Go-Go Yubari in Downtown L.A. Although there were several dancers on stage, it mainly centered around two dancers. The two main dancers seemed to communicate—to flirt with one another—through tap. The dance was exciting and playful.
The entire show was wonderful. It is hard to choose and say which performance was the best. There were some pieces that I absolutely adored, however, and I feel are particularly worth mentioning. For instance, the number titled “That Man,” choreographed by Corey Rivers to Caro Emerald’s That Man featured dancers in 60s-styled dresses and told the story of four, single women who were all fighting over the attention of the local mailman. The dance was light, comical, as at first the mailman was delighted by all the attention, but soon tried to run away, but the women would not let him leave. Another piece worth mentioning was titled “Bird Flu,” choreographed by Ethan May to M.I.A’s Bird Flu. The dancers for this number were all dressed up like birds and they put on a stunning performance. One of the pieces I enjoyed most was titled “Lighters,” choreographed by Stephanie Abram to Bruno Mars’s song Lighters. It was a more modern dance number, and the moves matched up to the lyrics of the song perfectly. The piece ended with the dancers joined together, holding up lighters. “I’m Already Home,” choreographed by Colleen Frake to Tim McGraw’s I’m Already Home was also a brilliant number. The two dancers conveyed a sense of longing for one another, and the audience could feel the emotion and connection that existed between them. These are only a few of the incredible dance numbers that were featured in the Fall Concert. I strongly suggest that if you have not had to chance to attend yet, to either go tonight or tomorrow, and see it (before it ends!!).
The Dance Alabama Fall Concert is what the arts is all about, and it shows the emotional release that dance provides the performers. The concert, however, did more than that. It also made the audience feel alive, as if they were dancing along with the performers, and thus provided an emotional release for the audience as well. The dances inspired me to want to express my artistic side. The concert was absolutely beautiful.
nbkassas 