Stabat Mater Fabulosa

The Morningside Opera company offered up a quite singular interpretation of Pergolesi‘s Stabat Mater in their Fabulosa rendition on January 26th at Dixon Place, which proved, at once, a scholarly as well as a quite literal undressing of the original. Composed in 1736 – the year of Pergolesi’s death at the august age of 26 – the piece has been an iconic work in the canon of western sacred music ever since and has enjoyed an unbroken record of performance for nearly three hundred years. This surely says something about a work, to have endured so vigorously the vagaries of artistic, musical, and religious change, never mind or dare one say, taste. Which in many ways explains its attraction for Morningside Opera, who see their role as boundary-pushers wishing to invigorate dialogue between traditional and new modes of the form. Their stripped down presentation was both scholastically dense as well as visually provocative.

Stabat Mater Fabulosa at Dixon Place

As the slowly drawn out, deliciously mournful harmonies swelled to fill the auditorium, we were presented with two female singers attired in silky camisoles and nickers more evocative of the flapper era than anything from the 18th century. This anachronistic note is key, as the physical performance in large measure is characterized by a panotomimed broadness of expression redolent of the 1920s cabaret era, a time that was interested in the exposure, as much as in the celebration of artifice. From there, as the sequence of songs unfolded, we were subjected to a sort of reverse strip tease as the women, an alto and a soprano, episodically dressed themselves in layer after layer of high baroque costume, enacting scenes in varying degrees ridiculous, mocking, sentimental, and titillating. These little mimes were intentionally played to undermine the exquisite feeling in the vocalizations and critique the psychological realism on display.  While this is going on photographic projections were thrown up on a wall behind, exhibiting scenes of feminine intimacy and maternal ideality, a foil to the silly capering and posturing in the foreground. As the singers graduated into foundation garments, dresses, and eventually wigs, the greater question of the construct of feminine identity surfaced and, with a grand historical sweep, addressed details of formal 18th century attire and contemporary notions of the ”undressed” feminine, maternal self. It could not be ignored that the photographs appeared in the form of “projections”, and with some subtle lighting play, remained gauzily vague, fading in and out of prominence.

The voices meantime, ever beautifully harmonized, persisted throughout, hardly impacted by the movements and gestures of the singers as, gamefully, and with dumb show agony, they were trussed into punitive corsets, chased each other about the grand piano, swooned in affected attitudes of grieving faints, and skipped in merry passes, revealing the schism between form and feeling. Implicit is the Roman church’s sado-masochistic excitement at the representation of Mary, mother of Jesus, in her moment of anguished grief, as the vessel of mortification and sorrow that believers should aspire to in contemplation of Christ’s ultimate and bloody sacrifice. That this idea should be elaborated in such a musically sensuous, celebratory style singularly at odds with its subject, is one of civilization’s exquisite, yet abundant paradoxes, and the primary focus of the Fabulosa production. The sense of contradiction is echoed in finer details throughout the performance and is given special focus in the costuming, which plays a central role. One singer is laced tightly into a corset severely compressing the waist, and the other is obliged to saddle herself with a steel-framed pannier belt, which works to dramatically expand the hipline. They both put on identical, pastel colored dresses and harmonize perfectly. Their lofty, powdered wigs are adorned with miniature bird cages, inside of which are tiny birds; the spirit of freedom and movement is entrapped and stilled for human contemplation. The puritanical mindset might demur, but the baroque era is nothing if not  anathema to such a sensibility.

Stabat Mater Fabulosa itself is a rich confection for contemplation. I couldn’t begin to pretend I had understood or unpacked all the pointed charades and features on show. Of course there will be purists (as opposed to puritans) who will not countenance this kind of aggressive deconstruction of a classic that, in some measure, still owns a religious dimension. But that would be their loss. This is a show that could prove as poised on a Las Vegas stage as it might at La Scala. One scene, where the scantily clad singers, supine together atop the grand piano, draw on stockinged hose while intoning Latin lines of dolorous gravity – “O how sad and afflicted was that blessed mother of the only- begotten” – could write its own ticket to play anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. And that alone, perhaps, might suffice as a badge of success.

Brett Umlauf and Amber Youell were respectively the soprano and alto performers and displayed a real harmonizing intimacy in their singing, despite all the distractions they had to attend to. Kelly Savage was the stalwart keyboard accompanist, and Laura Careless devised choreography and movement. The projections were supplied by Jessica Ng, and the utterly thoughtful and no less fabulous costumes were the work of Annie Holt. One would hope and think that this production was on the radar of the opera community, and that it should stimulate the sort of discussion and investigation that Morningside Opera aspire to provoke. For all its playful heart, Stabat Mater Fabulosa ultimately proves perfectly serious.

~~~

For more information about Morningside Opera please visit their site and join them on Facebook.

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A benefit concert is being held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ghar Sita Mutu - “House with a Heart” – a charity that offers a children’s home, a children’s learning center, a women’s training center, and a family outreach program to those living in extreme poverty in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Ghar Sita Mutu Benefit Concert

The Ghar Sita Mutu Benefit Concert is on Monday, November 14 at the Theatre for the New City. 155 First Ave, NYC.  8 pm – 11:30 pm. Suggested donation at the door is $15. There will be performances by musicians, actors, and comedians, including Anacoustic Mind, Khaled Dajani,  Michael Birch, John Grimaldi, Mike Milazzo, Mark Normand, Sharon Jane Smith, Lord Lorax, Cathryn Lynne, and Sagar Bhatt.

Ghar Sita Mutu

While on a trip in Nepal, NYC resident Beverly Bronson found two children, Krishna and Babu, aged five and two, huddled in front of a tin hut after being abandoned by their mother. Beverly tried to help the children find a home, and in doing so, was faced with an opportunity to help others in a very direct, immediate, and positive way.

Beverly Bronson

Nepal is a country struggling with poverty and political instability. The per capita income is just $322, and there is no government safety net for citizens. Few charitable groups operate where so many people are in need.  Ghar Sita Mutu was founded as a non-profit, NGO (Non-Governmental Organization)  by Beverly Bronson in 2001 to help the women and children of Nepal.

The status of women is low in the society, contributing to frequent abuse and abandonment of wives and children. Few employment opportunity exist for women and childcare is not available; sometimes babies are shut up in a room, left alone for long hours. It is not unusual to see children too young to even care for themselves left in charge of their younger siblings. Children as young as five are indentured.

Countless children live on the streets of the capital Kathmandu, having run away from indentured servitude or been abandoned by parents. Education is not compulsory and only families who can afford to do so send their children to school.

Programs at Ghar Sita Mutu

Children’s Home. Ghar Sita Mutu provides a safe, loving and enriching home for up to 20 children. The children attend a local school with the tuition paid for by sponsors. The home also provides employment for several local people, including a house manager, part-time gardener and watchman.

Children at Ghar Sita Mutu

The Children’s Learning Centre provides daily classes for children whose parents can’t afford to send them to school. Forty children are currently served in the program.

Women’s Training. Free sewing, knitting, felt making, and candle making classes are taught to local women, who in turn are making items that are marketed mainly in the U.S. Many women don’t have time to take the classes because they must earn a living, so a program has been started, where some women are paid to take classes five days per week with a goal of making the women self-sufficient.

Family Outreach Program. Ghar Sita Mutu provides emergency help to families in need, as well as more formal charity programs such as our Goat Project, which provides a goat to a family to raise and breed, helping them to raise their standard of living.

The Story of Baby Abhaya

by Beverly Bronson on Saturday, September 17, 2011

Today Dev Kala, one of our staff members, came rushing into the house saying ‘Mummy Mummy, come quickly. You must help!’ She took me to a small room where there was a two day old baby girl and mother with two older children sleeping on the floor in a tiny room. The mother gave birth in the room and has not seen a doctor. She planned to throw the baby away today and go back to her village.

Baby Abhaya

I have promised help but all she wants to do is throw/give away her baby. I am checking with my lawyer whether or not we can take her into our home. The state orphanage has stopped taking in new children. The baby needs to be seen by a doctor, but the mother refuses to take her to the hospital. Baby was naked, wrapped in a shawl. She has an eye infection and is not eating. Mother is trying to feed the baby cold milk with a spoon out of a cup. I insisted the mother put baby to breast for the colostrum telling her I would not take her if she didn’t. I bought some meat and milk for the mother, and eye medicine and bottle for the baby and promised to return tomorrow.

How can I take more kids when I am struggling to support the ones I have? How can I leave her there to be thrown on the rubbish pile on the mother’s way out of town …

Read Beverly’s account of the days and weeks following the dramatic rescue of Baby Abhaya here.

How you can help

If you would like to help Ghar Sita Mutu in their efforts to enrich the lives of the children and women in Kathmandu, Nepal, please visit the Ghar Sita Mutu website, where you can donate and purchase handmade gifts online.

Also, you are invited to attend Ghar Sita Mutu‘s upcoming events:

Ghar Sita Mutu Benefit Concert on MONDAY, NOV 14 at the Theatre for the New City. 155 First Ave, NYC.  8 pm – 11:30 pm. Suggested donation at the door is $15

Ghar Sita Mutu 10th Anniversary Party. SUNDAY, DEC 18 at Dixon Place. 161A Chrystie St (Between Rivington & Delancy), NYC. 5 pm – 10 pm

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Dystopia Gardens: Soylent Green meets Sleeper.

Ladies, gentlemen and other fellow Fringe enthusiasts, Will Nunziata and Jerry Sean Miller do it again: with their hilarious multi-media one-act, they instantly drop us into One World, a place allegedly so polluted that people live inside humongous domes and savor food pills. “Allegedly,” by the way, is the keyword.

A cross between Soylent Green and Woody Allen’s Sleeper, Dystopia Gardens is a futuristic fantasy that bears a strange reflection of our own reality. One World is led by an almighty leader, who wears a diaper and gets cloned periodically, his brain transplanted into a younger body. The only problem is, he seems to grow more and more delusional with every iteration. The domes are collapsing, the food pipes get clogged, but he is happy as long as he gets his banana cream. Oh, and he’ll cheerfully sign anything into law for the treat.

Needless to say that requires a certain amount of toughness to keep the citizens in place. “You’re watching us, we’re watching you,” says the shiny TV screen on which two brain-dead anchors deliver what’s considered news in Domes society. Everyone must wear the same white robes, love the leader and reproduce by means of bodily fluids exchanged through plastic tubes attached to their genitals. If they produce a child who asks too many questions, the child gets electrocuted early enough for the parents to start over. “What are the food pills made of?” inquires one overcurious fledgling who just doesn’t want to be like everyone else. “People,” his dad replies, incapable of comprehending his offspring’s shock and dismay.

The coming of age doesn’t go well for Adam Applegate who gets zinged by his own father – but manages to survive the deadly volts. Moreover, he miraculously finds a way out of the dome and discovers that there is a beautiful world outside the dome where trees grow and flowers bloom. The question is, can his Song of Angry Men (in the key of Les Misérable) get the citizens of One World to follow him – and can he live to see the liberation?

Dystopia has come a long way since the duo first presented it at The PIT theater last year. It lost a bit of sarcasm, built up more drama and turned a series of mini stand-up comedy skits into a human story. Grant and Julienne bump into each other at the DMV – Department of Marital Vows – and the computerized matchmakers accidently pair them up. They turn out to be a match made in tyrannical heaven – they even agree to break the rules and ditch the fluid tubes in favor of the banned good ol’ sex. But their happiness doesn’t last long. Grant decides to join Applegate’s rebellion meeting and things go awry.

If you ever wanted to know what our global-warming, polluting, WTO-governed future may bring but were afraid to ask, visit Dystopia Gardens at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street NYC.) See for yourself whether two citizens of Our World can play about two hundred dystopian characters in under two hours. You may laugh harder than you ever have. After all, One World’s broadcast makes Fox News sound real.

~~~

Dystopia Gardens
Writer: Jerry Miller & Will Nunziata
Director: Paul Stancato

1h 15m
dystopiagardens.tumblr.com
VENUE #5: Dixon Place
Thu 25 @ 7 Sat 27 @ 2

Related Posts:

• Stabat Mater Fabulosa, Morningside Opera Productions
• Benefit Concert For Ghar Sita Mutu
• Lipshtick (Fringe Festival 2011)
• I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography (Fringe Festival 2011)
• Insurmountable Simplicities: Philosophers Say The Darndest Things (Fringe Festival 2010)

Lipshtick is an ambitious play, taking the audience on a funny, poignant, and complex journey through what it meant to be a woman in 20^th century America amidst a media blitzkrieg mirroring society’s perceptions, ideals, and images, while seeking to expose how women internalize and externalize these expectations as they struggle towards a sense of self and continue to define the realities and experiences of being female in American society in the present.

Written by Romy Nordlinger and Adam Burns, “Lipshtick” is centered around the Make-Me-Over Show, a reality T.V. show which eavesdrops on women’s lives by hacking into their media devices in order to find the next contestant to win an appearance on the show. The lucky winner will receive the ultimate make-over, becoming the very image of society’s ideal woman.

Lipshtick is brilliantly directed by Bricken Sparacino, whose deft touch is felt throughout the play, as complicated political, philosophical, psychological, and socio-economic issues are tempered with humor and humanity, resulting in a seamless, moving, and powerful work of Art.

The three MC’s of the Make-Me-Over Show (Scout Durwood, Aja Houston, Romy Nordlinger) enter the scene with matching outfits – bouffant wigs, white lab coats, and cat-style glasses – shimmying, shaking, and singing in unison like a girl group of the 1950′s on Acid. The dialogue among the MCs is extraordinarily clever and utilizes rhythm, rhyme, and sharp wit, giving the actors the opportunity to truly shine as a team, as they work together and play off each other to complete each other’s sentences, speak and sing in unison, and reflect the warped, surreal, and savage world of the media through the lens of the Make-Me-Over Show.

Brilliant and ruthless collages of various media (television shows, commercials, and movies) projected at intervals throughout the play serve as an additional ever present character and reflect the media’s role in shaping and reflecting society’s image of women during various periods of time. The visual design by Adam Burns employs innovate projection techniques and uses video as stage-set, projected backdrop, and visual and auditory back-story; the frenetic movement of the collages mirror the daily assault of media in our lives.

In the search for the next “winner” to appear on the Make-Me-Over Show, the audience is taken on a series of vignettes exposing and exploring the places American women found themselves at different points during the 20^th century. Throughout these vignettes, each actor is given the spotlight to weave a spell over the audience, sharing their individual and powerful talents as they unfold and embody several characters. Scout Durwood, Aja Houston, and Romy Nordlinger are extremely talented actors, able to stretch, create, and open up the worlds of vastly different characters with humor, physicality, and heart-breaking humanity.

Scout Durwood’s character of Maggie, a working class middle-aged housewife at odds with sexual liberation, begins her vignette gossiping as she does the laundry. She yells at neighbor kids, and makes the audience laugh with her wit and sharp observations. As she downplays her own sexuality, her beauty becomes more insistent and recognizable. As she explores her role as a woman and housewife, Durwood’s Maggie is simply and beautifully revealed, leaving us with a woman struggling with questions of love and marriage, trying to find meaning and purpose in her life as a woman confronting her own evolution in a rapidly changing world.

Aja Houston’s character of Edith, an old woman reflecting on her life alone after her husband’s death, begins her vignette taking care of and talking to a plant. We discover that the plant holds her husband’s ashes, and that she is addressing her late husband. This character holds deep maturity as she reflects on her age, on love, and on life with her husband. Houston’s Edith is all heart and hope, an old woman having made mistakes, having learned some lessons, and finding at her mature age, a surprise – a bud on the plant, promising, even as women grow old, their magnificent potential for flowering.

Romy Nordlinger’s character of Kathy, an adolescent girl trying to make sense of her place as an emerging woman and wrestling with questions of sexuality and image, begins her vignette playing with a Barbie doll and a Ken doll. In a heartbreaking moment, she reflects upon her changing body, so unlike Barbie’s ideal figure and long blonde hair, and wonders if she can still be beautiful. Nordlinger’s Kathy is expertly woven; her naïveté and youth is handled with humor and sensitivity, and her confusion, awkwardness, and desire to understand her sexuality and what that means in an adult world, is rooted in all of us.

At the end of the play, a “winner” is chosen; however, the winner does not want to appear on the Make-Me-Over Show show. Her refusal to buy into society’s version of what it means to be a woman causes a breaking down of the very system on which the show is built. In a frenzied deconstruction, the three MC’s smear lipstick on their mouths and attempt to strip away the pervasive and damaging messages from media and society, resulting in an ending reminiscent of the second wave of feminism, returning us to the questions raised in the early 1970s when women burned their bras, the demand for a new dialogue as to what it means to be a woman in society, and to define these questions with better answers.

There is one more chance to see  Lipshtick as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the lovely Dixon Place Theater: August 24 @ 6:15.

~~~

Lipshtick
Writer: Romy Nordlinger & Adam Burns, Video Design by Adam Burns
Director: Bricken Sparacino

1h 30m

www.lipshtickbaby.com
VENUE #5: Dixon Place
Wed 24 @ 6:15

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Oh, you’ll love walking into the theatre at Dixon Place to watch I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography – Mark Sam Rosenthal’s (Celebrity!) solo show.  The music is cranking with such anthems as The Pussycat Dolls “When I Grow Up”, Katy Perry’s “Firework” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and the walls are glowing with projections of  Mark in his candid, semi (one assumes) nude “oops, you caught me being cute!” poses.  You’ll just love walking in, almost as much as Mark Sam Rosenthal himself does.

When he does arrive it’s to some German pop that threatens to overtake the room – until Mark gets nice and comfy in his seat to start reading his “preemptive celebrity autobiography”.  Then, once he’s settled in, NOTHING can overtake the room the way he can.  With his charming delivery, his mastery at knowing how to deliver a story, and his lilting Louisiana accent, this guy has you at “No pictures please!” as he vogues on the projected red carpet.

Mark Sam Rosenthal (photo by Evan Schwartz)

Rosenthal’s story begins in an almost idyllic fashion as he recounts how he began his life as a sweet southern boy, being reared in a world which included the pageantry of the Mardi Gras royal court (a court over which his mother actually presided one year – proudly).

He then progresses through his school years, where he fell in love with the theatre for the first time … right around the time he fell in love with a boy for the first time as well.

Not every chosen path was stellar, nor was it untarnished; a brief stint in porn (!) is recounted quite candidly and all without losing that Baton Rouge charm and graciousness.  When he talks about greeting his fellow orgy cast members in the warehouse he might as well be talking about the time he served tea sandwiches to a group of schoolgirls, so genteel and cordial is the manner in which he tells the details of the story.  The result is pure comic brilliance.

Rosenthal’s stories run the gamut from his love of karaoke (Yes, I was “that guy”) to his hugely successful career in commercials (FIVE! So far!) some of which have even gone beyond regional.  And let’s not forget the appearance on Cash Cab!

But so what if he’s had his hard knocks on the climb to fame?  It makes the view from the top all the sweeter.

As far as the requisite celebrity secret-spilling, Rosenthal opens his family’s closet and touches upon the difficulty coming to grips with a father who had a hidden lifestyle and died of a disease which still carries a stigma …  especially when it befalls a seemingly straight man with a wife and children.

Solo shows often come off as self-serving (even when they’re supposed to) and can often badly miss the target.  There is no threat of that here.  Rosenthal is engaging, enjoyable and winning to watch, and under Todd Parmley’s quick-paced and tight direction this show zings like crazy.  Parmley’s multi-media design which accompanies the piece is like the crown on top of the already gorgeous pageant winner – a glittering adornment which offsets and counterbalances the main presentation and brings it to new heights of perfection.

Towards the end of I Light Up My Life, Rosenthal (needlessly) ponders “What if I’m ordinary?”  Mark Sam – you may be a lot of things, but “ordinary” is not one of them.

~~~

I Light Up My Life: The Mark Sam Celebrity Autobiography
Star: Mark Sam Rosenthal
Writer: Mark Sam Rosenthal
Director: Todd Parmley
1h 20m
www.ILightUpMyLife.com
VENUE #5: Dixon Place
Wed 17 @ 9:15 Wed 24 @ 4 Fri 26 @ 7

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Are you who you think you are or just who others say you are?  Are you a combination somewhere in the middle – or none of the above?  How do you get caught in a rectilinear paradox?  Can’t you just do what the sign says no matter where it’s saying it?

Insurmountable Simplicities (written by Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi, adapted and directed by Natalie Glick) is a very fast paced play with witty dialogue and superb acting which helps us pull apart various layers of philosophical conundrums.

Using six stories enacted by four thoughtful and intelligent actors (Alex Herrald, Victoria Pollack, Richard LaFleur, Alice Winslow) their points are made humorously rather than pedantically and in a way that really struck a chord with me. Here a brief synopsis of each of the concept plays performed in Insurmountable Simplicities.

Zombie Sleeping Pills
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just turn off your consciousness on a boring ordeal like an airplane, but be productive and experiential at the same time?  Enter Zombie Sleeping Pills.  Just your consciousness sleeps while the rest of  you can exercise your thinking processes, determining whether or not this is such a good idea from a practical, existential as well as a human and emotional level.

The Poet As A Young Man
A time traveler goes back through the ages to determine the origins of one the greatest poets in history.  Before a certain point in his life he was unremarkable, but within days he will be one of the most amazing minds the world has ever known. What makes the standard into the extraordinary?  The tricks of perception we can have when we truly come face to face with ourselves are sometimes enough to help us turn the corner of our experience to the profound.

Risky Cake
What about that cake?  Audience participation and crowd sourcing is taken to the extreme as the prisoner’s diligent is enacted before our very eyes for just the cost of a piece of cake.  How can ultimate knowledge help in a situation where nothing is knowable except our guess of what will be free will?  Find out more at the play.

Self Reference Self Explained
What if the nature of what goes into a discussion were talking  with itself?  Find out the the nature of truth and pardox in this amazingly thoughtful and laugh out loud philosophical narration with four voices.

Verbatim
With media always trying to give us advice ask yourself this: If you always did what you read would you ever get anywhere?   This sketch answers this from many different directions in the Costoldi & Bros. Fancy Bowtie Shop.

Room 88
If all your perception suddenly became a perfect mirror things wouldn’t be so perfect.  It’s as if we look at Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave with some modern sensibilities, but don’t know what to do when we realize we are truly alone in our perceptions after all.

I’d suggest making the time to see the comedic philosophical sketches with original music composed and performed by Duncan Wood.  Just 2 more shows – catch it while you can.  You won’t be sorry.

~~~

Insurmountable Simplicities
All Gone Theatre Company
Writer: Roberto Casati and Achille Varzi, Adapted by Natalie Glick
Director: Natalie Glick

0h 50m
www.insimplicitiesplay.com
VENUE #1: Dixon Place

Related Posts:

• Swaha: Rituals Of Union (Fringe Festival 2010)
• The Beátitudes: The Beat Goes On (Fringe Festival 2010)
• Stabat Mater Fabulosa, Morningside Opera Productions
• Benefit Concert For Ghar Sita Mutu
• Dystopia Gardens (Fringe Festival 2011)

One of the best things about the Fringe Festival is how it embraces diversity – it becomes one of the best summer reminders as to how culturally rich and fascinating this city can be. In Swaha: Rituals of Union Trinayan Dance Theater mixes tradition, with dance, storytelling and ritualistic precise movements that will evoke your senses and successfully accomplish the  elephantine task of getting you out of your head, no verbal dialogue required.

If you visit the company’s website, you will learn that “Trinayan” means third eye, the nexus of divine energy in each one of us. Their mission is to create evocative interpretations of Odissi dance through multi-layered performances (check!); a pastiche of music (check!), movement (oh yeah!), story telling (yeap!), filmic images (3D look out!), and sound which culminates in a richly embroidered and nuanced experience. Need I say more?

Whether individual numbers or the more complex ensemble ones, each Odissi dance contains such precision, that each facial expression, bat of an eye, and stomping of a foot was an integral component to the story. You can check the program for specifics as to what each dance number exactly means, but this show contains the true elements of storytelling, although you may not know the exact specifics, the enfolding story is transmuting, transforming and transporting a powerful message to the audience.
This show is prayer in movement, and each of the dancer’s bodies is a moving temple. You read a lot about the limitations of Fringe, how you have only 15min to build your show in the space, of shaky performers because they’ve had little time to get accustomed to the theater, etc. This show has no such excuses, it is ready to be performed and to share their message out on the streets under the torrential rain (such as that which dropped the day of the performance I attended) if they had to.

I left hungry for knowledge. Eager to learn more of Odissi dance, to quickly Google their website and find out what each movement, each ornament in their garments and bodies meant.

With all the buzz about the new book turned into movie “Eat, Pray, Love” I beg of you, get thee to the Fringe! Check out Shawa: Rituals of Union, let that be your PRAY, and then join some friends for some EAT and LOVE around the neighborhood.  Only one more performance left – so go!

~~~

Swaha: Rituals of Union
Trinayan Dance Theater
Director: Taiis Pascal-Charles and Leena Mohanty
Choreographer: Guru Durga Charan Ranbir, The Late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Taiis Pascal-Charles

1h 10m
VENUE #1: Dixon Place
Click link below to purchase tickets

Related Posts:

• Insurmountable Simplicities: Philosophers Say The Darndest Things (Fringe Festival 2010)
• The Beátitudes: The Beat Goes On (Fringe Festival 2010)
• Stabat Mater Fabulosa, Morningside Opera Productions
• Benefit Concert For Ghar Sita Mutu
• Dystopia Gardens (Fringe Festival 2011)

What’s Beat? The Beat is Beat? Do you dig? (snap,snap).

The story we have is the story we were, twirling and twisting about in a blur whose end and beginning is a boy and a girl. That story –  two ends – are tender and sweet . . . But what we got in the middle is what we call the Beat. (roll of tom-toms).

Jerry'Chip' Scuderi, Maureen Duke

1. Sailor Kisses Girl.

Sailor Kissing Nurse by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Eidolon Ballet Company’s The Beátitudes begin with a drum beat – complex but steady – pulling us forward through a photo montage of World War II while simultaneously we are bombarded by our heroic dancers doing what they’re instructed and pushing through the mess and grime of war.  We see them acting like machines as they move through the repetitious motions of the military.  However we see their body’s expressions inform us of their need to be human too as they take turns helping their fellow soldiers or as they are being saved themselves.

Then comes the day that the War Ends with great Glory and Adulation and we get to the real beginning of the Story at hand.  The Kiss!

Theirs is the spark that connects the boy (Ray played by Jerry “Chip” Scuderi ) and the girl (Alvah played by Maureen Duke) through the rest of the story through many morphs and changes.  It’s their spark that acts as a reflection of the sparks waking up everywhere else.

What’s the Beat so far?

The Beat is Jazz . . . Jazz filling up your brain cool and fast. The Beat is being free to be something different, but something that’s in sync with a greater groove so smooth, you don’t know where you’re going until you already left.

2. Values and Re-evaluation

After the aftershocks of the Returning Home fades, we see the Couple enter the Beat Scene as the Scene begins forming around them.   It forms by way of the Subterraneans and Dean who acts as a shining star around which everyone is going to revolve.  As the voice-overs of words and music from the time period inform us,  this movement or experience that becomes The Beat Generation was at first alien to everyone, but everyone’s hunger for wonder fueled an amazing exploration of many new ways of appreciating other people and ideas and sensations.

They get brought into one group out of curiosity and then they are intrigued with the possibilities of expression and variety in people and ideas and art.  This becomes obsession about what was once only something to be looked forward

The middle has most everyone lost in a new roles that make their heads spin in new ways.  They’re finding mastery at arts  and then realing they can go in another direction.  They’re enlarging their emotional capacity for handling loss, creating independence and escaping dependence on others by leading. They’re learning all the sexual twists and turns one can make, but realizing that in the long run love beats mere sensation even in a world that’s Beat (as showcased in the budding relationship between Dean and Maggie played by A. Temple Kemezis).  And Finally that there’s always something more to find.

Pictured: Valerie Cortier, Chip Scuderi, Danielle Cortier, Alfredo Solivan, Ashley Talluto

What’s there Cracker-Jack as you look at your hands?

They tingle/touch/scream/settle into a new place.
Then when they finally find it -

This new flow in us becomes a dance we are becoming -
Shifting/sifting ’round and  ’round we’re tossed until we find our balance.
Until we become who we really are…

For now anyway…

3. Tales of Filling Learning, Yearning, Burning, and then Re-Turning to Something New

The meat of the show has an almost overabundance of mental and emotional sustenance, with lots to read within and between the lines of this dialogueless play.  The movement of the dancers conveys more than dialogue could in terms of the language of immediacy and urgency and the subtle transformation of self that happens when you learn something new yourself through careful study or thoughtful introspection that seem to be hallmarks of the ideals and themes of the times.

Also between the media displayed on  the large and beautifully worked screen in the backdrop of this show and the playing of music and reading of words from leaders of that generation (like Jack Keruoac, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and many more)  The Beátitudes is one of the most in depth as well as entertaining history immersements I’ve ever had, especially for the time involved (35 minutes).

It was wonderful to watch and explore the progression of The Beat movement using the two main characters as elements exemplifying the best and worst emotional experiences that were typical of that era.  These characters find a greater depth and satisfaction through their journey through The Beat Era, and what seem to be wholesome decent futures are resonant of who they were at the beginning of the play, but resonating on a higher but more complex level.

Valerie Cortier, Alfredo Solivan, Ashley Talluto, Jerry 'Chip' Scuderi, Cailtin Maxwell

There’s really a lot that more I could say about this dynamic and beautiful show but I don’t want to go on longer than the production which is only 35 minutes long.

So I’ll end by saying that my hope for this show was to have a greater appreciation for this poetic and magic time of social transformation in our history.  I came away from it feeling that The Beátitudes transmitted enough of the vibes of the time – The Beat – that I’m now a part of the revolution/evolution of the time too.

Let the Eidolon Ballet move you to the sound of their different drumbeat in the The Beátitudes.

Only 1 more show Fri 20 @ 8.

Can you Dig it? (snap)(snap)

~~~

The Beatitudes
Eidolon Ballet
Writer: Justin Allen with poetry and jazz from the Beat Generation
Choreographer: Melanie Cortier

0h 35m
VENUE #1: Dixon Place

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