(Four Seasons Centre, 25 November 2011)
The plot of a silent film noir has been adapted for stage by Shakespeare, stripped of words by Prokofiev, animated by Ratmansky, and competently performed by the National Ballet company. An adaptation of an Oscar Wilde plot to Stravinsky or of "Le Cercle Rouge" to Berlin would be equally natural ballet projects. Nevertheless, the National Ballet have splashed on resuscitating "Romeo and Juliet."
Understatement works in life, on the screen, and in small spaces. Whether it can work also in an opera house cannot be determined by watching “Romeo and Juliet,” which does not deal in understatement. When characters are minimal, understatement is the appropriate mode to communicate the depth of their emotions, for any all-caps dancing would only reveal the shallowness of their intellect. Exuberant music, exaggerated movements and pantomime, and no variation in the intensity of the narrative prevent one from being immersed into the ballet.
It is hard to choreograph a five-minute dance. It is nearly impossible to choreograph an entire ballet. A twice-in-a-lifetime inspiration is required for that. That this inspiration would culminate in just another iteration on "Romeo and Juliet" seems improbable. The present iteration lacks class.
Some movements in the ballet seem to be stretched to the physical limit because the textbook has it so, not because the parts require it. So, there is no surprise and no relief in the discovered freedom when the dancers accomplish the superhuman. The moves' destinations are poorly marked and seem divorced from music, which is phrased clearer.
Sonia Rodriguez has a gymnast's physique and bearing, which suit well the character of the under-age Juliet. But to assume that the audience shall be interested in the character of the under-age Juliet is to stake the ballet's success on the success of its weakest element. Change the character, jazz up the music, kill the plot, un-Lego the choreography, cut, cut, and cut, and select the dancers who make for a plausible romantic duo (hint: use Elena Lobsanova and Guillaume Côté).
Often, to forget an inventor is to pay him a compliment. Best discoveries stimulate further improvements, which quickly overshadow the original. Thus, whether one believes that Shakespeare was any good, Shakespeare deserves to be improved upon and forgotten, as Aristotelian physics has been.
The bored orchestra seem outdated. In a pit, they create a barrier between the audience and the dancers. Technology amplifies individual creativity. There is no shortage of amplifiers to be compensated for by multiplying the number of resident musicians. Hiding artists in a pit is demeaning. So, use a recording. Or put the musicians on stage (they, not the dancers, are the stars of the "Dance with the Mandolins"), revise the music until the musicians enjoy being a part of it, and then make them the centrepiece of the performance.
It is a waste of dancers' talents to have four couples learn the protagonists' roles in order to perform for a fortnight. It is a waste of taxpayers' money to rehash an old ballet instead of innovating. It is a waste of classical musicians to tuck them into a pit. With patrons willing to pay for all that, the National Ballet can afford to assume some risk.
26 November 2011
The Kingston Prize: Canada's National Portrait Competition
(Royal Ontario Museum, 25 November 2011)
The subjects in the exhibition's best paintings are artists' friends. In the paintings of William Lazos, Sean Yelland, and Richard Davis, the respect for the subjects translates into the respect for the viewer. The contemplation of friendship induces an artist to accentuate the positive in his friend and to portray him with dignity, thus producing an artistic contribution. The exhibition's worst paintings are mindless snapshots. Francis Fontaine and Michael Bayne rely on the mistaken premise that a raw emotion can be transformed into a thought without any intellectual effort.
Art scarcely needs ugliness---in part, because ugliness is ample outside art. In order to maintain a balanced outlook, an individual needs to experience a range of emotions, which art helps generate. But even when a gory image is required, the gore need not be ugly. More often than not, ugliness is the imprecision of expression. There is more art at the Bloor Street Starbucks than in some of the selected paintings.
Americans strive for an ideal and perfection---which sell well, and the market is large. The British strive for justice. Canadians strive for inclusion---or so it seems by inspecting the portraits selected by the jury, who fail to realise that their duty is to spot talent, not Canada. Besides, few included would appreciate what the chosen artists have deemed worthy of inclusion.
Partly as an unintended outcome of the portraits' selection, the gallery has the ambiance of a communal apartment, permeated by its inhabitants' routine resignation. This set-up does not do justice to individual artists. Better lighting would have brightened up the atmosphere.
An artist expresses himself in the medium in which he is most eloquent. A painter's comments on his work are bound to be inferior to his work, apart from being redundant for its appreciation. Besides, those who cannot interpret faces will come with a friend or a parent, or take a docent's tour, and will not gain from being instructed by the exhibition notes revealing whether a barmaid's countenance is glad or sad (neither, it turns out).
The subjects in the exhibition's best paintings are artists' friends. In the paintings of William Lazos, Sean Yelland, and Richard Davis, the respect for the subjects translates into the respect for the viewer. The contemplation of friendship induces an artist to accentuate the positive in his friend and to portray him with dignity, thus producing an artistic contribution. The exhibition's worst paintings are mindless snapshots. Francis Fontaine and Michael Bayne rely on the mistaken premise that a raw emotion can be transformed into a thought without any intellectual effort.
Art scarcely needs ugliness---in part, because ugliness is ample outside art. In order to maintain a balanced outlook, an individual needs to experience a range of emotions, which art helps generate. But even when a gory image is required, the gore need not be ugly. More often than not, ugliness is the imprecision of expression. There is more art at the Bloor Street Starbucks than in some of the selected paintings.
Americans strive for an ideal and perfection---which sell well, and the market is large. The British strive for justice. Canadians strive for inclusion---or so it seems by inspecting the portraits selected by the jury, who fail to realise that their duty is to spot talent, not Canada. Besides, few included would appreciate what the chosen artists have deemed worthy of inclusion.
Partly as an unintended outcome of the portraits' selection, the gallery has the ambiance of a communal apartment, permeated by its inhabitants' routine resignation. This set-up does not do justice to individual artists. Better lighting would have brightened up the atmosphere.
An artist expresses himself in the medium in which he is most eloquent. A painter's comments on his work are bound to be inferior to his work, apart from being redundant for its appreciation. Besides, those who cannot interpret faces will come with a friend or a parent, or take a docent's tour, and will not gain from being instructed by the exhibition notes revealing whether a barmaid's countenance is glad or sad (neither, it turns out).
19 November 2011
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman (2011)
In the book's first four parts, the catalogue of behavioural biases poses no intellectual challenge, in the same manner as one's inability to read a map poses no intellectual challenge. The remedy is either to educate oneself (e.g., to learn how to read the map) or to outsource some decisions (e.g., to use a GPS). It is the book's last, and the shortest, part which contains the contentious proposition that the interest of the experiencing self must have precedence over the interest of the remembering self (and, by analogy, perhaps also over the anticipating self). The proposition is tautological if one admits that memories constitute experiences, and is questionable otherwise. If one enjoys remembering stories, telling stories, and hearing stories, one may as well live in order to create stories. One aspires to a happy ending---however brief---for the same reason that one aspires to establish a possibility result, a proof of concept, a theorem, whose beneficiaries shall be anonymous future generations.
If from an individual's point of view it is ambiguous whether to favour the experiencing or the remembering self, one can appeal to the society's interest. The society may not care about the individual's experiencing self beyond that individual's own concern---in order to avoid double counting. By contrast, the society may doubly care about the individual's remembering self, whose stories may lend themselves to storage and communication better than readings off a hedonimeter do. Then, the remembering self must have precedence.
If from an individual's point of view it is ambiguous whether to favour the experiencing or the remembering self, one can appeal to the society's interest. The society may not care about the individual's experiencing self beyond that individual's own concern---in order to avoid double counting. By contrast, the society may doubly care about the individual's remembering self, whose stories may lend themselves to storage and communication better than readings off a hedonimeter do. Then, the remembering self must have precedence.
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