Clare Means

(The Third Street Promenade, 20 April 2013)

An artist cannot help being, and translating who he is into a narrative. If one finds aspects of beauty in oneself and translates these, one succeeds as an artist.

Few are artists. While some are tall buildings and fluid fabrics, others are merely a smooth gait, a wit, a reassuring profile. Nevertheless, most can find gratification in distilling a part of themselves into the beauty that can be passed on, onto the audience of strangers. One creates when the external narrative is either lacking or inspires a dialogue.

There is wisdom in being but a reporter---not a schemer, nor a moralist, nor a nostalgist---especially when one is of the age when one is supposed to be alive. One gets only one chance at being oneself, followed by numerous an opportunity for revising the account of what one used to be.

Top Hat

(Aldwych Theatre, 2 April 2013)

A live performance assures that the memories evoked by music are real. This reality is shared, at least by few, in whom one sees those who one aspires to be or may become, or was or could have been. A live performance assures that also music is real, ready to reveal the humanity that transcends individuals once a critical mass of them assemble, on or off stage.

In an act of the division of emotional labour, the audience empathise with characters, thus inhabiting multiple lives at once. This practice is no escapism. Escapism denies one's condition. Empathy enriches one's condition.

Axiom

(Fais Do-Do, 29 March 2013)

Civilisation---aided by art---structures immediate temptations to further long-term gratification, and---aided by science and luck---structures immediate incentives to further long-term goals. Civilisation replaces the degrading compromise by the quest for an ideal.

"Balanchine GOLD" by Los Angeles Ballet

(Royce Hall, 23 March 2013)

Balanchine's is a peculiar language, that of social isolation, decreed aspiration to excellence, and the fear of slowing down for fear of disappointing the machine. His language constructs aesthetics, but neglects meaning. Balanchine is the Manhattan people commute to.

Bach is the Manhattan people reverse commute from. Engineered to dance to, Bach's music tricks thought into wakefulness. In "Concerto Barocco," Bach's music attributes the ballet's kinetic detachment to the congruence of individual goals, not to the sacrifice of self-denial.

End of the Rainbow

(Ahmanson Theatre, 16 March 2013)

It is unclear what Judy Garland is, and hence how to portray her. One could sing a little better than she did, dance a little better than she did, and pass for a star.

Judy Garland is anything but Judy Garland. Yet the play focuses on Judy Garland---not on the studio system that had shaped her, not on the husbands who clung to her, not on the public who adored her---not on who Judy Garland was.

In the play, Judy Garland is too subordinated to addictions to be free, her prospective husband Micky is too dull to be free, so it is left to her accompanist, Anthony, to deliver one-liners that the audience can take home for guidance and reassurance.

The world collapses once one asserts one's singularity, instead of waiting for the world to impose it upon one.

"The Little Mermaid" by the Hamburg Ballet

(Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 9 February 2013)

Whereas the absence of a live orchestra eliminates the no-man's land between the dancers and the audience, the choreographer's divorce between the dance and the music precludes the dancers from engaging with the audience. This divorce is endemic in classical ballet and is particularly pronounced in the first third of this performance. Passion is lost as musicality is suppressed in an effort not to be literal.  The musicality is regained later on, as the dancers begin to dance with (not just next to) each other.

Towards the end of the ballet, one gets inured to the redundantly grotesque. Classical ballet seems to have been devised to guide ships in the fog, not to communicate subtle emotions. In theatre, verbal subtlety can be communicated from a faraway stage, whereas ballet choreographers must fear that physical subtlety will fail to reach the house's distant corners. If indeed so, then large concert halls are inappropriate for dance performances, which should be downscaled and transferred to smaller venues, akin to jazz clubs. This transfer may also cleanse classical ballet of its competitive element; more would aspire to the dramatic prowess of Lloyd Riggins, this ballet's star.

As male ballet dancers age, they mature and grow more masculine. As female ballet dancers age, they seem to lose femininity and revert to girlhood. Females may try to arrest ageing, succeed at it, and overdo it. Males, by contrast, seem to accept ageing and, in order to compensate for it, develop dramatic skills.

One cannot be an artist full time, for one needs time to simply be, and to inhabit the messages that it is the artist's vocation to communicate.

Art is an escape into an ideal world that one would wish to be a part of. If the world one inhabits is ideal in that one does indeed wish to be a part of it, then any art that does not emerge spontaneously may be redundant.

The poor like the rich more than they like art, for the luxuries of the rich are real, and hence potentially attainable. Demanding exorbitantly progressive taxation would be akin to demanding to close down museums on the grounds that the riches exhibited there are unattainable to most.

Flamenco Dinner Show

(El Farol, 29 December 2012)

Sport teaches one how to lose, but so do various other (often nobler) pursuits on occasions that life invariably furnishes. A remaining excuse for sport is that it teaches one to take responsibility and be in the spotlight. Flamenco teaches so, too, but employs a richer vocabulary.

Physical appearance is secondary. It suffices that it bear an imprint of one's lifestyle. The movement communicates the soul.

The presence of one is a gift from many.