9/11 is still vividly burned into my world. That beautiful blue-skied September morning still shimmers in my memory along with the shrill shrieking of the airplane that flew directly over my head as I came out of the supermarket, watching that American Airliner plummeting toward its destructive destiny. An instant later, there in the distance, smoke billowed out of the north World Trade Center tower. Even as the innocence of autumn was ripped apart, I had the sense that something sinister had invaded my city. The Trade Center was about 20 blocks away, and the the gaping crater in the tower was enveloped by a grotesque serenity as the scream of the airliner overhead had dissolved into the eerie silence of the distant target. Quietly the debris rained on the horrified crowd below. In the stillness of that morning smoke was slowly spreading like a grey and black dye in the sky.
In that instant I imagined the horror unleashed on those trapped in the building. Oddly, I thought that it would take a long time to repair such damage, although I knew even then that world as we knew it was crumbling. This was a World Trade Center...and now that world was fatally wounded. Less than ten minutes later the distant tableau was punctuated by a second plane swerving from the west and turning directly into the south side of the southern tower. Fire and smoke erupted through the side and front of the tower... exploding across the world as a mass murder of innocents who had begun that day with such beauty and bright hope. Now America was in the throes of a surprise attack that was beyond our comprehension.
In the days that followed the attack we lived in a war zone. Military and artillery lined Houston Street and zones were established for 14th Street down to Houston Street, Houston to Canal, and then to Chambers Street, and below that, at the center of the collapsed towers, was what became known as Ground Zero. I roamed these grounds encountering people lost and bewildered, strangers in search of validation, vigils peopled by mourners, and reading walls and fences lined with messages and pleas for information of missing loved ones.
Seven years later a city reconstructs its destruction. Even now I walk through the lingering vapor, through the empty carcass of a bleeding landscape, watching workers weld walls and supports into place as the emptiness of Ground Zero is covered by a resurrection, a Phoenix rising from the ashes to bring hope and renewal.
But beneath this restoration, the gaping wounds have turned to fresh scars. The tissues and sinews connecting this space form a network of a tragic sense of loss. It is though I had limbs that are now amputated, but I imagine them to be intact. I feel the clouds of billowing smoke, the suffocating dust, the rush of terror.
Yet I roam through my city, through this tract that has been burned throughout history. This very land has been the scene of the great fire of 1776 as a "scorched earth" left for the invading British, the disastrous fire of 1835 which leveled this entire district with the utter destruction of Wall Street, and now this same ground in its most devastating moment of 2001. What attracts such destruction and death? Does the energy of all those people past still linger throughout these downtown canyons and corridors? These are sacred grounds consecrated by the tangible presence of death and sorrow.
I know a new truth as I wander these streets. There is a lingering sadness even as I celebrate a new season, a new energy of rebirth. I know there are new reasons to celebrate. I touch the fresh fabric covering the remnants of our suffering and find a tragic and urgent beauty... a quiet reason for understanding that from the death of the past, new works and new people must emerge... that is our destiny, the perpetual rediscovery born from our pain where joy is colored by the lustre of a deeper understanding of why we love this city and honor its past while celebrating and mourning its brave new face. The presence of the past is palpable, realms of experience resonate like emerging new music sounding through the desperate anguish that lingers in forever fading half-life radiation....
Monday, November 05, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Brave New World of the Eumenides
Director Nancy Smither's remarkable conception of the Aeschylus play The Eumenides restores the lustre of antiquity while breaking new ground. The play has been in production for the last week in October and the first weekend in November in Steinhardt's BlackBox Theatre at New York University. Smithner is known for an inventive physical approach to staging, the actors move with such imagination that the result is an original choreography born of passion and drama that allows characters to create worlds that intersect and collide. Moreover Smither empowers the actors to find their own space and strength, and their characters emerge with a kinesthetic energy that shapes their destinies.
To be sure, on one level The Eumenides deals with Orestes' tragic and brutal murder of his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father, Agamemnon. Although vividly remembered through Smither's brilliant use of puppetry, shadows, and visual re-enactments, these events have taken place prior to the time of the play. What now remains is the cultural shock and fury, made compelling through the presence of the Furies, a chorus of underworldings who seek revenge for the spilling of one's own blood, the son's stabbing of his mother. For them, this is the only crime. Apparently Agamemnon deserved to die because he had only sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease the daughter of Zeus, Artemis who was the twin sister of Apollo. Clytemnestra was also a bit miffed that Agamemnon had returned from his victory with the spoils of war: the lovely and provocative Cassandra as his slave and concubine.
The atmosphere of the world of The Eumenides is a fantascape, brimming over with the remnants of reality, the underworld, the imagination, and fantasy, like a visual and sound manifestation of Ligeti's Atmospheres that introduces the other worldliness at the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. This brave new world has been achieved through Tim McMath's chimerical set, Deborah Constantine's evocative lighting, and composer Rob Schwimmer's magical acoustic environment. Schwimmer has employed electronic instruments of the past such as the Theremin, which adds to the distant, other worldliness that pervades the atmosphere of the play. These elements serve to fuse the unity of the vision as the play is performed from beginning to end without intermission.
One might surmise from the many layers of figures and characters, that ultimately the issue of justice becomes a major concern. Indeed, whose justice? We may well wonder, and at the end we may still be in doubt, despite the clear resolution. The Eumenides is the third play in the trilogy, The Oresteia. The first play, Agamemnon, tells the story of Agamemnon's return from Troy and his murder at the hand of Clytemnestra. The second, The Libation Bearers, deals with the revenge of Agamemnon's children. Thus in the third play, Aeschylus is concerned with justice and the values of a new culture and emergent democracy.
Smithner's direction understands that the Furies emerge as the star of the play, thus underscoring the fact that the role of the Greek chorus has been transformed into the main character of the play. The chorus no longer merely makes commentary on the acts of the main characters. The chorus creates the action and moves the play forward. Smithner seizes this opportunity the develop each of the Furies in interlocking individual characters that are distinctly personal, but also part of the group. In fact, the Furies are likely unaware that the very nature of their group mirrors the democracy that finds new definition as the play unfolds. They press charges against Orestes and demand that he be punished for the murder of his mother.
The Furies form a compelling fabric for the play. Alecto played by Dean Amato was utterly relentless and in your face, while Lisha Brown as Mania seemed linked in her madness to the maniacal psychosis of Clytemnestra and her ghost, Praxidika played by Emily Weidenbaum was almost spiteful as the vengeful fury, complementing Ami Formica's Tisiphone as an avenger of murder, Erin Kaplan's Megaera, the grudging one, epitomizes the reluctance of the Furies to accept an new order, and Semina played by Lisa Vasfaido as the venerable one to offers distant hope for a new order. This is a vision of the Furies that emerges from director Smithner and the talented cast, who have created an intelligent commentary on the play through subscribing to a new and insightful vision.
We understand from the outset, that this is to be a forthright examination of the facts as we are introduced to the story by our storytellers, David Altman and Jamila Khan who later enact the events surrounding Agememnon's death by his own sword in the hands of Clytemnestra. The Priestess played by Naomi Tessler underscores the moral undercurrents and also beautifully represents Iphigenia who is sacrificed by her father. Hermes is ably played as the messenger by Kyle Stockwell, sent to protect Orestes from The Furies. Orestes, the central figure of the trial is portrayed by Isaac Polanco as the son who feels the guilt of murdering his mother, but who has acted at the command of Apollo. Apollo as played by Mauel Brian Simons, is the essence of reason and clarity, even when provoked and goaded by The Furies.
Athena charges into the fray with incredible wit and timing, unlike any Athena I have ever imagined. Created by actress Erin Ronder and Smithner's deft directorial vision, Athena brings humor and charm to the play, while proving there is always more than one way to look at the facts. Athena accepts the Furies on her own terms and plants the seeds for their transformation into the Eumenides at the end. Ronder has a great sense of panache and timing, and we can appreciate that the elements of doom and gloom of any tragedy can be transformed by point of view. But The Eumenides is not a tragedy. It might be the very first morality play, but of course it ranges far beyond the scope of most present day moralities. The Eumenides is meant in the end to uplift, inspire, and instruct. We are treated to a trial by jury (actually drawn from the audience as citizens of Athens). Athena has the deciding vote in the event of a tie, and make no mistake, she will opt for a new vision of justice for the future in which the Eumenides become the pillars of a new and calmer social order.
It was a joy to see the richness of Aeschylus through the artful lens of these young actors from New York University under the creative vision of Nancy Smither whose staging creates the need for a new vocabulary of movement for actors. I cannot forget the haunting vision of Clytemnestra's Ghost played as a bizaare phantom by Nandini Naik. Just as the Furies have grudgingly accepted their new and more gracious (controlled?) role in society, just as the lights are beginning to fade to black, and just as we are comfortable in the vision that all is well in this new society, the provocative image of Clytemnestra's Ghost eerily appears, reminding us that nothing is ever the way it seems.
To be sure, on one level The Eumenides deals with Orestes' tragic and brutal murder of his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father, Agamemnon. Although vividly remembered through Smither's brilliant use of puppetry, shadows, and visual re-enactments, these events have taken place prior to the time of the play. What now remains is the cultural shock and fury, made compelling through the presence of the Furies, a chorus of underworldings who seek revenge for the spilling of one's own blood, the son's stabbing of his mother. For them, this is the only crime. Apparently Agamemnon deserved to die because he had only sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease the daughter of Zeus, Artemis who was the twin sister of Apollo. Clytemnestra was also a bit miffed that Agamemnon had returned from his victory with the spoils of war: the lovely and provocative Cassandra as his slave and concubine.
The atmosphere of the world of The Eumenides is a fantascape, brimming over with the remnants of reality, the underworld, the imagination, and fantasy, like a visual and sound manifestation of Ligeti's Atmospheres that introduces the other worldliness at the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. This brave new world has been achieved through Tim McMath's chimerical set, Deborah Constantine's evocative lighting, and composer Rob Schwimmer's magical acoustic environment. Schwimmer has employed electronic instruments of the past such as the Theremin, which adds to the distant, other worldliness that pervades the atmosphere of the play. These elements serve to fuse the unity of the vision as the play is performed from beginning to end without intermission.
One might surmise from the many layers of figures and characters, that ultimately the issue of justice becomes a major concern. Indeed, whose justice? We may well wonder, and at the end we may still be in doubt, despite the clear resolution. The Eumenides is the third play in the trilogy, The Oresteia. The first play, Agamemnon, tells the story of Agamemnon's return from Troy and his murder at the hand of Clytemnestra. The second, The Libation Bearers, deals with the revenge of Agamemnon's children. Thus in the third play, Aeschylus is concerned with justice and the values of a new culture and emergent democracy.
Smithner's direction understands that the Furies emerge as the star of the play, thus underscoring the fact that the role of the Greek chorus has been transformed into the main character of the play. The chorus no longer merely makes commentary on the acts of the main characters. The chorus creates the action and moves the play forward. Smithner seizes this opportunity the develop each of the Furies in interlocking individual characters that are distinctly personal, but also part of the group. In fact, the Furies are likely unaware that the very nature of their group mirrors the democracy that finds new definition as the play unfolds. They press charges against Orestes and demand that he be punished for the murder of his mother.
The Furies form a compelling fabric for the play. Alecto played by Dean Amato was utterly relentless and in your face, while Lisha Brown as Mania seemed linked in her madness to the maniacal psychosis of Clytemnestra and her ghost, Praxidika played by Emily Weidenbaum was almost spiteful as the vengeful fury, complementing Ami Formica's Tisiphone as an avenger of murder, Erin Kaplan's Megaera, the grudging one, epitomizes the reluctance of the Furies to accept an new order, and Semina played by Lisa Vasfaido as the venerable one to offers distant hope for a new order. This is a vision of the Furies that emerges from director Smithner and the talented cast, who have created an intelligent commentary on the play through subscribing to a new and insightful vision.
We understand from the outset, that this is to be a forthright examination of the facts as we are introduced to the story by our storytellers, David Altman and Jamila Khan who later enact the events surrounding Agememnon's death by his own sword in the hands of Clytemnestra. The Priestess played by Naomi Tessler underscores the moral undercurrents and also beautifully represents Iphigenia who is sacrificed by her father. Hermes is ably played as the messenger by Kyle Stockwell, sent to protect Orestes from The Furies. Orestes, the central figure of the trial is portrayed by Isaac Polanco as the son who feels the guilt of murdering his mother, but who has acted at the command of Apollo. Apollo as played by Mauel Brian Simons, is the essence of reason and clarity, even when provoked and goaded by The Furies.
Athena charges into the fray with incredible wit and timing, unlike any Athena I have ever imagined. Created by actress Erin Ronder and Smithner's deft directorial vision, Athena brings humor and charm to the play, while proving there is always more than one way to look at the facts. Athena accepts the Furies on her own terms and plants the seeds for their transformation into the Eumenides at the end. Ronder has a great sense of panache and timing, and we can appreciate that the elements of doom and gloom of any tragedy can be transformed by point of view. But The Eumenides is not a tragedy. It might be the very first morality play, but of course it ranges far beyond the scope of most present day moralities. The Eumenides is meant in the end to uplift, inspire, and instruct. We are treated to a trial by jury (actually drawn from the audience as citizens of Athens). Athena has the deciding vote in the event of a tie, and make no mistake, she will opt for a new vision of justice for the future in which the Eumenides become the pillars of a new and calmer social order.
It was a joy to see the richness of Aeschylus through the artful lens of these young actors from New York University under the creative vision of Nancy Smither whose staging creates the need for a new vocabulary of movement for actors. I cannot forget the haunting vision of Clytemnestra's Ghost played as a bizaare phantom by Nandini Naik. Just as the Furies have grudgingly accepted their new and more gracious (controlled?) role in society, just as the lights are beginning to fade to black, and just as we are comfortable in the vision that all is well in this new society, the provocative image of Clytemnestra's Ghost eerily appears, reminding us that nothing is ever the way it seems.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Otherness of Ourselves
Once while dining with a friend, I found our conversation taking a deeper turn. I am not sure why. But I began to come across aspects of myself that I had forgotten. I have always thought that each of us come from the same cataclysmic moment of the cosmos bursting into awareness of itself. We are that initial awareness masked by the otherness.
At that point where we connect in mystical acknowledgment of our beingness, we mirror to each other a singularity of consciousness. Thus in a conversation, an exchange, we discover ourselves all over. We suddenly remember moments long forgotten. Images, words, sounds, and songs pop into our heads as we speak, and I realize that had we not been engaged with the person opposite us, we might have passed those moments by, unaware that they were hidden there in a clump of consciousness buried beneath the debris of forgetfulness --- waiting to be acknowledged.
But the miracle of otherness doesn't stop there. We also look ahead to the possibilities of who we are becoming. The very presence, the energy of otherness opens us to new options and opportunities. The world unfolds in the presence of our connection and these cosmic collisions of consciousness shape us to a destiny that is constantly in flux.
In the otherness of ourselves we experience the microcosm of infinite becoming. It is the miracle of awareness, and I thank you, all of you, for your incandescent presence that illuminates the darkest and most remote corners of myself. I can only hope that the experience is mutual in my otherness of you.
At that point where we connect in mystical acknowledgment of our beingness, we mirror to each other a singularity of consciousness. Thus in a conversation, an exchange, we discover ourselves all over. We suddenly remember moments long forgotten. Images, words, sounds, and songs pop into our heads as we speak, and I realize that had we not been engaged with the person opposite us, we might have passed those moments by, unaware that they were hidden there in a clump of consciousness buried beneath the debris of forgetfulness --- waiting to be acknowledged.
But the miracle of otherness doesn't stop there. We also look ahead to the possibilities of who we are becoming. The very presence, the energy of otherness opens us to new options and opportunities. The world unfolds in the presence of our connection and these cosmic collisions of consciousness shape us to a destiny that is constantly in flux.
In the otherness of ourselves we experience the microcosm of infinite becoming. It is the miracle of awareness, and I thank you, all of you, for your incandescent presence that illuminates the darkest and most remote corners of myself. I can only hope that the experience is mutual in my otherness of you.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Jamie Dazzled Us Like Disney
Jamie's gone. He was our Beagle friend, family member, and personal Disney star. He had all the moves of a Disney animation, except he was real life. He would run ahead, pause, look back at us with his left leg lifted and pointed, just like Bambi. And he could smile. Just like Thumper.After 17 years, Jamie left us, quietly, in his sleep, in his bed, but I remember that Christmas Eve we brought him home, snuggled inside my son's coat to protect him from the cold. Jamie was rambunctious, inquisitive, proud, stubborn, bright, happy, and often dazzling. It was amazing to see how such a tiny bundle of energy could transform a space and make everyone happy.
Living with Jamie, we saw where Charles Shulz got his ideas for Snoopy. On the first night home, Jamie climbed on top of his doghouse (yes, we had a doghouse in the apartment) and howled. All that was missing was the moon. We were always seeing Snoopy on top of his doghouse. Now I know why. That's what Beagles do.
Jamie was always into everyone's business, just like Snoopy, and he was deeply
reflective. You would often see him lying there pondering the universe. He had a deep sense of justice and would scold us when we had somehow wronged him.We were never able to get a really good picture of Jamie. All his best images are still inside our heads. Every move was so beautiful, with such personality and verve. His tail was the indicator of his moods and usually it was straight up, proud and beautiful. I often called him "proud tail." But when he felt guilty for some infraction, it was curled down between his legs.
But all of his features were dazzling, his soft, brown floppy ears, the white arrowhead on his forehead, and his beautiful tricolor blend of brown, black, and white. Throughout his 17 years, Jamie looked puppy-like, youthful. I think it was because of the zest and energy that was always the source of his animation. Even as he entered his 17th year, people would sometimes mistake him for a puppy.
Jamie lives with us still, in our memories, in the spaces he inhabited and visited. All his love, indignities, energy, concern, joy, and animation --- still dazzle us like Disney --- but he was and is, real.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
It Was Different Then
The QWERTY keyboard is the same, but it was different writing on an Olympia Portable. I first saw it in the window of a stationery store on Columbus Avenue in 1960. I had to have it. The typewriter font was "shaded pica"---very smart indeed---almost like having a sculptor chiseling each letter on the page!. Such a typeface was sure to improve my writing 150%. Up until that time I had used an old Underwood machine that we pulled out from a closet and was shared by my family, a machine notorious for blackening in each e and a. But the Olympia was a machine for dreaming writers who needed the excellence of West German technology and precision to put their dreams on paper. It was such a beautiful feat of engineering and could be taken anywhere. It was so elegant that I even wrote poetry directly onto the paper with my Olympia.That Olympia took me almost all the way through my graduate study, until I was seduced by the IBM Selectric, especially with Selectric with memory! Goodbye, whiteout! Now my words were saved as code on a cassette tape. It was the beginning of the end to the sound of a typewriter slapping the paper in a relentless rhythm with an automatic carriage return, except the carriage return had yielded to a roving ball of type that could easily be changed for a different typeface. Soon the QWERTY keyboard would be embedded in the silence of a computer interface where the only sound would be the quiet tapping of my fingers on a keyboard, a quieter and more subtle rhythmic envelope.
Recently I found myself yearning for an Olympia portable typewriter of the 60s vintage. I know you can't go home again, but there was something about that Olympia and the romance of the word that still beckons like some eloquent siren of past voyages. Googling it does no good. Such romance is beyond Google since the Olympia is more than word. As good as it can be, Google doesn't capture the essence, the romance of words embedded in a distant and almost forgotten reality.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
A Fleeting Experiment...
There was once an experiment in Philadelphia where a group of idealists met to create a new type of civilization. In one sense it was the beginning of the modern world. The idea was to project the proposition that all are created with equal opportunity for the pursuit of life, happiness, and the pursuit of liberty. These people had fled the tyranny and discrimination of Europe in search of a dream where they could be free to follow the dictates of their soul and conscience. They declared their independence from the old world with a proclamation that would be heard around the world.
Few in the world thought they had a chance to survive. The odds were clearly against this new nation. Its army was demoralized, often defeated, but inspired by a commander who persevered through severe adversity. In Philadelphia this group of patriots forged a new document that would come to be recognized as momentous for the advancement of humanity as the Magna Carta of 1215. It had taken another five centuries for humanity to unequivocally proclaim that it was the right of all individuals to be free from oppression. Yet it might be another five hundred years for all people to be truly free, if that day ever materializes.
The dream lives on in America, in the United States, specifically. But few realize how fragile this dream actually is. There is no guarantee that freedom will survive.
This dream began with an American revolution that was itself a fragile gathering of a ragged band of soldiers ages 12 to 60 who fought for the idea of freedom. The British forces were superior, even though there were fatal errors in the English structure that would ultimately prevent England from winning the war. After the Declaration of Independence, the American forces met with defeat after defeat, the British Army forcing the retreat of American forces back to Trenton. Even so, there was the occasional victory such as the triumph at Trenton on 25th December, 1776, when General Washington launched a surprise maneuver across the Delaware and captured a large contingent of Hessian soldiers under Colonel Rahl. These tactics galvanized the American army at a time when spirits, materials, and personnel were declining.
After that, the American soldiers almost died of starvation and cold during the winter of 1777/78 at Valley Forge.
One individual made the difference in the war for Independence: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. He brought from the Prussian army the training regimen that had established the Prussians as the most disciplined militia in the world at that time. Their training was far superior to that of the British military. During that winter, George Washington persuaded Steuben to train the American soldiers, and he devised a plan that trained the officers who participated in training the soldiers, making them extremely familiar with command structure and combat technique.
It was this Steuben-trained army that advanced on Monmouth (they first faced disaster when the ranking officer failed to follow Washington's orders). When George Washington arrived, he rallied the soldiers. Their rigorous training paid off as they pushed the English back and took Monmouth. Later they defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown to win the war and leave the English army in shambles.
Yet, it is a fragile dream, one that can vanish in an instant when we regard freedom as our inalienable "right" even as it is dissolving in the face of the most sinister threats yet waged against civilization and all hope of universal freedom. Some may think liberty will endure, but are they, are you, am I, willing to die so that liberty might survive? Are we willing to declare "Give me liberty or give me death!"
Nothing is forever. Past empires, civilizations, kingdoms, and countries have risen to achieve grandeur only to vanish in the wake of cataclysmic destruction or slow erosion. This dream of freedom is a fragile, fleeting experiment. It is an experiment of bringing together people of diversity to create a new union, linked by a shared commitment to liberty and the willingness to sacrifice ourselves so that our vision of freedom might survive.
But it is a matter of Time, spinning like a blackhole where this noble experiment of our fragile species is likely to vanish in the shredding force of an Event Horizon. All civilizations have their own Singularity, their own drifting toward the inevitability of some final destiny beyond their imagination and control.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.Even this small group of freedom fighters did not fully comprehend the implications of this brave new experiment. This declaration would be the guiding force for the freedom of all oppressed peoples regardless of race, gender, or creed.
Few in the world thought they had a chance to survive. The odds were clearly against this new nation. Its army was demoralized, often defeated, but inspired by a commander who persevered through severe adversity. In Philadelphia this group of patriots forged a new document that would come to be recognized as momentous for the advancement of humanity as the Magna Carta of 1215. It had taken another five centuries for humanity to unequivocally proclaim that it was the right of all individuals to be free from oppression. Yet it might be another five hundred years for all people to be truly free, if that day ever materializes.
The dream lives on in America, in the United States, specifically. But few realize how fragile this dream actually is. There is no guarantee that freedom will survive.
This dream began with an American revolution that was itself a fragile gathering of a ragged band of soldiers ages 12 to 60 who fought for the idea of freedom. The British forces were superior, even though there were fatal errors in the English structure that would ultimately prevent England from winning the war. After the Declaration of Independence, the American forces met with defeat after defeat, the British Army forcing the retreat of American forces back to Trenton. Even so, there was the occasional victory such as the triumph at Trenton on 25th December, 1776, when General Washington launched a surprise maneuver across the Delaware and captured a large contingent of Hessian soldiers under Colonel Rahl. These tactics galvanized the American army at a time when spirits, materials, and personnel were declining.
After that, the American soldiers almost died of starvation and cold during the winter of 1777/78 at Valley Forge.
One individual made the difference in the war for Independence: Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. He brought from the Prussian army the training regimen that had established the Prussians as the most disciplined militia in the world at that time. Their training was far superior to that of the British military. During that winter, George Washington persuaded Steuben to train the American soldiers, and he devised a plan that trained the officers who participated in training the soldiers, making them extremely familiar with command structure and combat technique.
It was this Steuben-trained army that advanced on Monmouth (they first faced disaster when the ranking officer failed to follow Washington's orders). When George Washington arrived, he rallied the soldiers. Their rigorous training paid off as they pushed the English back and took Monmouth. Later they defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown to win the war and leave the English army in shambles.
Yet, it is a fragile dream, one that can vanish in an instant when we regard freedom as our inalienable "right" even as it is dissolving in the face of the most sinister threats yet waged against civilization and all hope of universal freedom. Some may think liberty will endure, but are they, are you, am I, willing to die so that liberty might survive? Are we willing to declare "Give me liberty or give me death!"
Nothing is forever. Past empires, civilizations, kingdoms, and countries have risen to achieve grandeur only to vanish in the wake of cataclysmic destruction or slow erosion. This dream of freedom is a fragile, fleeting experiment. It is an experiment of bringing together people of diversity to create a new union, linked by a shared commitment to liberty and the willingness to sacrifice ourselves so that our vision of freedom might survive.
But it is a matter of Time, spinning like a blackhole where this noble experiment of our fragile species is likely to vanish in the shredding force of an Event Horizon. All civilizations have their own Singularity, their own drifting toward the inevitability of some final destiny beyond their imagination and control.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Teng Beng Chew, Malaysian Genius of Papermaking: Artist as Researcher
Dr. Teng Beng Chew, noted Malaysian artist, has a distinguished career as an important artist, one of the six artists chosen in 1993 to represent Malaysia at Queensland Art Gallery Asia-Pacific Triennial of ContemporaryArt, with numerous exhibitions of his paintings throughout the world. Almost single-handedly, he established art education in Malaysia, leaving a rising career in the US to establish the first art education program in his nation at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), where he was Chair of the Fine Arts Department until his retirement in 1998.
As a child he painted people and the country-side of the remote, unspoiled Terengganu region where his family lived and his father worked as an artist. Chew's mentor was his father, and in his formative years he developed a passion for his work that has persisted throughout his life.
As his work matured and he became more widely known, Chew attended New York University where his passion took up the cause of fusing the "canvas" with the painting, a quest that formed the basis for his doctoral research. He was intent on creating a special paper where the medium itself was the artwork.
This led him to the jungles of his native land where he lived and ran numerous tests on the indigenous plants of the forest, living in the wilds as he created new papers with phenomenal textures. He spent months in the wilderness, keeping meticulous records much the way an empirical researcher would, noting the fibers, the techniques, the process of mixing and drying out, the exposure to elements of the weather, etc. on hundreds, perhaps thousands of new papers, all original and brought into existence for the very first time. The secret to such abundance was extensive variation of the process, carefully recording each differing version so that the process could be replicated. This resulted in many different papers of wildly varying textures and colors from the same basic pulp.
Chew brought to this research a skill and sensibility that the typical empirical scientist would not have, or that would be bracketed out to preserve the scientific "integrity" of the research: the sensibility of the artist to notice what the scientist would overlook. This artistic noticing created papers of exceptional expressive originality. When he returned to New York, he brought four volumes of new papers that did indeed achieve the goal of his original quest: every paper was a work of art to see and touch, the marvelous textures and colors exuding an impressive presencing of an indigenous art.
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1987, Chew returned to Malaysia, where his research formed the basis for a cottage industry producing exceptionally fine paper from the indigenous plants of his homeland.
The abstract of his dissertation succinctly summarizes the research but fails to communicate the passion and scope of Chew's achievement:
As a child he painted people and the country-side of the remote, unspoiled Terengganu region where his family lived and his father worked as an artist. Chew's mentor was his father, and in his formative years he developed a passion for his work that has persisted throughout his life.
As his work matured and he became more widely known, Chew attended New York University where his passion took up the cause of fusing the "canvas" with the painting, a quest that formed the basis for his doctoral research. He was intent on creating a special paper where the medium itself was the artwork.
This led him to the jungles of his native land where he lived and ran numerous tests on the indigenous plants of the forest, living in the wilds as he created new papers with phenomenal textures. He spent months in the wilderness, keeping meticulous records much the way an empirical researcher would, noting the fibers, the techniques, the process of mixing and drying out, the exposure to elements of the weather, etc. on hundreds, perhaps thousands of new papers, all original and brought into existence for the very first time. The secret to such abundance was extensive variation of the process, carefully recording each differing version so that the process could be replicated. This resulted in many different papers of wildly varying textures and colors from the same basic pulp.
Chew brought to this research a skill and sensibility that the typical empirical scientist would not have, or that would be bracketed out to preserve the scientific "integrity" of the research: the sensibility of the artist to notice what the scientist would overlook. This artistic noticing created papers of exceptional expressive originality. When he returned to New York, he brought four volumes of new papers that did indeed achieve the goal of his original quest: every paper was a work of art to see and touch, the marvelous textures and colors exuding an impressive presencing of an indigenous art.
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1987, Chew returned to Malaysia, where his research formed the basis for a cottage industry producing exceptionally fine paper from the indigenous plants of his homeland.
The abstract of his dissertation succinctly summarizes the research but fails to communicate the passion and scope of Chew's achievement:
Title: PAPERMAKING FROM SELECTED MALAYSIAN FIBERS: AN INVESTIGATION OF ITS ARTISTIC POTENTIAL THROUGH CREATION OF ORIGINAL PAPER ARTWORKSChew has given us remarkable model of an artist creating a new indigenous artform and tradition. Work of such power and originality abound in the work of those pioneers of the International Society for Advancement of Living Traditions in Art (ISALTA).
Author(s): CHEW, TENG BENG
Degree: PH.D.
Year: 1987
Pages: 00472
Institution: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY; 0146
Source: DAI, 48, no. 03A, (1987): 0495
Abstract: The purpose of this research was to utilize selected tropical plants of Malaysia as a source of raw material for papermaking, to develop tools and techniques for the production of the investigator's own artwork, and to discuss the aesthetic implications.
The investigator sought to find out if the cellulose fibers of the agricultural residues of the bananas (Musa sapientum) and the pineapples (Ananas comosus) were suitable for the production of the pulps, to determine their characteristics, and their results.
The study focuses on the historical development, aesthetics, production of pulps, sheet formation, discerning paper characteristics, and the extension of pulp as an artistic medium.
The elicitation of the fibers involved in cooking and maceration. The variegated pulps were then used in several ways to handmake paper and paper artwork. Of myriad approaches employed in creating artwork, six were the researcher's invention that have not yet been expounded in any related literature thus far.
Aesthetic inquiry was based on phenomenology, to discern as yet unseen aesthetic properties imbued in the chosen fibers.
Primarily, the research was qualitative, employing aesthetic and descriptive procedures. However, quantitative method was also applied to record the experiments and tests. Research techniques included both traditional and contemporary phenomenological research and methods.
The results evinced that both plant fibers were strong, elongated, elastic, and indissoluble, easily extractable, pulpable, and malleable. They were susceptible to dyes and intermix exceptionally well with recycled paper.
Of the two genera, the pineapple fiber seemingly appeared to be tougher. In the pineapple species, it was found that Nanas Bukit is stronger than Nanas Mauritius. While in that of the banana, Pisang Awak is superior to Pisang Mas. Hence, more time was consumed in cooking and macerating the pineapple fibers. By varying the time duration in cooking, beating, and aging, the character of the fibers can be altered to effect different grades of paper.
The research concludes that not only are the fibrous pulps potentially suitable for papermaking, but are equally versatile and fascinating as an artistic medium. Undoubtedly, the materiality of the fibers embodies wide ranging phenomenal features sui generis.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Sandro Dernini: Art Eating Impresario
Aside from the fact that Dr. Sandro Dernini holds doctorates in Art and Biology, he is one of the most astonishing figures in the world of arts and research. He happens to be extremely original, and thus is slightly incomprehensible to the ordered worlds of academia and society. His ideas have resonated across continents since the 1970s, and the emergence of PLEXUS INTERNATIONAL coincides with those years and was extremely effective in establishing startling collaborative efforts through numerous exhibitions, happenings, lectures, and showings of artists of all media.
Sandro Dernini is a mercurial spirit that inspires much of the work of Plexus, but perhaps his greatest gift is creating working networks among artists that lead to new creative activity, and his fierce determination to restore art to the community. Indeed, the arts have been skillfully hi-jacked and institutionalized by critics, historians, and an inner circle of anointed artists. This began in the 20th century with the rise of commercializing "high" art and has continued in this century through the institutionalizing of the past and using the past to control the future.
However, Sandro is a knight errant, keeping the art establishment off-balance, and taking on incredible adventures that are largely misunderstood because of his unique inventiveness. Yet he has impact that comes from the energy that radiates from his activities. Although the establishment has tried to marginalize him, in the spirit of Derrida, Dernini has expanded the margins so that the true substance of artistic creativity is discovered in the margins.
Recently he published his doctoral research as Eating Art, a book that is a sweeping gesture of crossing boundaries, indeed, of demolishing the borders that separate human disciplines and activities and replacing them with the organic flow of intensified moments. Such a combination of nutrition and art emerges naturally for Dernini, for food and art have long been intertwined in the Italian culture. Printed by the Beniamini Group, a private publishing house for specialized publications, Eating Art is not yet available through Amazon.com, an oversight that surely the author will rectify.
This is not the place to enumerate the countless happenings and art events instigated by Dernini, a magical impresario who has continued to cause gastric distress for the art establishment. The number and quality of events will astound you. Dr. Dernini subtitles his book "Artistic Practice and Creative Process as Qualitative Problem-Solving for Individual and Community Well Being."
Now Dernini has emerged as a contributing member in ISALTA (International Society for Advancement of Living Traditions in Art), a website that has brought together the work of artists largely mentored as artist researchers by Dr. David Ecker at New York University. The collective work of these artists are on this new website, the inspiration and work of Dr. Carleton Palmer, which celebrates ISALTA's renewed mission deserving wider recognition.
Eating Art has the look and feel of a happening of the moment, a newspaper of the last four decades. It is a book to be consumed with leisurely and casual excursions which will ultimately grab you, and rivet your attention in the conscious acknowledgment that you are indeed uncovering something significant and worth knowing.
Sandro Dernini is a mercurial spirit that inspires much of the work of Plexus, but perhaps his greatest gift is creating working networks among artists that lead to new creative activity, and his fierce determination to restore art to the community. Indeed, the arts have been skillfully hi-jacked and institutionalized by critics, historians, and an inner circle of anointed artists. This began in the 20th century with the rise of commercializing "high" art and has continued in this century through the institutionalizing of the past and using the past to control the future.
However, Sandro is a knight errant, keeping the art establishment off-balance, and taking on incredible adventures that are largely misunderstood because of his unique inventiveness. Yet he has impact that comes from the energy that radiates from his activities. Although the establishment has tried to marginalize him, in the spirit of Derrida, Dernini has expanded the margins so that the true substance of artistic creativity is discovered in the margins.
Recently he published his doctoral research as Eating Art, a book that is a sweeping gesture of crossing boundaries, indeed, of demolishing the borders that separate human disciplines and activities and replacing them with the organic flow of intensified moments. Such a combination of nutrition and art emerges naturally for Dernini, for food and art have long been intertwined in the Italian culture. Printed by the Beniamini Group, a private publishing house for specialized publications, Eating Art is not yet available through Amazon.com, an oversight that surely the author will rectify.
This is not the place to enumerate the countless happenings and art events instigated by Dernini, a magical impresario who has continued to cause gastric distress for the art establishment. The number and quality of events will astound you. Dr. Dernini subtitles his book "Artistic Practice and Creative Process as Qualitative Problem-Solving for Individual and Community Well Being."
Now Dernini has emerged as a contributing member in ISALTA (International Society for Advancement of Living Traditions in Art), a website that has brought together the work of artists largely mentored as artist researchers by Dr. David Ecker at New York University. The collective work of these artists are on this new website, the inspiration and work of Dr. Carleton Palmer, which celebrates ISALTA's renewed mission deserving wider recognition.
Eating Art has the look and feel of a happening of the moment, a newspaper of the last four decades. It is a book to be consumed with leisurely and casual excursions which will ultimately grab you, and rivet your attention in the conscious acknowledgment that you are indeed uncovering something significant and worth knowing.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Old Wine in New Bottles
Dr. Carleton Palmer has responded eloquently on behalf of the International Society for the Advancement of Living Traditions in Art.
While I agree with Dr. Palmer's claim that artistic problem solving is inclusive rather than exclusive, transcending media and materials, I also believe that many may still regard ISALTA as the domain of visual artist/philosophers. Yes, this is not accurate, and no one is more persuasive than David Ecker in using music, dance, theatre, or even food to make some of his finest manifestations of phenomenological description. Even so, many in the academic world have made a clear distinction differentiating art and arts in an oversimplification of categories. This schism is evident at nearly all colleges and universities. Traditional names of colleges or schools as Arts and Sciences reinforces this perception and perpetuates this artificial distinction. Even at New York University the separation and isolation is underscored with a Department of Art and Art Professions that deals only with visual art, while other arts disciplines reside in a Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. The conditions at NYU mirror a common perception among professionals and non-professionals.
Great news that more of David Ecker's brilliant work will be made available on the ISALTA website. His is among the supreme gospels of phenomenological practice. Serving as his colleague at New York University, my real education began when I collaborated with him and his students on incredible projects that continue to resonate today.
Many thanks for the insightful observations about ISALTA. Technology has made practical what was unreachable twenty-five years ago because of logistics and cost. The ideas of an encyclopedia of living traditions in art, research journal and artist/researcher magazine might now be realized as interactive, co-operative projects along with enhanced communication tools at a single website. The existing site, isalta.com, is merely a sketch, and definitely a work-in-progress that can be continuously reshaped by the artist/researchers themselves.An excellent vision now requires a renewed commitment and a new membership. The achievements of the past are impressive and serve as a road map for new generations of artist researchers from all disciplines and should now extend beyond text. But attracting this constituency may require more than a website, as was suggested in Navigating Global Connections.
While I agree with Dr. Palmer's claim that artistic problem solving is inclusive rather than exclusive, transcending media and materials, I also believe that many may still regard ISALTA as the domain of visual artist/philosophers. Yes, this is not accurate, and no one is more persuasive than David Ecker in using music, dance, theatre, or even food to make some of his finest manifestations of phenomenological description. Even so, many in the academic world have made a clear distinction differentiating art and arts in an oversimplification of categories. This schism is evident at nearly all colleges and universities. Traditional names of colleges or schools as Arts and Sciences reinforces this perception and perpetuates this artificial distinction. Even at New York University the separation and isolation is underscored with a Department of Art and Art Professions that deals only with visual art, while other arts disciplines reside in a Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions. The conditions at NYU mirror a common perception among professionals and non-professionals.
The underlying concept of art as qualitative problem solving transcends medium and material; it is inclusive rather than exclusive, and challenges preconceptions about art and empty definitions that drain art of meaning. The dissertations whose abstracts are available through the site encyclopedia, and the varied art they discuss give some idea of the breadth and utility of this idea, although they do collectively reveal a visual bias, that is the product of historical circumstances not philosophy. Discussion of "a performance-based conference aimed at attracting thinkers and practitioner's from all media, intermedia, mixed media, and multimedia" excites the imagination and would be a highly desirable development.As attractive as Dr. Palmer's rationale for inclusion may be, it is not convincing in the context of the common perceptions I have described. Living Traditions in the Arts could open the terrain dramatically. I am suggesting that ISALTA might take an aggressive stance that could prove irresistible for 21st century artists. There are many obstacles, including lack of funding and insufficient personnel. Yet, the very emergence of ISALTA is like a beacon flashing in the wilderness.
...the philosophical groundwork for those particular dissertations lies to a greater or lesser degree in Dr. Ecker's work (some of whose papers are being digitized and made available on site as quickly as possible), but he would agree that they represent only a small part of a story yet to be written. Serious contributions and documentation are requested for inclusion in the Encyclopedia and publications. It is hoped that ISALTA will be a place where that story can be written, seen and heard, and every interested artist/researcher is invited to the space.I would suggest a more open architecture, a Wikipedia conception rather than encyclopedic. A moderated Wiki might have a greater chance of attracting younger generations more attuned to structures where the readers are the authorship, where knowledge is created in a new platform of users who generate knowledge through creative inquiry. This argument was the main point of the commentary at Web Arts Collaborative (ISALTA.com Still a Web 1.0 Website?) ISALTA may be putting old wine into new bottles, and today, it may be even more true that "appearance is everything." The old wine of past decades is now decanted in the rarefied atmosphere of cyberspace, in the splendor of a new technology, but maybe it is time for new labels, new vineyards.
Great news that more of David Ecker's brilliant work will be made available on the ISALTA website. His is among the supreme gospels of phenomenological practice. Serving as his colleague at New York University, my real education began when I collaborated with him and his students on incredible projects that continue to resonate today.
Friday, June 08, 2007
ISALTA for the Twenty-first Century
Remembering the spectacular vision of David Ecker in the 1980s, I find the emergence of the International Society for the Advancement of Living Traditions in Art as a presence and project on the web to be a promising leap into the future. Spearheaded by Dr. Carleton Palmer, many of the practitioners of ISALTA of the past thirty years now have a home and a multifaceted voice that can extend some of the most original ideas of all arts into an energy for preservation and change.
In a world that treasures modernity over substance, ISALTA offers a vision that extends to the spiritual and aesthetic foundations of creative work. Yet, the organization, born out of the momentum of 1981, is in need of renewed vision and energy. ISALTA's website is an impressive articulation of a vital spirit, but now that this sleeping giant has emerged in cyberspace from the collective of artists that spawned world wide research and arts events, it seems to have nowhere to go. Yet, if I Google "living traditions in the arts" I find more than 22,000,000 hits, and ISALTA does not emerge as a prominent player.
ISALTA is aware of its plight. Visiting the website reveals a globe that serves as a link to this message:
ISALTA is changing. Since 1981 Members of the Board of Directors
and members have passed away, retired and moved on to other
interests. It is up to the membership to set the direction for ISALTA,
in this century, and all input will be welcomed at isalta@optonline.net.
ISALTA needs more than new ideas. It needs artists from all media with vibrant passions about the past, present, and future. The strength of ISALTA in the past is that its members had strong convictions about the present and the vision to shape the future.
If you examine about 30 pages of the 22,000,000 hits for living traditions, you are struck by the obsession of those websites with the past. This is certainly admirable and consonant with an objective of ISALTA in the 1980s, but ISALTA also was intent on creating tradition and bringing the latest technology and arts practices to bear so that boundaries were broken and crossed and new affiliations and collaborations emerged, sometimes with breath-taking speed. One such artist is Sandro Dernini, a contributing member, whose monumental work Plexus spanned Time and Space in an elaborate ongoing collaboration of artists and performers. Dernini was also an important figure in the initiatives surrounding the 500th year of Columbus' voyage to America which led to the creation of Navigating Global Cultures at NYU. NGC no longer exists, but as Web Arts Collaborative suggests, a new era for interactive creative work has emerged, and ISALTA might seize this opportunity for its own initiatives.
ISALTA needs to extend beyond the visual bias that presently is reflected in its membership, research, and coursework. Perhaps a performance-based conference aimed at attracting thinkers and practitioner's from all media, intermedia, mixed media, and multimedia could provoke a new revolution of thought. ISALTA's phenomenological-based stance is most welcome in this new world of quantitative dominance. Whether David Ecker's work is enough to propel this facet of ISALTA may not be relevant. Ecker's work is important and significant, although lately somewhat overlooked. But there are many others such as Don Ihde, Merleau-Ponty, et al., who philosophically underpin the work of this organization and embrace its raisone d'etre.
Yet, one cannot help but admire the tenacity of ISALTA. After all these years, its efforts and work have coalesced, and it can manage to somewhat defiantly shout in the wilderness of the 21st Century (with apologies to Sondheim):
In a world that treasures modernity over substance, ISALTA offers a vision that extends to the spiritual and aesthetic foundations of creative work. Yet, the organization, born out of the momentum of 1981, is in need of renewed vision and energy. ISALTA's website is an impressive articulation of a vital spirit, but now that this sleeping giant has emerged in cyberspace from the collective of artists that spawned world wide research and arts events, it seems to have nowhere to go. Yet, if I Google "living traditions in the arts" I find more than 22,000,000 hits, and ISALTA does not emerge as a prominent player.
ISALTA is aware of its plight. Visiting the website reveals a globe that serves as a link to this message:
ISALTA is changing. Since 1981 Members of the Board of Directors
and members have passed away, retired and moved on to other
interests. It is up to the membership to set the direction for ISALTA,
in this century, and all input will be welcomed at isalta@optonline.net.
ISALTA needs more than new ideas. It needs artists from all media with vibrant passions about the past, present, and future. The strength of ISALTA in the past is that its members had strong convictions about the present and the vision to shape the future.
If you examine about 30 pages of the 22,000,000 hits for living traditions, you are struck by the obsession of those websites with the past. This is certainly admirable and consonant with an objective of ISALTA in the 1980s, but ISALTA also was intent on creating tradition and bringing the latest technology and arts practices to bear so that boundaries were broken and crossed and new affiliations and collaborations emerged, sometimes with breath-taking speed. One such artist is Sandro Dernini, a contributing member, whose monumental work Plexus spanned Time and Space in an elaborate ongoing collaboration of artists and performers. Dernini was also an important figure in the initiatives surrounding the 500th year of Columbus' voyage to America which led to the creation of Navigating Global Cultures at NYU. NGC no longer exists, but as Web Arts Collaborative suggests, a new era for interactive creative work has emerged, and ISALTA might seize this opportunity for its own initiatives.
ISALTA needs to extend beyond the visual bias that presently is reflected in its membership, research, and coursework. Perhaps a performance-based conference aimed at attracting thinkers and practitioner's from all media, intermedia, mixed media, and multimedia could provoke a new revolution of thought. ISALTA's phenomenological-based stance is most welcome in this new world of quantitative dominance. Whether David Ecker's work is enough to propel this facet of ISALTA may not be relevant. Ecker's work is important and significant, although lately somewhat overlooked. But there are many others such as Don Ihde, Merleau-Ponty, et al., who philosophically underpin the work of this organization and embrace its raisone d'etre.
Yet, one cannot help but admire the tenacity of ISALTA. After all these years, its efforts and work have coalesced, and it can manage to somewhat defiantly shout in the wilderness of the 21st Century (with apologies to Sondheim):
Good times and bum times,
I’ve seen them all and, my dear,
I’m still here.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
The Wizardry of LEMUR
LEMUR (League of Electronic Urban Musical Robots) brought the full resources of its technological wizardry to bear on a concert which emerges as a milestone event for that organization and for new music. Performed May 31-June 2 in the transformed space of 3LD (Three Legged Dog), the concert was curated by Eric Singer, the guiding guru of LEMUR, bringing together distinguished composers and performers from the full spectrum of contemporary music practice.
The spectacle of technology as intelligent machines fashioned out of materials which might have otherwise been sentenced to the junkyard or may have been spawned from the debris of the trash heap, provided an array of "robots" poised for action. These robots are functional contraptions focused on their capacity to deliver sounds with precision and energy beyond the reach of their human counterparts. Guitarbot was a tunable string robot that shook passionately as it meted out its sound with almost raucous joy.
Some thirty robots were mixed with humans in this extravagant display of mechanical alacrity. They clung to the ceiling and floor with fierce determination, jiggling, swaying, and dancing to the tunes of a million different drummers. Robots were at their best when they were banging themselves in a clutter of notes cascading throughout the space, shaping the moment with different densities and textures where energy was palpable as explosive resonance reverberating in perpetual bliss.
The evening was saturated with outstanding talent and musicianship. They Might Be Giants wowed their fans with songs With the Dark, Vestibule, and Our Cannibal Friends. The Lemur robots churned along with them, but their efforts seemed more or less peripheral. The songs were just too good and didn't really need that support.
George Lewis, a trombonist, composer, and improviser, provided a stunning performance, his instrument resonant and strong, adding to the texture of the Bots with exciting timbres and musical riffs.
JG Thirwell's Prosopagnosis pitted a string quartet on collision course with the Robots in a tour de force that rocked 3LD and the surrounding area of Greenwich street. The Modbots were equally matched by processed string sounds, and the result was an exciting deluge of sound shifts, tears, eruptions, and tumbling, collapsing sound debris, volcanic and magma-like. Prosopagnosis is a condition where you cannot remember faces likely because that area of the brain is damaged. The notion of motivic structures collapsing on themselves seemed to match the imagery of the concept.
Clearly, the most musical event of the evening was Morton Subotnik's extraordinary With a Little Help From which explored the timbres of the Bots in a slowly emerging improvisation, gradually picking up speed and density, with overlapping textures, percussive and lyrical. Ably assisted by percussionist Tom Beyer, the piece gathers momentum until Beyer begins to move his feet, almost dancing. Eventually the listener realizes his "dance" is transforming the texture of the music, and finally Subotnik joins Beyer in something of a foot duel that leads to a rousing climax of the work.
Such events as this concert as a large scale celebration of new music mixed with mechanical wizardry are all too few. Thanks to the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots. Thanks to the vision and determination of Eric Singer. They are in a league that is a special world of contemporary musicing to be applauded and appreciated as the new musical prophets and wizards.
The spectacle of technology as intelligent machines fashioned out of materials which might have otherwise been sentenced to the junkyard or may have been spawned from the debris of the trash heap, provided an array of "robots" poised for action. These robots are functional contraptions focused on their capacity to deliver sounds with precision and energy beyond the reach of their human counterparts. Guitarbot was a tunable string robot that shook passionately as it meted out its sound with almost raucous joy.
Some thirty robots were mixed with humans in this extravagant display of mechanical alacrity. They clung to the ceiling and floor with fierce determination, jiggling, swaying, and dancing to the tunes of a million different drummers. Robots were at their best when they were banging themselves in a clutter of notes cascading throughout the space, shaping the moment with different densities and textures where energy was palpable as explosive resonance reverberating in perpetual bliss.
The evening was saturated with outstanding talent and musicianship. They Might Be Giants wowed their fans with songs With the Dark, Vestibule, and Our Cannibal Friends. The Lemur robots churned along with them, but their efforts seemed more or less peripheral. The songs were just too good and didn't really need that support.
George Lewis, a trombonist, composer, and improviser, provided a stunning performance, his instrument resonant and strong, adding to the texture of the Bots with exciting timbres and musical riffs.
JG Thirwell's Prosopagnosis pitted a string quartet on collision course with the Robots in a tour de force that rocked 3LD and the surrounding area of Greenwich street. The Modbots were equally matched by processed string sounds, and the result was an exciting deluge of sound shifts, tears, eruptions, and tumbling, collapsing sound debris, volcanic and magma-like. Prosopagnosis is a condition where you cannot remember faces likely because that area of the brain is damaged. The notion of motivic structures collapsing on themselves seemed to match the imagery of the concept.
Clearly, the most musical event of the evening was Morton Subotnik's extraordinary With a Little Help From which explored the timbres of the Bots in a slowly emerging improvisation, gradually picking up speed and density, with overlapping textures, percussive and lyrical. Ably assisted by percussionist Tom Beyer, the piece gathers momentum until Beyer begins to move his feet, almost dancing. Eventually the listener realizes his "dance" is transforming the texture of the music, and finally Subotnik joins Beyer in something of a foot duel that leads to a rousing climax of the work.
Such events as this concert as a large scale celebration of new music mixed with mechanical wizardry are all too few. Thanks to the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots. Thanks to the vision and determination of Eric Singer. They are in a league that is a special world of contemporary musicing to be applauded and appreciated as the new musical prophets and wizards.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Carving Clarity: Ben Munisteri's Dance Projects
Ben Munisteri Dance Projects performed at DNA (Dance New Amsterdam) May 31-June 3, presented three very different glimpses of an artist who establishes an authentic clarity in his work even though often layered with myriad contrasting effects and technique. Regardless of the complexity, you are never lost.
Munisteri's dance concert was reviewed by Roslyn Sulcas in the NY Times as "Ballet and Headstands, and Other Quirky Contrasts," a fair review, if not insightful. It seemed odd that a dance critic appeared surprised that "ballet" might comprise part of the substance of modern dance as though this was something new or even out of place. Even so, we might question the accuracy of her observation that implied some conscious artistic process on the part of Mr. Munisteri to mix "ordinary" human movement with ballet.
There is no question that Munisteri's work celebrates the human body and transforms "ordinary" movement into the realm of the extraordinary. His eclectic taste in sound and music also contrasts the classical sensibility of Stravinsky's Capriccio in his 2006 work Tuesday 4 a.m. with a score of processed sound and dialogue by Evren Celimli for Smash Through to Sunlight (1999) and a collage of Placebo and Bjork for Terra Nova (2007), an encounter with motion capture which at times echoes the dancers on stage and at other times anticipates the shape of movement through Time. The animation developed from the motion capture by Peter Birdsall, Ted Warburton, and Timothy Jordan was poetically subtle, an extension of a changing horizon of clouds, rain, water, and constellations. Even though derived from the movement of the dancers, the animations seemed oddly distant and disconnected, almost like a separate entity commenting on the movement on stage, but the dancers and the animations never really notice each other.
Yet the star of the evening is Munisteri's celebration of human movement and his ability to express an infinite gradation of perception and feeling. Pattern and repetition add to a vocabulary by juxtaposing what has become familiar with a new irony. We recognize an immediate past even as we see it dissolve into the uncertainty of Now and anticipate its reiteration in a new context. This approach to movement undoubtedly creates formal structural devices, and Munisteri's grasp and manipulation of form is masterful, but it always seems couched in expressive irony. The Time's reviewer called it "quirky" but for me it was as though the predictable had been transformed into the unpredictable, the common becomes strange as we enter into the movement imagination of Munisteri's world. His is a world of variety and surprise, but always threaded through the clarity of his vision.
His dancers brought a range of versatility to the movement and this mixture was integral to the integrity of the Munisteri's vision. DNA is a wonderful venue for Munisteri's work. His audience seemed revved up, perceptive, and responsive to the challenge of his works.
Munisteri's dance concert was reviewed by Roslyn Sulcas in the NY Times as "Ballet and Headstands, and Other Quirky Contrasts," a fair review, if not insightful. It seemed odd that a dance critic appeared surprised that "ballet" might comprise part of the substance of modern dance as though this was something new or even out of place. Even so, we might question the accuracy of her observation that implied some conscious artistic process on the part of Mr. Munisteri to mix "ordinary" human movement with ballet.
There is no question that Munisteri's work celebrates the human body and transforms "ordinary" movement into the realm of the extraordinary. His eclectic taste in sound and music also contrasts the classical sensibility of Stravinsky's Capriccio in his 2006 work Tuesday 4 a.m. with a score of processed sound and dialogue by Evren Celimli for Smash Through to Sunlight (1999) and a collage of Placebo and Bjork for Terra Nova (2007), an encounter with motion capture which at times echoes the dancers on stage and at other times anticipates the shape of movement through Time. The animation developed from the motion capture by Peter Birdsall, Ted Warburton, and Timothy Jordan was poetically subtle, an extension of a changing horizon of clouds, rain, water, and constellations. Even though derived from the movement of the dancers, the animations seemed oddly distant and disconnected, almost like a separate entity commenting on the movement on stage, but the dancers and the animations never really notice each other.
Yet the star of the evening is Munisteri's celebration of human movement and his ability to express an infinite gradation of perception and feeling. Pattern and repetition add to a vocabulary by juxtaposing what has become familiar with a new irony. We recognize an immediate past even as we see it dissolve into the uncertainty of Now and anticipate its reiteration in a new context. This approach to movement undoubtedly creates formal structural devices, and Munisteri's grasp and manipulation of form is masterful, but it always seems couched in expressive irony. The Time's reviewer called it "quirky" but for me it was as though the predictable had been transformed into the unpredictable, the common becomes strange as we enter into the movement imagination of Munisteri's world. His is a world of variety and surprise, but always threaded through the clarity of his vision.
His dancers brought a range of versatility to the movement and this mixture was integral to the integrity of the Munisteri's vision. DNA is a wonderful venue for Munisteri's work. His audience seemed revved up, perceptive, and responsive to the challenge of his works.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Darha Nopigom: The Mastery of Byungki Hwang
The long awaited new album by Byungki Hwang, Darha Nopigom, has been launched by a tour of the Northeast, with lectures and concerts in Boston, New York, and at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. This was something of a whirlwind tour fr0m May 30 through June 5th.Hwang is the consummate quintessential Korean composer and performer, a highly original voice whose work achieves the immediacy of a masterpiece possessing a timeless and permanent presence. In his work we relish every pitch, every nuance, every texture that seems to resonate on a canvas of time and space, all the more precious because of its fleeting temporal existence emerging from and disappearing into silence.
This paradox of permanence and ephemeral transiency defines the special quality of Hwang's poetic vision. His body of work seems integrated and whole, much like the way Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass embodies the work of the poet throughout his lifetime. All of Hwang's work seems related, serving as a remarkable index into the sensibility of an artist who has journeyed through uncharted regions and left a path for us to follow. His musical works transcend performance, existing as enduring soundposts of life deeply engaged with the essence of the world and committed to sharing it with us if we are willing to embrace it with our full attention.
Although we often associate his music and performance with Traditional Korean Music, he is in fact one of the leading composers of contemporary music in Korea. His conceptions incorporate and extend tradition, establishing a new frontier for the Korean Identity. This new CD, Darha Nopigom, provides eight compositions(Darha Nopigom, Sigyetap [The Clock Tower], Hamadan, Jasi [Night Watch], Nakdoeum, Moon of My Hometown, Chahyangije [Two Poems on the Frangrance of Tea], and Chucheonsa [Swinging Song]), 23 tracks of music so original it will challenge you to engage with musical expression on a personal level, assimilating a sensibility that has something profound to say about the world that the composer inhabits.
It is impossible to single out highlights. Every work is distinctive, and one might add, definitive. The beauty of the Gayageum tone with its expressive accents and sliding pitch reveals an instrument of intimate emotional power, but also tones of such elegance that we are captured in the sheer splendor of the sound itself.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Revealing Ron Mazurek
On May 29th, ICIA (International Composers & Interactive Artists) celebrated the memory of composer Ron Mazurek, who passed away quite suddenly on April 26th. ICIA sponsored a memorial concert that provided a framework for understanding the scope of Ron's work and the depth of our loss.Over the years I have followed Ron's ascent as a composer. He was comfortable with traditional musical settings, but as he explored electronic media, new ideas erupted in a virtual cornucopia of new multimedia works, all exploring musical expression on a basic, elemental level as Ron found and developed his personal voice. Little by little, these works, often in collaboration with other artists, accrued as a body of work that was impressive and original. In addition to these striking musical achievements, he is highly regarded as a pioneering artist in collaborating with choreographers to create telematic dance of imaginative beauty.
Ron had a special way of interfacing with his collaborators, bringing out the best in them, urging them beyond the boundaries of their previous achievements and arriving at a new place in their artistic development. The work of those collaborators inspired Ron to establish a deeper awareness of his purpose and his work. My own work was in parallel with Ron's vision, and it was his encouragement that often helped me on to other projects. He had a way of providing a perspective that made obstacles dissolve in the face of creative process as a natural unfolding of ideas that were the inevitable outcome of a practical resolution, always there and always available.
On May 29th, we had an opportunity to hear Ron's work in a new context, with the years gathered together in a single evening and his recent achievements sitting atop the edifice of his other work, making a monument of one miracle after another. Although I had heard some works before, there were also works I never knew that filled in missing links to Ron's steady growth as a composer. Every work was exploration of original terrain. Every work was genuine and honest, nothing pretentious...as down to earth as the roots that grounded Ron both in his native New Jersey and his Polish heritage.
The crowning achievement was his recent string quartet Mai Timise, now premiered by the Lumina String Quartet for the world as a tour de force, original and inventive, inspiring because of its sheer beauty and brilliantly couched in a command of materials demanding virtuosity, insight, and poetic sensitivity.
Having experienced his work incrementally in the past, I appreciate that in those years I was privileged to witness the emergence of Ron Mazurek as an important composer and multimedia artist. It is also a testament to his authenticity that his sudden departure created a vast emptiness quickly filled by the embrace of family, friends, and colleagues who reached out to each other with a fierce devotion to all that he has meant to each of us. This memorial concert revealed Ron in the full luster of his achievements, transcending the past in the unpretentious presence of a mature artist fully secure in his sensibility as an original voice who remains with us even now.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Remembering
Today is Memorial Day, a day for remembering, for celebrating those who have defended freedom and the idea of freedom so that the world might be a place for hope.
Launched in a vast and seemingly hostile universe, Hope is ultimately all we have. Hope blossoms into Faith, and Faith into Charity, and Charity into Love. This is the chain of our past, the foundation of our convictions that makes us look to each day in anticipation of something better, of the promise of tomorrow...of something real. For somewhere in ourselves we sense that if only we could embrace reality, truly perceive it in the clarity of the moment, we would discover the Truth of ourselves.
Remembering digs back into the collapsing edifice of the Past and restores its luster, its shimmering reality of Now, shimmering because it flickers between the Past and Future in an eternal flame of awareness. Remembering requires the presence of consciousness with the understanding of a past always present in the permanence of ourselves. Time is the illusion. The reality is Space and only Space with infinite possibilities persevering in our perpetual presence.
Launched in a vast and seemingly hostile universe, Hope is ultimately all we have. Hope blossoms into Faith, and Faith into Charity, and Charity into Love. This is the chain of our past, the foundation of our convictions that makes us look to each day in anticipation of something better, of the promise of tomorrow...of something real. For somewhere in ourselves we sense that if only we could embrace reality, truly perceive it in the clarity of the moment, we would discover the Truth of ourselves.
Remembering digs back into the collapsing edifice of the Past and restores its luster, its shimmering reality of Now, shimmering because it flickers between the Past and Future in an eternal flame of awareness. Remembering requires the presence of consciousness with the understanding of a past always present in the permanence of ourselves. Time is the illusion. The reality is Space and only Space with infinite possibilities persevering in our perpetual presence.
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