There is such incredible excitement in further discovering the work in performance. On the second go round a few weeks ago, and even leading up to it I discovered such incredible excitement in adding to smaller elements, deepening, including. God is there in the deep. That murky water before that blast of light. Inspiration. The idea of performing (or not quite performing) as a blatant act of worship has caused me to really realize the idea of creativity and artistry as an aspect of God within us.
So awesome that God can meet you there. When you write for him. Act for him. It is deepening your expression of him in you, but that you include him, weave him into every sinew of the project. He works through you. The black parts of yourself that must be exposed are kissed as wounds. They communicate as things being healed. Then there is the touch of the mind, the touch to the heart. The audience understands that it is not a glorification of your brokenness, but a exposing of the work God is doing in you. My friend called it heart surgery. I agree.
So again on Friday. Deeper writing over break. Performing in completion this summer, Lord willing.
Wabi. I fear to miss that love I cannot see.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Ethic
So break that spine. Breathe it over and over. God will heal the things you can't conquer. Flushing that shamed blush from your cheeks.
Older love note.
In Her Frame
voice crunch
hard on the floor
broken for naught
or for that
in hope
soft the whitewash
flush your teeth
blink
for that
I promise
in fear
Older love note.
In Her Frame
voice crunch
hard on the floor
broken for naught
or for that
in hope
soft the whitewash
flush your teeth
blink
for that
I promise
in fear
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Define
What keeps you up at night?
Autobiographical Work is personal but not simply telling a secret. That alone is not enough. It is not gripping. You must suffer for the work. It must take something from you.
Autobiographical Work is personal but not simply telling a secret. That alone is not enough. It is not gripping. You must suffer for the work. It must take something from you.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Peter
He was… one who did not make the common miserable blunder of taking the shadow cast by love- desire, namely, to be loved – for love itself; his love was a vertical sun, and his own shadow was under his feet…. But do not mistake me through confounding, on the other hand, the desire to be loved – which is neither wrong nor noble, any more than hunger is either wrong or noble – and the delight in being loved, to be devoid of which a man must be lost in an immeasurably deeper, in an evil, ruinous, yea, a fiendish selfishness.
George MacDonald
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
You will reach a point where you can tell yourself something very powerful. You can give yourself an ultimatum and be very very friendly with lonely.
The amount of change which can occur in a person in a short period of time is incredible. Also terrifying. It is important to remember that this is only an aspect that has changed and it may not be for good. The faults will always exist. But they can be smothered and choked.
I am comfortable, now in being alone with myself. There will be no hand held over mine. There is me and the morning. There is the sun slanted through the window glaring under the pillow. There is a sweater. Sweat pants and the reality of class uptown in an hour. There is the grind. There is God when I wake, God when I work and God when I sleep. That is sufficient. That is the oil clearing the cog in my machine. The grind is a murmur.
With God I will strive to be no cog.
The amount of change which can occur in a person in a short period of time is incredible. Also terrifying. It is important to remember that this is only an aspect that has changed and it may not be for good. The faults will always exist. But they can be smothered and choked.
I am comfortable, now in being alone with myself. There will be no hand held over mine. There is me and the morning. There is the sun slanted through the window glaring under the pillow. There is a sweater. Sweat pants and the reality of class uptown in an hour. There is the grind. There is God when I wake, God when I work and God when I sleep. That is sufficient. That is the oil clearing the cog in my machine. The grind is a murmur.
With God I will strive to be no cog.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Collaboration
So dramaturgy. Weird term right? What is that? We know that for any piece that isn't super recent, dramaturgy encompasses the act of fact checking. So the length of the skirt, the colors of the clothes, the set. IF you wanna make it period in some way, or if you just wanna do the time period of the playwright or the play some sort of visual, sonic or idealistic justice.
I just saw Persephone last night. It is interesting for a few reasons. First off the music was gorgeous and not just because I'm a sucker for electronica and digitally harmonized voices. Bjรถrk is my homegirl BUT it was good. Lots of aspects were fantastic. What made it interesting and what really landed the idea of collaboration was the dramaturgical aspects. Modern and classical.
So there's the idea of the dramaturg for new work. For this the dramaturg seems to be sort of the body guard for the heart of the work, the person who listens allot and then hits you in the face with a one sentence idea and/or the person who makes sure everyone is on the same page. In all these aspects the play was... intriguing.
You don't always have a dramaturg. Allot of the things they do can easily be done by the playwright and the director. But sometimes its too much and two heads are always better than one. But the idea of the piece needs one head. If it doesn't things can go awry. As it seems happened in this piece.
But before I get on that train. I wanna say the piece had the potential to be stunning. The set design was off the chain. Giant 19th century metal frames, a rotating green stone-ish piece in the center with a spring and winter side. The set was made to shift. You saw a backstage and proscenium from the front. The piece was about a 19th century company on the cusp of "modern" theater performing the myth of persephone. It was an odd take given the electronic music but buy-able. You saw the backstage drama and the piece from the front. The orchestra was filled with the tables and props and dressings of the "actors". Interesting.
Back to the piece itself. So the first thing to be conceived in this piece was the music. It wasn't written with the intent of being made into a performance piece necessarily. The musicians in the company just felt inspired to write this music. The music tended to center on the ideas of motherhood. A dramaturg heard the stuff in passing and said that the idea of Persephone would fit the music quite well. I think this is where things might have started to go funky. So the core form is music. The core theme is motherhood. Now we introduce a narrative; Persephone. The company has two projectionists, a director, a playwright, a set designer, and we'll call the two musicians a composer and a librettist/vocalist.
So you have aaaaall these people working on the same project. They all have to communicate and follow the same core idea. I feel like they also need to cater to the core form, the music. The styles clashed. This was part of the problem. There wasn't communication between the projectionists as far as a uniform style or idea to adhere to. It seemed like they jumped in with their styles and ran headlong with them. But the bigger problem seemed to happen before that. The core form was the music. To that we fit the myth of Persephone. Obviously music not directly concerned with Persephone won't fit and communicate perfectly, so we introduce the play within a play aspect. The issue comes after this. I wonder if it is a blessing and a curse in western theater that we place a great deal of weight on the narrative. What may have happened here is that once persephone was introduced, it then became the concentration of the piece. The core music, which still held the piece together had its weight removed and the piece collapsed in meaning.
Just a thought. So then what is the lesson? Don't lose the idea of collaboration yes, but also don't lose the core theme, the core ideal. The two are intertwined the collaboration and the ideal. We need to agree on one ideal and pursue that together with full knowledge of one another in the process.
I just saw Persephone last night. It is interesting for a few reasons. First off the music was gorgeous and not just because I'm a sucker for electronica and digitally harmonized voices. Bjรถrk is my homegirl BUT it was good. Lots of aspects were fantastic. What made it interesting and what really landed the idea of collaboration was the dramaturgical aspects. Modern and classical.
So there's the idea of the dramaturg for new work. For this the dramaturg seems to be sort of the body guard for the heart of the work, the person who listens allot and then hits you in the face with a one sentence idea and/or the person who makes sure everyone is on the same page. In all these aspects the play was... intriguing.
You don't always have a dramaturg. Allot of the things they do can easily be done by the playwright and the director. But sometimes its too much and two heads are always better than one. But the idea of the piece needs one head. If it doesn't things can go awry. As it seems happened in this piece.
But before I get on that train. I wanna say the piece had the potential to be stunning. The set design was off the chain. Giant 19th century metal frames, a rotating green stone-ish piece in the center with a spring and winter side. The set was made to shift. You saw a backstage and proscenium from the front. The piece was about a 19th century company on the cusp of "modern" theater performing the myth of persephone. It was an odd take given the electronic music but buy-able. You saw the backstage drama and the piece from the front. The orchestra was filled with the tables and props and dressings of the "actors". Interesting.
Back to the piece itself. So the first thing to be conceived in this piece was the music. It wasn't written with the intent of being made into a performance piece necessarily. The musicians in the company just felt inspired to write this music. The music tended to center on the ideas of motherhood. A dramaturg heard the stuff in passing and said that the idea of Persephone would fit the music quite well. I think this is where things might have started to go funky. So the core form is music. The core theme is motherhood. Now we introduce a narrative; Persephone. The company has two projectionists, a director, a playwright, a set designer, and we'll call the two musicians a composer and a librettist/vocalist.
So you have aaaaall these people working on the same project. They all have to communicate and follow the same core idea. I feel like they also need to cater to the core form, the music. The styles clashed. This was part of the problem. There wasn't communication between the projectionists as far as a uniform style or idea to adhere to. It seemed like they jumped in with their styles and ran headlong with them. But the bigger problem seemed to happen before that. The core form was the music. To that we fit the myth of Persephone. Obviously music not directly concerned with Persephone won't fit and communicate perfectly, so we introduce the play within a play aspect. The issue comes after this. I wonder if it is a blessing and a curse in western theater that we place a great deal of weight on the narrative. What may have happened here is that once persephone was introduced, it then became the concentration of the piece. The core music, which still held the piece together had its weight removed and the piece collapsed in meaning.
Just a thought. So then what is the lesson? Don't lose the idea of collaboration yes, but also don't lose the core theme, the core ideal. The two are intertwined the collaboration and the ideal. We need to agree on one ideal and pursue that together with full knowledge of one another in the process.
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