Midterm Performances

Now that I have had time to sit down and blog and reflect on our midterm performances I just wanted to say what a great job everyone did!  I know that we had a long talk about how much our individual assessments would be worth and we came to the conclusion that they were only participation.  But looking at how much I put down that I would pay to see these performances and what I rated everyone as I think that we really should have had it count toward everyone else's grades!  I really liked how everyone had different ideas as to what their performances were about.  Some did scenes from the Ramayana, some made up their own stories, and some made their performances more modern day related.  I admired everyone's creativity when it came to those ideas and then relaying those ideas in the form of a dance.  As always, anything having to do with reaching for the creativity in me is somewhat challenging!  I kept joking to guru that he was talking to two business oriented people.  Lizzy and I are both in the business school and I know I can't speak for her but I know for myself I am a very practical and matter of fact kind of person.  I have never been the one to come up with creative ideas or possess any artistic ability whatsoever.  But that is why I like to take these classes.  The GER 6 classes help to bring out that creative ability and make you think outside the box.  And I think that that is something that everyone should be taught and be allowed to develop at some point in their lives.

Discussing how much our individual assessment should be worth is another story I think.  People brought up different ideas and reasonings as to why we should go with their idea.  I always like to see both sides of an argument before jumping to a conclusion so first off I think it is very productive to talk these decisions out.  However, I personally didn't understand why some people did not want to have our opinions count towards everyone else's grades.  I thought it meant that it showed some sort of distrusting of each other.  We are a community, a banjar, and we are supposed to be there for one another.  From watching people rehearse during class and hearing their ideas for their performances you could tell that everyone was putting in a large amount of effort and consideration into what they wanted to convey through their dance.  And I think that as a viewer and critic I have a great respect for that.  Spending the time and energy to come up with these dances is honestly enough to make me want to give people higher scores in the first place.  I would not trash anyone or want to blatantly tell someone that their performance was bad because like I said we are a community and we are supposed to be their for one another.  And I would hope that everyone else feels the same way.  And I could see that most did.  That is why they also wanted to have our individual ratings count towards their grades.  Because they knew that we would simply praise them for their individual creativity and exploration through dance.  And I also think that is what guru was trying to tell us as well.  

Rama: Hardly the 'Perfect Man'

I know I have a tendency to make faces whenever I hear that Rama is the ‘perfect man’, but I feel like I haven’t had a chance to explain my reasons for not agreeing with this sentiment. So what better way than to post it to the blog? Perhaps when The Ramayana was written, Rama was the perfect man, but in today’s society (mainly western society), I believe Rama would be considered a misogynist. I say mainly western society because I know in other parts of the world baby girls are still being murdered because they’re seen as lesser than a man and women are still treated worse than animals.  But in terms of the liberated female and women’s rights, Rama clearly has a thing or two to learn.

                My main issue with Rama’s treatment of Sita is the moment when he’s reunited. One would think that after all of the trouble he went to in order to save her, he’d be overjoyed to have her back. But this is not the case. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. He turns her away! He tells her that he can’t take her back because she has been living with another man for so long and may be unchaste. Well, here’s the thing. If she was unchaste, it was because Ravana raped her; he did kidnap her against her will and he is a monster. It’s very obvious that Sita loves Rama, so why would she choose to cheat on him? Therefore, Rama is saying that he won’t take her back because she might have been raped. In our culture, we know that rape is never the victim’s fault and that victims should be treated with love, respect, and caring.  Turning them away is the last thing anyone should do.

                Rama’s second mistake is when he listens to the community’s opinion of Sita’s moral character. Again, if she was impure, it was a result of rape. Instead of standing up for her innocence (which should be unnecessary anyway) and swaying the people’s opinion, he bows to them and sends her away for real this time. And Sita, the ever loving and faithful wife, agrees to leave. I have a feeling she was probably sick of the rumors and just wanted to get away.

                Unfortunately, in today’s world there are still places where a woman’s chastity is more important than her well being. Our final show for the year, Ruined, shows us this very world where victims of rape are cast out of their community because they are “damaged” or “ruined”. And the man who would do that to his wife is hardly the “perfect man”.

I wish that I was going to be here next year, because I would have loved to have been a part of the creation of The Sitayana, considering how strongly I feel about her side of the story.

Midterm Sharing

The thing that struck me most about the midterm sharing performances was the range of material and stories that people drew from for their piece. I thought that everyone would choose a story from The Ramayana or The Mahabharata, when in reality, only 3 groups did. Most of the pieces were inspired by original stories that each group wrote themselves, and the amount of imagination in the class really impressed me. While everyone may not be a theater major,  it's obvious that everyone has a creative streak!

My favorite piece was the group who told the story of the ancient king who dreamed of dancing nymphs and who, upon waking,  wanted to preserve his dream: thus many types of Indonesian dance were born. The Yue and Cynthia danced with an ethereal grace that would be expected of such mythical beings and the time and effort that went into the rehearsal process was obvious. I was also surprised to see a group use masks; I felt that this choice added another level to Rachel, Tatiana, and Jasmine’s piece and demonstrated their knowledge of the forms of dance drama. It was also a very fun and colorful story which I thoroughly enjoyed. Bruno’s solo impressed me because of his choice of a style of dance that we didn’t really touch on in class. He did a wonderful job with his interpretation of Ravana, and props to Cynthia for just jumping in. Lizzie and Stephanie’s inclusion of the banjar in their piece was also a bold choice that represented the importance of community which we’ve been talking about since day one of class. Abigail and Spence chose to do a Balinese dance drama interpretation of a scene from The Wizard of Oz which I really enjoyed because of the level of character commitment that each of them showed.  Jordan and Rachel and Fatima and Daisy were two other groups who decided to perform an original story that they wrote themselves. However, the style of each was different. Jordan and Rachel chose contemporary music and really focused on the mudras that would create the rasas they wanted for their piece. Fatima and Daisy used the banjar as their music and Fatima narrated the story for us so that we knew what each of them was feeling. Daniela and Tyler told a story from the Ramayana, but used contemporary music.  And Alyssa and Sarah focused on the male and female qualities of dance and the differences of the two.

I think we had a great set of pieces that worked really well together and as a result, we created our own dance showcase. I look forward to seeing what this class does for the final sharing!

Pride

During Dr. Palmer’s portion of the lecture, our discussion on patronage caught my interest.   In a sense, to gain dominance as a theatre troop or theatre form, royal patronage was a necessity.   Because the deities backed royalty, theatre, therefore, needed the support of the royalty.  What fascinated my about our discussion was the nature used to receive patronage.  The familiar air of modern culture where politicians campaign for government positions, let alone, the normalcy of campaigning for anything, is something I did not except to encounter in such an ancient art form.  Because the theater is so old, I have this ignorance that biases me into thinking it is pure and untouched by pressures modern society faces and imposes today.  The motif of campaigns that was so immediately and obviously connectable with processes today was shocking, but something that made Noh Theatre time travel to the modern day.

This leaves me to wonder if there is anything that can really be pure.  Can something be untainted by politics and selfishness?  The portrayal of Asian culture in general, especially ancient, throughout this class has painted an almost virgin light over the geographic area.  Performance is not for tourists or entertainment as it is in western society but for the continuance of oral tradition, religion and worship of the divine.  This discussion really cracked the casing of purity I created around Asian culture.  Troops compete to show that their performance is the most holy and invites the most deities.  It becomes a game of hyper-nationalism as well, attempting to prove that the respective performance is the most “wo”- more Japanese than the others.  Royals see the need to have a troop and theatre form that show off the pride of the country and endorse who they are. 

An article I read for a class last semester, “Patriotism as a Menace to Liberty”, blames nationalist qualities of countries for the fighting and wars in the world.  Again, this ruptured the purity surrounding the culture because of political pride.  Royals and troops allow politics and selfishness to touch these sacred art forms and it all seems to stem from pride.  Whether that pride is of the country, troop or individuals, the sin taints theatre.  As many have philosophized that pride is a part of human nature, it does make sense that it is impossible to withhold it from even the most pure- a truly disturbing realization.  

Trees

            Today when we were talking about Kagura I began thinking about the concept of a tree representing a person.  In Kagura the Sakaki branch seems to be the essence of the performance in the earliest Japanese theatre.  It is what sticks out to me the most, not only because it is a defining component of the theatre form but because I can parallel it to what I am personally familiar with.  In my knowledge of western society, a way to honor those who have died is to plant a tree or bench or some semi-permanent object in their name.  It was this connection that really allowed me to grasp the extreme significance of the Sakaki branch.

            In Kagura the branch is an intermediary, portal type-object that allows deities to be housed on earth, within the tree the branch was taken from.  After the deity has been summoned in Achime no-waza, the Torimono songs and messages to the deities, complete the summoning of the divinities and establish the particular Sakaki tree as sacred.  Because trees have extremely long lifespans they are a semi-permanent mark on the planet.  This quality allows the essence of the deity to live forever through the tree’s embodiment.  Similarly, in western society, dedicating a tree or planting one for a late loved one acts as an intermediary of their spirit and the earth.  With the planting of the tree, the loved one will forever be a part of the earth and their legacy will live on even though they are not physically on earth.  The tree serves to embody what cannot physically be present and its sense of permanence serves as an eternal memory. 

This relation to Kagura really emblazoned the significance of the Sakaki branch to me and helped me to recognize the amazing extent to which these trees are now sacred.  Furthermore, Kagura really made me realize how important these trees of dedication must be to families who planted them when the rest of western society does not honor such trees in the same light.  It also got me thinking about the origins of customs similar to this.  Did they originate in Kagura?  I am really curious as to where the relation of spirits, trees and earth began because after this class I have really felt the connection a tree has the ability to establish. 

Reflection on everyone's performances

            In my personal opinion, I think everyone in our Banjar did a fantastic job on their mid-term performances this week. I found it interesting to see all the different directions everyone took their performances in when we all had the same assignment and previous experience in the medium. It really served as a testimony to the individuality and creativity of each member of our class as well as the wide possibilities of the Asian Theatre genre.

            I appreciated the fact that about half of the class performed pieces which were more traditional; using classical Asian storylines; while the other half used more modern day scripts. The groups that did the classic tales all had interesting interpretations upon them and really did their best to make the piece their own. For instance, three of the stories employed the character of Sita, yet each time she was portrayed in a way that stayed true to her description while still allowing the performer to put their own spin on their re-telling. I particularly enjoyed the use of the Banjar Stephanie and Lizzie as the ground under which Sita was buried; that was an innovative use of resources that I would not have even considered! In terms of the groups who did more modern day presentations, I think each of them, my group included, was able to successfully apply the past to the present without losing any of the artistry associated with Asian performance. For instance Daniela and Tyler pulled this off in their “How to Love” dance by sticking to the stereotypical male and female dance styles to convey the characters.

            Another example of the different interpretations which our class applied to this assignment was in the fact that though a number of presentations portrayed a stereotypical “monkey” character, each of their versions possessed unique elements. For instance, Spence employed great facial expressions when characterizing the monkey; it really helped develop his character beyond his monkey-like movements. Jasmine used a mask when portraying her monkey character which, much like Spence’s version, allowed a better conception of her character. Each of the incarnations of the monkey character also employed a different aspect of that stereotype’s personality. Spence was curious of Dorthey, then violent, while Jasmine was more curious and playful, and Abhay portrayed the traditional monkey god 

Our Mid-term Performance

            When planning what form we wanted our performance to take, my partner Alyssa and I thought it would be interesting to take our newfound skills in the performance of Asian-style dance and apply it to a medium with which we were far more familiar. We thought this would allow us to draw connections between what we are learning in class and our own daily lives. We decided upon telling the story of Disney songs through our dance because of the pervasive familiarity which these songs have. Disney has become such a major part of our American culture; it is rare to find a person who has not seen a single one of the company’s movies. When beginning to brainstorm about which films we wanted to pull the songs from, both Alyssa and I immediately turned to our individual favorites as those musical moments were the ones which had the biggest impact upon each of us personally.

Alyssa chose the song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from the movie Mulan because both the song and the movie are her favorite from the Disney collection. I originally chose “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from the Lion King for similar reasons, however we felt that the songs were too similar in terms of style; both are very upbeat and fun. Therefore, we decided to contrast the strong, masculine style of dance that we planned on using with “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” with a softer, more feminine style applied to another of my favorite Disney songs “The Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas. We felt that by using both of these styles, we could more fully apply everything we have learned in class so far.

We decided to use the beginning of each song and combined them using a recording program to make one comprehensive performance piece. We then went about choreographing each song separately; then putting them together. Our goal in performing each song was to portray the feeling and story of them both, while still staying true to traditional Asian dance forms. Therefore, when choreographing “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, we chose sharp, warlike movements to convey the somewhat violent nature of the song, such as the arrow and stomp moves we learned in class. Similarly,  while choreographing “Colors of the Wind” we decided to use a feminine style because of the sex of the singer and we chose to use moves such as the mudra meaning snake to represent animal. With this piece we wanted to use delicate moves to match the slow, majestic qualities of the song, while still representing the words of it.

After practicing for a few days on our own, we performed it for Guru, who gave us feedback on it. Based upon his feedback, we decided to expand our performance from just standing in one position and moving in synchronized ways to moving around in various shapes, while still mirroring each others movements. He also influenced us to add our own voices to those in our musical selections, which we agreed added a personal touch to the completed piece. Overall, we think it turned out fairly well and accurately portrayed the point we wanted to get across. I hope that our Banjar enjoyed our performance as much as we enjoyed compiling and presenting it!