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            On the April 6th, I went to watch 69°S (The Shackleton Project) that’s created by Phantom Limb. The only knowledge that I had known before going to the show was of that it involved marionettes. Just before the show started, I had the chance to glance through the program notes and got a rough idea what the show is going about – Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to the Antarctic.

            The show started with a few dancers in red entering the stage. The dance was fluid but strong as the dancers moved friskily but seemed so calm and collected at the same time. Then, a skeleton figure entered and slowly walked towards a rope that was hanging on the left side of the stage. When he reached the rope, he looked like he was pulling the rope downwards without touching it. After that, as the dancers exited, the stage was set up with what I think were three icebergs and a ship (Endurance). Before I move on, I’d like to mention something different about the costume of the dancers earlier that I’m sure everyone noticed, which was that it covered half of the dancers faces, giving an impression of a mystery, something unknown, or probably suggesting furtiveness. Because of this, I imagined the dancers in red as the deep unexplored sea and the skeleton figure was like a guardian of the sea. At first I was confused as to what’s the significance of the skeleton, and Aina suggested that it was probably a symbol of the guardian or protector of the sea. And this was not hard to take in as this belief is not unheard of. So what I’m saying is that, I imagined that the mystifying journey of Shackleton was unraveled by the ‘guardian of the sea.’

            Moving on, after the stage was set up the way that I have explained, tall, white figures paired with, comparatively, miniatures walked slowly into the stage. At first I was not sure what it was until I’s gotten a clearer picture as the moved to the front of the stage – the miniatures were marionettes and the tall, white figures were their manipulators. For the next 45 minutes or so, the story of Shackleton was told by these marionettes. I realized that it was a very, very good thing that I had at least glanced through the timeline of Shackleton’s journey because some of what the marionettes did wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t. For instance, when the pictures of marching armies and tanks were projected on the stage, it was indicating that the war in Europe happened during their expedition. Other than that, when the manipulators made the marionettes walked/marched in a straight line, it was actually talking about how the stranded men engaged in a seven-month march to reach the open sea. Finally, after rowing and got to an island, Shackleton decided to search for rescue with a few selected crews and began to make an 800-mile voyage. In the end, the remaining men were all rescued.

            After the manipulators with their marionettes leave the stage, the dancers in red came into stage again but no longer with their faces covered, and not long after that the show ended with the skeleton figure doing what I think somewhat a ‘happy’ dance. I think this kind of gives the impression that the sea is not all that furtive after all, it is up to us to understand it and as for the dancing skeleton, I’m thinking that the ‘guardian of the sea’ is just happy that the men were safe.

On a side note, I would like to bring up about the actual use of marionettes in the show. As each movement of the marionettes had to be done manually by the manipulators, the show seemed slow and tedious. At first, I wondered why couldn’t they just use human beings instead because the movements would have been much easier. However, on a second thought, this expedition is a big part of history, the men portrayed in this show were real men who went through unimaginable difficulties to explore the unknown. Just another person couldn’t possibly give justice in representing such great – as cliché as it might sound – heroes. So in my perspective, I actually think that the concept of marionettes is in place and it is what makes the show unique in its own way. 

In the creators’ note of the program book, it is mentioned that Jessica, whom I believe is the set designer of the show, I quote, awoke from a dream with a desire to contextualize the story of Shackleton and to discover more deeply why it is important to remember his story. Honestly, after watching the show, I had done my own research on Wikipedia to find out more about Shackleton and his exploration. Therefore, I think in that sense Phantom Limb has achieved their objective. On top of that, I also wanted to know how Shackleton looked like, so I decided to share a few photos.

                                I’ve always thought that the marionette shows depicted on TV are creepy but having watched a live marionette show for the first time, I’d say that it’s not bad at all, in fact it was kind of fascinating.

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           The Oracle, for me, was like a roller coaster ride; it scared the freak out of me but when everything eventually ended, I secretly wished I could go through it all again. The Oracle was exciting and confusing, a little freaky maybe, but simply breathtaking.

            It’s interesting that the show is related to what we had just discussed in class on Monday, about exploring the conflicting forces of nature and humankind, masculinity and femininity, violence and nurturing, strength and vulnerability. In discussing about the matter of gender, masculinity and femininity, I believe I have to bring up the fact that I was raised in a community where accepting gender equality is still a work in progress, so there was still a clear distinction between the two; how you are supposed to act, what you should wear, what you are expected to be capable of doing or achieving and such. So this idea of gender as performance is somewhat unaccustomed and foreign to me. However, apart from Paris Is Burning, The Oracle to some extent has helped open new perspectives to this new idea.

One of the thoughts that came to mind while watching this show was a scene from the movie 300, when the Ephors consulted the oracle to predict whether the Spartans should or should not go to war. Why I find this worth mentioning is because the oracle in the movie was a female and during the scene I felt as if the female’s beauty and gracefulness were like a sacrifice to a ‘higher power’, ‘prime mover’, whichever you may, in return of knowledge of the future. But in this show, the oracle was a male. Again, to me, a male has always been a figure of power and strength. However, the dancer of the show portrayed all of this and demonstrated so much poise, fluidity, and gracefulness at the same time. I would like to try to link an idea from our discussion on Monday, when Courtney said something about basically “stereotypes”(?) of being a male or a female, to this post. Though we don’t want to be attached or be limited to certain qualities or characteristics that represent our gender, it’s undeniable that if we want to look at gender as a performance, then there are actually a certain attribute or “idiosyncrasy” that we have to have or exhibit in order to perform/be a specific gender. But in The Oracle, I didn’t see gender as a performance. I saw a person as a performance, a representation of qualities of both masculinity and femininity. Or I’d like to think, in other words, being anything you want – no specific limitation or expectation.

Apart from my being in awe with the capabilities of the dancer and what he typified, I also stated that the show was confusing. This is because of how the show started and some of the elements in it. Specifically when the images with some kind of mirror effect (like the one in Lady Gaga’s Born This Way music video, ergo why I also said it was kind of freaky), appeared on the screen accompanied by sounds of bombings. I had trouble trying to grasp the idea that it wanted to get across. Is the mirror effect trying to show symmetry/balance or distortion/imperfection? But then again I believe it is up for interpretation and there’s no right or wrong to what it actually is. Moving on, I was impressed by how the dancer was able to cover so much space on the stage and how he made it look as if he was not the one controlling the cloak, instead, the cloak was controlling him. And I loved the part when the dancer was dancing synchronically with the figure on the screen and to some point the figure on the screen was actually keeping up to what the dancer is doing. I’d like to think that this part is somehow trying to show that the oracle has knowledge about the future and is already ahead of others. To top it all of, at the end, the stage went black, and suddenly there was a spotlight center stage and the dancer jumped and the stage went black again. (I have never been good at explaining but I swear it was the coolest thing ever!)

The Cure for Greed by Diddo. 2012.

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Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”                                                                    -Martha Graham

             On February 2nd, I watched February Dance, which consists of four different pieces, which were “Good Tattoo for a Fifty Year Old Man”, “Roaming”, “__ ______ __ _________ _____”, and “Gnossiennes”. In this writing I would like to try to express what I felt and explain the experience that I had gotten from the pieces “Good Tattoo for a Fifty Year Old Man” and “Roaming”. I would also like to compare the February Dance to Swan Lake, which I had watched before.

             Starting with “Good Tattoo for a Fifty Year Old Man”, I personally think the opening was confusing when all of the dancers just basically walked around on the stage, some stopped and lied on their sides, some sat cross-legged and there were also two dancers who were imitating each other. Then some of them started to run across from one side of the stage to the other, and all of these were done without any background music or sound. Then after about 5-10 minutes I suppose, background sounds were put on. And note that I said sounds, not music. From what I discerned it was a compilation of everyday sounds: people talking, laughter; sounds that you don’t usually pay attention to and just get lost in them. When I watched this particular piece, a word that popped in my head was resonance. This is because I remember at the start of the dance, a female dancer started with kind of circling her hands on her stomach and this was done again and again through out the performance, and there were also some other uncomplicated moves that basically just followed the background sound that seemed to reverberate. All in all, I think this piece tried to portray something that is somewhat plain but fun and also competitive in a sense.

            The second piece was “Roaming”, which is my favorite among the four. I think what this performance was trying to show or express is easier to understand. All of the different elements that were used to construct the performance worked very well. By elements I mean, the music, costumes, choreography, and the expressions of the dancers themselves. The piece started with a single dancer in the center. The music from then started to get more intense and more dancers joined after. Their costumes seemed like tattered tie-dyed t-shirts and the choreography, I would say, was strong with their sharp and swift moves and thumping of the feet. This combination gave a somewhat primal effect to the piece. Also, under Roaming’s Notes section in the program book that we were given, a saying by Charles Simic was quoted, “He who cannot howl, will not find his pack.” Reading this, I came to the conclusion that the piece was about bravery and about not being afraid of what is unknown to us.

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            I have never been to a live ballet performance or any kind of dance performance. Concerts, yes. Musicals, yes. But never just music and a group of people.. dancing. That said, Swan Lake by the Russian National Ballet Theatre on January 24th was definitely an eye-opener. I would have to admit, it was a completely different experience. I am so used to receiving information from performances through verbal means that I was honestly quite lost at the beginning of the ballet. I expected this, thus the reason why I chose Swan Lake rather than Don Quixote or Chopiniana Romeo Juliet because it was the most familiar to me. Nonetheless, the synopsis really helped me to keep up with the storyline.

            I have never been asked to write about something that I completely have no knowledge about; I wish I could comment on how good – or maybe even how bad (though I doubt so) – the fouetté en tournants were. Or about the pirouettes, grand jetés, or bourrées – terms of which I am guilty of having to search through Google. However, as I was introduced to art only in the sense of musical instruments and drawings, my knowledge of ballet is limited or should I say, close to none. To me it is merely movements done by the body to match the peaceful and gentle – two adjectives that I have always imagined ballet to be – music that goes with it. My presumption was wrong most definitely. Although, this doesn’t mean that ballet is not peaceful and gentle; it was all of those, and more.

What I found most exciting was the fact that it was nothing like I expected. It was graceful and beautiful and elegant and delicate, but intense and emotional and powerful at the same time. There was a lot of emotions or feelings if you may, happening at once that it gets overwhelming but I didn’t mean that in a bad way at all. I am the kind of person that take things at it is; I don’t question why I have to know that E=mc2, I learn it because that’s what I’m told to do. But what I witnessed the other day was definitely nothing that I could take ‘as it is’. It needed me to think, to understand, and to empathize. The dancers didn’t have words to explain what is happening or what they were feeling, and I must say, they didn’t need to. It is amazing what the combination of music and their dance capabilities could do; how they could express so many emotions just using their body. There were so many possibilities and interpretations that I could make from what they did, thus why I said that this was a completely different experience.