Author: Sarah Ogar

A culture-addict who has dabbled in film production, screen writing, stand-up comedy, theater production, and much more.

The Art of Wedded Bliss

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Last year, on July 7 my sister got married.  It was fun.  It was fabulous. And it was most definitely themed.  In fact, one of the first things that people asked my sister when they found out she was engaged was, “So what are you colors? And have you picked a venue?”

In essence, if you had to pick something (besides you and your fiancee, who this whole shindig is about) to encapsulate your nuptials, what would it be?

After a lot of trial and error, my sister eventually found a venue, picked her colors (pink and green) and created a fairytale wedding at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester.

The Best Part!!
The Best Part!!

One year later, with my family still recovering, my older brother pops the question to his significant other and we are back in the throes of the wedding industry.  Theirs will also be fairytale, but with slight alterations.

I could be a curmudgeon and talk about the commodity fetish in relation to all things wedding, but instead I think it is worth acknowledging the undoubtable aesthetics of weddings.  They are almost like grand architectural, musical, floral feats of greatness, are they not?

This ‘Peter Pan-themed Wedding’ on Buzzfeed is one that will knock your stockings off.  Time and time again I am amazed at the small details that create weddings.  They are often like huge bacchanalian paintings but with sound and more dancing and (sometimes) more wine.   And while you’re at one of these things, it’s almost hard to appreciate the setting, when the thing itself (the marriage ceremony) has all of your attention.

But when considering a wedding as ‘art’, I proceed with caution only because it is undoubtedly one of the most profitable industries out there.  If wedding planners and event coordinators are ‘artists’ then they have definitely sold out to the Man (or the Woman as is often the case).

In one of my classes, we are examining the theme parks of DisneyWorld in all of its fairytale glory.  I plan to focus my research on Cinderella’s Castle and Disney Weddings*.  If you want to talk about themes, there is no theme so ubiquitous as the fairytale and no conglomerate more suited to this theme than Disney Weddings.

*When adding the Disney Wedding link, their site was so beautiful and so enchanting, I was almost tempted to click the ‘Let’s Begin Designing Your Disney Wedding’ button, even though I am not engaged, going steady, or casually dating anyone at the moment  :/

Authorial Intent and ‘The Gershwin Initiative’

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If you haven’t heard of it, The Gershwin Initiative is a new collaboration between the Gershwin family (most famously known for George and Ira) and the University of Michigan.  Specifically, U of M has already received the Gershwin Steinway piano, which was made in 1933, purchased in 1934, and played for decades by one of America’s most musically contributive families.

The Gershwin Piano (UM School of Music)
The Gershwin Piano (UM School of Music)

Piano gifts aside, a more critical reason for the collaboration is the creation of a critical edition of the Gershwin songbook.  U of M has been granted full scholarly access to the works, including early versions and supplementary notes to all the pieces.

This may not seem like much to the average music listener, but to put it in comparison, it would be like receiving access to all of Shakespeare’s diaries and sticky-notes (if they had sticky notes in the 17th century) with his comments and thought process laid out in one collection.

It is kind of a big deal.

As an English major and self-proclaimed bibliophile who reads copyright information and dedications before delving into its contents, I am frequently made aware of the editorial contributions of many people even with books written by one author.  And once a book has gone to print, there is also the fact that new editions arise within years (and sometimes months or even weeks).  Decisions are made and contents can be drastically altered.

But I don’t often think this way towards music.  Music is such a prescribed art form, with its rhythmic and timing constraints.  Classical or orchestrated music in particular, always sounds so rigidly controlled.  The musicians have no free reign to alter the music if the conductor does not alter his commands.  And the fact that there can be such varied interpretations of this kind of music befuddles a music neophyte like myself.

Needless to say, I cannot wait to attend one of the accompanying Gershwin events in the coming months.  There is no denying the Gershwin influence on American opera, orchestra, and jazz.  I’ve never heard a Gershwin piece that didn’t make me want to return to a classier, swankier time. In fact, my first Ann Arbor Symphony performance viewing included ‘Cuban Overture’ which stayed in my head for weeks afterwards.   Here’s to musical compilation and collaboration!

Movement Science

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Thursday night (September 12) at the Ruthven Natural History Museum, Ann Arbor Danceworks put on an encore performance of Within/Beyond. The show was comprised of modern choreography inspired by scientific research at the University of Michigan and intriguing stories across the disciplines (including my personal favorite, a solo that told the harrowing tale of Henrietta Lacks).

Though I was not moved by a piece where dancers wore pink and orange colored outfits and tossed bouncy balls around (to illustrate the cellular process of autophagy) I was moved by everything else.

My favorite pieces were ‘HeLa’ and ‘From Afar: The Loneliest Star’.

‘HeLa’ was a solo performance that felt more like interpretive dance or spoken word performance. It was essentially the dancer (the beautiful and talented Robin Wilson) boldly telling the world the story of Henrietta Lacks.  Lacks was a cervical cancer patient in the 1950s whose cells and cancer tissue was taken and used without her permission.  “I’m not talking about an arm,” Wilson said, holding up her arm, “Or a leg” she said, bringing her pointed foot up in the air with great precision.  “I am talking about tissue” she said, running her hands down the front of her body.  As Wilson spoke, gesticulated, and brilliantly articulated the injustice of Lacks’s unknown cell donation, I was transfixed in my seat.  Feeling the insides of my body as I breathed and Wilson drew cuts of breath as she flung her hands out, grasping one wrist with the other to physically embody the imprisonment of Lacks’s DNA in the hands of scientists.

‘The Loneliest Star’ was one of three pieces in the ‘From Afar’ suite, all of which centered around the cosmos.  These pieces were by far the most aesthetically pleasing as the dancers moved in unison, creating swirling circles with their light, cream-colored costumes and curved arms.

Lynsey Colden performs in From Afar
Lynsey Colden performs in 'From Afar' Photo credit: Kirk Donaldson

On the whole, it was an eye-opening experience that demonstrated the human-side of science.  Even science that is very vast or very small can be brought to life when enough raw emotion is fostered into dance.

Moving Life Painting

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We’ve all seen still life painting.  Often involving fruit or oysters that look like this….

Or this…

But unlike real fruit on real tables that you can pick up and squeeze with your hands and taste with your tongue, still life rarely has any life to it.  At least, this was what I thought about still life until I came across artist Scott Gardner.

Using a new technology called ‘Unity 3D’ Gardner has mounted television screens that bring movement to still life.  The screen of his art is highly sensitive to movement and the objects inside it move around according to how the frame moves.  Spectators are encouraged to interact with his art.  Touch it, tilt it, move it around to their heart’s content.  And also to watch with wonder as the life inside the frame moves along with the viewer.

The video on Gardner’s website shows how the pieces in his art move around.  Admittedly, it’s not completely true to life.  No matter how many times you spin the frame, the vase never breaks and the fruit never explode.  But until everyone gets their Hogwart’s acceptance letter and can be enrolled in a school where the paintings not only have life to them, but opinions as well, I think Gardner’s art is the closest thing we’ve got.

And as technology develops, maybe in time artistic innovators like Gardner will bring ‘life’ to more than just still life.  Ever wondered what the Mona Lisa was so smirky about?  What if you were able to poke one of those cubby cherubs and see it react? I don’t know what classicists or modernists would say, but I think an exhibition of reactive art would be an exhibition the whole family would enjoy.  And might be a popular gateway into earlier traditions of high art.

Angie Estes Poetry Reading

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Do people look most like themselves right before and right after they speak?

This was one of the many things I pondered while attending the Angie Estes poetry reading on Thursday at UMMA.  I attended the reading as part of a requirement for a creating writing course and entered the auditorium expecting half an hour of unrelatable, esoteric verse that had nothing to do with me.  I expected something dramatic, a poetry slam maybe?  I expected someone over-the-top who would speak using words that were way over my head.

However, like recent experiences with opera and modern dance, I was pleasantly surprised at how connected I felt to the poet and her words that somehow managed to penetrate my recalcitrant heart.  Before Estes took to the podium, a speaker introduced her as a poet who attempts to unravel the mystery of words and meaning.  Estes was particularly interested in examining the fact that words by themselves have no meaning.  She also sought to explore and examine the spaces between words, where meaning exists and they do not.

This was an excellent introduction to her verses, which rarely rhymed, but were full of alliteration and homophonic constructions that allowed my mind to flit from each of her utterances to the next.  As she recited her poetry and moved from words that sounded a lot like each other, but created shifts in meaning, I found myself examining the processes of my mind, how I construct meaning, how I follow speakers when the speaker is not me.

Of course, throughout the entire reading, I did my best not to think.  I did my best to relinquish logic and let my mind wander wherever it found meaning.  As I let my thoughts wander and tried to give in the sensory experience of listening to spoken word.  Some weird things happened.  First, I noticed that everytime she uttered a sentence full of alliteration (and sometimes assonance as well) I breathed a sigh of relief.  The similar sounds were definitely pleasing to me and seemed to have a calming effect as well.

Even the tone that she used throughout the reading was evenly modulated and soothing.  She rarely ended her verses in questions, which I found to be especially interesting.  There were no questions in her methods.  She seemed so sure of herself and her words.  Confidence imparts meaning, I decided.  Or at least, it plays a big role in persuasion.  Estes was not forceful or loud when she spoke, but she never wavered.  She never hesitated either.  Although I didn’t understand all of her poems, I respected her confidence and it reached me.

I also respected her fearless use of metaphor and poetic language.  Often, I find myself confining my words and my sentences to things that make sense or sound like they ought to.  I do not use verbs that do not belong with certain nouns and I rarely use metaphors, because metaphors are statements that bring a concreteness to abstract connections.  I use similes a lot.  I am comfortable with saying that “this thing is like that thing…” but I rarely use metaphors that ascribe different meanings to things.

Some lines of brilliance that remained in my mind when the reading was over…

Whether it’s memory or loss

We’re in need of most: to remember

the way home or forget

who we are when we get there

as well as…

My question was the attention

I gave to them, and their response

was their beauty

and then some singletons that I enjoyed

Is Mona Lisa’s smile a smile or a simile?

and

The sun doesn’t disappear, the earth merely turns away

and

So many stars on the ipad of night

The last line about the ‘ipad of night’ was particularly striking to me, since it referred to a simulacra of the night sky that I was able to picture immediately.  Strange how renditions and facsimiles of things can replace the thing itself at the forefront of our consciousness.

Estes offered little commentary or introductions to her poems, but she did comment on how bizarre it is that her family makes it into her poems.  I identified with this as a writer and (sometimes) poet.  You cannot help this sometimes.  Your family is the first cast of characters that you are familiar with and that you hopefully grow attached to and use in your works.  Estes also commented that one of her books of poetry was written in the same town where they filmed the James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor film Giant (which is my personal favorite of Dean’s three credited films he made while he was alive).  Before she spoke a word of these poems, I found myself in the dry dust bowl of Texas, surprised and bewildered that I had found this kind of connection in an art form that most of the general public views as a nebulous, confusing play on words that does not relate to popular culture.  To my delight, Estes mentioned Elizabeth Taylor in one of her Texas poem.

At the end of the reading, I felt that Estes had definitely taken me to a place between the spaces of language.  She inspired me to consider the Bernini quote that people look most like themselves before and after they speak.  After her reading, I felt that people especially look most like themselves before and after reading poetry.  I felt that knew Angie Estes more than if she had given a political speech, a business presentation, or a scientific lecture.  I also felt that I should set my pen to poetry this summer.


Opera Splashes and Sparkles in ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’

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I went to the opening night of ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ and without reading about the libretto beforehand, I expected something that was stuffy, long-winded, and probably involved corsets or women dressed like this….

Boy was I wrong. What I saw on Thursday night more closely resembled this…

For those unfamiliar with the Greek mythology behind the Strauss opera, Ariadne was a human abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos, who spent her days bemoaning his loss and refusing all company except that of Death.

But contrary to my initial impression, this was not the only storyline.  In fact, it served more as a story within a story.

In the prologue of the play, two troupes (a dramatic opera cast and a burlesque show) prepare to entertain a duke and his guests.  However, amidst the hustle and bustle that comes before any performance, both troupes are informed that due to time constraints, they will no longer be performing one after another.  Instead, the duke demands that they combine their arts into one cohesive performance.

What results and forms the bulk of the opera, is the tragic tale of lonely Ariadne on the desert tale of Naxos who is greeted by the funny and flirtacious Zerbinetta and her fellow comedians, who show Ariadne how to pick herself up, dust herself off, and start all over again when the Greek God Bacchus shows up.

The set design closely resembled 1920s Art Deco, with simple, clean lines and flashy costumes.  Most of the men wore suits or tuxedos apart from the comedians, who donned bathing suits and flippers upon learning that they were going to a desert island.

Although every piece was eloquently executed (I was very impressed by the performer’s elocution with the German libretto) my favorite piece by far was Zerbinetta’s operatic version of ‘All the Single Ladies’ aka ‘Grossmachtige Prinzessin!’.  In this rendition, Zerbinetta wore a glimmering red flapper dress and sang about how every time a new ‘god’ comes along in her life, she is dumbstruck.  It wouldn’t be a burlesque show without a parade of tuxedo-ed men who each got their chance to dance with Zerbinetta before she changed her tune and moved on to the next one.  This number made me realize just well-trained opera singers are.  Apart from dancing and interacting with the other performers on stage, Zerbinetta made her laugh sound absolutely melodious, like a group of bells trilling underwater.

When I laugh, it either sounds like a horse or a dying moose.  But never like bells trilling underwater.

I left the performance feeling like I had gotten my money’s worth and to top it off, I was handed a pamphlet for one of the performer’s senior recitals coming up in Kerrytown.  This performance gave me every reason to see more great vocal performances and to continue my support for one of the oldest performing arts still in business.

Go opera!

Image credits: http://wodumedia.com/chicago-2002/catherine-zeta-jones-in-miramaxs-chicago-2002/ and http://www.music.umich.edu/ContainerBridge.php?path=%2Ffmi%2Fxml%2Fcnt%2Fdata.jpg%3F-db%3DRecital_Form%26amp%3B-lay%3DCOE_Fall_2008_Layout%26amp%3B-recid%3D7499%26amp%3B-field%3Dimage(1)