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Theater genes — 11 Comments

  1. We live in a decadent age indeed if patience is required for something lasting less than a minute. There are still wonders being produced, though. That will continue to be until the next Dark Age, most probably.

  2. After misunderstanding your comments on the French Impressionist (or whatever style) painting, months ago, your few-word picture of Leonard Cohen was so apt, and Cohen so enjoyable, that I quickly followed this link to the dancers, wondering what else I had missed — while surviving the ’70s — that your much younger generation has created, or now values.

    Correction: not all your generation, rather those who became neocons, i.e., pre-’65-liberal types who are willing to choose better over worse, and even join the military to fight for it, however confused the engagement.

    P.S. The videos indeed are limited renditions, hinting at the excitement of being in the theater.

  3. Wish I were in NYC to see this….it sounds and looks to be right up my alley. I just rejoined BAM this weekend and love every opportunity to go there. Thanks for posting on this….

  4. After the show: amazing physical prowess nonwithstanding, ther still must be some sense in what’s going on on the stage. Slapstick and mime tricks are vulgar, but at least they mean something comprehensive; increasingly long technically difficult antics of a “child” (excellently played by a Japanese dancer) don’t. I lost any, however scetchy, understanding of what the director tried to express somewhere in the middle of the performance.

    A very undercooked show.

  5. Tatyana: Sorry you didn’t like it too much. For me, from the start, I didn’t think the director wanted to express much of anything in terms of plot or message—other than a sort of visual and kinesthetic magic. So I suspended any attempt at getting much of a meaning out of it, and that didn’t bother me at all.

    That Japanese dancer was something else, though, wasn’t she? Amazing.

  6. I can’t say in all certainty that I didn’t like the performance. But I’d appreciate some editing done in some places and some expanding/clarification – in others. On meaning: it’s not like I need some resemblance of plot, but clarity in expressed emotion would be good to see. Few examples – the whole “hiding in the ropes->looking for past love” thing was clear enough, as well as the final badmington scetch; the ice pond scene wasn’t. It didn’t help, also, when the whole play with dried grasses’ thing deteriorated into a grotesque “duel” – something real, interesting and profound was discounted by actors themselves, more pity.

    The whole genre (aesop’s language in art form) is not something new, especially for post-Soviets; there is a long interesting tradition, especially in Georgian cinema, of fables seemingly devoid of meaning, which in reality are full of witty observations/generalities. One example of film like that is cultish Kin-Dza-dza by Danelia. I don’t know if it’s available with English subtitles, but even without it, the film is clear enough.

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