Oscar Wilde once wrote, “All art is useless, except that it is intensely admired”. If so, then what is the use of painting? Sculpting vases, panels or jewelry? What makes them so special that The Museum of Metropolitan Art would exert so much of their resources into obtaining almost over 150 pieces for an exhibit?

The answer lies quite simply in the title of the exhibit. “Love and Romance in Renaissance Italy. All these objects were created as everlasting symbols of status, piety and love. As I trembled in the slightly chilly marble hall where most of the exhibit was housed I could not help but embrace how aptly titled it was.

  The painting of a beautiful woman probably commissioned by a doting husband stared across a blue and white ceramic vase. Celestial cherubs and gods like Venus, commissioned by those who tried in every way to be closer to God were recurring motifs. It is difficult not to generalize or to be overly sentimental in analyzing Renaissance art because the artists themselves deliberately exaggerated the subjects. Immense oil paintings of partially nude women of impressive proportions gazed the viewer out of countenance. This was considered beauty! Past tense is used because standards of what stands for love or beauty has drastically changed in a society that is so insecure.

            Historically, the High Italian Renaissance was a period where the pursuit of perfection was channeled through the skill of artists and their craft. Looking at their preindustrial era surroundings they saw potential for beauty and divinity reminiscent of the grandeur that was Rome. One such man was Fra Fillipo Lippi. He was a painter and monk. I recognized his style instantly as I my eyes skipped across the room. He specialized in profile paintings of Italian nobility and mostly couples as seen in the painting “Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement”. In his pursuit of idealization he focuses on the details of an elaborate headpiece and dress rather than the woman that wore it. Her exaggeratedly high forehead, lack of eyebrows, and wan pallor though disconcerting the viewer was considered beauty. On her right arm he wrote the word “Leal” in Italian. Understandably to further emphasize her perfection as a loyal wife. Lorenzo Lotto also undertook to paint in this time and his portayal of “Venus and Cupid” is awe inspiring. Venus as the godess of beauty reposed and completely at ease with cupid at her feet gives and indescribable sense of serenity and peace. This was art and love in renaissance Italy.

This romantic idealization went beyond the human form. In the artist’s eyes and in my minds eye it transcended into human nature itself.

“Les Ecailles De La Memoire”, better understood as “The Scales of Memory” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, better known as “BAM”, was a disconcerting piece of African interpretive dance.

An enviably muscular dancer in her late twenties wearing an turban oddly reminiscent of an onion proclaimed “Je suis Creole!” to start off the night. “Ben, Je le crois!” I murmured back to her half jokingly, half in earnest. Loosely translated in English she said she was Creole, and  I said I believed her. Swelling slighty with a strong sense of self satisfaction I reflected on my French. It is a strong point I am rather proud of.

Yet there is little room to be irreverent or cheeky when it comes to the forehead creasing issues of African history that danced before our eyes at this performance. Featuring seven Urban Bush Women and seven men of the Senegalise compagnie Janti-Bi respectively, it was a mixture of interpretive dance, historical retrospection, and yes a bit of romance for entertainments sake.  A company collaboration between leaders of African interpretive dance Jawole Willa Joe Zollar and Germain Acogny proved nothing short of visual and moral punch in the face.

There was no clear story line or narration but later we learned from our programs that it was meant to reflect the social and geographic journey of African Americans. It spanned the time of freedom, diaspora, slavery and the general cultural diffusion of the race. The Senegalese men flexed their ripped limbs in crouching positions all the while uttering shiver inducing guttural grunts. Their physical antics were undestandibly difficult and thus appreciated but it did not address clearly its purpose in the play.

One moment in particular where I felt befuddled was when five dancers were positioned separately so as to fit the points of a five point star and they all proceeded to execute steps deserving of a solo performance.  Audience members winced as one member of Janti-Bi proceeded to beat his bare back with a long wooden rod. It was taken to be a reflection of the abuse and hardships African Americans went through in slavery. Elevated on platforms of different levels these numbers were really an overdone visual assault.

There was too much matter and not enough art. The actual number of the dancers detracted from the attention to their execution of dance steps. Women were separated and distinguishable from the men with billowing robes of various rosy hues.  The men, in togas of varying cuts made a comical picture as they strenuously danced their way into couples. After all the hardships that they suffered they still were connected by their culture and dancing chops. In one mellow moment the couples relaxed the difficulty of their steps and just swayed along to a soft drumbeat, like the padding of feet on a bare floor.

Considering and conceding all the drama, pain, confusion of the African experience, The Scales of Memory left us oddly at peace and curiously looking to the future. Of course the future could be choreographed by Ms. Zollar and Mr. Acogny or we could write it ourselves.

Performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Urban Bush women displayed African American culture and traditions as well as the struggle that came with African Diaspora, migration of Africans to America and later on to the world, through expressive dance performances. For many members of the audience like me, it was difficult to understand the story of the dance performance.  Only in the end did I realize that there was no plot. Without sufficient introduction in the beginning of the performance, Urban Bush women confused its audience.

Instead of focusing on the theme of the performance, I decided to look at the dancers, persuading myself that it was not as dull as it seemed. Penetrating on the struggle of many Africans, the facial expression of the dancers matched the tension of African descendants, battling to accept the heritage and adjust to the new culture. For the most part of the performance, individual performances weren’t as fluent as group performances. The female dancers were often times too dramatic in their interpretations of the meaning of tension. To show internal conflict, the female dancer did not have to show the contortion of arms and wild movements.

Though I felt I was exposed to a different genre of dancing performance, the Urban Bush Women did not affect me. I would recommend the dance performance to people who wanted to see the dance techniques. But the theme of the performance was no where to be found.

In the world we live today, we often ignore what is surrounding us, even if it’s free of charge. I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Art and Love in the Italian Renaissance, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though the Renaissance occurred hundreds of years ago, the values of marriage and family were preserved through the paintings and jewelries at the exhibition. Though I had limited knowledge of the culture during that time period, the exhibition guided me to learn the culture not from words but with my own eyes.

From the Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement, painted by Fra Filippo Lippi, I noticed a common trend among all the paintings. They were not only about the artificial life of the upper class; instead the Italian Renaissance focused on the private life as well the customs of marriage. The portrait of a couple was one of the earliest surviving double portraits, and it emphasized the details of the  clothing of the newlyweds as well as the element of the unknown.  The woman was covered in gold accessories, with the word loyalty placed on her flowing drapery.  Contrasted to the clear usage of the clothing to symbolize the importance of marriage, the portrait left many questions that continued to puzzle me. While the painter placed the woman in the middle of the portrait, he intentionally placed the man in the left corner, with his head sticking out of the window. Though I did not what the painter intended to achieve by placing the woman in the middle, I believed that it represented the fidelity of the wife to the husband. With the wife occupying more space than the husband, I believed that the painter was trying to show that the husband, on the contrary, was unfaithful to the wife. While the wife looked at the husband, he looked away at something else.

With keen observation, I found the paintings at the exhibition to be engaging. For most of my time at the exhibition, I focused on a few paintings and tried to interpret the real essence behind them. I think what makes history special is that we can always have a different interpretation on of it.

Going through Susan Meiselas’s work at the International Center of Photography (ICP) was truly breathtaking. Never before have I been exposed to such “in your face” photography. I was taken back with one of her works, her Carnival Strippers project, but Meiselas’s other piece about the political revolutions down in Central America did more than tell a story, her photos put the viewer in the story.

Susan Meiselas is a very well educated woman, having earned her masters degree in visual education at Harvard University. Her first major work which essentially introduced her to the world, was her Carnival Strippers project mentioned before. In this project, she focused on the lives of strippers at fairs across the New England area. Her work offered a new vantage point of strippers, making it out to be something revolutionary. Meiselas was both straight forward and not withholding with her photography style – she is up close and personal. This style of hers carried over to her future works as well. In her documentary of Kurdistan, Meiselas took pictures of burning cars, deeply dug graves riddled with bodies, and a slew of other revealing photographs. Meiselas covered the Nicaraguan insurrection as well. Not only did she do photo-journalism, she helped direct two films that were integral to her journalistic agenda, “Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family” and “Pictures from a Revolution.”

Susan Meiselas is known throughout the world, having had exhibitions in countries as far as Japan and France. She is also the recipient of many honoraries, such as the Engelman Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art. Meiselas helped shed light on various global issues, and as a freelance photographer for the prestigious Magnum, she continues to do so.

Scene from "Waltz with Bashir"

WOOF! WOOF! And the dogs race towards you screaming; the men are quietly debating what happened during their time as Lebanon War soldiers. BANGBANGBANG! And the mortars are roaring while the guns spew death; the men are quietly debating what happened. I look at the screen and a spastic storyteller comes to mind. This erratic movie caught me entirely off guard with its different spasms of sound and visuals.

This Waltz follows the path of a Lebanon war vet trying to recover his memories of the war many years later. The war vet is actually the director, Ali Folman, himself. Scenes are animated in this production, and it adds a certain depth to it that cannot be obtained otherwise. You could do things in an animated movie that would be quite out of place in a real life movie 0 the “waltz” for which this movie is named comes to mind. There is something peculiar about watching a soldier dodge bullets and shotting enemies all while dancing. Shoot. Dance. Dodge. Shoot. Dodge. Dance.

The refugee massacre that shocked the world decades ago again makes an appearance that shakes up the atmosphere. The streets are paved in red. The walls are paved in red. My eyes are paved in red. Bashir withholds nothing from the war or from the audience. However, in the midst of telling a solemn war story, Folman opts to introduce some indecency. Watching an animated plumber have sex with a client is not my cup of tea.

Blocky animation and mesmerizing music coupled with an intriguing war story gives Bashir a good edge over other contemporary documentaries.

Dr. Atomic

What a dud. If you are going to watch Dr. Atomic, do so because you have an interest in the Manhattan Project; do not watch Dr. Atomic because you had the notion that the visuals were going to blow you away. Yes, certain theatre visual aids were eye opening, like the portrait based cubicle set, but the ending was far too disappointing to justify the hype that is built up leading to the A-bomb explosion.

I can not identify Dr. Atomic’s saving grace, mostly because it has none. The libretto put me to sleep – I missed a quarter of the first act. I am not belittling the history behind the libretto, don’t misunderstand me, but the appeal this piece put forth was inadequate. Much of Oppenheimer’s private life was dragged on. Not until the end of the second act did my interest perk up – it was A-bomb testing time. Even then, the libretto held no fascination to me. A sincere interest in the Project will be your caffeine for the evening.

In addition, much of the singing was very flat. My ears did not agree with John Adam’s vision. His compilation spanned the course of three hours – it was three hours of singing that went all over the place; there was no drama in the music, no “umph” whatsoever. Sound effects were supposed to make up for the three hours, and that too, fell short. My ears were hit at the end with a tremendously loud hum that I associated with the atomic bomb. And that was it. I expected something more from the explosion, like a real explosion for example. Loud humming thrown in with a flash consisted of the A-bomb. What a dud, really.

Being able to hear exactly what the singers were saying while sitting in the back is no easy feat; enunciation was surperb, the singing was not. Going to the opera because of great enunciation is not a good reason unfortunately.

In Conflict

If emotion had color, the stage would’ve looked like a rainbow throughout the show; the audience would’ve been a sea of all different hues. Director Douglas Wager turns Yvonne Latty’s book of inteviews with Iraq War vets into something that truly touches the heart.

The on stage production does not vary from its textual counterpart, but Wager throws in some tidbits of what I would like to call, war movie scenes. March! Salute! Wheel the armchair around the stage! These were fine additions to a even finer story. Latty finds and interviews members of the National Guard, the Navy, and the Army; each member speak of their experiences over on the other side of the Atlantic. Most suffer from postwar trauma. The actors on stage protray each and every soldier with flawless ability, from facial expressions to tone of voice. The details, things like “chopping the legs off” of wheelchair bound soldiers, and the movie clips meant to support the stage play invigorate and highlight the pangs of the story being told. The story in itself is not Disney material – there is no happily ever after ending. The interviewees elaborate on the stories we read or hear about how soldiers lose their limbs, their lives, and even their souls over in Iraq.

The night I was there, in a talkback offered at the end of the play, Yvonne mentioned how she tried to keep balance in the book in terms of how each soldier felt about the war. Am I pro-Iraq? Was I pro-Iraq? Very intimate questions in the time of war, especially for the soldiers. Despite this effort, the play comes off very strongly as anti-war. The things you see and hear on stage have no choice but to rob you of all your support for the war (assuming you had some to start with) – the baby crushed by a squad of tanks makes it so.

The hammer missed the nail a bit on this one. Irena’s Vow does showcase a solid performance, but the portrayal of the characters as featured in the original play script is far from perfect. If you are the type of person who reads the book before watching the production, you might find yourself staring at an unfamiliar Irena, or maybe a new variant of the Major.

This play focuses on Irena, a woman who lives through World War II in German occupied Poland. The story is very intricate – there are plenty of subtleties that keep the mind awake and interested. Irena must risk her own life to save that of twelve others; she hides twelve Jews in the house of one of Germany’s most important army officials. While the script presented the reader with bits of dark realistic humor, the transition to stage turned that foreboding “comedy” into something more light and negligible. I must have chuckled quite a bit throughout the course of the play – something I really wouldn’t want to do when it comes to the Holocaust. Reading the manuscript gave me goosebumps, and not the good kind. The change in atmosphere this “Irena blooper” presents strays too far from the feelings invoked while reading the original manuscipt.

Putting the intentions of the author aside, what we get from four time Tony Award nominee Tovah Feldsuh is a heartfelt performance that keeps the heart aching for more. The story of Irena Opdyke is truly brought to life on stage. Alongside a decent supporting cast, Irena’s Vow delivers the story, but falls short in portraying the characters.

South Pacific

Put together a dish of Tony Award nominees/recipients and a deeply moving drama with an exhilarating musical score on the side for a five star meal you won’t forget – South Pacific. First performed half a century ago, Rodgers & Hammerstein puts this exotic beauty back on stage as a Broadway musical with a re-invigorated passion.

South Pacific explores and challenges many cultural views of Western society during the 1940s, namely the abhorrence of romance with Eastern natives. Forbidden love outlines this story’s drama; impulse fills it. As the story is set in the times of the second Great War, we also get a nice insight into the lives of American soldiers who were fighting the Japs amidst an unknown territory. The soldiers provide jokes and other comical debriefs that cast the musical in a more cheery mood, despite the nature of the drama being told.

With South Pacific, there is something else besides music to appreciate. It’s like eating a slice of cheesecake, only to find a layer of sweet, chocolate filling in the middle. You hear the music and you watch the comedy, and you think to yourself, “It’s damn good.” But then, you discover that there is a message the play is trying to convey, something explicitly woven into the long dialogues of the protagonists, that sweet chocolate filling, and you think to yourself, “It’s better than damn good.”