3 muddled thoughts

Some things I have been thinking about...

1. I am still reflecting on the two movement pieces we have seen, Allee Der Kosmonauten and Foreign Body. Truthfully I enjoyed Foreign Body A LOT; I enjoyed meeting the performer afterwards, I thought the music and lighting had a perfect balance, and I was really captivated by the topic of the transgender body. I haven’t had much experience attending movement pieces prior, even though I am a dancer. I am currently member of Rutgers Performing Dance Company and I have been dancing for 15+ years at my own local studios. I have plenty of experience at dance shows, but I feel as though even in my limited experience in movement, I think it differs greatly. Essentially I feel that I am struggling to allow myself to differentiate the two art forms of movement and dance. After attending both of those shows, I seemed to be comparing it to the broad genre of dance. As an audience member I was occupied by waiting for a moment in performance where I no longer felt that void. In my head I will  think “wow that could’ve been so cool if they just did this... or that...” Dance is used for intention of enjoyment for the dancer as well as intention of enjoyment for the audience. This has been my own internal struggle that I simply wanted to share :)
2. After Liberté, Christopher was posing the question along the lines of ‘at what point can we distinguish theater being different, and when does it just become bad’. To me I knew the show was going south when the bizarre hedge came out, but I’m struggling to pinpoint the reason why that bothered me. Musically inclined or not, the moment of when the lady ‘sang’ from the balcony was even more bizarre. Back to my dance point of view, you can experience choreography or movement which is different from the usual styles of contemporary, lyrical, jazz etc but have it still make sense... but you can also tell when it’s bad if an attempted style lacks technique. I think that there is a clear line that can be crossed that transitions unique dancing to bad dancing. My dance company used to dance on pointe shoes to Michael Jackson music. Ballet to pop music may sound like a nightmare, but rather I would argue that it was just different!  When we see something challenging, we are also able to recognize that something good is occurring. But we can also see something challenging and “different” but we able able to tell that it is just simply bad. I don’t think I’ll ever have an answer and maybe there isn’t one. I would love to hear all of your thoughts… (how are you able to tell if acting is different vs bad, can you easily tell if a set is unique or if it’s bad etc.)
3. I am really impressed by the use of film here in Berlin. The show we saw tonight, Im Herzen Der Gewalt, used the video cameras in live time which created SO MUCH emphasis! When the actor in the pink sweater was hiding behind the wall, which was really just his face aside a sheet of paper, I am pretty sure my jaw dropped. It was beautiful. Most of the video on screen could have been pre recorded, for example the tapes of them collecting the fingerprints on the ground. But by doing it live I felt that I was at a one of a kind show. Nobody who goes to see that show will ever have the same experience. (Granted that’s true all the time because each show a performance can shift due to lines, timing etc but you get the point haha). Also, during Shakespeare’s Last Play when they used the screen to present the actors locations which moved around I was very impressed. I have not seen theater like that in America.