Today we had our final rehearsal at Our Children, and the kids are all ready for the show! Tomorrow we begin working on DTW's stage, with placements and lighting, etc. Let show week begin!
After practice with the kids today, I went straight to the Guggenheim Museum to see some modern art! I recognized Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral building as I crossed through Central Park and down "Museum Mile." I wish I could've taken pictures inside- there were plenty of pieces that I had reactions to, and the placards had some good things to say, too.
For example, there was one painting, "Glass" by Larionov, that caught my eye as something I connected with at a glance. I found it interesting that the words used to describe it were fragile, sharp, and transparent, and it made me consider how I relate to those words. The photo below doesn't do it justice- the colors are softer and warmer and the upper right is more green which is what really drew my eye. Until looking up this image, I never even saw the subjects, the glasses!
And Boccioni's futurist sculpture "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space" made me feel a sense of strong determination- especially as the sculpture is oriented so that it strides up the slope of the museum's spiral. I realize now reconsidering that piece that this is not usually what is emphasized in textbooks- the sculpture is normally simply taken as an example of how industrial progress affected artists. The feeling I got from seeing it in person is something that can't be gotten from a textbook; I walked around it and felt my own legs and feet against gravity and felt my own body leaning in the direction it moves. Although I moved down the spiral, I felt its drive and effort in moving up towards me. I got that physical reaction to a couple other more abstract pieces that made me straighten up, or lean with the curves of the image. It made me want to dance with art again like we did at the Harn!So many of the works were great to see in person to be able to have that rich reaction. There's nothing like the thick paint of VanGoh, or Degas' scribbles that add together in to another ballerina, and all of Kandinsky's works just aren't the same on Google images. There was one wall where I felt I had to look at one of them before I could properly see the other. There was also a blue Picasso that was also very interesting- a beautiful frail woman ironing with such a sense of weight that extends even to the heavy frame of the painting. And another that interested me was a surrealist painting where I felt that the whole setup hinged on a single differently-colored brick that, to me, held the clock up from falling directly down into a bottomless well on the ground. That much tension in potential for movement in just a spooky building- that's some good surrealism!
What I've learned through dance enabled me to have such a good time in
the museum. I found the audio guide unsatisfying, as I was able on my own to go to deeper levels of feeling and meaning than what it introduced. Taking the time to be with a piece, to find my own reaction and understand that better- this is important to me not only as a dancer and viewer of art, but as an aspiring counselor. I've begun learning to sit with discomfort, so when something strikes me as uncomfortable or I have an aversive reaction, before withdrawing I give it a moment and consider it again or why it struck me so. Today I found my honest reaction to some art in this way, even with those pieces that I wouldn't say I particularly "like" -I at least appreciate them. And for those that I did especially like, all the better.
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