Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Artistic Consumption Log, Nov. 28, 2011 - Dec. 4, 2011: 26th Birthday Edition

NEW YORK—Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, was my 26th birthday.

Yeah, that flatly declarative statement gives you an idea of how eventful my 26th birthday actually was. But that's okay; I'm putting off my official celebrating until Friday night, with a party in the works at a place in the East Village! Details, for those of you readers of this here blog who aren't on Facebook, are forthcoming (at least, if I feel like broadcasting them far and wide)...

Until then...there's this log—which, to be perfectly frank, I felt too lazy to annotate on Sunday on account of it being my birthday and all. So, for another week, at least, I'll leave this as a barebones thing.

By the way, for those who hadn't figured this out yet: For the still photos that usually precede these logs, I usually try to pick one from the work of art that impressed me most throughout the week. This past week, though, I found myself experiencing the most sheer awe at a program at the Park Avenue Armory of modern dance works conceived by Chinese choreographer Shen Wei and performed by his Shen Wei Dance Arts company. In this case, only a video, I felt, could hope to give you a sense of what I witnessed. Here below, then, are clips from Folding, a Buddhist-inflected work full of hypnotically slow movements, spare yet dizzying costume designs and a gradually enveloping sense of stillness. These selections don't come close to conveying a sense of the whole, but for now, at least, it's close enough:



Films

Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987, Eric Rohmer), seen at Film Forum in New York

Carnage (2011, Roman Polanski), seen at Sony Pictures Screening Room in New York

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese), seen at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas in New York

Possession (1981, Andrzej Zulawski), seen at Film Forum in New York

Music

Organix (1993, The Roots)
Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995, The Roots)

出塞曲 (1979, 蔡琴) [second listen]

Dance

Shen Wei Dance Arts, seen at Park Avenue Armory in New York

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