Arts Review - including TANGO!
So, last Saturday as most of you know, raayat and I went to the Beginner's Intensive Tango (Argentino, not Ballroom - evidently there are bitter differences between the two styles) class at my gym, and had a fabulous time. 4.5 hours of Tango loveliness. We learned the Salina ("basic" 8 step pattern), forward ochos (figure 8 step - and omg so much fun) and backward ochos. The backward ochos took a bit for me to figure out the best way to shift my weight, but after a few practice rounds, it got much easier. raayat really enjoyed it as well, and was starting to have quite a bit of fun playing with different ways to emphasise beat and rhythms, and also keeping me on my toes, figuratively, as well as literally! I think he really likes the whole leading business. In fact, he liked it so much, he's up for the Recent Beginners' class this coming Saturday as well. The instructor said after about 3 or 4 recent beginners' classes we should be good enough to go on to the Intermediate class and the open dance evening on Sundays. Bonus - I hear tell that London has quite the active tango "scene", so maybe in a few months we can go out to some clubs and tango our little hearts out. There is so much to learn though, that this should keep us pretty busy for a while. Yay!!!
Anyway, this week we also went to the Valazquez exhibit at the National Gallery. Interesting show, but to be honest, I didn't care for many of the court portraits on display (and this was the bulk of the show). I get the impression, that if you "know" this artists' work, then the exhibit was suppost to just be a total joy. Not being that familiar, most of the jargon went straight over our heads. I also think it was detrimental to compare him back to Carravagio, at least in terms of what was on display here, because I was not seeing a whole lot of similarity or even break-through concepts. I did really like some of his early religious painting, where you saw major scenes in the life of Christ in the background, while the main focus of the picture was quite mundane - good example: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. Stylej-wise, very simple, but the message and moral dilemma is really quite profound. Could have done with more of that. The few really striking pictures that were on show, were absolutely amazing. So, yes, more character studies, fewer dull court portraits would have done the trick.
Sunday we'll probably go see the map exhibit at the British Library, and then next week, we have tickets to Anthony and Cleopatra with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Patrick Stewart as Anthony.
And now to clear the back-log of things we did before Christmas: Stop me if you've read any of these reviews before. . .
Faust by Punchdrunk
A really amazing concept - basically, they broke the storyline apart and ran the various scenes simultaneously spread out over a 4 story warehouse. All "audience members" had to wear masks so that you could tell them apart from the cast. Otherwise, you were free to interact with the stage environment as much as possible. Absolutely fascinating, and I really wanted to enjoy it (alteredhistory, freznor & raayat did very much), but I never found any of the scenes! I wandered around in the damn cold warehouse for over two hours and the only scenes I ever saw were the beginning ones, once they moved on I lost them or went the wrong way and staff members would lead me back where I started!! Very frustrating. I only caught the last performance of the last scene (they did three "rounds" of the show in an evening, because raayat came to fetch me from the bar, where I had taken refuge with a glass of wine. What I did manage to see though was spectacular. *shame* I'm still upset about it.
Later that week (during alteredhistory, freznor's visit), we went to see Blue Man Group finally for a matinee performance, rather spur of the moment. They played with a few concepts I thought were cool and could have delved into them much deeper, I thought. Otherwise, quite a lot of fun, and good for a low stress evening/afternoon out. Don't pay full price though. It's not that good.
The play/musical (because it really is halfway in between) Rock n Roll by Tom Stoppard. Set in the Czech republic starting in the 1960s through to the present day, it tracks the experiences of one wayaward philosophy student/rock n'roll music lover through the various political changes. They did an amazing job of weaving in music from the period and it touched upon a lot of really prescient themes. There were moments though where it felt more like a string of monologues rather than having true dialogue, and a few scenes felt cut-off. Other than that it was truly excellent, and I was quite glad to see that it's nominated for several Laurence Oliver Awards (UK version of the Tony's).
I'm pretty sure we saw an opera during this period as well - and maybe even another play, but that will have to wait until I get home to remember what they were and put up reviews - Jenufa, maybe?
Anyway, this week we also went to the Valazquez exhibit at the National Gallery. Interesting show, but to be honest, I didn't care for many of the court portraits on display (and this was the bulk of the show). I get the impression, that if you "know" this artists' work, then the exhibit was suppost to just be a total joy. Not being that familiar, most of the jargon went straight over our heads. I also think it was detrimental to compare him back to Carravagio, at least in terms of what was on display here, because I was not seeing a whole lot of similarity or even break-through concepts. I did really like some of his early religious painting, where you saw major scenes in the life of Christ in the background, while the main focus of the picture was quite mundane - good example: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. Stylej-wise, very simple, but the message and moral dilemma is really quite profound. Could have done with more of that. The few really striking pictures that were on show, were absolutely amazing. So, yes, more character studies, fewer dull court portraits would have done the trick.
Sunday we'll probably go see the map exhibit at the British Library, and then next week, we have tickets to Anthony and Cleopatra with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Patrick Stewart as Anthony.
And now to clear the back-log of things we did before Christmas: Stop me if you've read any of these reviews before. . .
Faust by Punchdrunk
A really amazing concept - basically, they broke the storyline apart and ran the various scenes simultaneously spread out over a 4 story warehouse. All "audience members" had to wear masks so that you could tell them apart from the cast. Otherwise, you were free to interact with the stage environment as much as possible. Absolutely fascinating, and I really wanted to enjoy it (alteredhistory, freznor & raayat did very much), but I never found any of the scenes! I wandered around in the damn cold warehouse for over two hours and the only scenes I ever saw were the beginning ones, once they moved on I lost them or went the wrong way and staff members would lead me back where I started!! Very frustrating. I only caught the last performance of the last scene (they did three "rounds" of the show in an evening, because raayat came to fetch me from the bar, where I had taken refuge with a glass of wine. What I did manage to see though was spectacular. *shame* I'm still upset about it.
Later that week (during alteredhistory, freznor's visit), we went to see Blue Man Group finally for a matinee performance, rather spur of the moment. They played with a few concepts I thought were cool and could have delved into them much deeper, I thought. Otherwise, quite a lot of fun, and good for a low stress evening/afternoon out. Don't pay full price though. It's not that good.
The play/musical (because it really is halfway in between) Rock n Roll by Tom Stoppard. Set in the Czech republic starting in the 1960s through to the present day, it tracks the experiences of one wayaward philosophy student/rock n'roll music lover through the various political changes. They did an amazing job of weaving in music from the period and it touched upon a lot of really prescient themes. There were moments though where it felt more like a string of monologues rather than having true dialogue, and a few scenes felt cut-off. Other than that it was truly excellent, and I was quite glad to see that it's nominated for several Laurence Oliver Awards (UK version of the Tony's).
I'm pretty sure we saw an opera during this period as well - and maybe even another play, but that will have to wait until I get home to remember what they were and put up reviews - Jenufa, maybe?