Valentine's Day
I never mentioned what I did on Valentine's Day. Christian was out of town traveling, and I had won tickets to a dance performance at UConn. So sweetorsavory joined me for the performance. We saw Motionhouse, doing their performance, Scattered. Perhaps you can tell from the unimaginative title that the performance didn't have a very well-thought theme. The announcer at the start of the show said that the performance was about our interactions with water, in all its forms. Okay, whatever. So we get ice, and water, and vapor, and snow, and absence of water (does that count?). The dancers were very talented and I liked their movement. However, the performance involved an infinity screen, which is basically this large curved screen onto which they projected video. The video was shockingly unimpressive -- it looked like something a high schooler can come up with using Flash. Perhaps that amateur quality contributed to my displeasure, but I really felt like the screen didn't add much. The dancers could run up the screen and pretend to dive into the background, because it gave an illusion of depth. Though once the dancers did that a couple of times, it lost its novelty. Beyond these tricks, there wasn't much purpose to the screen other than providing a scaffolding so the dancers could be on two levels and to signal the acts changing. Ironically, some of the more memorable "effects" came from such lo-tech props as giant sheets of thin fabric.
Three scenes in the performance stood out to me:
1) the men dangling in front of a waterfall and a woman walking across the tops of their stiffly outstretched feet.
2) the cricket/lizard dance -- the dancers evoked the awkward poses and frantic starts and pauses of these animals so well
3) the gargling symphony, which was absurdly hilarious and physically quite amazing.
But overall, it was a fairly forgettable show and it's no surprise that the theater was not too full.
While waiting for the performance, and then after it ended, we talked with the older gay couple sitting in the row before us. They heard us talking about math and commented how it sounded like a foreign language. One of them was actually quite curious at a unique opportunity to learn something and I tried to explain some stuff to him, but I completely flubbed the Liar's Paradox. I guess I hadn't seen it in a while. It was pretty embarrassing.
Afterward, Johanna and I went to an Indian restaurant that she recommended. I was happy to finally get some really spicy Indian food -- our good Indian restaurant in New Haven is a little too cautious. It was very tasty. I'd definitely go back again (something to consider next time there's a talk at UConn?) We talked for a long time about life, academia, and all sorts of other topics. It had a great time and felt bad it had to end, but I still had to teach the next morning.
Three scenes in the performance stood out to me:
1) the men dangling in front of a waterfall and a woman walking across the tops of their stiffly outstretched feet.
2) the cricket/lizard dance -- the dancers evoked the awkward poses and frantic starts and pauses of these animals so well
3) the gargling symphony, which was absurdly hilarious and physically quite amazing.
But overall, it was a fairly forgettable show and it's no surprise that the theater was not too full.
While waiting for the performance, and then after it ended, we talked with the older gay couple sitting in the row before us. They heard us talking about math and commented how it sounded like a foreign language. One of them was actually quite curious at a unique opportunity to learn something and I tried to explain some stuff to him, but I completely flubbed the Liar's Paradox. I guess I hadn't seen it in a while. It was pretty embarrassing.
Afterward, Johanna and I went to an Indian restaurant that she recommended. I was happy to finally get some really spicy Indian food -- our good Indian restaurant in New Haven is a little too cautious. It was very tasty. I'd definitely go back again (something to consider next time there's a talk at UConn?) We talked for a long time about life, academia, and all sorts of other topics. It had a great time and felt bad it had to end, but I still had to teach the next morning.