I am sure this isn't about Bill Frisell. Somewhere I obviously missed the boat - this was to have been a great concert in an intimate hall by an extremely talented and popular guitarist who jumps genres like I switch to decaf after 1pm.
Clearly this can't be about Bill Frisell.
But somewhere within the first 4 and one half minutes I was really clear that attending had possibly massive error in judgement. Dragging my friend along because he loves guitar and paying too much money for tickets was looking like it had been a mistake, one that we were both going to have to pay for.
Onstage were Bill Frisell and a drummer and a violinist. I almost never go by appearances - I let the music tell me about the musician. But as I became less and less interested in the repetitive phrases they were playing over and over - really way past any hope of figuring out WHY (they only had 3 or 4 notes these phrases, it didn't seem too complex) past all caring as to why we would be listening to those phrases for 10 minutes at a time, over and over at some point i saw another face as puzzled and pained as I felt and I thought see? I'm not alone - not everyone is understanding this hellish torture when I realized I was looking into the face of the man playing the violin.
The attention in the room from the almost sold out crowd was, to put it mildly, rapt. They were all getting messages from their inner planetary sensors. It looked like several of them were hearing the trumpets of the rapture while I was listening to a demented chorus of Frere Jacques.
Bill, who said that they had a hell of a time getting to the concert, had a large panel at his feet. Some of the buttons on the panel were actually pedals and he pressed them with his foot. Once for on, two for off, and three times for what the hell. Imagine my confusion as none of them seemed to actually change the sound of the notes.
He was extremely focused on them. And then there were the switches. And dials. Hell there might have been nipples and clitori down there for all the attention he paid to them. Those things he had to adjust with his hand, which meant he had to bend over. I've seen guitarists do this before. I've not seen them do it for every motherloving note they played. For the love of all that is holy, Bill is not a youngster. In fact he is my age, which is none of your business but it ain't young. And since I am a dependably lapsing co-dependent, between all the tapping and bending and poking and prodding and the strain of playing the same notes over and over again, I was pretty sure Bill was on his way to some sort of fit. In fact his mouth was contorted into a sick grimace at one point, or that is what I thought until I realised he was smiling.
At one point, by some magically arranged signal, all of the instruments stopped playing at once.
The rapt audience came unwrapped and let loose - they LOVED it. They worshipped Bill Frisell and his 3 notes.
This is why I am sure that the problem was not Bill Frisell.
So at the next pause, in what sounded to me like a deconstructed ode to 3 Blind Mice, I got my ignant self outta there.
It wasn't Bill Frisell. What it was, I have no idea.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Generosity
One of the best acting teachers I ever had once said "The true generosity of an actor is not to give. It is to receive."
I am watching the Paul Taylor dance troupe on TV. The dancers in his "Brandenburgs" have great power and flexibility but with Bach's structured music and the slightly old fashioned movements they seem somewhat fake and unreal at first. Huge smiles on their faces tho as they push themselves through space to perfection.
The cast is mostly male with 3 women. One of the men is the lead dancer. The women are dancing by themselves but when he enters he instantly becomes the focus of all three. I almost turn it off - I have done this particular dance my whole life. I know that fixed smile, that push to be perfect, to compete against other women when the special man enters the room.
To continue watching I need a metaphor that isn't so personal, so I make the women birds or flowers and the gorgeous blond man the sun. Now their movement takes on a different cast, instead of flirting or basking in attention one after the other they are simply feeling the beauty of the sun's warmth and brightness and it is bringing them to life.
I think about a dance concert I went to a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was dancing - on a very small stage in a very small room with about 20 other dancers. The audience wasn't more than 100 people. It was extremely intimate.
C., my friend, is a professional dancer. I have a bit of understanding of what that means in terms of dedication and discipline and I am proud to know her.
As she dances I cannot take my eyes off of her. I keep checking to see if there is a special effect in the lights - some small blocking or costuming effect that draws the eye. But it is her movement - clear in intention, rooted and grounded low in the body. Others are emoting as they dance, she is simply being. I catch her looking at the other dancers - searching them for the inspiration for her next step.
Receiving it, she lets it run through her body and come out as a shape or a step or a leap. The reason I keep looking at C is because she is alive and living up there even though they are all moving.
To learn a dance you work for a time without the music - a fact I was very surprised to learn. Instead, it is the rhythm, the beat and the steps you must learn. "Step step step together and TURN! When it is memorized by the body, eventually the words fall away and the movement makes its own sense. At those rehearsals, the only accompaniment is a clapping hand and the slapping feet as they hit the floor, or the involuntary grunts and breath of a number of dancers moving even at a dead stop. The music is not the message.
So in performance there is only what there was in rehearsal - your body, your partners and your audience. The dancers are delivering their bodies, their hearts with every step, their intention and their thrust, all the energy they have.
Accepting, receiving that inspiration is what makes the light shine on C. Not for her the words in the back of her head left over from rehearsal: "right left right back back back". Instead she has learned those movements like an actor learns their lines, ready now to say them in a heightened reality - to live them newly here and now.
Actors listen for their cue for technical reasons - but they listen to the words for emotional ones. He interrupts, I am cut off but I receive the message - desperation? warning? anger? and I let that fuel me - move inside me - as I say my next line.
And so with C. as she moves around the floor - she is looking for her cues - taking them in and letting them change everything in that moment except for the steps.
Back in my apartment I turn from the dancers and notice the color of the sky is pearlescent blue and the sun is about to set. I lean back and take it in - a gorgeous light show. The energy spurs an impulse to write about the dancers. To be generous by receiving the beauty and to feel it tell me how to move.
I am watching the Paul Taylor dance troupe on TV. The dancers in his "Brandenburgs" have great power and flexibility but with Bach's structured music and the slightly old fashioned movements they seem somewhat fake and unreal at first. Huge smiles on their faces tho as they push themselves through space to perfection.
The cast is mostly male with 3 women. One of the men is the lead dancer. The women are dancing by themselves but when he enters he instantly becomes the focus of all three. I almost turn it off - I have done this particular dance my whole life. I know that fixed smile, that push to be perfect, to compete against other women when the special man enters the room.
To continue watching I need a metaphor that isn't so personal, so I make the women birds or flowers and the gorgeous blond man the sun. Now their movement takes on a different cast, instead of flirting or basking in attention one after the other they are simply feeling the beauty of the sun's warmth and brightness and it is bringing them to life.
I think about a dance concert I went to a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was dancing - on a very small stage in a very small room with about 20 other dancers. The audience wasn't more than 100 people. It was extremely intimate.
C., my friend, is a professional dancer. I have a bit of understanding of what that means in terms of dedication and discipline and I am proud to know her.
As she dances I cannot take my eyes off of her. I keep checking to see if there is a special effect in the lights - some small blocking or costuming effect that draws the eye. But it is her movement - clear in intention, rooted and grounded low in the body. Others are emoting as they dance, she is simply being. I catch her looking at the other dancers - searching them for the inspiration for her next step.
Receiving it, she lets it run through her body and come out as a shape or a step or a leap. The reason I keep looking at C is because she is alive and living up there even though they are all moving.
To learn a dance you work for a time without the music - a fact I was very surprised to learn. Instead, it is the rhythm, the beat and the steps you must learn. "Step step step together and TURN! When it is memorized by the body, eventually the words fall away and the movement makes its own sense. At those rehearsals, the only accompaniment is a clapping hand and the slapping feet as they hit the floor, or the involuntary grunts and breath of a number of dancers moving even at a dead stop. The music is not the message.
So in performance there is only what there was in rehearsal - your body, your partners and your audience. The dancers are delivering their bodies, their hearts with every step, their intention and their thrust, all the energy they have.
Accepting, receiving that inspiration is what makes the light shine on C. Not for her the words in the back of her head left over from rehearsal: "right left right back back back". Instead she has learned those movements like an actor learns their lines, ready now to say them in a heightened reality - to live them newly here and now.
Actors listen for their cue for technical reasons - but they listen to the words for emotional ones. He interrupts, I am cut off but I receive the message - desperation? warning? anger? and I let that fuel me - move inside me - as I say my next line.
And so with C. as she moves around the floor - she is looking for her cues - taking them in and letting them change everything in that moment except for the steps.
Back in my apartment I turn from the dancers and notice the color of the sky is pearlescent blue and the sun is about to set. I lean back and take it in - a gorgeous light show. The energy spurs an impulse to write about the dancers. To be generous by receiving the beauty and to feel it tell me how to move.
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