Broadway, Vaudeville, and other Stage Shows

I've been a fan of Broadway and musicals since I was young. I loved Disney movies and pretending to be the princesses. I watched Roger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella with Brandy and Paolo Montalban every night and I acted out the movie. My mom has home videos of me singing to myself in the mirror and then turning to look at the camera, and continuing to sing. It was my dream to be in theater when I was young. Since then, I've become more awkward and abandoned that dream, but I still love watching the live shows. The only Broadway show I have seen so far is Wicked, but I absolutely loved it. I love seeing all other live shows too however. Live concerts are one of my favorite things to see as well as just amateur open mic nights. And though vaudeville, burlesque, and cabaret are quite outdated now, I'd love to find a good club to go to that puts on these shows in the way that they were meant to be. Nowadays they can be a bit raunchier than they used to be, but I think there is a great art quality to the old shows.

Ridi, Pagliaccio. Sul Tuo Amore Infranto.

The opera that I am basing my video game off of is Pagliacci. Pagliacci is a drama about a traveling comedy troupe and the actors in the troupe. Canio, the main character, is married to Nedda. Tonio wants Nedda and gets rejected but when he finds out that Silvio is having an affair with Nedda, tells Canio. The real life of the characters is reflected in the play that they perform for the townspeople and leads to the tragic ending. I chose this because I saw Pagliacci live in the 8th grade and I think that a video game about a crazed clown is perfect.

Madama Butterfly

Before watching the short animation in class, I knew nothing about this opera. I had heard of it but knew nothing past the title. After class, I looked up a synopsis on wikipedia and when I found that what happened in the animation was basically the plot of the whole opera, I was surprised. The plot of the animation didn't seem so far fetched, but I just thought that the opera was about something else entirely. The opera is extremely sad and I don't know that I'd be able to really watch the whole thing.

"She's making a spectacle of herself..."

We hear this phrase and we immediately know what it means. She's causing a scene, making a fool of herself. We know that the root, spec-, has to do with sight, or vision, but we never really think about what the word itself actually means. I think that Barthes' take on wrestling is very interesting and very valid. It is the same way that we view reality TV now. Not many of us watch WWE anymore, but so many of us will turn on TLC or MTV and, though we know that so much of what is happening was scripted, we love to watch it because everything gets thrown so far out of proportion. I personally don't watch a lot of reality TV because of that fact, but I completely understand the phenomenon.

#EAlive8

I have not spent a lot of time in the art gallery. Art galleries were just never my thing. I never understood people standing around, staring at a canvas on the wall with random lines and colors painted on. It never made sense to me. The current exhibit however, is completely fascinating and has caught my attention completely.

I think growing up and living in the digital age has a lot to do with my stronger interest in this exhibit than others. My life revolves around the computer and the internet so anything digital is going to catch my eye over something static.

The first piece that really caught my eye was the fluids piece. I've always loved the way fluids looked moving through each other, much like a lava lamp. I used to sit at home watching my lava lamp for periods of time, just seeing the thicker liquid move through the thinner one. It's always been mesmerizing to me so being able to see that on a digital screen on a constant loop is something that could hold my attention for hours.

Another piece that really intrigued me was the iron kinetic sculpture. In my previous science classes, we had played with magnets and magnetic powders and fluids but I'd never seen them through a magnifying glass and in motion without my hand moving the magnet. The coolest part about this one was that, when looking through the magnifying glass, the iron looked like the surface of the moon. What was freaky about that was that it looked like there were moon rocks moving on their own.

Lastly, I have always loved animation over live-action in films. I absolutely loved seeing the animations that we displayed, mainly Elephant Dreams. It had a very Tim Burton-esque feel to it which definitely drew me in because of my love for Tim Burton films. That being said, I also loved Ray and Clovis because it seemed like a very fun and cute cartoon for a kid to watch on a Saturday morning. Animation always fascinated me simply because of the things that you could accomplish in it that you could not with real people.
That thought brings me to a part of my journal that has nothing to do with class, but is relevant to my life right now and if you don't wish to read about it, stop here.

Early in my senior year of high school, my friend told me about a company called Roosterteeth. With a name like that, I didn't have high hopes for what their content would be, but they put out videos on YouTube that somehow related to video games and my friend was pretty crazy about them so I gave them a watch, specifically the Achievement Hunters. Three years later and I watch more of their videos than any other creator I am subscribed to and my biggest dream for my life is to get to work with them. Their most famous creation, Red vs. Blue, is all Halo based animation and recently, they started a project called RWBY that was more like an anime. The leading force behind RWBY was a man named Monty who, sadly, passed away yesterday at the age of 33. Before RWBY, I'd never given anything even remotely close to anime a second look and I'd never had the appreciation for animation as I have now, but Monty was just that cool. It just didn't feel right to talk about digital art and animation without mentioning what an impact he'd made on my and other RT Community members' lives.