05/22/09 - Intermission [PDF]

i n s i d e

S

TANFORD

F

ILM

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ESTIVALKICKS OFF WITH EVERY

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THING FROM QUIRKYSHORTS AND DRAMAS TODOCUMENTARIES

...pages 6-7

A L S O I N S I D E

5.22.09

FRIDAY

stanford’s weekly guide to campus culture

VOLUME

235 .

ISSUE

15

a publication of the stanford daily

A recap of this year’s biggest television finales...pages 4-5Stanford Film Festival kicks off with some quirky shorts...pages 6-7Chris Wedge talks about animation and “Ice Age”...page 8Bay to Breakers is quirky as ever, Decemberists kick off their tour...page 9“Night at the Museum” a huge let-down...page 10Intermission reviews a thought-provoking French film...page 12

T.V.

WRAPS UP ANOTHERSEASON OF DRAMAS ANDCOMEDIES

...pages 4-5

Photos courtesy google images

intermission

jason chuang

google imagesstanford film festival

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AST

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ATURDAY AND

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UNDAY NIGHTS

,S

TANFORD STUDENTS PUT ON TWO DANCE PERFORM

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ANCES

:

ONE BY THE DANCE GROUP

B

ENT

S

POON AND THE OTHER THE ANNUAL

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OUTH

A

SIAN DANCE SHOW

MELA.I

NTERMISSION CAPTURED THESEBEAUTIFUL SHOWS IN A PHOTO COLLAGE

:

6

intermission

2

MANAGING EDITOR

Joanna Xu

LAYOUTEDITOR

Jin Yu

COPYEDITOR

Jane LePham

DESKEDITORS

Annika HeinleKyle Evaldez

PHOTOEDITOR

Amanda Zhang

5.22.09

well then, email us!intermission@daily.stanford.edu

BONETOPICK?

FRIDAY

PAGE 2

p h ot os by j ason ch u an g

3

friday

may 22 2009

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ast Sunday,the Stanford Dance Division presented“Cantor ‘Rewired,’”an imaginative fusion dance piecethat melded the classical Southeast Asian style of Bharatanatyam with post-modern dance.Despite tempera-tures that soared well above 90 degrees,a substantial crowdgathered to follow nine undergraduate dancers perform in,around and through Cantor.The choreography of“Rewired”came from New York-based choreographer and Stanford alumna Parijat Desai,whospent winter 2009 on campus with an Institute for Diversity and the Arts residency.During her residency,Desai also co-choreographed an installment in the Department ofDrama’s“The Waste Land”series.Rehearsal director and DanceDivision lecturer Diane Frank arranged Desai’s choreography —originally intended for a trio ofdancers—for the Cantorgrounds.The piece was cast in triplet,with three groups of three dancers performing a unique subset ofthe choreography and interacting with each other in a way that Frank describedas “like mathematics”or “a kaleidoscope.”Vibrant jewel-tonedcostumes in three colors further differentiated the flights of dancers,and the interplay ofcolors added a satisfying visualdimension to the piece.The staging ofthe performance meandered from the frontsteps ofCantor,through galleries,and to multiple lawns andcourtyards on the museum’s grounds,with mixed results.Dancers received extensive training in the Bharatanatyamstyle,which demands extremely specific hand gestures andpercussive footwork,during the rehearsal process,and on theCantor lawns,long vistas and the rich green grass amplifiedthe effect ofthe subtle choreography,giving even the dancers’slightest movements an epic quality.Inside the building,how-ever,bottlenecked crowds craning for a view ofdancers andmultiple reprimands from museum security broke the sense of mystery and wonder,which was so present in the outdoor seg-ments.Furthermore,placing dancers next to visual art doesnot necessarily draw a parallel between the two,and the bare-foot,fluid dancers of“Rewired,”who seemed perfectly in placeamong manicured lawns,seemed incongruous within both the“Pop to Present”and Rodin galleries inside the museum.The stamina ofthe dancers and their ability to maintainconcentration while dancing barefoot and sometimes lyingdown on sizzling concrete was frankly astonishing.Different“permutations”ofchoreography featured subsets ofdancersperforming in pairs or across color groups and in coordinationwith the space around them.While it may be the heat talking,several sections ofthe performance bordered on the repetitiveas the dancers cycled through choreography.When viewing practitioners oftai chi or yoga,I often feelthat while there is clear admiration for the body control andmindfulness ofthe practitioners,their movement is not forentertainment.In the same way,the deliberate,methodicalstructure ofthe “Rewired”choreography made the piece seemalmost like an exercise rather than a dance.In contrast to tra-ditional Bharatanatyam,in which dancers’movements convey a mythic narrative,Desai intended to draw only technique and“kinetic information”from the dance form,and use these to“rewire”the movement ofa dancer’s body.From artistic and pedagogic perspectives,such a focus onnew kinetics fits into a grander study ofthe body’s capacity formovement and,according to Frank,the search for “what isinnovative within ancient forms”like Bharatanatyam.However,as an audience member with an appreciation fordance but little formal training,I found myselfstruggling tomake an emotional connection to a performance that feltextremely rational and academic.On the other hand,“Rewired”should not be judged forfailing to be something which it never intended to be.As a site-specific work offusion,“Rewired”intended to focus on struc-ture,both within the dancers’movements and in the sur-rounding architecture,and it succeeded at pulling elements of Bharatanatyam’s punctuated style into a very modern staging.While not exactly a piece for the masses,nearly flawless execu-tion from an immensely talented group ofdancers made“Rewired”a meaningful addition to the Stanford dance calen-dar.

— monica MIKLAScontact monica: mmiklas@stanford.edu

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EAR

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FLAWLESS DANCINGHEATS UP

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ANTOR

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BUTNOT AS MUCH AS THEWEATHER

photos by jason chuangtony kramerstefanie okuda

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