Bellowhead and Winter Dreamscapes

Photographer Jenny Zarins, whose works I mentioned in my blog previously, has done a couple of beautifully poetic short films for Toast, in collaboration with some wonderful musicians and filmmakers. I really love this little mood movie shot on location in Slovakia and Hungary (I have always been more attracted to mountains than sea), with music specially composed and performed by Bellowhead member Sam Sweeney.

P.S. Zephyr and Blue, filmed in north-western Crete during Toast's spring/summer 2009 photo shoot, is another enchanting marriage of Jenny Zarins's images, Arvid Eriksson's editing, and Joe Zeitlin's cello.

"Feed no more blossoms to the wind, abnegate the constellations, negate the sea and what is left of your world?"

I promised myself
no more villages,
no star, not a picket or door,
and no investment in fire.
Drop out, moon,
skulk off, sun, said I then
the I shunned its self and scuttled
away, like a spider through fine skeins of rain.
Goodbye to all kinds of weather and many
iridescent undergrounds. Proper nouns, fall
flat, hard on scorched shore.
Adjective, deflate
the world. Synonyms, release your hold
on your brethren.
I won't have any more roadside:
I hereby release lythrum,
frog, lake, and footfall.
Thunderous or mute too, left in a stairwell
that lost its rungs and wood.
Unlock your grip, starnosed mole
Return to the hills, wolf and lilac
and all the signs of wilderness
furl. Feed no more blossoms
to the wind, abnegate the constellations,
negate the sea and what is left
of your world? What is left then?
And who is there to talk to
and how will you transport
once the bridges have been unshackled
and the rivers in drought but shimmering
blue as herring-gills on a shore of bones
beneath the gulls' out, out.
Even tarnish even empty or cold
must take their long walks off piers that have been
sent off, and you were casting out more than you could
number though you'd kissed each one. With a deep
infinity of skin and blood no longer, then how
will you call to the world
(without lips, heart, whispers, screams)
and with whom will you communicate
and what will you sing,
with no more mouths of anything,
no sinew, no alone.
Only here
you are part of the world, sound
itself without hold, loose as a history of the fall
and rise of wind, in a world
you had vowed never to mention
for its shroud and its blindness
falling on you as you banish.

-- Alessandra Lynch, "Excommunication", American Poetry Review, July/August 2003

Infra: “I had not thought death had undone so many”

The title of this post, “I had not thought death had undone so many,” is a line from the first section The Burial of the Dead of T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. It is quoted in the programme of Wayne McGregor's 2008 ballet Infra [literally meaning 'below'], perhaps suggestive of the apparent (seeming) nonchalance and disinterest of people living the modern city life—seething in speed and overwhelmed by choices—yet with a sense of entwined emotions behind the oblivious masks, so intense and so individualistic that somehow, ironically, the collective force of them all is tipping on the verge of an emotive avalanche.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

～T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Infra, commissioned by Royal Ballet, is my favourite work of British choreographer Wayne McGregor, artistic director of Random Dance (resident company at Sadler's Wells Theatre) and Royal Ballet's resident choreographer. Described by Sarah Crompton as “a piece of sumptuous beauty and shimmering possibility that marks a major step in McGregor's development as a creator,” Infra is a collaboration between choreographer Wayne McGregor, composer Max Richter (whose inspired and thoughtful *music I adore) and artist Julian Opie. I think it is the fact that Infra is the most emotionally engaging work of Wayne McGregor that I have seen, coupled with his signature choreographic emphases on the technical, the physical and the beautiful (but softened and made more fluid and lyrical by its layers of emotional profundity), which draws me into this ballet so much. The moving, evanescent poetry in Max Richter's specially-commissioned music, and the striking, visually challenging vista (where the audience is forced out of the traditional visual focus on a single moving group or object at one given moment) of Julian Opie's installation art, further enhance and complete Infra, contributing successfully to the eloquence of its mesmerising complexity.

“...the dance seems to be providing a literal footnote on the action of life itself, exposing the agonies of indecision, doubt and hope that live under the surface of the skin. To Max Richter's mournful score, 12 outstanding dancers meet and part, whisper to one another, pause and move on. (...) There is a mood of mystery; sometimes the gestures recall a half-forgotten human action; the moods switch from impassioned to enraged in a split second. (...) a sense in which these bodies are also shades, the things that lie beneath. (...) six couples engage in six slithering, complex duets in six parallel squares of light, like a frieze of life, their physical conversations passing from one to the other at quicksilver speed. (...) [Infra is] full of striking images, and redolent of an emotional richness new to McGregor's work.”

～Sarah Crompton

Click here to watch Infra, the full-length ballet (approx. 30 minutes). Be sure to select HQ (high quality) for all videos.

Infra, the final pas de deux (the section I love the most in this ballet)
Dancers: Marianela Nuñez and Edward Watson (my favourite male principal dancer of the Royal Ballet at the moment!)

[Edit 26/Sep/2014: Sadly the videos were removed, but here is a short trailer of the ballet:]



One of the moments which really touches me in the final pas de deux of Infra, is when Marianela had this incredible facial expression of a sigh, mixed with a smile (around 1:25, after Edward kissed her hand and their intertwined port de bras), a kind of relief almost, which I feel is exactly what is being conveyed in the musical phrase of that magical moment... I am so in love with this pas de deux.


Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

~ T. S. Eliot, from Little Gidding: V, No.4 of Four Quartets

Click here for The Making of Infra: an in-depth and very interesting behind-the-scenes documentary on this ballet. The programme eavesdrops on rehearsals and reveals how three major talents joined forces to create a new piece of modern ballet. Really worth watching! [Sadly also removed... but here is another short one of Wayne McGregor on his creative process:]

Morgen!

"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain; of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and of never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and the everlasting beauty of monotony." (Benjamin Britten)

I have loved Richard Strauss's music for so long. I re-visited his musical land by listening to Renée Fleming's interpretation of the romantic mood poem Morgen! this morning, and the beauty is such that I feel my heart is going to break. (The videos below might not be the best versions, although I do enjoy the slow tempo and simple piano accompaniment in the first one. I also recommend Fleming's 1997 recording of Morgen! from her album The Beautiful Voice - a pure, deeply moving rendition. In addition, listen to my favourite soprano Dame Janet Baker's interpretation of Morgen, as well as a selection of gorgeous music, in my playlist here or here.)

Piano: Hartmut Höll. Berlin, 2003.


Live in Beijing, 7th Apri 2007.
China Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yu Long.


Morgen!
Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen,
und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde,
wird uns, die Seligen, sie wieder einen,
immitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde…
Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen,
werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen.
Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen,
und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen.

Tomorrow!
Tomorrow again will shine the sun
And on my sunlit path of earth
Unite us again, as it has done,
And give our bliss another birth.
The spacious beach under wave-blue skies
We’ll reach by descending soft and slow,
And mutely gaze in each other’s eyes,
As over us rapture’s great hush will flow.

Beauty that leaves one speechless...

Special thanks to John for the first two ravishing photographs, which have me completely entranced.

Across the Andes - Jenny Zarins

One of the loveliest everyday pleasures for me, is to receive Toast's catalogues in the post and embark on a photographic journey with Jenny Zarins. Photographer Jenny Zarins has a great eye for the poetry and aesthetics of nature, and she never fails to convey this love and fine appreciation successfully in her works for Toast. I have collected a whole stack (getting on to twenty!) of catalogues simply because I like her approach and style so much, and I must admit that I have on occasion ordered items from Toast as a result of her romantic images, only to return them later as the real things did not exactly live up to their photographic counterparts.

I also love the way she captures the play of light and shade, the immediacy of exquisite human emotions, faces and silhouettes in strange and exotic places or locations with a certain mystique. Intoxicating, swooningly gorgeous and richly perfumed images with a curious sense of aloofness. An insouciant spirit in unfamiliar territories. Her scrapbook Across the Andes is a fine illustration of such characteristics.

(P.s. The beautiful photograph of an ocean with flying seagulls in my previous post is by Jenny Zarins as well.)
Photography for Toast:

Coruscating Words and Music

“Beneath you lie two miles of ocean—a bottomlessness, for all practical purposes, an infinity of blue... A thousand coruscating shafts of sunlight probe it, illuminating nothing.”

～Kenneth Brower, 'The Destruction of Dolphins'


And... the sound of reflective water, the music of meditative oceans.


Samuil Feinberg plays Alexander Scriabin's Mazurka Opus 3 No. 1 (recorded in 1952), from his Seven Mazurkas.
Feinberg (1890-1962) was a pupil of Alexander Goldenweiser and one of the most eminent Russian virtuosos of his generation. Feinberg met Scriabin at the age of 23, he had the fortune of being one of the very few young pianists Scriabin appreciated; whilst he reproached almost all of them for a style which he considered too hard and insufficiently expressive.


Scriabin Mazurka Opus 40 No. 2, performed by the wonderful pianist Artur Pizarro.


Samuil Feinberg plays Alexander Scriabin's Mazurka in F sharp major, Opus 25, No. 7.


*The secret photographer and more images to be revealed in the following post. :-)

Balanchine’s Ballet “Bugaku”

I stumbled upon some photographs of Balanchine’s Ballet “Bugaku,” which he created in 1963 as his tribute to the refined elegance of Japanese music and dance originated in visits by New York City Ballet to Japan in 1958 and the Gagaku Company of the Imperial Household to the United States in 1959. In 1962, Balanchine commissioned Mayuzumi to compose music suggesting Bugaku, the dance portion of a Gagaku performance.

After reading up some reviews (I highly recommend this article) of the recent re-staging of this ballet by Mr. B’s elusive muse Suzanne Farrell, I became increasingly interested and would love to see New York City Ballet's revival of this piece. (Of course, those who know me will see that I was first attracted to the Japanese-inspired and petal-like costume!)

From Suzanne Farrell Ballet's recent Bugaku staging—
Natalia Magnicaballi and Jared Redick

Suzanne Farrell in George Balanchine’s Bugaku

George Balanchine was inspired to create Bugaku after a Gagaku (a company of musicians and dancers maintained by the Imperial Japanese Household) visited the United States. He made no attempt to reproduce authentic Gagaku movements, instead freely translating the Japanese idiom into Western academic ballet terms. Yet the ballet evokes a powerful sense of Eastern culture.

A programme note describes the costumes as 'a free fantasy … on the traditional Japanese court dress.'  The freedom extends to the ballerina's tutu, a variation on the traditional 'plate' with the top-skirt formed of two layers of long petals, highlighted with diamante. The only obvious Japanese touch is in the deep 'kimono' sleeves and the wig of lacquered woven horsehair cloth, trimmed with Japanese flowers and ornaments en tremblant.

The bodice is joined to the skirt by elastic ties, and there is only the shortest of 'basques' below the waist, decorated at the edge with diamante clusters. Usually the bodice is firmly fixed to the skirt and an undecorated basque provides grip for a partner's hand. However, the changes here were possible because there is no partnering in the particular sequence in which the tutus were worn.

The diameter of the tutu skirt is 34cm at its maximum, with the hoop inserted at 25cm from the centre. The gusset is extremely wide and, unusually, fastens with press studs. 

(*image above and text via Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Costumes for Balanchine's Bugaku, designed by Karinska and worn by Suzanne Farrell in the 1960s. On exhibition in the Theatre and Performance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

A close-up of the costumes for Bugaku

To read some more interesting review articles on Balanchine's ballet Bugaku, visit here and here.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Photography by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Sea of Buddhas, 1995

"The art scene I knew in New York in the 1970s was dominated by minimal and conceptual art, experiments in visualizing how abstract concepts. It occurred to me that similar motives inspired the making of art in twelfth-century Japan, when they reproduced the afterlife conceptualized as the Buddhist Pure Land Western Paradise in model form in this world. Thus we have an installation of a thousand and-one Senju Kanon "Thousand-Armed Merciful Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara" figures passed down eight-hundred years to this day in Kyoto. After seven years of red tape, I was finally granted permission to photograph in the temple of Sanjusangendo, "Hall of Thirty-Three Bays." In special preparation for the shoot, I had all late-medieval and early-modern embellishments removed, as well as having the contemporary fluorescent lighting turned off, recreating the splendor of the thousand bodhisattvas glistening in the light of the morning sun rising over the Higashiyama hills as the Kyoto aristocracy might have seen in the Heian period (794-1185). Will today's conceptual art survive another eight-hundred years?" ~Hiroshi Sugimoto

(Below are two images of the hall inside Sanjusangendo for comparison, which are obviously not Sugimoto's photographs.)

And... some other beautiful and intriguing works of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Theatres

Since the 1970s, Sugimoto has worked on his photo-series entitled «Theaters,» in which he photographs auditoriums of American movie theaters, and drive-in movies, during showings. The exposure time used for the photograph corresponds with the projection time of the film. This allows him to save the duration of the entire film in a single shot. What remains visible of the film’s time-compressed, individual images is the bright screen of the movie theater, which illuminates the architecture of the space. That its content retreats into the background makes the actual film a piece of information, manifesting itself in the (movie theater) space. As a result, instead of as a content-related event, film presents itself here as the relationship between time and spatial perception.

"One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious." ~Hiroshi Sugimoto

(Source of the above two paragraphs: Cat. Thomas Kellein, Hiroshi Sugimoto, «Time Exposed,» 1995, p. 91)

Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographs of empty theatres are very much distinguished by the space left for their viewers, the lengthy exposure time which resulted in the illuminated screen being such a dominant feature, and a sense of temporality experienced by the viewers. The imagery here reminds me of what is conventionally used in psychoanalysis or hypnotism, indeed emanating a sense of soothing, mysterious and even religious air.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, «Theaters», 1978. Paramount, Oakland, 1994 © Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto, «Theaters», 1978. Orinda Theater, Orinda, 1992 © Hiroshi Sugimoto

Seascapes

"Water and air. So very commonplace are these substances, they hardly attract attention―and yet they vouchsafe our very existence. The beginnings of life are shrouded in myth: Let there be water and air. Living phenomena spontaneously generated from water and air in the presence of light, though that could just as easily suggest random coincidence as a Deity. Let's just say that there happened to be a planet with water and air in our solar system, and moreover at precisely the right distance from the sun for the temperatures required to coax forth life. While hardly inconceivable that at least one such planet should exist in the vast reaches of universe, we search in vain for another similar example. Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing." ~Hiroshi Sugimoto

The Architecture of Time, 1997

These two absolutely gorgeous and transcendent photographs of Tadao Ando's Church of the Light in Osaka is from Sugimoto's Architecture Series. Tadao Ando is one of my favourite contemporary architects and what attracted me first to his works was exactly the Church of the Light.

"The light seems to be literally dissolving the concrete in the same way that the sky dissolved the line of the horizon in the Seascapes. Sugimoto shows us that the light is eternal and the building is just its frame." (Review by Arcy Douglass on PortlandArt.net)

"Light-footed, Wry in Comment, and Elegant in Form."

I am only just "tapping into" the incredibly attractive (as well as addictive) world of Old-Hollywood tap dancing and singing (it is never too late!). For me, it is not just the amazing dance sequences and their gorgeous olive-oiled voices; it is the whole atmosphere and aurae－the colours, the ensemble, the glamour and elegance of a bygone era. Here are some of the film footage which I have come across so far and really enjoyed, following a few of Gjon Mili's marvellous stroboscopic photographs of these dance geniuses.

Ray Bolger photographed by Gjon Mili

Gene Kelly photographed by Gjon Mili

Fred Astaire

Ray Bolger dance scene from The Harvey Girls (1946)


Gene Kelly: "I'm Singin' in the Rain", from Singin' in the Rain (1952)


Fred Astaire: "Puttin' on the Ritz", from Blue Skies (1946)

(*Title quote: Gjon Mili describing Ray Bolger.)

Purple Crystal and An Ancient Serpent

(This is a poem of mine written quite a long time ago, but I thought it would be an interesting comparison with the previous post regarding Cathy de Monchaux's art.)

Purple Crystal and An Ancient Serpent

gilded mirage drunken placards
float over pale grapes
wine honey wax oil and
tequila
his liquid tongue is moving back and forth her neck
moving back and forth the frightening lusty constellation around her neck
spirals around groins / you are confined in wild humidity as a fish in raw pleasures
your hipbone a deranged dream
a turn-around a temperature a kiss
her sombre secret cave abstracting mythical beasts and clouds
heavens fall the petals whirling the heavens
falling falling fall and fall
popcorns’ crying holy wrath spirits’ blasphemy
Death of life of life of Death
dying a life of a hundred years’ loneliness
philosophy below her breasts


紫水晶與蛇

紙醉金迷白葡萄
酒，蜜，蠟，油，與
龍舌蘭。
水舌游移/ 頸項的星群悸悸覬覬
鼠蹊的盤旋/ 你是狂熱的魚水之歡
你的髖骨是一場靡亂的夢
一回轉身/ 一種體溫/ 一個吻
陰晦的私處饕餮雲紋
天花亂墜天 花亂
墜墜墜，墜。
爆米花哭泣天神微慍
死的生的生的死
生生死死百年孤寂
胸線以下的哲思

(20th/January/2000)

And... another little one which bears some similarities in style and ambience.


decayed

birds fluttering feathers beasts secretly cringing
as if musk spreading in the mists astray, fading
then never a sound in Death/ nor breath/ not even heart
Death seals and stagnates the pale wax of lights
in her mouth
as if a tooth-filing ceremony as if anaemia as if bleeding

Cathy de Monchaux

I first encountered Cathy de Monchaux's art during the 1998 Turner Prize event, for which she was shortlisted as one of the nominees ("elephant dung painter" Chris Ofili won the prize that year). I was doing my foundation course at that time, and art history was one of my chosen subjects. I still remember those pleasant and intellectually stimulating tutorials we had in various galleries and museums - in fact we went to see the four Turner Prize nominees at the Tate in one of our European art history tutorials/seminars.

Although de Monchaux's art is sometimes almost painful to look at (prickly, spiky and needle-like harsh materials dangerously juxtaposed against and confining soft elements of flesh texture, as well as the 'subtly overt,' refined yet strong sexual allusion and conspicuous undertone), the pastel hues of its palette and exquisite intricacy of its craftsmanship appealed to me straight away. For me, her art stood out amongst the four Turner Prize artists that year.

"Her sculptures use materials such as glass, paper, metal and leather. They frequently juxtapose seductive soft elements, often with strongly sexual overtones, with harder materials, often spikey or in some way appearing to constrain the softer parts, resulting in work which is both sensual and threatening. de Monchaux's work from the early 1990s often achieves this effect by the combination of red velvet and steel in simple and strong constructions, but later works have tended to move towards lighter colours, and a more ornamental approach." (From Wikipedia)

To explore more, peruse Cathy de Monchaux's portfolio and read her biography.

Dangerous Fragility (1994)
Brass, leather, ribbons, chalk
Part one 48 x 40 x 13
Private Collection London

Dangerous Fragility [Part 2] (1994)
Brass, leather, ribbons, chalk
Part two 48 x 40 x 13
Private Collection London

Caught in Chaos
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

Don't Touch My Waist (1998)
Brass, leather, fur and scrim
117 x 106 x 8 cm
Private collection Washington

Detail of Battle Scene no. 7 (2007)
Leather, copper, brass, bandage, perspex, gesso, silk, wood and glass
86 x 154 x 11 cm
I'm So Scarred, I'm So Scared (2008). Photograph: Dave Morgan.
"In her sculpture, Cathy de Monchaux combines opposites. Hard and rough contrast with smooth and soft, as she places brass and steel against leather and velvet. The forms also work in opposition, with spikes or jagged edges contrasting with sumptuous curves and padded surfaces. Her imagery is sexual, hinting at the bordello and all that it voluptuously implies. The harshness and softness of nature which simultaneously attract and repel - the Venus fly-trap in action - are both present in the unspoken danger.
As the substance of de Monchaux's work becomes more complex, more vivid, the linear motifs recall Islamic architecture. Trapped between two thick sheets of glass, drawings on a translucent ground are at the same time studies and objects. The decorative clamps and bolts which hold the glass together are the brutality; the fluid line is the grace. In recent installations she has added ephemeral elements such as patterns of powder or dust which appear as shadowy traces of her sculptural forms. These traces add a sense of history and of decay."