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Response to L Darst’s response to S Rousse blog

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Still can’t get past the spam filter, so here goes: I, on the other hand, found the text exciting, moving and interesting. Couldn’t tell you if I am a text person or not, though. I felt that one thing that putting the audience on the stage did achieve, and quite well, was to make the [...]

Still can’t get past the spam filter, so here goes:

I, on the other hand, found the text exciting, moving and interesting. Couldn’t tell you if I am a text person or not, though.

I felt that one thing that putting the audience on the stage did achieve, and quite well, was to make the auditorium into an object. This wasn’t about audience roles vs performers, or mixing up the boundaries, or any version of inclusiveness — it was about objectifying the position of the audience, the seats themselves, and most highly and significantly, the space of the McGuire.

It’s even more apparent when you see the promo photo of that auditorium in New York with the gorgeous green seats. It makes the beauty of the house apparent (the prettiest part of the McGuire) and, to me at least, functions in part as commentary on who’s got the money.

Unintentionally perhaps it also shows up the inherently more interesting space in (this) theater: the place that does not try to erase itself.

  • Scotty Reynolds says:
    January 14, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Hey! I’m blogging about the Out There Series as well.. fun to read everyone’s responses.

    http://www.myspace.com/scottycruzmnrg

  • Lightsey Darst says:
    January 14, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    Nice blog response, Scotty. I agree with most of what you’re saying (American Apparel, right on), but the repetition did something for me–it didn’t bore me, but took me further in. And I liked the performers, all of them; they were fun to watch.

    But you’re absolutely right about all the cliches. I wonder what makes some of those (the stupid thrift store t-shirts, for example) so long-lived. Sometimes I think we’ve reached some sort of impasse in that irony and sincerity look exactly the same these days. Oh–maybe they always do. . .

  • Sally Rousse says:
    January 16, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    Excellent comments on “Everyone,” Scotty Reynolds.

  • Charles Campbell says:
    January 17, 2008 at 11:34 pm

    Response to Mr Reynolds:

    (Dude! I’ve achieved MySpace-dom! That’s like, fame.)

    The Walker’s blogger Charles Campbell stated that the piece “surpasses or escapes our ability to articulate a message, subject or agenda”. For me, this suggests everything is excusable, regardless of the content.

    Mais non, monsieur! To me this means NOTHING is excusable, not even the form. MG’s piece was alternately boring and interesting, which is not usual. But it did avoid sending a message, telling a story, “raising” my consciousness, or anything else of that ilk that seems to be the foundational form of so much institutionalized “avant-garde.” More on this line in my response to TEAM’s thing tonight. So when something I see at the Walker escapes this pit and manages to spark the imagination even in short glimpses, I feel like I’ve come out ahead.

    “Gutierrez has an enviable arsenal of funding and laurels from NY press but his gaze, a NYC hipster yearning for connection / vitality feels tired.”

    See, I think he truly is hip. I just think “hip” is tired. (But this could be my geezer status erupting here.) I don’t think he’s a faker riding on money and NY connections. And his arsenal of accolades is nothing unusual for this place — how else would be hear of him?

    I agree about local artists. Hijack is just one of a unbelievable community of dance and movement excellence here in the cities (see 9×22 at the BLB for a completely different kind of “out there” series). Otto rocks, too, right, and is half of The BodyCartography Project who are into so many good things (Dance Film, for instance). But my perception is that the Walker for us hicks is part of the vital lifeline to truly cultured cities that only appear near oceans. And as such its value should not be underestimated.

    Greenhouse, man, don’t get me started.

  • Charles Campbell says:
    January 18, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    Sorry about the bad formating.

    Dance can be hip. Can theater?