Juan Ahumada
Creativity in the Arts
Sidney Burnette
September 9, 2012 Visual art bullets Today I went to Mcnay Art Museum because it was the perfect place for examples of visual arts. This was not the first time I had been here, but I love coming to this place because I feel it is an escape from the real world around me. Art is always one of the best ways to escape reality. Walking into the Mcnay is always a joy for me, because of all of the different kinds of art and sculptures in and around the museum. This was all cool and fun to look at, but my place of destination is the theater arts exhibit where just about everything you need to know about theater is held. As I was walking in to the exhibit I always felt so honored, because to step into the past of what you love and see and how it all got started has always touched me in my heart. I started off by looking at the costumes that greet you in the middle. The work, fabric, and colors that went into each piece were just mind blowing.
There was one piece of costume in particular that really got my attention. It was a dragon-like costume for a play. The colors that went into the piece were just amazing. You can tell the designer’s love and passion for creating extravagant pieces of costume. There were other great pieces of costume throughout the exhibit; however, they used less exciting pieces of fabric and color, so I don’t feel that they deserved any sort of recognition in this observation. Costumes have not always been my forte in theatre, but don’t get me wrong about costumes because costumes have always been an important part in putting on a show. Since directing is the field I want to go into when I finish school, the scale models and play structures are the areas in the exhibit that always get my attention. Growing up I have always been interested in building my own stuff and sets in movies I saw.
After going through the costume area I went to the scale model section. I love looking at the scale models because at first glance, one would think this model is just a model for what the director wants the play to look like. In reality, the people who say that would be right, however at the same time what people fail to realize in that each of the scale models they see also portray the theatre that each play is produced at. When I look at the models, I pay attention to both the set pieces and the theatres they went in. Like the hard work that went into making the costume pieces, when looking at the scale models you are in the state of amazement. When reading the descriptions of what went in to making scale models, you see all of the precise measurements that had to go in to making these models to correct scale.
As I walked towards the back of the exhibit, I was greeted by a large selection of nothing but theater books. One of the rules of the McNay arts theater is that if you can reach it you can get it, which really caught me off guard, I guess for some people, waiting on the arts staff just get to get a book because they are short seems a little unfair to me. The theater arts section of the Mcnay Theater is Texas's largest collection of Theatre art pieces. There are also a couple of really beautiful pieces of art in the back that looks so lifelike and yet so abstract at the same time. Although small in size, the theater exhibit at the McNay is filled with beautiful pieces of art, books, costumes, and other pieces of the theaters past. It is still filled with items that everyone would relate to. After finishing up my adventure through the theater exhibits, I decided to step outside and look at a great big fountain in the middle of the museum. In addition to being a beautiful day, it was also nearly empty. Just listening to the wind blowing and seeing the water ripple is just amazing. Especially with all the pennies and people's wishes glistening in the sunlight.
Even though it was a hot summer day in Texas, looking at all the beautiful and abstract art always calms me down. However, the ironic thing is that I am not that big of an art person. Those types of people always seemed extremely weird to me. Reason being, is that artist’s art is very different from theatre art. Theater art, being lively and demanding more kinesthetic of the body, while an artist’s art is more stationary and abstract. About six months ago, I was asked by my ballroom teacher to create a tango to a poem. Naturally, my first reaction was why in the world would I create a dance to something purely spoken with no music behind it. So being a good student, I agreed, while at the same time I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.
Doing a dance that requires music to a piece that is purely spoken was a completely different experience to me. And the poets were also a different type of artist that have never seen before. At first, when I met them, I was kind and polite because I was there on business and I didn’t want ruin my dance instructors. As the first meeting with the poet, I started to grow concerned because of the major differences between our arts. During our break from the crazy world of poetry, the group and I went and looked around at the art pieces that they had on display. There were some pieces that looked really good while. There were other pieces that just made me think “why in the world would they put that up and why in the world would people call it art.” It wasn’t my place to comment on their art, but when you just have a painting of three circles that are contrasted, you start to wonder “what in the world are these people on?”
A few weeks have passed, my group and I are about half way done finishing up choreography, and we get a call from the art place and they asked to see a finished product within the next two weeks. So naturally my group and I was freaked out knowing that we did not have enough time. However, with everyone in the group, having a collection of over 20 years of experience in dancing, we were all up for the challenge. By now, we were all having some form of regret, but we pulled through till the end. So, came the day before the dance was set to happen and after we were asked to show off the finished product and the poet, and the owner of the place told us that it was all wrong and we had to do it all over again. Naturally, when something like that is said to a group that has worked so hard in building a find piece of visual art, it got us all mad. I personally had to calm down about half of the group so that they would not do anything they might regret in the long run. What the poet told us was about was about as confusing as watching a dog hug a cat. She told us that making a dance is something you should feel from the words of a poem and the movements should come naturally rather than creating it from the mind. The poet then started to tell us how to dance which of course had gotten us as a group to the level of anger that we had not felt in a while. But of course, us being the professionals that we are, we kept our mouths shut and just went on. The things the poet was saying didn’t make sense half of the time. Not to be mean, but some of us thought he was either on drugs or he just thought he sounded cool and mystical by using different words and phrases that normal people don’t use. After all was said and done that day, the group and I went out and had some celebratory drinks that were well earned. We were all happy in so many ways that this whole dancing to a poem was soon going to be over. Then a day later, the poet called us back and asked us if we wanted to come back and do a show case, needless to say we said no in a heartbeat.
A couple of weeks passed and we got invited to go see an art exhibited downtown, and we were all interested in going just to check it out. At first, the group and I didn’t want anything to do with the artist, but eventually we all decided to check it out for fun. So as the exhibited started, we saw a couple of modern and contemporary dancers. The group and I are no strangers to this type of dance, but these dancers took it to a whole new and weird level. While we were at the dinner portion of the event, the lights had started to dim and some weird tribal music started playing. Everyone in the room was baffled and was wondering what was going on, then everything soon became apparent when the modern dancers begun to take off their cloths and reviled a multiple-colored body suit. Then several spots lights on the ceiling started to turn off in some designated spots throughout the room we were all eating in. They were dancing to what I think people would call an introduction song.
About four minutes had passed, and there was a dolly being pulled by some actors who were dressed as roman soldiers. I will have to admit, the visual part of the spectacle that was happing was pretty cool, however not worth my time. After the opening was over the soldiers reviled a ten foot tall sculpture of a man with great detail and depth. After the sculpture was reviled the modern dancers started to dance as if though they were having a seizer. Being a little freaked out, I decided to walk away and go see the art gallery for a bit. Some of the art was actually really good. Most of the art looked as if they were pieces frozen in time. After about a couple of hours, I was about ready to go.
It was about two o’clock in the morning and I was just amazed at the energy the modern dancers had. To be dancing with the energy that they had after all that they did earlier in the evening was both strange and normal to me. Because, being a dancer myself, I know firsthand the hard work that is always needed to do a long performance. I deiced to take one more look at the art and I made a little joke because right next to the art information, each one had a price. Some of the pieces of art were worth the asking price, but some were just either plain trash or just straight weird. When I thought I was alone with my group, I decided to joke about the asking price, saying “that’s not the asking price, that’s the amount of pixels on each canvas”. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the artist was standing within three feet of me. Needless to say my group and I were not welcome to anymore of their events which was fine with me.
My journey with ballroom dance is far from over and I am happy with that. The one thing that I always look forward to is knowing that there is always something new for me to learn. There will always be new friends to make and obviously new enemies as well. But this is life, and there is no reason to let anything or anyone down because the second you do, you start to fail at everything you set your mind too and also lose your dreams.