On September 16th I saw the Monday Night Concert Series hosted by the Department of Music at the College of Charleston. The concerts main feature was the highly anticipated Lori Phillips, a soprano opera singer, and her husband Jay Baylon, a bass-baritone.  The singers performed at the College of Charleston concert hall in the Simmons Art Center. Surprisingly so, I really enjoyed the concert. Opera, not being a type of music I generally gravitate towards, I was anticipating the show to be boring to me but was actually very intrigued by the songs. Although all of the songs were sung in German and I could not understand a word of them, the way Phillips used body language, theatricality and tone of voice to portray the moods of the songs helped me to follow along with them.

I personally felt that the performance was pretty advertised. I heard about it from a professor who works in the music department so I had thought that it would be mainly students in the audience who were most likely required to attend the show for a class. There were actually a lot of adults in attendance who had come with their families, all dressed up, to see the concert. I would definitely recommend seeing Phillips perform. Although most college students would probably shy away from the thought of seeing n opera performance, I think that most would be just as pleasantly surprised as I was.

I attended Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in late August at the Emmett Robinson Theatre. The Department of Theatre and Dance put on this production of Tom Stoppard’s play that boasts a wide assortment of entertaining characters that contrast with the simple set design. As an audience member, it would have been beneficial to attend the production of Hamlet that opened a few weeks prior to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The two main characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead are also characters in Hamlet. Understanding of Hamlet would clarify a lot of the confusion Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead may have caused viewers. The comedic portrayal of two of Hamlet’s childhood friends attempting to figure out who, where, and what they are is full of humor and wit. Unbeknownst to the two main characters, the audience has an advantage  of having a program with the play’s title, which (SPOILER ALERT) gives away the fact that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, in fact already dead.

I found out about this play in the calender the School of the Arts publishes each semester. I think the play could have been promoted more and they could definitely amp up the advertising.  When I attended for the Saturday night show the house was maybe half-full. Despite being well rehearsed and a professional production, the show was not as well attended. The remainder of the shows scheduled can be found on the department’s website. There is also a student run organization that puts on small scale productions called Center Stage. They also have a number of productions.

For my first blog post, I wanted to write about the exhibit at Redux.  I have wanted to write a little blurb about the artist since I met her and heard what she had to say about her art. It was fascinating and really resonated with me.

The exhibit is called Wilderness Management and the artists name is Gwyneth Scally. The exhibit came to Redux on August 2nd and will be there until the 5th of October. I helped set up the exhibit with the artist to it was really interesting to see her process of how she created her mood in our space. She gave a talk about her artwork on opening night and I thought I would share what she had to say. Her entire talk was about succumbing to the awesome power of nature. She spoke off all these excursions throughout history that had been ravaged by bad weather, harsh conditions, predators. I thought it was really interesting because I used to work in the outdoor industry. My company would take middle schoolers out into the woods and teach them soft skills like team work and effective communication. But we were still out in the woods and the conditions would get really rough sometimes. I can recall trips where I was terrified, but you can’t tell a fifth grader  that his chances of getting struck by lightning are actually really good from where we are sitting on this mountain.

When she was giving her talk I was just going over all these events in my head where nature scared the hell out of me. I think that relation to someone’s work is what keeps people attending art shows and going to galleries. Maybe you don’t feel that relation with 99% of the art that you see, but when you see something and it hits you, its a very personal experience. I think it keeps people coming back.

Come check it out though, Im there Tuesdays and Thursdays and Ill show you around!

Thursday, September 5, I attended New Music Collective’s presentation of the Earth People Modernist Love Tour featuring Jessie Marino and Eric Wubbels.  Outside of class I had not heard anything about the show but decided to attend anyways.  It was not quite what I had expected – only a small teaching room in Cato Center for the Arts with an audience of maybe 15 people.  The intimate performance was based on an abstract focus of sound.  The performers introduced themselves and gave some insight on their tour and music.  The tour seems to be entirely self-managed.  The two are in the process of moving from New York to California and they decided on a whim to pack all of their belongings and make stops along the way to see friends and perform shows.  They have friends all over based on connections made with Wubbels’s involvement in the Wet Ink Ensemble and Marino’s involvement in Ensemble Pamplemousse.

Their performance was also based on special relationships with contemporary artists.  They mentioned one of the greatest advantages of being self-managed is that they have complete control over their music selections and they are honored to be able to spread the innovations of dear friends.  Because they control their content they aren’t influenced by any outside censorship – a phenomenon that we explored in our lecture on arts management history.  The works featured were that of Alvin Lucier and Peter Ablinger.  Each piece created a different experiment with sound.  The first used pencils and household objects as well as the acoustics of the room, the second used the piano to be played along with an element of recorded speech, and the final played with the crossing sound waves of a cello and a recorded tone.

After their explanation of the coming performance I was extremely interested and excited about the concept of experimenting with the idea of sound as a physical element.  However, the performance itself was not as exciting.  Each piece was very interesting but seemed to drag on for too long and the sounds created were harsh on the ears.  As a concept, the performance was a great piece of art, but without knowing the thought process of each work, the performance would not be as worthy of praise.  That being said, I would not recommend attending the Modernist Love Tour.  However, I do look forward to keeping up with New Music Collective and learning more about contemporary music.

For my first arts event, I saw College of Charleston Department of Theater and Dance’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard at the Emmett Robinson Theatre. I really enjoyed the play although I felt lost for most of it. The confusing plot of the play is not for everyone but I found myself more engaged due to the confusion because I was so determined to figure out what was happening! There were some very funny laugh-out-loud moments and I thought the cast was excellent.

Unlike another blog author, I did not see any posters or advertisements for this event. The only way I knew about it is because it is required to see for my Introduction to Theater class and I felt most of the audience was made up of students required to see it. I felt this production could’ve benefited by advertising more on campus as well as outside the campus to draw in a more diverse crowd and potential donors. I would’ve recommended others to see it had I not seen it closing night. You can see upcoming productions and purchase tickets online here: http://theatre.cofc.edu/productions/NowPlaying.php

Last Monday night I attended a concert series that the jazz department at the College of Charleston  put on. The performance took place at the Recital Hall of the Simmons Center for the Arts. There were five musicians involved in the performance and all these men are all members of the music department at the College of Charleston and each had a very impressive resume with much involvement in the jazz community, among Charleston and around the Southeast.

The performance was well done and the talent on the stage was staggering. The band played a variety of different composers’ songs and some of their own. I enjoyed the variety of the song choices and how the band members performed with each other. They flowed well, and that is important when watching a show because it translates to the type of atmosphere they are casting to the audience.

The most positive aspect of the show was how many people came out to see the performance, so much so, that the show ran out of programs. This may of been a negative, since many students were coming to see the show for classes, but the performers were aware of this and promised to make separate arrangements. The only negative part of the performance was it was a bit lengthy, this was obvious by how many people left before the performance was complete.

The jazz presentation was a well done performance that I would recommend to other students and to the Charleston community. I was able to learn something new and experienced a creative concert. I believed the concert was a success and look forward to attending more musical performances from the college.

On Thursday, September 5th I went to a New Music Collective show in the CATO center. Part of Earth People’s Modernist Love Tour, the show was quite interesting. It consisted of three musical pieces: the first was performed with pencils tapping on various objects, the second was notes on the piano played to the recording of voices, and the final piece was played on the cello. Because this show was part of a tour, Thursday was the only opportunity to see it other than following Earth People on the road to their next stop.

Although I thought it fascinating I wouldn’t recommend the show to other college students. It was fascinating only in its abstraction and sheer novelty. Not very amusing, it was rather boring at parts and a little too lengthy to consist of only three pieces. The advertising was very minimal; I saw two posters total, one being on my way to the show. I wouldn’t have known about this event had it not been for class. It was a free show which is wonderful for college students but if given the chance I wouldn’t go again.

Last night I went to see the production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by the College of Charleston Department of Theatre and Dance. The play was put on in the Emmet Robinson Theatre in the Simons Center for the Arts from August 15th-18th and August 29th- September 3rd at 7:30pm, except Sundays which are at 3pm.  I thought this play was very comedic throughout, but the actual script itself was too lengthy. I thought the actors did a fantastic job. Specifically, I really enjoyed watching the close relationship between Brenna McNamera (Guildenstern) and David Whittington (Rosencrantz). Throughout the production I could tell the two actors where very dedicated and were having fun on stage which made it entertaining for me to watch. I give all the actors a lot of credit for having to remember all those lines!

I think the College of Charleston does a great job advertising their productions. I have seen posters around campus , have heard about it from students and professors, as well as seen advertisement of it on Facebook. It was a full house when I got there Tuesday, however, the seats around me were empty after intermission.  Although overall  I believe the play was well produced and had talented actors, I would not recommend students to see it. The play didn’t have an exciting plot and therefore I found myself bored at times. I think in the future it is important for the Theatre Department to choose a play that relates more to the age of the audience (mostly college students).