The Times Quotidian

Rachel Comey, Proenza Schouler and Dolce Gabbana, Spring RTW 2012
by Nancy Cantwell

I have to confess that the annual Spring Fashion unavailing escaped my attention this year in favor of another passionate pastime, the Major League Baseball Postseason. The excitement that lead up to the World Series and the subsequent Saint Louis batsmen last minute win, surprisingly overpowered my usual unquenchable sartorial desires. I couldn’t get enough of those Cardinals delicately balanced on the bat and felt compelled not to give Rick Perry anything more to look all gloaty about. My rooting was resolute and all consuming. Then emptied, and drained of all baseball input I reached out for more, downloaded Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding and gobbled that up. Enough. Satiated at last.

So when it did come time to settle down and dig into the latest designer offerings for Spring, I made a concerted effort to stay stateside. Rachel Comey, a Nolita New Yorker, originally immigrated to the city to pursue an artistic career. She garnered attention in 2002 when her costume collaboration with the Ukrainian-gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Her men’s shoe collection has enough of a cult following that they warrant their own e-commerce experience, each shoe given it’s own moniker and character designation. Give the site a spin and meet the likes of “Uncle Dan”, “Maynard” and “Derringer” — it’s very entertaining.

Proenza Schouler, the designer team comprised of Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, have never missed a beat since their first show in 2002 and this year’s collection is no exception. It’s seems precisely what America needs now, Back to the Future. The look is confident, executed with precision and detailed with restraint. Retailers should be ecstatic with the results of what I believe will be flying off the racks.

And then I diverged, deviated, drifted astray across the Atlantic and came up gasping for air at the sheer pleasure of Dolce & Gabbana. Are we having a good time or what! You would hardly believe today’s news of the Italian economic implosion and the demise of the 18 year reign of Berlusconi by gandering these gamines walking the runway. Complete with Sophia Loren crooning “Mambo Italiano” this duo has created the triumphant feel good sensation of the season. And at risk of stating the obvious …you will eat this stuff up!

Rachel Comey

If you have an imminent white sands vacation in your future, pack these clothes and work it. Effortless style — grab a hat and go. Comey’s use of prints has been a trademark, but the choice for this collection of the landscape print by the French artist Rosemarie Auberson blocked across the torso adds a different focus. The subtle black strap of the this sundress too echos in the footwear. A filmy cable knit print delicately balances on the off the shoulder full length dress, while another sheer enlarged homage to plaid kicks out a flirty hemline, an ironic salute to their heavyweight winter counterparts. One last thing, call it minimal if you will, but the conspicuous lack of jewelry sets these clothes apart. Who cares what time of day it is when you are as care-free as this collection implies.

Proenza Schouler

Proenza Schouler start off the runway in the 40’s and stealthily triage to the present. Short suits tailored to impress and possess tomorrow. The chunky chain strapped tangerine camera bag sets off the ensemble with panache, but also boasts a tongue in cheek shout out to the plethora of street shooters that have emerged. The lack of jewel tones has been such a relief this season, but this teal pantsuit feels just right. The demure demeanor dampens it’s bright appeal. Next a bandeau top sits knowingly atop a high waisted fitted sarong, as bold and assured a combo as has been shown on this side of the Atlantic. The embroidered tulle long sleeved sheath that walked the finale spoke volumes about today. The cut and workmanship were so money that even a Wall Streeter would take notice.

Dolce and Gabbana
 

 

This is Dolce & Gabanna knocking it out of the park. They took a look at their core competencies and cultivated a garden of earthly delights. An abundance of sensuality, served up with sizzling chili print bra tops, full swishy skirts and garnished with farfalle and garlic earrings. Blue flowered embroidery bookended a mega bold tomato print knee skimming outfit. The dresses culminated in a bejeweled flesh tone fireworks spectacular cocktail number. All followed up with a bevy of babes in circus like corsets all legs and sparkle. Buon Appetito!

Pacific Standard Time Arrives
by Nancy Cantwell

Initiated by the Getty Museum along with the Getty Research Institute, Pacific Standard Time has blossomed into a comprehensive collaboration of 60 cultural institutes whose focus will be the art and artists of Southern California from the years 1945 to 1980. While the official kickoff date is October 1st, the festival has already taken on wings with gallery exhibitions of works by such L.A. original as Beatrice Wood, Maria Nordman and John Outterbridge. I was thrilled when Scott Hobbs, brought to my attention that the work of Marjorie Cameron was to be included as part PST’s inaugural Getty exhibition “Crosscurrents” and featured as part of the Getty’s “Explore the Era” web archive. Scott along George Herms are both part of the Cameron-Parsons Foundation board and as such have been instrumental as keepers of the flame of this extraordinary Southern Californian original.

Here, in an interview conducted and shot by Hobbs in 2002, Herms speaks about his first encounters with Cameron who he aptly identifies as part of the “occult humanist tradition.”

Cameron has been a part of many posts I’ve written albeit in the shadows. As an actress, in Curtis Harrington 1961 cult classic Night Tide she is the enigmatic leader of the “Sea People” who speaks a cryptic language unknown to all but her legion of mermaids. In Kenneth Anger’s film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Cameron is cast in a leading role of “The Scarlet Woman” and “Kali” opposite Anais Nin’s character of “Asarte.” But it is within the context of her artistic contributions that are explored as part of PST where her greatest influences can be appreciated. Cameron became the poster girl for the 1955 Wallace Berman’s literary and artistic journal Semina. From the Cameron-Parson Foundation:

In the early 1950s, Cameron met the fellow LA artist and jazz enthusiast Wallace Berman who was fascinated by her artwork, poetry, and mystical aura. She later recounted that she was impressed by the fact that, shortly after they were introduced, he gave her a copy of Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. Although steering clear of her occult activities, Berman was intrigued with her persona and, as she put it in her 1986 interview with art historian Sandra Starr, “He seemed to be interested in somehow promoting me.” In 1955 Berman used his photograph of Cameron as the cover of his literary and artistic journal Semina 1 and included in the issue a reproduction of a drawing she had made the previous year during her first experience with peyote, which she had taken after hearing a lecture by Aldous Huxley. The reproduced drawing became renowned when the Los Angeles Police Department cited it as “lewd” and shut down Barman’s 1957 exhibition of drawings, assemblages, and sculptures at Ferus Gallery. After this experience, Cameron, like Berman, refused to show her art in commercial galleries. She remained, however, a crucial figure in the Berman circle.

This is also well documented as part of PST in the accompanying interview with Lyn Kieinholz, author of L.A. Rising, and Getty curator John Tain.

Cameron will furthermore be a part of the exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, “L.A. Raw, Abstract Expressionism in Los Angeles, 1945-1980, From Rico LeBrun to Paul McCarthy.” This is all a rare opportunity to become acquainted with a mesmerizing artist whose influence is now irrefutably entrenched as a part of Pacific Standard Time.

Untitled (Portrait of Crystal), ca. 1961, Marjorie Cameron. Ink and gouache on wood panel. 43 1/2 x 11 3/4 ” Collection of Scott Hobbs. Permission courtesy of Cameron Parons Foundation

Semina cover with photograph of Cameron, 1955, Wallace Berman.Semina journal, no. 1 (1955) by Wallace Berman. Gelatin silver print mounted on cardstock. 7 1/2 x 4 in. The Getty Research Institute, 2564-801.no1.2. Courtesy of the Estate of Wallace Berman and Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles

Another Earth, Directed by Mike Cahill; written by Mr. Cahill and Brit Marling
by Nancy Cantwell

Couched in a comfy sci-fi genre, Another Earth takes off to explore, not the regions of outer space, but instead turns inward, to examine the intimate nature of redemption. It questions what are the actual possibilites for the reparation of unyielding guilt—explores the avenues, the processes of atonement. Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling), a gifted college student with pure potential, takes one intoxicant too many and becomes distracted by the discovery of an alternate Earth, causing her to crash into an unwitting family who too are on their way to a beautiful future. And there the future ends. Wife, pregnant with the second child, and son die and leaving the husband John Burroughs (William Mapother) comatose only to awake to unspeakable grief.

The film unfolds four years later when Rhoda is released from prison and story follows her as she attempts to reconcile her life. And four years later the alternate Earth looms even larger now, as if one could merely reach out and grasp it in one’s palm. It has been established that indeed it is a mirror image, a one for one swap of human race. Speculation is rampant as the public eagerly dotes on the every talking head whose theories are a constant drone throughout the film. But the real speculation what the film makers have set into motion is how will Rhoda and John resume their lives, how will they choose to go forward faced with unspeakable loss. Unspoken truths is how the the new relationship begins as Rhoda raps on Johns door seeking to apologize and looses heart. Instead she concocts a coupon scheme putting herself in the position of caretaker, cleaning, literally picking up the pieces of his shattered existence.

Another Earth undertakes the difficult task of putting on another’s shoes. Rhoda identifies with those who have gone before, convicts shipped off to explore the new territories of yore. She embraces the unaccounted names of outcast. And while many of us may not be card carrying felons, there are those of us for whom personal trespasses may still have the capacity to evoke crippling remorse. Rhoda’s seeking, wondering how to right the wrong is deeply palpable, contagious. In John, on the other hand, we can taste the bitterness of blame. His anger first turns in on himself and we see him slovenly, indifferent to his being and surrounds. Cahill then begin to offers up tiny disclosures as Rhoda, in her cleaning crusade, excavates the life that was John. The slow mending begins and he is returned, seen once more as the gentle, cultivated professor. But when the truth of this new relationship is revealed to be the root cause of his misery, his fury takes on a deep seeded savagery. Co-writers Mike Cahill and Brit Marling have done an uncanny job communicating more with less. Small budgets leave the way clear for powerful tacit narratives. The small act of washing a sweater carries a magnitude of sin and emotional unraveling when it is realized it contained the last vestige of smell of the loved one. The incremental closeness Rhoda and John gain, each small step towards redemption they attain, the larger the impending doom lurks ahead. A shaman like character, Purdeep (Kumar Pallana), Rhoda’s comrade in janitorial service, plays out in the background with more unspoken wisdoms. While the weakest person of this sub-plot, Pudeep does serve the function of posing the ultimate question of total undoing as he purposefully blinds and deafens himself using bleach as his ultimate cleansing agent (a little heavy handed, no?). While managing not to drink the stuff, he can still speak to Rhoda of ensuing nothingness while she hangs on acknowledging the inevitability of the void.

Catharsis and resolution are neatly wrapped up when Rhoda, seeking reparations gives John her seat on the first shuttle to the new Earth. His is a final attempt to reunite with his family who could be lurking unscathed due to a schism in time that corresponds with the duplicate planet appearance. It is a tidy resolve that works magic for all concerned, that is until it doesn’t. Redemption it seems is not so easily appeased. Rhoda refreshed with a spring-like innocence, purged of self-reproach, merely needs to look up one day and find that she herself is looking back in horror. It’s seems that no two souls can be truly indistinguishable. We may not be alone, but on Another Earth all is not the same.

Many a conversation takes place on the walk that circumscribes the Lake Hollywood Reservoir. There things get sorted out, affairs get settled, decisions are made and plans are put into play.

My favorite lakeside conversation is the one that I indulge in with myself. The distances I have traveled on foot pale in comparison to the distances I have traveled inside my mind. Not a meditation, more of a circumspect rumination. Here at the reservoir I surf the vortex of mind matter that rents space in my brain. My mind matter often takes on a density, behaving more like an event horizon than the lithe notes of a Mozart score. But then, there is the walking. And as vigilant as is my predisposition to codify, to conserve, the walking let’s you know that where you started is not where you ended. Indeed contrary to what you think has just gone down, the reality is that it all has metamorphosed regardless. So move along!

Like the rest of the billion iPhone users I think of it as an extra limb. And with the advent of the many sophisticated photo apps I am now all consumed with my device, much like Solvieg Dommartin obsesses with her dream recording device, in Wim Wenders Until the End of the World. These photographs of the mostly bucolic Lake Hollywood Reservoir seem to have taken a cinematic turn, one more comfortable in the world of Lars Von Trier than say that of Judd Apatow. Actually their provenance most closely resembles how I imagine David Lynch’s backyard plays out. — Nancy Cantwell

Lake Hollywood Reservoir
Construction began in 1923 and the lake was first filled in 1925

Lake Hollywood is a man-made reservoir built in 1924 to hold more than 2.5 billion gallons of water. The reservoir is part of the Owens River Aqueduct system. The Mulholland Dam was built by engineer William Mulholland who designed and built the system of aqueducts and reservoir providing Los Angeles with most of its drinking water.

The dam is located in Weid Canyon, East of Cahuenga Pass. The dam is 210 feet high, 933 feet long and 16 feet wide at the crest with a maximum depth of 183 feet. 172,000 cubic yards of concrete were used for the construction of the Mulholland Dam.

© Nancy Cantwell

The Six Realms, Peter Lieberson (25 October 1946 – 23 April 2011)
By Nancy Cantwell

Lieberson is survived by his third wife and longtime friend, the Tibetan writer Rinchen Lhamo and Katherine, Christina and Elizabeth Lieberson, his children from his first marriage.

The Six Realms (1999-2000),  Bridge Records, 2006, for Amplified Violoncello and Orchestra
Michaela Fukacova, Violoncello, The Odense Symphony Orchestra; Justin Brown, conductor

1. The Sorrow of the World

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2. The Hell Realm

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3. The Hungry Ghost Realm

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4. The Animal Realm

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5. The Human Realm

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6. The God Realm and the Jealous God Realm

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Peter Lieberson’s Disc Notes
Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project involved working with musicians of many different nationalites that were located on the ancient Silk Road between east and west. In my case Yo Yo asked me to contribute a piece that reflected my long standing practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Six Realms is scored for 3 flutes (all alternating on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet (alternating on contrabass clarinet), 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, piccolo trumpet, 2 trumpets in C, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussioni, piano, celeste, harp, solo amplified cello and strings. The Six Realms was commissioned for Yo Yo Ma by the Toronto Symphony, with the support of the Fleck Family, and was premiered by Yo Yo Ma and the Toronto Symphony conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

My first thought was to  compose a piece that reflected principles of Tibetan Buddhism rather than build a piece based on quotations of Tibetan folk music or something of that nature. The six realms described in Buddhism are a highly detailed portrait of our human consciousness. These are the God realm, the jealous God realm, the human realm, the animal realm, the hungry ghost realm, and the hell realm. In some explanations these realms are actual places, inhabited by beings not seen by the human eye. these two viewpoints need not be seen as one more literal and the other more fanciful, because when a realm is fully manifest within our consciousness, whether it exists as an actual place or not is somewhat irrelevant. Each of the realms is associated with a particular emotion: anger with the hell realm, immense neediness with the hungry ghost realm, jealousy with the jealous God realm, and ignorance with the God realm, but a different kind of ignorance than found in the animal realm, a blissful kind of ignorance and smug self-satisfaction.

In my concerto the portrait of the six realms is initiated and guided by the solo cello. I wanted to give the cello a variety of music, while always emphasizing a lyric quality and the melodic line. The piece opens with an introduction called The Sorrow of the World, a lament for the condition we find ourselves in again and again. A high G# in the piccolo and a low E in the contrabasses are the first notes that are sounded. Other instruments playing the same notes are added until the entrance of the cello, as if t suggest that everything in the world gives birth within that space and returns to it. The cello enters with an expressive motive, A-flat to G-flat to G natural which revolves around itself and gradually expands, climbing in register until the full orchestra plays the motive, further expanded into a long melodic line.

At the conclusion of this section, the cello has a solo which initiates the portrayal of the hell realm. It is reflective at first but soon there is a build-up of angry energy. This provokes a reaction from the orchestra, that is at time “hot”", and then abruptly “cold” or frozen, typical of our responses when we are angry. After a final orchestral tutti, the energy of the hell realm slowly dissolves, and the movement ends with the cello playing the opening sorrowful motive, now transformed into a “folksy” tune, as if to say, this was all a dream. I should add that this cello motive, transformed, precedes each of the next movements as a kind of passport to the next realm.

The hungry ghost realm is predominantly for cello and strings and begins without pause. The hungry ghost is an image of one who is unfulfilled, never having enough, always needing more. There is a feeling too of sadness. At the end of this movement the motive appears, again somewhat light and folksy, first the solo horn, then the cello.

The animal realm opens with a tuba solo. This movement is a scherzo, with a plodding quality, but also with a sense of innocence and exuberance. The music fades away and the solo cello leads us into the human realm.

The human realm can be characterized not only by its passion but also by a sense of loneliness—a sense of separation from others and which intensifies out longing to communicate and unite with others. I composed this movement principally for solo cello with a very little accompaniment.

The God realm and the jealous God realm are combined in the final movement. I have portrayed these realms not in a linear fashion but simultaneously. The jealous Gods who are highly involved with envy try constantly to “enter” the realm of the Gods, who are involved in their self-absorption. The movement opens with a sustained chord—like the Gods, it stubbornly holds its own no matter what else is going on. Underneath, the cello enters in a brusque and feisty manner, and begins a long passionate solo. This movment is very directed, like envy itself—the jealous God realm is a very “windy” realm, always blowing in one direction, intent on proclaiming its point of view. Gradually the cello ignites an outburst from the orchestra which responds in a wild and furious way. The movement ends with a recapitulation of the very opening lament, but in a new light—we’ve come full circle. The piece ends quietly a return perhaps to a more human realm—there is an openness, reflective of having “seen the nature of these realms,” having gone through the whole experience.

The Interview Project Germany, Directed by Austin Lynch and Jason S, Porduced by Stephan Balzer/ Sabrina S. Sutherland/ Jon Nguyen/ Christopher Trela
by Nancy Cantwell

Apparently I was not the only one glued to last year’s David Lynch presentation The Interview Project. This is the documentary series, directed by Austin Lynch and Jason S, that roamed from coast to coast of the United states, not seeking, but always finding people whose stories needed to be told. These short portraits, no matter how unremarkable, became compelling tales by the sheer cumulative affect of the human condition and as Lynch so aptly put it “It’s Something So Human and You Can’t Stay Away From It.” The Interview Project won both the 2010 Webby for Best Documentary: Series and Best Documentary: Series -People Voice Winner.

So fresh off that success comes David Lynch Presents ©Absurda/ Red Onion Co-Production, Interview Project Germany. Done on a much smaller scale, but with the same intensity and verve, team interview has combed the German countryside and prepared 50 video portraits for our viewing pleasure. While David Lynch himself seems to get funkier with every breath, his team of stalwart profilers have tightened up their camera chops and refined their stylistic approach. The music by Alexander Maczewski, Florian Zenker and Christof May plays an even greater part in completing/complementing each finely tuned bio. All participants and crew motivate and awaken one another with results that are ever more poignant and persuasive.

Enjoy the interviews.

Yamamoto, Watanabe and Mikaye, Fall RTW 2011
by Nancy Cantwell

Magnitude. I cannot fathom the sheer force unleashed on the Northeast coast of Japan by the largest earthquake ever recorded.

I am no stranger to the shakes. The Northridge earthquake of 1994 lasted 20 seconds and the fear of imminent death undermined my core sense of self. Five minutes of a 9.0 is unimaginable. There is no material preparation for the enormity of that kind of impact. There is compassion. There is today.

I urge people to put aside their crisis fatigue and continue to donate to the worldwide effort to help the people of Japan sustain, recuperate and rebuild. The Red Cross operates 92 hospitals in Japan, has deployed 700 medical relief volunteers across the country and already has sent ten million dollars in aid.

Donate here: Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami. Please check here to see if your company has a matching gift policy. I know that NEC Foundation of America, an independent non-profit organization, is launching a $50,000 matching grant program that will match NECAM employee donations. There are many more programs like this in place.

There is no immunity, no privilege in this global community that separates us from this suffering.
We have all been hit hard.

Fashion Forward!
Time to feast on these Japanese designers who rocked the Paris runways this Fall Ready to Wear 2011.

It has been thirty years since Yohji Yamamoto presented his first collection in Paris. Now the 68 year old designer is also having his first solo showing in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The installation is curated by Ligaya Salazar, the V&A’s Contemporary Curator, and designed by scenographer, lighting designer and longtime Yohji collaborator, Masao Nihei. Though not a strict retrospective in terms of chronological display, the comprehensive exhibition features 80 pieces from his women’s and menswear collections in site-specific installations. Also participating in satellite spaces are the Wapping Project and Wrapping Paper Bankside.

Below are garments from the Yamamoto Ready to Wear Fall Collection 2011. True to his gender bending and alternative dress codes, this year’s collection also spotlights his love the historical. Best seen in the hoop skirt covered with lace accompanied by a velvet kimono-sleeve Victorian jacket these new pieces would feel comfortable in any 19th Century English romance novel.

 

This Junya Watanabe (Born 1961 in Fukushima, Japan) collection should turn out to be a retail favorite. Easy to wear rigorous-chic, attracting opposite sensibilities. Rigid black leathers paired with soft draping knits and a flurry of real and fake furs. A clearly feminine agenda wrapped in precise couture silhouettes.

Issaye Miyake. This is to be Dai Fujiwara’s last show as the company’s creative director after a five year tenure. Unlike the hot controversies surrounding the changing of the guard of many Parisian houses this baton handover was accomplished under the most amicable circumstances. Form, execution and theater began the show as models and nimble assistants folded and stapled paper tape into origami inspired garments. Beyond the clever references this open display of crafting is a couture education. And beyond this demonstration of precision lay the most dreamy layered diaphanous dress, that Tim Blanks pronounced “It might be the most beautiful piece of the week.” I would tend to agree!

Iannis Xenakis: Now and Tomorrow
Curtis Roads: New Work, with Brian O’Reilly, Video, REDCAT, January 30, 2011
by Nancy Cantwell

The CalArts Center for Experiment in Art, Information and Technology (CEAIT) Festival returned this year to REDCAT with an extraordinary three nights of concerts and two symposia featuring the work of the highly experimental architect and composer Iannis Xenakis. Presented in conjunction with the MOCA exhibition Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary, Angelinos got a rare opportunity to dote on the work of this complex hybrid master.

The culminating CEAIT program included Xenakis works, Dikhthas (1979), Epicycles (1989), Akanthos (1977) and Polytope de Cluny (1972), and that night’s opening performance featured the work of Curtis Roads and Brian O’Rielly whose dynamic audiovisual collaborations were the perfect evenings’ aperitif. Roads and O’Rielly have conjured a most finely tuned experience between sight and sound. Working side by side they presented Flicker Tone Pulse, a collection new electronic and cinematic pieces composed since 2009 as well as a few from the previous set Point Line Cloud (2005). The sophistication of pairing new music with visuals reaches for even higher ground in these works due to the intense synchronistic event that is achieved. The drama is not imposed on by theme or narrative such as seen in the collaborative work of Bill Viola in the Tristan Project, but emanates from within the electronic/visual landscape. Curtis cultivates his purely computer generated tonalities from the “…realm of microsound, of sound grains. First predicted in the acoustical theories of the physicist Dennis Gabor and the polymath Iannis Xenakais, the microsonic realm remained invisible for centuries.” Part of the extraordinary experience manifests as the duo of composer and filmmaker operate in tandem, live, so that even as the materials of electronics and video are perhaps a step removed from the temporal unique performance of say a classical orchestra, the every nuance of the production feels of the moment, a distinct performance.

Point Line Cloud (selections) from Brian O’Reilly

The excitement generated by this kind of staging is now being played out on a grander scale in Miami Beach at the New World Center, home of the New World Symphony. This latest of Frank Gehry design performance venues takes public broadcasting to the next level. Simulcasts of New World Symphony performances are relayed to the general outdoor park public via a hundred and sixty-seven speaker system as well as accompanying video projections that are displayed on an exterior wall, seven thousand feet square. What happens inside hall is reshaping the world of concert music and looking at the success of such partnerships as Curtis and O’Rielly it is a wonder to think of the dramatic possibilities. The New World Center is equipped with ten robotic cameras that project onto five curvilinear acoustic sails floating above and around the stage. And just as Curtis and O’Reilly work in tandem so do the filmmakers, composers, conductors and engineers (who can monitor and respond in real time to the subtlety of tempo), all now have the opportunity to explore simultaneous, supple performance possibilities.

Directly following Flicker Tone Pulse was, Dikhthas (1979), the first Xenakis composition of the evening and a duet of a different nature. This highly dynamic exchange between violin and piano is built of a series of individual, contrasting dialogues. Fiercely performed by violinist Mark Menzies (and the evening’s considerable conductor) and pianist Dzovig Markarian, Dikhthas bears little resemblance to the classic chamber combination of strings and piano and favors the differentiating factors between the two instruments in both range and density. The rapid and fast shifting exchange between instruments, connected yet wildly divergent, create an unmistakable anxiety akin to rapidly falling in and out of love. Extraordinarily compelling and heroically demanding of body, Menzies and Markarian delivered a virtuosic performance.

The idiom, “Back to the Future” has never felt more germane than when considering the finale of Xenakis: Now and Tomorrow—particularly when reflecting on the new hardscaping of multimedia performance, the Polytope de Cluny (1972) is clearly a harbinger of productions to come. Commissioned for the Festival d’Autonne and originally performed in the medieval ruins of the Baths of Cluny in the heart of Paris, Polytope de Cluny was a success unknown for its time. Running for sixteen months, four times daily and with attendance statistics over 200,000 it was a sound and light projection piece of a scale and sonority not yet experienced. Due to the historic nature of the performance site, the entire installation was erected within the walls utilizing a series of scaffolding and cables. All operations, the coordination of six hundred flashbulbs and three lasers were directed along paths determined by four hundred adjustable mirrors. The timing of light and sequences were programmed on a computer (circa 1972!) and subsequently converted into electromagnetic tape signals. Thus the twelve loudspeakers placed around Cluny were precisely coordinated with the light spectacle. One could not fault Xenakis for lack of tenacity.

While REDCAT was not in a position to reproduce the visual counterpart to Cluny the sound was ever faithful and Curtis, at the keyboard, kept to Xenakis’s propensity for volume. The layer upon layer of sound, distributed across eight channels included sonic material ranging from gongs, ceramic wind chimes, timpani rolls, and metallic, brassy entities. Cluny is also the first instance in France, much to the pride of Xenakis, to incorporate computer generated digitally synthesized sound into a composition. However, for all its ground breaking electronic prowess, the powerful crescendo of Cluny resides in the hands of a sustained, singularly plucked African thumb piano, and while this eventually gives way to a more complex conclusion, one is struck by the contrast and paradox of this deeply satisfying experience.

Seattle Central Library, USA, OMA / LMN – A Joint Venture
Commissioned:1999 Completed: 2004

From the Original Project Proposal 1999
At a moment when libraries are perceived to be under threat from a shrinking public realm on one side and digitization on the other, the Seattle Central Library creates a civic space for the circulation of knowledge in all media, and an innovative organizing system for an ever-growing physical collection – the Books Spiral. The library’s various programs are intuitively arranged across five platforms and four flowing “in between” planes, which together dictate the building’s distinctive faceted shape, offering the city an inspiring building that is robust in both its elegance and its logic. read more
Program:
Total 38,300m2, including 33,700m2 reading room, book spiral, mixing chamber, meeting platform, living room, staff floor, children’s collection, auditorium, and 4,600m2 of parking

Sustainable Design and Features
“Energy and atmosphere: Building designed to outperform Seattle energy code by 10 percent; about half the glass used in the curtain wall is triple-glazed with an aluminum expanded metal mesh sandwiched between two panes to reduce heat buildup from sunlight; no chlorofluorocarbon-based refrigerants in air conditioning and no halon gases in fire suppression system; control systems meter HVAC systems, water usage and energy performance of the building.” read more

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED), Silver certification

PRESS
High-Tech Bibliophila, by Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker Magazine

“If you wanted to build a new library downtown somewhere, Rem Koolhaas is probably the last architect you would think to hire. For years, Koolhaas has been ranting about how traditional cities don’t matter anymore, and how the rise of new technologies has made public space obsolete, and how when people leave their houses the only thing they want to do is shop. His firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, which is based in Rotterdam, wasn’t on the original list of architects being considered for a new library in Seattle, but one day in 1999 Koolhaas’s partner, Joshua Ramus, who comes from Seattle, got a phone call from his mother saying she had read in the local newspaper that any architect who wanted to be considered should show up the next day for a briefing. Ramus rushed to the airport, flew to Seattle, and eventually the firm got the job.” read more

PRESS
ARCHITECTURE; The Library That Puts on Fishnets and Hits the Disco, by Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times

“At a dark hour, Seattle’s new Central Library is a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon. If an American city can erect a civic project as brave as this one, the sun hasn’t set on the West. In more than 30 years of writing about architecture, this is the most exciting new building it has been my honor to review. I could go on piling up superlatives like cars in a multiple collision, but take my word: there’s going to be a whole lot of rubbernecking going on.” read more

© Nancy Cantwell

Visit:
1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, WA 98104-1109, USA more

Principals:
Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus (Partner in Charge)

Engineer:
Arup / Magnusson Klemencic Associates

Project Architects:
Meghan Corwin, Mark von Hof-Zogrotzki, Bjarke Ingels, Carol Patterson, Natasha Sandmeier

Team:
Keely Colcleugh, Rachel Doherty, Sarah Gibson, Laura Gilmore, Anna Little, John McMorrough, Kate Orff, Beat Schenk, Saskia Simon, Anna Sutor, Victoria Willocks, Dan Wood with Florence Clausel, Thomas Dubuisson, Chris van Duijn, Erez Ella, Achim Gergen, Eveline Jürgens, Antti Lassila, Hannes Peer, João Costa Ribeiro, Kristina Skoogh, Sybille Waeltli, Leonard Weil, Ali Arvanaghi

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)

“Miracles; I’ve used the word, and I‘ll stay with it. In a lifetime with Mozart’s music I am still surprised, shaken, momentarily ashiver at those moments when the heavens seem to part and revelations fill the sky.” — Alan Rich

On the occasion of his birth, offered here is the Mozart Piano Sonata No. 13 in B flat, KV  333 as performed by Solomon. This is the BBC transcription from his final broadcast pre-recorded August 28, 1956, just weeks before the catastrophic stroke that was to end his career.

Mozart Piano Sonata No. 13 in B flat, KV  333, Solomon (Solomon Cutner), Great Pianist of the 20th Century, Philips Classics, In cooperation with Steinway and Sons

Allegro

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Andante Cantabile

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Allegretto Grazioso

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Digitzed Mozart Edition
The Digital Mozart Edition; (Digitale Mozart-Edtion, DME) is currently being developed at the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg in cooperation with Packard Humanities Institute in Los Altos, California, USA. The DME will provide world wide access to the complete works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756- 1791) in digital form via the internet for study and performance purposes. In addition to the presentation of all works of music online, the DME will include a critical edition of letters, documents and libretti as well. The DME strives to incorporate images of original source materials with due consideration of copyright laws. Access to the website, including the downloading and printing of files for non-commercial purposes, is free. Information relating to works and sources will also be provided online

Available Sheet Music: Neue Mozart-Ausgabe: Digitized Version

The whole works: Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg

Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915
LACMA Resnick Pavilion, October 2, 2010–March 6, 2011

Essay by Nancy Cantwell
Photography by Nancy Baron

Fashioning Fashion, one of the inaugural exhibitions of the Renzo Piano designed Lynda and Stewart Resnick Pavilion, is a trove of European clothing that speaks to both the evolution of style and the historical narrative of technical innovation covering a span of more than two hundred years. The show is the culmination of the gift from donors Michael and Ellen Michelson and Suzanne Saperstein, that when integrated with the objects and holdings of the LACMA’s Costume and Textile departments, now make Los Angeles a destination of consequence for European costume studies. Stewards Sharon S. Takeda, department head and senior curator along with co-curator Kay Spilker have culled nearly two hundred rare highlights from the immense thousand-piece collection amassed over  50 years of acquisitions by dealers Martin Kamer of London, England  and Wolfgang Ruf of Beckenried, Switzerland. In a statement Takeda observes, “The addition of this extraordinary collection is a coup simply for the breadth and depth. But even more significantly for its overall quality and number of extremely rare pieces-shown widely in this exhibition.”

As one navigates the the show, organized by the thematic sections Timeline, Textile, Tailoring and Trim there is a palpable sense of drama fueled by the socio-polical narrative of a European society being transformed by wars, revolution, industrialization and the emergence of a burgeoning middle class. For two centuries, from the Age of Enlightenment to the onset of World War I, we can track the shift in taste from aristocratic court-inspired opulence to a fashion that reflected style possibilities more closely aligned with the expanded trade routes, manufacturing processes and technological advances of the day. Research scholar Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell affirms in her catalog essay, “Indeed, the more we delve into the history of fashion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the more familiar it looks. This period witnessed the birth of the fashion industry as we know it today—that is, seasonal, international and corporate.”

There is a tangible seduction about the collection and a strong operatic quality of intrigue and beguilement as one traverses through the years engaging with these extraordinary sewn artworks. Designed by renowned opera stage designers Pier Luigi Pizzi and Massimo Pizzi Gasparon, each dress, suit, cap and vest seems to not only to manifest its own place in history, but also bears evidence to individual character, principle players on history’s stage. John Galliano, head designer for Christian Dior, is no stranger to dramatic affect in his designs nor his personage. LACMA had definitely chosen the right man to preview the collection and write the Preface to the remarkable catalog, designed by Pentagram’s Abbott Miller, that accompanies the show. Gallinano’s pick to illustrate the concept of how a piece of clothing can transform character is the Revolutionary Vest, French 1789-94. Made of linen canvas with silk needle point, this precursor to the protest tee, is rife with revolutionary symbolism. “You can spend hours studying this vest. It gives many clues about the turbulent time, weaving style with politics, rebellion, and the ‘tricolore’. Here fashion speaks its owners mind through intricate needlework and beauty rather than through the violence of the day.” The embroidered caterpillar collar represents how the aristocracy once dressed “en chenille” or casual in appearance by day, and then morph into the showy butterfly by night. Again as Galliano aptly points out, “The vest is both a political and a fashion statement that captures the mood at the beginning of a new era. It also shows how style reacted, like a fickle mirror, and instantly rejected the gaudy finery so beloved before.”

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Both men and women are given equal opportunity to shine in the details of the embroidery, the exactitude of the tailoring, the exoticism of the fabrics and the inventiveness of the reshaped silhouette. The embellishment of the body begins early and these two boy’s frocks are striking examples of both the growing global trade economies and the technological advances of times. The two following descriptions are extracts from the catalog.

Left: This English boy’s frock is made of soft, lightweight cashmere twill woven in Kashmir. Prior to being cut and sewn, professional Indian embroiderers utilizing silk embroidery thread, probably imported from China, embellished the fabric with traditional stylized floral motifs that featured curved tips (buta) often seen on Kashmir shawls.

Right: The boy’s frock incorporates a white-work technique, broderie anglaise, in which small eyelets are outlined with sturdy embroidery stitches and cut out of the ground fabric. Although the result resembled lace, it could withstand frequent washing and was therefore practical for children’s clothing. Technically very simple, this imitation lace was lower in cost that real lace, and it became increasingly available as the nineteenth century progressed. Ironically, this “democratic” decoration owed its affordability to the meager wages given to the female and child laborers who often produced it.

please click to enlarge for garment details

 

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If ever there was a dress that Violetta Valery, the famed and fated courtesan of La Traviata, would favor it is this moiré finished silk gown. The temptation of this sensuous material alone would keep Verdi’s heroine of ill repute ripe with clientele. The Japanese inspired butterfly-and-flower motif was produced using a mechanical process of roller-printing warps (shadow printing) meant to simulate the chiné à la branche, whose characteristic hazy, impressionist patterns might give our Lady of the Camellias the aura of walking on water.

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The allure of Fashioning Fashion is far reaching from the lavish court gowns, adorned with silk passementerie, to men’s silk cut and voided velvet suits, laden with embroidery. Casting an eye back from the 21st century where clothing has been stripped of most extravagant ornament in favor of more serviceable purposes, it is hard to imagine the kind of functionality all the finery afforded and what real freedoms were accorded in wearing so much, but being given the opportunity to explore these sensibilities in close proximity and collected under one roof is the real luxury of modern times.

Photography © Nancy Baron

Alfred Brendel: On Character in Music, REDCAT October 28, 2010
by Nancy Cantwell

The assignment of character or poetic meaning in music of the last half of the last century has been an unfashionable practice. Perhaps practiced in secret in the hearts of all composers, but not openly discussed by many. Pure musical theories of chromatic scale, tonality and form have been the favored pursuits of “new music”, a turning away from the over laden portentous Romantic zeal that dominated the late 19th and early 20th century. But as of late there has been a distinct, albeit slow, shift back towards easy listening. The toot and bleep that has been so closely identified with composers of contemporary classical music is steadily being subverted with sound thats easier on the ears.

Programming too has begun to include performances that favor a more naturalistic response to the world. At the opening of the Green Umbrella series at Disney Hall in October the composition titled “Weather One,” by  Michael Gordon was performed. Gordon spoke of being inspired by the “chaos of weather” and wanted to transcribe it musically. I find this trend for pastoral pondering an antithetic response for our deeply divergent digital age, a misplaced disconnect. But what I can understand is the need to find a meaningful context by which to reframe or bridge what has come before, to re-imagine a more complex present. One such bridge that was masterfully deliberated on at REDCAT on October 28 by the legendary pianist Alfred Brendel as part of his lecture demonstration “On Character in Music.”

The program was co-sponsored by The Brain and Creativity Institute and it’s distinguished Director, Antonio Damasio, was on hand to  make the introduction. Oh to have been a fly on the wall of the pre-lecture dinner I imagined took place. Not only do these two men possess endless insight into the nature of creativity, they also possess boundless enthusiasm for their subjects. After more than 60 years on the concert tour Alfred Brendel retired in 2008, but not before he garnered a multitude of prizes, honors and awards including the Han von Bülow medal of the Berlin Philharmonic, made Honoary Knight of the British Empire in 1989, made member of the Wiener Philharmoniker in 1998, awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 2004 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2009. Now in this time of career transition Brendel has turned his indisputable authority into an integrated illustrative lecture presentation that guides his audience through the nuance of performance, interpretation and musical temperament. In his introduction, Damasio describes Brendel as synonymous with piano mastery and probing inquiry — both begin manifesting as soon as he takes the stage.

Seated on the familiar piano stool a behind a dais that faced the audience and the grand Steinway to his left Brendel launches immediately into how character infuses the sonata form. His historical command is far reaching as he paints a picture of the players who all contribute to the timeframe and philosophies that act as the cornerstones for the exploration of poetic allusion. Each piece of musical exemplification is carefully weighed for its character potency. A Schoenberg selection is used to example how the composer leaves clues for the performer as to the nature of the musics’ sensibility. These clues, through performance, are made equally transparent for the listener to reach an identical conclusion as to the character of the piece. Both the listener and performer share a consistent perspective.

The Beethoven sonatas are Brendel’s tour de force. He lives inside these compositions, thinking, feeling, breathing, bearing the weight of the composers intent. Freed from the formality of the concert platform Brendel bodily merges with the music absorbed by the psychological and emotional humors. As he is sometimes wont to throw his head back in ecstatic sing along, so Brendel reminds me of the great Glen Gould, bent over his celebrated Steinway CD 318 piano, muttering along completely assimilated by a Goldberg Variation. In examining Beethoven Brendel extracts movements that demonstrate psychological motivation through the use of prolonged tension and concentration of theme, explicates on the emotional color of anima and animus by the use of contrasting dramatic ensemble and discovers lyrical conversations that exemplify the nature of a landscape’s Arcadian temperament.

While Alfred Brendel does have the mystique of a European era past, his own predisposition is towards a modern ear. In the midst of reveling in the lyric sensitivities of Beethoven’s epoch, he adamantly declares his preference for his own far more minimalist extrapolations. Brendel asserts that musical structures and expressive atmospheres of Beethoven be sympathetic, inservice to the music at all times. And while he issues a quite contemporary warning against the tendency to “bell jar” the emotional and cautions equally the temptation to parody the poetic, we are whole heartedly encouraged to pursue all the passion that character affords us.

Please take some time to explore the Beethoven Sonata No. 30 in E, Op.109 as performed by Alfred Brendel in 1996
This is the 3rd movement, Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung.

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Top Left: Beaumontia Grandiflora with Mexican Latern      Top Right: Driftwood Crystals

Bottom Left: Stag Horn Fern, Platycerium            Bottom Right: Grape Lights Entwine with Wisteria

© Nancy Cantwell

Top Left: Hoya Copacta or Hindu Rope, Verigated       Top Right: Stag Horn Fern, Platycerium

Bottom Left: Stag Horn Fern, Platycerium                     Bottom Right: Begonia Bloom with Palm Leaf

© Nancy Cantwell

Missoni Fall Campaign 2010, a film by Kenneth Anger
Puce Moment (1949), a film by Kenneth Anger
by Nancy Cantwell

September is here and even though I have thoroughly combed through the collections, I still race to see how the venerable magazine fashion editors piece it all back together. So far I have found the the massive amount of pulp to be fairly prosaic (yes I capitulate there are a few economic restraints to reflect upon), and really, what could possibly compete with Fall 2009’s Grace Coddington Little Red Riding Hood spread? This year however, before I could even crack the magazine covers, my fashionista cohorts were directing me towards another venerable artiste who seems to be in vogue once more. Kenneth Anger, the octogenarian auteur, has become incredibly fashionable as of late. At Valentino, a massive montage of Anger films was utilized as a backdrop for the catwalk Fall 2010. Interviewed at the show Anger gleefully asserts “I’ve always been friends of fashion!” July previewed a more ambitious project by Missoni who recruited Anger to film their Fall 2010 campaign. I was a bit confused by commission as the Missoni’s strike me as a particularly happy clan as portayed by the Jurgen Teller Spring/Summer campaign, whereas Kenneth Anger is better known for his relationship with the dark side (see Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey and Bobby Beausolei). In an interview with Italian Vogue, Angela Missoni, the brand’s principle designer, explains,“The images of Juergen Teller for the S/S 2010 campaign reflected and portrayed our everyday family life, Kenneth Anger’s experimental approach and his narrative style, on the other hand, transformed the new campaign into a sublimation of our world.”

Distinctly Kenneth Anger, Missoni includes all the filmmaker’s signature moves. Psychedelia, layered surreal dream sequences, mirrored camera work, the compulsory orb, hand crafted titles and a well appointed soundtrack provided by the French symphonic composer Koudlam. In keeping with the celebrated Missoni family tradition all generations are represented; Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, and Ottavio Jr all play their parts. Filmed in the Sumirago countryside and utilizing part of Rosita and Ottavio’s own garden, Anger also made use of other local resources for indoor sequences, building a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall.

Whereas I am not thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of the esoteric Missoni as an ad campaign, there is no denying that Kenneth Anger not only has an affinity for fashion, but his own familial ties lean in the sartorial direction. In Puce Moment (1949) he uses gowns handed down to him by his grandmother, a costume mistress of the 1920’s silent era. Titillated as Anger is with the tabloid of celebrity his is quick to add these glamorous gowns were worn by the likes of the suicide prone Clara Bow and the drug addicted Barbara Lamarr. In his later films, Lucifer Rising (1972),  Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Anger did much of the costume design himself (he had a great fondness for crafting occult robes).

Puce Moment, quite simply is all about getting dressed. The six minute film stars Yvonne Marquis, as the young woman ecstatic in her selection process, features the cinematography of Curtis Harrington, who later goes onto direct Night Tide, and the soundtrack is the contribution of Jonathan Hapler whose two distinct songs, “Leaving My Old Life Behind” and “I Am A Hermit”, reflect a stirring fusion of traditional folk sensibilities and airy, psychedelic musical experimentation. The films opulent interior shots are filmed at home of Sampson DeBreer, who later figures prominently in Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. To evoke the camera work of the silent era Anger uses different camera speeds and Borzois, a breed favored by the fashionable in the 1920s, make an appearance almost overpowering the young woman as they lead the way to destinations unknown.

There is an playfulness in Puce Moment’s opening sequence as the shimmering gowns happily dance off the rack and are swiftly snapped up out of sight. And at last as our protagonist settles on the color puce, there is a deep sense of portent pleasures to come.

Antoni Gaudi: Trencadis, A Project for Artforum, by Ellsworth Kelly
by Nancy Cantwell

Currently on exhibition at the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Medici is an extraordinary pairing of artists, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Ellsworth Kelly. While the most immediate choice of comparisons would be of a formalist concern, this exhibition which includes new works by Kelly and the Portrait de Desdéban (ca 1810, Musée of Besançon), painted in the Villa Medici, by its former director, Ingres, the Académie is stressing a more viseral approach “…the visitors’ eye and spirit will successively be confronted to one artist and then to the other, in such a way that the memory of one inhabits the look upon the other and vice-versa.” Currated by Ellsworth Kelly and Éric de Chassey, the current director of the French Academy in Rome, the exhibition is organized around three aspects shared by both Kelly and Ingres, a connection of outline and form, serialism and the search for the “good form” and the duality between fragmentation and unity. Ah, to be summering in Italia!

Seeing notice of the above show prompted me to revisit another Kelly pairing, Antoni Gaudi: Trecadis, A Project for Artforum, by Ellsworth Kelly. Trencadis is a Catalan word used to describe a type of mosaic composed of broken shards of discarded tile reconfigured and repurposed to decorate buildings (a comparible process to the French, pique assiette). I have been hanging on to these remarkable mosaic reproductions that Kelly had produced in honor of the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) first because I loved the domestic reference. Perhaps I could try my own hand at such a task? But, secondly, because there seemed such disparity between these trencadis arrangements and the minimalist abstractions I’ve long associated with Kelly’s art. So un-Kelly like. And as the Viila Medici exhibition digs into the past for fresh interpretations, so a revived historical forage (on my part) has made the connection now quite clear to me. I would venture to say the first impulse came from Kelly’s military experience when in 1943 he was inducted in the US Army where, at his request, he was assigned to the camouflage unit. Much the same as Richard Avedon honed his initial photographic eye taking identity pictures during his service in the Merchant Marines (1942), Kelly had ample time to spend in contemplation of the rearrangement of form and perceptual ambiguities. More to the point, his miltary experience afforded him the ability to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In Paris, Kelly would now come into close contact with the work of Pablo Picasso who became a profound initial influence. In his book Barcelona, the critic Robert Hughes quotes Ellsworth Kelly’s observation that Gaudi’s trencadis – the fragmented mosaics he used to create shimmering surfaces on solid architectural mass – had a profound effect on Picasso’s fragmented forms. The provenance of inspiration and continuity of vision that permeates these splendid Kelly trencadis is explicit…and so very Kelly-like after all.

Please click to enlarge.

Menswear Spring / Summer 2011
By Nancy Cantwell

I have to say that I had a much harder time than I expected trying to narrow the field for Menswear Spring 2011, but my first impulse is to run with what really works. This is how I would have sent David de Rothchild packing for his latest eco-crusade expedition aboard Plaskti, in search of Eastern Garbage Patch, an island of trash twice the size of Texas located in the Pacific Ocean. From creative director Alessandro Sartori of Z Zenga, the fashion forward branch of the 100 year Ermenegildo Zegna family empire, this ultra light, multo functional outwear is just the thing for our fearless adventure ecologist. I think Mr. de Rothchild would also feel comfortable wearing material produced by a company such as Zenga, whose commitment to social responsibility can be explored here at Oasi Zenga Project. You can follow David de Rothchild’s voyage at adventureecology.com

Outerwear seems to be favored over the traditional jacket for most shows. Trenches are everywhere, but let’s start at Lavin where Alber Elbaz, along with Lucas Ossendrijver, cooked up some amazing classics. The twist of turning a bomber jacket into a duster is absolute genius. Hooded or not, in suede or something more practical, these coats are an essential piece for spring. While more popular figures of fantasy use their coattails to traverse the realms of the undead, again my mind lights on the nautical, seeing Melville’s Ahab as the character of choice to wear the all noir enselmble on the left. I can imagine him updated, replete with whale bone jewelry, austere and fierce as he skippers the Pequod onward in his monomaniacal search for the “thick-lipped Leviathan” that was the elusive Moby Dick.

Rick Owens men look like they are survivors of some teutonic Wagnerian theme park ride. The short sleeves work particularly well with the long under tee…but, as always, Owens has just killer boots— industrial strength, half dock loader, half God stompers.

Keeping with the full length profile, but striking a far more relaxed pose are hybrid coat/robes at Dior Homme. House designer Kris Van Assche serves up one the finest white trenches of the season. He then moves on to more esoteric shapes. I do like the way the middle coat morphs from lapel jacket tailoring on one side into fabulous Morrocan robe on the other. And I have clear vision of a most refined Japanese gentleman on a hot summer evening, sleeveless, seated on tatami, practicing his kanji calligraphy.

For color this year you just had to go for the cacophony of brights by Raf Simons for Jill Sander. The show’s evening setting at the spectacular gardens of Renaissance-era Tuscan Villa Gamberaia provided the perfect backdrop for these rare birds to take flight. And in contrast to previously discussed silhouettes these slim honed trousers and suits are incisive and exciting.

And finally John Galliano’s men are part Buster Keaton, part Harold Lloyd, but all Proust. The look is light and ready for action whether it be a summer picnic, boat ride or generally just hanging off a clock. These are the finest of duds, most beautifully collared, tied and cuffed, complete in concept like no other than Galliano can do.

The Ring Festival Los Angeles April 15 -June 30, 2010
by Nancy Cantwell

For ten weeks this spring more than 115 cultural partners and Institutions have gathered round the Los Angeles Opera’a first complete Ring Cycle and mounted in support an amazing array of events, symposia, art exhibitions, lectures, theatrical performances and film presentation. This is a great time to experience the depth, breath and enthusiasm of this city’s artistic community. Not only are all committed to the cooperative ideal of festival, but they are wholeheartedly embracing the labyrinth of material that The Ring poses for critical study: Political Allegory, Epic mythological archetypes, philosophical inquiry ranging from classical Greek to contemporary French, in depth Psychological debate and most of all the musical explorations into influences preceding Wagner and those on whose Wagner’s musical genius left its indelible mark.

Two such exemplary venues I was privileged to attend were the Prussian Blues program staged at Jacaranda and the Myth, Wagner and the Human Brain, lecture featuring Antonio Damasio, Peter Sellars and Bill Viola, hosted at REDCAT. While Prussian Blues tackled, through the music of Hindemith, Schubert, Wagner and Mahler, histories including Hitler’s Entartete Kunst (degenerate art), the origins Wagner’s anti-semetic predisposition and the emergence, after the 18th century era of Enlightenment, of “Romanticism” embedded with “hero seeking authenticity”*, Myth, Wagner and the Human Brain concentrated on the story behind the Ring, examining the nature of Myth, memory and sentience.

The concept behind Jacaranda’s Prussian Blues was to explore the musical and historical context of the Wagnerian experience. The first selection, Paul Hindemith’s (1895-1963) Septet for Wind (1948) was a backwards look at the composer’s struggles to find an artist home in the Third Reich and the aftermath of “the grim consequences of a re-imagined Twilight of the Gods, a final conflagration conceived by the biggest German ego to follow Richard Wagner.”* Second on the bill was a selection of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) songs, a Wagnerian prelude that explored the Romantic Zeitgeist and it’s contribution “to creating the language of German music drama.”* After intermission Richard Wagner’s (1813-1883) own Siegfried Idle (1870) was performed and gave cause to examine the personal and tumultuous life Wagner shared with the then Cosima von Bulow. Well known for her Anti-Semetic leanings Cosima’s views on “racial purity” was said to influence Adolph Hitler who conscripted Wagner’s music in service of the ideals National Socialist Germany. Coming full circle, the final performance of the evening was Gustav Mahler’s (1860-1911) Adagio from Symphony No. 10 (arr. Hans Stadlmair 1911/1970). Mahler had adopted Wagner’s love of Carl Maria von Weber as his own, completing Weber’s unfinished opera The Three Pintos whose premiere established Mahler as both a critical and financial success. And not unlike Wager he shared a profound, but far more tortured relationship with the femme fatale Alma Schindler who was twenty-three, pregnant, and two decades younger than Mahler when they married in 1902.

There is quite a difference between hearing certain pieces in concert settings and experiencing them in environments devoted to other worldly concerns. Jacaranda resides at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica where the acoustics allow the music to ascend. Certainly there were no religious intentions behind in the programming of Prussian Blues, but listening to the Schubert performed by an all male choir with accompaniment, and sitting in the balcony, where the voices scaled perfectly, I was taken back to the St. Augustin Church in Vienna, hearing Anton Bruckner’s Grosse Messe in F-Moll, to the Eglise Saint Germain des Pres hearing Charles Gound’s Messe Solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cecile and to the Eglise de La Madeline hearing Puccini’s Messa de Gloria. Divine.

Across town at REDCAT where the atmosphere couldn’t be more secular Wagner was getting the thrice over. Antonio Damasio from USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute acted as an emcee of sorts and started the discussions by setting the ground work with his understanding of what myths are and how they behave in the culture. His ability to distill and relate the basic precepts was professorial and put me in a mood to learn. He began by quoting Paul Ricouer, whose anthropological inquiries and philosophies, lead Ricouer to conclude “there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols, and texts; in the final analysis self-understanding coincides with the interpretation given to these mediating terms.” Wagnerian indeed. To which Mr. Damasio added a few more simple tenets such as “[myths] are about Beings, Events and have no verification, substantiation nor proof” or “[myths] are Brain ingredients” and “[myths] are autobiographical, personal histories.” These prompted our gray matter to commence synapsing and acted as guides for the “Pictorial” and “Theatrical” contributors to follow.

Bill Viola, representing the Pictorial, was next at the microphone and seemed a bit uncomfortable at the table. Adding to the basics concepts of Mr. Damasio, Viola spoke of  “root systems”, “events outside of time” and taking up the technical baton (clearly a comfort zone), “[myths] function like a computer’s operating system – below the horizon, as infrastructure.” Another metaphor Viola explored was that of myth functioning as an intake form; a tablet where life’s primary informations are stored. He advanced his thought process further by stating that within the context of form vs content – the last century’s art being preoccupied with form, his hope for the 21st century was to lead us to a new content driven humanism. A welcome postulate.

By now the audience was pretty pumped for some substantive Wagnerian insight, and although Peter Sellars’ delivery was hyper-emotional and divaesque, he did eventually wipe his tears and bear down on the subject at hand. Bottomline, the story line of Der Ring Des Nibelungen is a cure for Optimism, where, in worlds of conflagration, transcendence equivocates to inaction. Characters, charged with great questions to answer and dauntless tasks preform, dramatically fail, unable to bridge the gap between their beliefs and actions. Gods and man alike require superior talents, impeccable moral fortitude, pure ambitions and heroic determination to police, not just world order, but inner rectitude. And while, the dialog and plot lines of the Ring are infused with character flaws, greed, avarice and delusions that ultimately undermine Nietzsche’s “Will to Power” the music that Wagner creates is seminal, valorous, and the consummate force that infuses the Ring with its preternatural power.

Still with Mr. Sellars, but now returning to myth and memory. If myths are a repository for explanations of origination, good and evil, power, governance catastrophe, love, war and death, and as each new generation experiences new encounters with these old informations, they in turn re-inhabit the collective memory pool to create a their own future. Wagner’s generous use of leitmotif throughout the Ring is a powerful memory tenant, a musical manifestation of each occupant. Each leitmotif is replayed, woven in and out of every opera, expanded upon over and over. Every leitmotif becomes its own language that builds and sustains the collective mythologies of the Ring.

When the discussion opened to the floor, Mr. Damasio seized the chance to comment on the science of how the brain actually functions with memory’s recall. He states that memories are repeated constructions, images are rebuilt and used to re-connect within the current syntax. Memories can degrade and/or the brain can introduce novelty into the process thus the memory can be re-modeled. The brain can make real, that which has not occurred; a persistent impediment for establishing the veracity of forensic testimony.

For a discourse on Wagner, the evening was oddly bereft of music. However the finale, Bill Viola’s Three Women, supplied visuals worthy of the Wagner mantle. An exquisite film, Three Women is a meditation on the states of being, unborn (inert), living, the dead or infinite. Viola has been collecting video cameras since 1970 and one of his prized possessions is an early B&W surveillance camera that creates a barely recognizable image somewhat akin to listening to a scratched up 78. Three Women juxtaposes this technology, with which Viola identifies preconsciousness, with the hyper-real quality of HD. Soundless and moving three women, representing the three stages of life slowly come into view. As they materialize they cross over emerging through a curtain of water, become colorized, highly defined and “born” only to return from where they came. For this attendee, the Three Women was an fitting conclusion to this mosaic of an evening. It’s investigation of origin, archetypes, the prolonged, deliberate tempo and grand scale touched on many a Wagnerian moment.

*Patrick Scott, Artistic Director, Jacaranda – Program notes for Prussian Blues

Exquisite Corpse, Photography by Naomi Pitcairn
by Nancy Cantwell

On this the 55th day of BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, as tens of thousands of gallons of oil continue to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, the heartbreaking vandalism of the sentient ocean’s population is unimaginable. According to the Center for Public Integrity, BP accounted for “97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the refining industry by government inspectors.” This willful and egregious trespass against wildlife of the Gulf Coast of Mexico amassed in the name of high speed gross profit is truly unconscionable.

I have been holding on to these Exquisite Corpse photographs by Naomi Pitcairn, waiting for larger meditation to take shape in my mind, but I keep returning to these portraits of prematurely deceased animals for their simple beauty and sympathetic tone. They are a fitting elegy to all those who will fall prey to the waste of this heedless corporate catastrophe.

There are further associations that come to mind as I examine Pitcarins’s work, that feel appropriate in light of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. The Exquisite Corpse series closely resonates with the Schiller poem and subsequent Brahms choral work Nänie Op. 82, 1881, whose opening line reads, “Auch das Schöne muß sterben!, Even Beauty must perish!” Brahms set to music Schiller’s text to honor the death his friend, artist Anselm Feuerbach, a painter of classical antiquity. The title derives from the ancient Latin term noenia, a funeral song traditionally sung by the surviving parents of the deceased, implying that the lamented dead were not only beautiful, but most likely young. This Brahms is no torpid dirge, it is, in fact, most remarkable for its loveliness. The opening solo oboe affects a calling to another world, a fearless crossing over. The music of Nänie invites the listener to contemplate ceaslessness, with acceptance.

Please find the Schiller poem and Brahms Nänie .mp3 directly below the Exquisite Corpse presentation.

Exquisite Corspes

© Naomi Pitcairn

Johannes Brahms
Nänie for Choir and Orchestra Op. 82, Bamberger Symphoniker – Bayerische Staatsphilharmonie, with the Bavarian Radio Chorus, Conducted by Robin Tocciati

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Nänie, poem by Friedrich Schiller

The beautiful, too, must die! that which subjugates men and gods
Does not stir the brazen heart of the Stygian Zeus
Only once did love melt the Lord of shadows,
And just at the threshold, he strictly yanked back his gift.
Aphrodite does not heal the beautiful boy’s wound,
Which the boar ripped cruelly in that delicate body.
Neither does the immortal mother save the dive hero
When, falling at the Scaean Gate, he fulfills his fate.
She ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus,
And lifts up a lament for her glorious son.
Behold! the gods weep; all the goddesses weep,
That the beautiful perish, that perfection dies.
But to be a dirge on the lips if loved ones can be a marvelous thing;
For that which is common goes down to Orcus in silence.

Auch das Schöne muß sterben! Das Menschen und Götter bezwinget,
Nicht die eherne Brust rührt es dem stygischen Zeus.
Einmal nur erweichte die Liebe den Schattenbeherrscher,
Und an der Schwelle noch, streng, rief er zurück sein Geschenk.
Nicht stillt Aphrodite dem schönen Knaben die Wunde,
Die in den zierlichen Leib grausam der Eber geritzt.
Nicht errettet den göttlichen Held die unsterbliche Mutter,
Wann er am skäischen Tor fallend sein Schicksal erfüllt.
Aber sie steigt aus dem Meer mit allen Töchtern des Nereus,
Und die Klage hebt an um den verherrlichten Sohn.
Siehe! Da weinen die Götter, es weinen die Göttinnen alle,
Daß das Schöne vergeht, daß das Vollkommene stirbt.
Auch ein Klagelied zu sein im Mund der Geliebten ist herrlich;
Denn das Gemeine geht klanglos zum Orkus hinab.

Be Here Nau
by Nancy Cantwell

Putting principles into practice for any organization is challenging and in the world of fashion this is no exception. But for the people of the Nau it’s all in a days work. Theirs is a green goal, a complete commitment from cradle to grave to sustainable business practices, materials and style. Every garment, every accessory is designed, manufactured and distributed looking at the big picture.

Their enthusiasm and eco spirit is infectious. I make a personal commitment to update my wardrobe at least once a year with a piece from Nau and become a bit evangelistic, particularly when I hear of a friend or relative who might be traveling abroad by insisting they consider packing a garment, scarf or satchel on their sojourn. It is one of best ways I can think of to represent what’s great about Americans.

Nau strips theatricality out of their style. Frills and thrills give way to a smart, clean, comfortable wearing. I think Jil Sander would be very happy sporting an Asylum Jacket, Helmut Lang would applaud the Men’s Riding Jacket and I can see Issaye Miyake giving his full support to the multi-use, multi-configurable Chrysalis Dress. Siting inspirations Peter Zumthor, Gerhard Richter, Claudy Jongstra and Copenhagen Cycle Chic, it is no wonder that the aesthetics of Nau run cool.

The company, founded in 2005 by former Nike, Patagonia and Adidas executives, is purposed to create a new model for retailing and manufacturing. Fabrics, trim and hardware are chosen for their sustainable, recycled or organic merit. Where high performance man made fabrics are required Nau seeks to offset the negative aspects of the material by reducing its carbon footprint or shortening the supply chain. Their credo reads Sustainability: Balancing the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit.

Nau’s initial entry in retailing also reflected it’s out of the box thinking. Each outlet carried the full line for customer hands on look and feel, but when it came to the check out counter they were redirected to the Nau website where an order was placed for home delivery. This practice thwarted the consumer’s need for instant gratification, but cut down on carbon emissions from trucking goods from distribution centers to stores. In 2008 Nau attracted national attention, thanks, in part, to a documentary about the company that aired on the Sundance Channel. Unfortunately it was not enough to stave off it’s impending demise. Up went it’s glorious “Goodbye for Nau” home page.

Not more than a month or so later, the Santa Barbara based lifestyle-apparel company Horny Toad saw a good thing and stepped up to purchase the defunct business. Gone are the stand alone retail stores, but on October 21, 2008 the official relaunch of Nau commenced and has been going strong since.

What initiated my need to engage on the topic of Nau was not it’s staunch environmental policies but it’s unwavering commitment to being a social progressive force. To start with Nau uses the labor watch dog Verite to monitor all of their overseas factories. Each of their manufactures must comply with a Code of Conduct that addresses issues of child labor, voluntary employment, freedom of association fair and equal treatment, nondiscrimination, compensation, hours of work, overtime, and health and safety. For each Nau purchase 2% is automatically donated to one of their “Partners for Change” philanthropic charities. You can choose between such organizations like Kiva, “Loans that Change Lives”, Breakthrough Institute,” Making Clean Energy Cheap” or Mercy Corps “Unleashing the Potential of People.” At certain times of year that 2% increases to 10% to further invigorate the real relationship between corporate responsibilities and social solutions. Finally (but is anything final for phoenix Nau?) Nau’s 2nd annual $10,000 Grant for Change is awarded to those who “instigate lasting, positive change in their communities.” Nominations are open from May 10th ’til June 11th.

Grant For Change from Alex Hamlin on Vimeo.

I encourage all to take a tour of the Nau website to explore their innovative business model. Check out the “Thought Kitchen” where ideas brew and take shape, “The Collective” where the Nau community of artists, activists and athletes share their stories via video and most importantly, found under “About”, is “The Things We Think About.” Here is a quick glossary of terms you will become acquainted with:

Restricted Substance List (RSL) – We independently test our products against a Restricted Substance List (RSL) of chemicals that, while inexpensive, are environmentally toxic.

Beginning of Life and End of Life (BOL/EOL) strategy. – We look at the energy and resources used to create a fabric, and the opportunities and systems to deal with a product at the end of its useful life. We also distinguish between the life cycle of the garment and the initial and end considerations of its fiber.

True Cost – Cheap, disposable goods accelerate the consumption of resources, as they are bought, broken and pitched in a landfill. And while consumers may get a good deal at the register, the repeated costs of replacing low-quality disposable goods quickly adds up. As individuals we may pay less up front, but in the end we all end up paying environmental and social costs for these lower prices.

Traceability - We seek to implement and use systems that allow us to know where our fibers and fabrics are created and what paths they follow to get to us. By creating relationships with different partners (including Organic Exchange, GOTS, Zque and Asure), we are able to ensure that the standards we have for our materials and products are met by the vendors we work with.

Aesthetic Sustainability – Styles and product details that are considered, timeless, and able to move seamlessly through the day and all its unpredictabilities. Products that look as good on city streets as they perform well in the outdoors

If all of this sounds too virtuous, let me reassure you that you will be oh so happy when you actually wear their softest cashmere or breeze easily from day to night in one of their tough, but tony jackets. The fit is tailored and runs true to size. Nau is now sold in select stores throughout the country, so if you need to go beyond the digital realm use the store locator and get some irreproachable retail therapy!

The Lian and Chirgilchin Ensembles Collaborate
by Nancy Cantwell and Aram Yardumian

On April 9th, a Friday night at California Institute of the Arts, there took place an intimate and profound collaboration from a far away part of the world. The Herb Alpert School of music hosted The Lian Ensemble and Chirgilchin in their The Wild Beast music pavilion (aptly named after composer Morton Feldman’s metaphor for the untamable in music) and a new sound emerged. The Lian Ensemble, a Los Angeles based group whose roots lie in the Persian classical and mystical Sufi traditions are no strangers to the idea of fusion. Each of their nine albums  incorporates such diverse different musical styles as jazz, Flamenco, and Hindustani. The addition of Chirgilchin, the Tuvan throat singers, whose music emanates from Buddhism and Shamanism practices, was a seamless and inspired choice. The resultant recording “The Window“, which will be released in May 2010, explores this passionate blending.

The Wild Beast was the ideal environment to experience this synthesis of musical styles. Designed by architects Hodgetts + Fung in consultation with a team of acoustical engineers, the resonance of every Tuvan harmonic overtone produced an elixir of aural delight. We were lucky to find a seat in the 3,200-square foot structure that merely seats 100 people when closed and 750 when in its open-air “bandshell” configuration. Fresh faced students took advantage of the floor seating and their dogs were welcomed as the animal spirit representatives. The musicians were arranged in a u-shape, the four Tuvans in full costume occupied the left hand side of the stage while the Lian Enselmble sat stage right. Not all the talent present was on stage. A convergence of other musical notables present in the audience including composer, percussionist John Bergamo and tabla master Swapan Chauduri, made the night feel ripe for generating alchemy.

The music of the evening began with three performances by Chirgilchin of pure Tuvan origins, and progressed to the collective concert by Lian and Chirgilchin of the music of “The Window.”

Tuvan throat singing is said to have originated less as an aesthetic form and more as a form of landscape-specific communication. This part of Siberia is and remains quite open and unpopulated and therefore, the frequencies of these overtones may have developed as a way to transfer information over long distances. The deep history of this tradition may be seen in its striking resemblance to other a cappella musical forms of the Eurasian steppe, such as the yoik of the Sámi and the Shamanic traditions of northeastern Siberia and Korea. Some of the tones may indeed hark back to animistic rituals that involved communication with (or mimicry of) animals. Even today some Siberian vocal music is sung to animals. That the tradition has lately been filed under the rubric of entertainment has not diminished its power in the slightest.

The Persian classical tradition has perhaps a more complex history—also for reasons of geography—by virtue of the Persian heartland’s situation between east and west. Very little is known about the music of Iran and Greater Persia until the Medieval period—a time in which people, goods and ideas were flowing freely across the steppe from China to Europe and back. That octave and scale are arguably concepts foreign to Persian classical music distinguish it from European modes, while the idiosyncratic rhythms present in Persian music may be related to poetic forms of the East. Yet the use of lute, harp and bagpipe in the Persian court probably originated further west, in Egypt or Anatolia. That improvisation has long been a feature of Persian music gives the Lian Ensemble’s tilts into free jazz, and their stitching-in of other traditions and modes, such as Tuvan throat-singing, seem natural.

Listeners to “The Window” should realize that the experience of the collaboration belongs strictly in the realm of the senses and trust in nuance, since few people are fluent communicators in both Farsi and Tuvan. Moreover, since the styles of music have distinct formal and functional histories, such a collaboration might at first seem as incongruous as, say, a didgeridoo player performing with the Berlin Philharmonic. But this cosmic untranslatability and miscegenation make the results all the more dynamic, since the emotive power of the vocals transcend, in a sense, whatever their message may be, and speak directly to the universality of music as a language.

From “The Window”, The Basis of Creation

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In 2008 Lian Ensemble’s Houman Pourmehdi was asked by Judy Mitoma, the director of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, to arrange a composition for the World Festival of Sacred Music’s opening gala concert. Houman arranged a traditional Sufi piece to be performed by Lian Ensemble and Chirgilchin along with several other musical groups.  The musicians had one rehearsal the night before the performance. Houman said the resulting union “provided a night of sound so varied, unique, and seamless that it was as if a window had been established. To listen that night was to be transcendent.” – from the Liner Notes by Richard Barton

Reflections on Götterdämmerung, Los Angeles Opera
by Nancy Cantwell

Conceived of first and executed last Götterdämmerung, brings to a conclusion the weighty and consummate Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner. Last week I had the extraordinary happenstance to attend two performances of this Los Angeles Opera’s production featuring the baton of James Conlon with sets and direction by Achim Freyer. This is a really big show that attracts opera pilgrims from far and wide and I jumped at the chance for a second go around. Thrilled to settle into my splendid founders seat, I was set to experience a most satisfying, up close reprise.

First impressions were allowed to settle down and reformulate with a second viewing, but there are certain things that you just can’t escape with this production. First and most impressive is what a sad fate becomes the child hero Siegfried, sung by John Treleaven, whose voice did not really seem up to the task at hand, but whose performance was pitch perfect. While Siegfried’s music soars, his actions speak to a heroism forged not by some God wisdom, but more that of an ignoble spoiled lesser avatar. As one audience member put it, “what can you expect when you look at the gene pool.” Ill begotten chromosomes aside, Siegfried’s clown like hair, cartoon body and slouchy demeanor all serve to heighten the buffoonish behavior that make him such an easy target for the far more wily Hagen (portrayed deliciously by Eric Halverson). Even the Tarnhelm, the magic helmet that Siegfried procures as part of the booty having slain the Giant turned Dragon Fafner, references more Harpo’s top-hat than a transformative device worthy of such acts of courage. Of course the most treasured procession garnered from Fafner’s hoard is the ring itself and it is at the beginning of act three when the Rheinmaidens try to convince Siegfried to return the stolen gold that we hear him at his most fallen from grace:

“In water and on land
I am now learning women’s ways:
if their cajolery does not convince,
they scare with threats;
and if one dares to defy these,
they start to scold.

And yet,
had I not given Gutrune my word,
I would cheerfully have chosen for myself
one of these pretty women!”

Hardly noble truths to be spoken even under the influence! But such is the curse of the ring. Following his final demise at the hands of Hagen, Wagner gives our woeful protagonist the most regal and valiant funeral march sublimely performed by the opera orchestra as lead by Conlon. Clearly the composer’s sympathies lie with Siegfried, whose hero identity in the time when the Gods reign no more, is assimilated and subjugated to the frailties man.

We are talking about the end-of-time here and Achim Freyer pulls out all the stops to delight and amaze. Every retelling is accompanied by its according symbols. The set is resplendent with Wotan eyeballs, light saber swords, an ever present inverted Loge, incendiary scrim projections and cardboard costumes that behave badly. There is a outright sense of humor expressed as well. Cute bear heads pop up, affectionate taps on the noggin are exchanged, as well as a very Groucho like performance given by Richard Paul Fink as Alberich complete with cigar and tuxedo. Freyer also gave the lighting a character of its own, spotlighting different props repeatedly like a backdrop drone accompaniment to a melodious raga. The final disarray spectacular was worthy of the apocalyptic demise of the Gods. A simultaneous rising and drowning finishing with a literal blinding light. I find it paradoxical that Freyer, a master of German expressionist angst, utilized the Las Vegas based production group Stage Technologies to accomplish this Wagnerian feat, but I’m in favor of what ever works at the end of the universe… and this truly did.

Ultimately it is Brünnhilde who awakens to the enormity, the global endemic scourge of the ring. My favorite production magic takes place in the final act when Brünnhilde sends Wotan’s vigilant ravens back to Valhalla with word of the ring’s return to the Rheinmaidens. The cardboard bird cutouts that have been acting as a shield for the prompters throughout the production are lifted as the ravens are projected onto the scrim and gloriously take flight. It is here in the “Immolation” scene, that closely parallels Isolde’s Liebestod, when cleansed by fire and inspired by compassion, Brünnhilde plants the seeds of a new world order and Wagner becomes transcendent. Having been witness to to this arising twice and having had a opportunity to sort out the staging I was able to concentrate fully on Linda Watson’s masterful delivery in service of this final transformation. It is the kind of stuff that makes converts of even the most ardent opera atheists.

A few final ponderings. Götterdämmerung feels like two operas in one due to all the back fill story telling that goes on and on even into the final aria. Just as Freyer shows us the rise and fall of Valhalla in the final scene so does Wagner seem to wrap up the backward and forwards plotting. The crossing of the Nothung sword and Hagens spear was a gratuitous poke at spirituality. Gratuitous too was the send up in the background of some time stamped computer code. Was he trying make a stab at seeming up to date with digital relevance? Michelle DeYoung was absolutely superb as Waltraute and in the first evening’s performance far out shined compatriots with more stage time. At the start of act two you can hear the beginnings of Parsifal that make you thirst for more. One never really becomes emotionally attached nor drained due to the lack of human physiognomy in the costuming and makeup. Which brings me to a final observation. There was a twinge of misogyny all around. Pendulous breasts painted on like targets were the predominant choice for the portrayal of womanhood. And all the while the congenitally unhappy Hagen sits atop his dead mother whose headless pink body, red teats and heeled shoes face the flooring in submission? Which set my mind off in another direction, in memory of another designer who has also been thought misogynist on occasion and that is the late, brilliant and troubled fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. So here from McQueen’s fall 2009 Ready to Wear collection a strange confluence or coincidence of thought processes at work. So eerily similar are these creations to that of Achim and Amanda Fryer, they fatefully share the same iconography. Please click on images to enlarge.

Michiko Hirayama, Giacinto Scelsi, Canti Del Capricorno (1962-1972), REDCAT April 2, 2010
by Nancy Cantwell

“They are songs that explode classical convention: their vocal expressionism is ignited by the phonemes, not by any semantic content. Language seems to be atomized for all time. then an electrifying flow of sound is heard again, almost an archaic rite of evocation” – Jügen Kangold

As Michiko Hirayama took to the stage at REDCAT on April 2nd I could tell that we were in for penny, in for a pound. This was no garden variety solo recital, for as she entered the darkened hall Hirayama beat the gong that hung around her neck as if a call to prayer. Theatricality aside, it was time to listen up.

Canti Del Capricorno is Hirayama’s signature work. It was written specifically for her voice and spirit by outsider composer Giacinto Scelsi. Largely self taught, the Roman aristocrat Scelsi, forged his own idiosyncratic music one note at a time, even beyond the avant-gardism of the day. Forgoing a brief dally with serialism Scelsi focused on his own naïveté and peculiar passion for microtonality, believing that he was indeed more of a medium than master composer creator.

70 minutes of straight vocal performance for any singer is an undertaking, but for 87 year old Hirayama, I realized that we were witness to something beyond prowess, this was a chance to experience a direct embodiment necessitated by the composer. “…Scelsi liberated me in my head so that I could produce any sound with my voice. He pushed me to explore my vocal possibilities to work in ways that any classical vocal school had forbidden.” Written over a ten year period, Hirayama collaborated with Scelsi, at first laboriously improvising one or two of the compositions and finally, with the composer’s authorization, Hirayama penned Canti to completion of the 20 piece song cycle.

Song may be misleading to the uninitiated listener. These pieces are ritualistic, fierce and at time agonizing forms of human expression. Wordless, they take on a language of their own. I felt the sense of becoming a participant in the decoding of autistic yearnings for understanding. There is a child like intensity and curiosity for the exploration of new meaning to the creation of sound.  Michiko Hirayama pours all her strength into her performance, channeling each note of this life’s work. Each song conjures afresh an archaic rite of passage, a world of intimate interpretation and mysterious communication.

The staging of Canti Del Capricorno at REDCAT included four stations each carefully arranged to facilitate the petite Hirayama and accommodate the prodigious score. Hirayana administered over the fragile document, greatly considering each turn of the page and coddling with loving kindness as she motored from setup to setup to sing.

Canti Del Capricorno achieves a particular resonance and reaches some satisfying resolution when Hirayama is accompanied by an instrument. Aniela Perry’s soulful turn at contrabass underscored the feeling of lament. Ulrich Krieger on saxophone provided a sizzling embellishment, while California Ear Unit veteran percussionist Amy Knoles was joined by newcomer Lydia Martin to provide a strong heartfelt pulse to the piece, much to the visible delight of Hirayama whose fisted hands pumped and gestured with glee.

Canti Del Capricorno, Canto No. 5

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Canti Del Capricorno, Canto No. 14

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Canti Del Capricorno, Canto No. 19

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Missoni, Milan RTW Fall 2010
By Nancy Cantwell

In a season filled with respectable, rational, dressed offerings, some of which I cannot resist myself (there is a white coat at Gucci that is formidable!), the show that I still return to with relish is Missoni. It was a passionate display of pattern, texture, color, and family fun. Prepped by the ad campaign that featured three generations of Missonis, bathed in zigzags, delighting in one another and mugging for photographer Jurgen Teller, one could not help but succumb to the ebullient clan atmosphere of the collection. The throw pieces pinned at various points of the body come down the runway with a defiant spirit as if to say “clean cut camel…not interested!” Those familiar with the Missoni brand color palettes will not be disappointed. The shades of pink, turquoise and green were all there and accounted for, but the surprising surplus of black was new. Intricate noir crocheted creations walked with ease and sex appeal. Fur, this years de rigueur medium, made a scant appearance, mostly as collars that balanced nicely with the blanketed knitwear. Another odd, but effective paring was the addition of shiny accessories, cuffs, sunglasses and neck pieces that supplied a thought provoking contrast to all that thread.

Meet the Missonis. Founding partners Rosita and Ottavio (called Tai) started the Missoni empire in 1953 opening a small knitwear workshop in Gallarate, Italy. Daughter Angela became principal designer 1996, her older brother Vittorio is the company’s marketing director, and Luca is the creative director of the menswear collections and Missoni Sport. Third generation Missonis include Francesco, Margherita (who debuted this year as designer of her first accessories line), Teresa and Marco all whom were on hand for the Fall 2010 Milan show. Each member of this handsome and enchanting family is enough to make one relinquish one’s own heritage to grab a chance to become Made in Italy. It is worth spending some time with the “history” section of the Missoni site to get acquainted with the vast accomplishments of this multi-talented family.

All of this brand madness led me to traipse on over to the newly opened 7,500 sq. ft. Missoni boutique in Beverly Hills. Angela Missoni teamed with architects Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda to create a pristine, whitewashed environment to call home. This was the first complete building project for the architects whose previous achievements include Valentino’s retrospective in Rome at ARA PACIS. The building is sheathed with woven slats of white powder coated steel that echo the famous brand’s own knits. Each dress, bikini, men’s sweater, bag and pillow get a chance to be seen in its own right. So much of their work is suited for California casual luxe chic. When a sales associate unfurled a scarf/sarong for me to view, it was an intoxicating close brush with an impulse buy.

Cambria, Central Coast, California

© Nancy Cantwell

iPhone Photography

© Nancy Cantwell

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Photography by Paul Cabanis
Montage by Nancy Cantwell

Night Tide, Directed by Curtis Harrington. US 1961, 35mm, b/w, 84 min.
by Nancy Cantwell

As I spent more and more time with Night Tide I began to have dejavu and a longing to feast on the films of Frederico Fellini. Curtis Harrington is no poseur. On the contrary, he was an early protégé of Maya Deren and a close friend of Kenneth Anger and Gregory Markopoulos. Night Tide is his psychological feature debut and uses many persuasive devices to deliver a surreal atmosphere that had not yet been seen. Felllini’s 81/2 does not get released for another two years. The Santa Monica pier and canals of Venice are used extensively to provide dislocated and dreamlike locals. There is the pursuit of the illusive “She Siren” that lures our leading lady back to the sea. There are even hipster nightclub entrees that reflect posturing found in La Dolce Vita. But severe budget restrictions along with a heavy hand ultimately lead Harrington down the path of the horror genre. He goes on to work with Hopper again in Queen of Blood and then with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters in “What’s a Matter with Helen”.

Meanwhile across the seas, Frederico Fellini emerges out of Italian neorealism and turns to embrace the writings of Carl Jung. The resulting string of oneiric film created include  8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972),  Amarcord (1973), Casanova (1976), and City of Women (1980). Yum.

Night Tide, Directed by Curtis Harrington. US 1961, 35mm, b/w, 84 min.
by Nancy Cantwell

Part of me just cannot deal with anything Mora, unconvincingly played by Linda Lawson. Maybe it’s because she is a mermaid, but mostly because she is just over the top for no good reason. She really belongs on some distant planet with James T. Kirk, romping around on fake bolders with phasers set to vaporize…not scuba diving with Dennis Hopper off the Santa Monica pier.

As a Siren I would say her powers of persuasion lack depth, but here when asked to to star in a beatnik beach bongo expressionistic dance to angst, I’d say she does a damn fine job!