Leonard Cohen, "The Tempest," and "Ka"
Jun. 16th, 2009 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebOne of my goals for the year is to see at least three live performances. This goal has morphed from goals involving watching plays, even though they cost more than movies, and watching bands live, even though it costs the same as buying a whole album that you can listen to over and over. I decided that occasionally it was worth some extra money, now that I have it, to occasionally see live performances. And that's true even though you can't fix your mistakes on a live performance, and so I'm more likely to feel bad for the performers than I would in a recorded performance where they have more chances to get it right.
I have now accomplished my goal of attending three performances during the year.
First I saw Leonard Cohen live. I was a little worried because I knew he didn't actually want to perform. He stopped touring something like 20 years ago, but then his accountant, along with the guy he hired to watch the accountant, managed to steal so much of his money that he could no longer live in the style to which he had become accustomed.
He's no spring chicken, either, being in his seventies.
He made Austin his first stop and I am happy to say that we gave him a fabulously warm welcome. He seemed happy to be here and to be performing. He obviously brought lots of his favorite musicians (ten?). He skipped on stage several times.
His voice was even above average (for him). He picked good songs. His other musicians were amazing. We had decent seats. And also binoculars. It was great fun, and I'm glad I went.
Second, I saw a performance of "The Tempest" starring an acquaintance/friend of a friend. Fortunately, he was quite enjoyable in the role, so there were no awkward silences afterwards. There were a couple things that weren't done as well as I would have liked, but also a couple that were done better than I had imagined.
The play was performed outside at a site also used to host SCA events, so it was pretty. It was also kind of a theatre in the round, in reverse. The audience was in the middle and the action occurred all around the audience. This worked quite well for "The Tempest," which has fairies flying all around and people wandering around different parts of the island.
There was also audience participation, which normally scares me, but involved partner dancing with my stranger cast partner giving verbal as well as regular leads. And even though I was in my socks at that point, we managed to avoid all the most painful looking rocks.
The third performance I attended was a showing of "Ka," one of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Las Vegas. At $100, it was the most expensive performance I've ever been to. But in the same way that Disney World is actually worth more money than Six Flags, "Ka" was a good show.
Throughout the show, I felt that my friends Chikuru and Raaga123 would be so jealous if they were there because they would want to be in the performance.
I asked Robin what his favorite thing was and what he thought was the scariest. His favorite was a flying machine that looked home-made and involved flapping wings powered by humans (and hanging from ropes).
The scariest thing was the scene where a girl kept almost falling out of the grip of her friends, over our heads, as they were doing trapeze-like acrobatics trying to escape from the bad guys.
My favorite thing was a huge boat that was rocking like a rocking chair only also revolving slightly on every rock. The people on the boat kept sliding everywhere and swinging around on the masts; it was very exciting. After a while, I realized that the rocking action was actually being powered by the people on the boat, so they not only had to deal with being flung all over the place, their actions together had to keep the boat going properly.
The scariest thing to me was some giant hamster wheels that guys were running in, and doing flips in, and swinging out of, and running on top of. There were two connected to one rod that was also rotating (like a ferris wheel), and both the spinning and rotating happened due to the actions of the human hamsters. There was also a similar set of three hamster wheels with people doing less crazy things on them.
A super fun thing that I knew all my rock-climbing friends would want to be on was just a giant slab in the sky at a ridiculous angle. People would run up it on the sticky parts of their shoes and slide back down on non-sticky parts. There were also some poles sticking out of the platform for swinging around and bouncing off. These poles popped out one by one and later disappeared again as more and more bad guys slid off the platform into oblivion.
Another cool thing was the illusion of one person falling unconscious to the bottom of the sea as another person swam down to get her and pulled her back up, all done on ropes behind a waving translucent sheet.
Another cool thing was how people were dressed as animals on a beach: the starfish, the turtle, and especially the centipede. Sorry, can't describe it well. No pictures either: they were not allowed. They took the camera away from one guy who was taking pictures and threw it into the abyss. He kind of smirked as he pulled out his iPhone from his pocket. He replaced it hastily but they threw that into the abyss, too. Then they threw him into the abyss. So, yeah, no pictures.
I did learn a nice way to simulate having tattoos: paint the tattoos on some sheer hosiery, and then wear that. This is an excellent way to provide for quick costuming because you only have to paint the tattoos once, at least until the fabric rips or runs. Some extra muscle definition was also painted onto the hose of some of the already highly muscled men, and we never would have known that if we had been further away.
I have now accomplished my goal of attending three performances during the year.
First I saw Leonard Cohen live. I was a little worried because I knew he didn't actually want to perform. He stopped touring something like 20 years ago, but then his accountant, along with the guy he hired to watch the accountant, managed to steal so much of his money that he could no longer live in the style to which he had become accustomed.
He's no spring chicken, either, being in his seventies.
He made Austin his first stop and I am happy to say that we gave him a fabulously warm welcome. He seemed happy to be here and to be performing. He obviously brought lots of his favorite musicians (ten?). He skipped on stage several times.
His voice was even above average (for him). He picked good songs. His other musicians were amazing. We had decent seats. And also binoculars. It was great fun, and I'm glad I went.
Second, I saw a performance of "The Tempest" starring an acquaintance/friend of a friend. Fortunately, he was quite enjoyable in the role, so there were no awkward silences afterwards. There were a couple things that weren't done as well as I would have liked, but also a couple that were done better than I had imagined.
The play was performed outside at a site also used to host SCA events, so it was pretty. It was also kind of a theatre in the round, in reverse. The audience was in the middle and the action occurred all around the audience. This worked quite well for "The Tempest," which has fairies flying all around and people wandering around different parts of the island.
There was also audience participation, which normally scares me, but involved partner dancing with my stranger cast partner giving verbal as well as regular leads. And even though I was in my socks at that point, we managed to avoid all the most painful looking rocks.
The third performance I attended was a showing of "Ka," one of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Las Vegas. At $100, it was the most expensive performance I've ever been to. But in the same way that Disney World is actually worth more money than Six Flags, "Ka" was a good show.
Throughout the show, I felt that my friends Chikuru and Raaga123 would be so jealous if they were there because they would want to be in the performance.
I asked Robin what his favorite thing was and what he thought was the scariest. His favorite was a flying machine that looked home-made and involved flapping wings powered by humans (and hanging from ropes).
The scariest thing was the scene where a girl kept almost falling out of the grip of her friends, over our heads, as they were doing trapeze-like acrobatics trying to escape from the bad guys.
My favorite thing was a huge boat that was rocking like a rocking chair only also revolving slightly on every rock. The people on the boat kept sliding everywhere and swinging around on the masts; it was very exciting. After a while, I realized that the rocking action was actually being powered by the people on the boat, so they not only had to deal with being flung all over the place, their actions together had to keep the boat going properly.
The scariest thing to me was some giant hamster wheels that guys were running in, and doing flips in, and swinging out of, and running on top of. There were two connected to one rod that was also rotating (like a ferris wheel), and both the spinning and rotating happened due to the actions of the human hamsters. There was also a similar set of three hamster wheels with people doing less crazy things on them.
A super fun thing that I knew all my rock-climbing friends would want to be on was just a giant slab in the sky at a ridiculous angle. People would run up it on the sticky parts of their shoes and slide back down on non-sticky parts. There were also some poles sticking out of the platform for swinging around and bouncing off. These poles popped out one by one and later disappeared again as more and more bad guys slid off the platform into oblivion.
Another cool thing was the illusion of one person falling unconscious to the bottom of the sea as another person swam down to get her and pulled her back up, all done on ropes behind a waving translucent sheet.
Another cool thing was how people were dressed as animals on a beach: the starfish, the turtle, and especially the centipede. Sorry, can't describe it well. No pictures either: they were not allowed. They took the camera away from one guy who was taking pictures and threw it into the abyss. He kind of smirked as he pulled out his iPhone from his pocket. He replaced it hastily but they threw that into the abyss, too. Then they threw him into the abyss. So, yeah, no pictures.
I did learn a nice way to simulate having tattoos: paint the tattoos on some sheer hosiery, and then wear that. This is an excellent way to provide for quick costuming because you only have to paint the tattoos once, at least until the fabric rips or runs. Some extra muscle definition was also painted onto the hose of some of the already highly muscled men, and we never would have known that if we had been further away.