Sunday, 21 November 2010

StreetDance
(2010)

80%



As usual with musicals, one expects the plot and story-line to be thin and somewhat incredible - this is no exception. However, the music and dance is very impressive and that is the point of what we see here.

The contrast between White middle-class art's passionlessness and poor Black street culture's anger and verve is well-pointed. And so is the fact that ballet is good at telling stories that street dance does not do so well. The idea here is to create a hybrid form between the two - about as likely as a tabloid newspaper with broadsheet content. But the idea of rescuing classical arts from its tendency toward formalism inherent anachronism has its heart in all the right places, despite the fact that such need grant funding precisely because they are so out of date that they render themselves decidedly non-commercial.

The acting is weaker than in Fame and West Side Story which weakens the love storytelling - but the sheer talent on show here is undeniable as the sheer joy of life.


Copyright © 2010 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.