Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Theatre Review: "Hedda Gabler" at Tufts University

It has been decades since I saw a play put on by university drama students, so I was delighted when Tufts Drama Lecturer Sheriden Thomas invited me to see Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 “Hedda Gabler,” which Thomas directs.

Hedda Gabler (played here by Rachel Schoenbrun) – tellingly known by her maiden and not her married name – returns with her dorky academic husband George Tesman (Daniel Ferry) from their six-month honeymoon to the home he can’t afford, but which she asked for on a silly whim. She has married “below” herself – clearly not for love, but because of social pressure to avoid ending up an “old maid.”

Much about Hedda is only implied, perhaps because when this Norwegian play was first published, the public was scandalized. Hedda may be pregnant; she may have been raped by George’s rival, Elliot Lovborg; she may have been having an affair with Judge Brack, her husband’s best friend. The narrative is shaped by its human triangles.

She is, some say, the first really complex character available to stage actresses. She bounces from boredom to manipulation, from disdain to, well, disdain. Hedda is particularly nasty to other women, whether it is George’s adoring elderly aunt (especially well-played by Emily Code) or a vulnerable friend from her school days. Hedda says about herself, “I only possess the talent for one thing… Feeling dead.”

This Tufts production is beautifully staged, with a twist. It transposes this 1890 play to a mid-20th century setting, changing little about the impact of this evergreen drama. The era of the clothing and furniture is just distant enough to feel – especially to the students – sufficiently historical to showcase the difference in women’s options today, but close enough to have immediate resonance. It was my first visit to the terrific Marston Balch Arena Theater.

It is a credit to the reputation this production (I saw it late in its run - catch it tonight), that the house was full on a night of torrential rain and terrifying winds, when any sensible person would stay home watching the Olympics. I’m glad I ventured out and spent the evening with this troubled, snobby, dishonest but vulnerable character, showcased so powerfully in this exciting version at Tufts University.

Dancing that'll Blow Your Mind

If you want to see what I'm talking about when I wrote yesterday about the connection between the bodies of dance partners, check out this astounding Show Dance. Show Dances (and this is true of figure skating too) are when competitors perform without the restrictions of competing, just to show off and entertain. There aren't rules and restrictions.

This couple is simply extraordinary. There's a bit in the middle in which they are not holding each other with their arms, but leading and following by keeping a mutual tension between their pelvic girdles. The whole routine is a total treat, but that is a special moment of high expertise.

Sex and Ice Dancing

Susie Bright, the brilliant writer and editor of all things sexual, writes to ask how the intimate connection between ice dancers affects their performance. She wonders: “Do you think the relationship ice dancers have as lovers merges with their performance and training? I think the partners who have what everyone calls ‘chemistry,’ have at one time in their history been lovers.”

Susie Bright recognizes the amount of hard work that goes into these athletes’ training, but notices that, “No one feels free to discuss the eroticism and how that affects the bodies of the ice dancers.”

I am not an ice dancer but I am a ballroom dancer. Since ice dancing is based on ballroom rhythms, holds and musicality, I’m confident that what I know about dancing partnerships applies equally on and off the ice.

Great Dancers, but are they Hot?
What distinguishes top partner skaters from those who don’t quite reach the heights – given equally sophisticated technique and choreography? It is usually the connection between the two. Susie raises the chemistry issue, suggesting that the partners need to be or to have been lovers. But that isn’t actually the case. What they need is to share a mad passion, a deep or wild or all-consuming commitment to meld artistically. It is passion that radiates to the audience, but it is not lust or even sexual intimacy. It is their sense that this person, and only this person, can take them to unimaginable creative heights.

I learned this the easy way. I met Brian in the early days of London’s LGBT ballroom dancing scene (it’s since become a global sport, included in the Gay Games – i.e., the gay Olympics). I was a fairly new leader; he had been an international champion a decade earlier and was an excruciatingly exquisite dancer. Luckily for me, he had always fancied becoming a follower. The Pink Jukebox was a welcome change from the homophobia he had experienced in the world of competitive dance.

Our dancing relationship was so full of passion and intensity that I can only compare it to the type of relationship I had with my Tae Kwon Do master. Brian’s skills were infinitely beyond mine, but we quickly developed the kind of profound connection that dance partners get – whether on the boards or the ice – from shared epiphanies, which themselves are the products of endless hard work together.

There was certainly no sexual tension or sexual play between Brian and I, but there was a different kind of love and trust and commitment and it dominated our lives. We took private and group lessons; we rehearsed routines for performance; we traveled together to gigs; we went to dances and parties. People saw the special connection between us when we danced. This wasn’t a function of sex; it was a function of passion. If our routines were charged, it was because we had worked so damned hard and our mutual joy in getting it right - together - was visible to viewers.

Why are Ice Dancers Sexier than Pairs Skaters?
One of the things that distinguish figure skating pairs from ice dancing partners is the gaze. Pairs skaters mainly work side-by-side, unless one is flinging the other one into the air or balancing her on a fingertip. One is tall and the other short. Their job is to skate in total unison, which means that neither is truly leading or following: they’re working simultaneously.

Ice dancers, on the other hand, are often in dance hold, gazing directly at each other, drawing strength and creativity from each other. One is leading and the other is following. When it’s clicking, dancers maintain a continuous sensuous link. The Russians Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin (photo left)) demonstrated this in their sizzling compulsory Romantic Tango, but not in their unpleasant aboriginal original dance. Among the Americans, Meryl Davis and Charlie White (photo above), who have been dancing together since elementary school, had that buzz, but Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto – about to retire and go their separate ways – did not; the youngest couple Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates have yet to create that mature voltage.

It’s a Threesome: Two Dancers and One Dance
The sensuality of dancing doesn’t happen in a vacuum between two people. Rather, it is framed within the narratives of the dance. Each dance has its story and its own approach to sexuality.  If it’s a slow Latin dance like rumba, it is always about flirting, teasing and ambiguity – maybe I’ll have you and maybe I won’t. Tango is unambiguously, strongly horny. Cha-cha is energetic, intricate, saucy.

The Ballroom dances – like waltz or foxtrot – are different. They have a formality and an elegance and the connection of the partner hold is rooted in the pelvic girdle, not the eyes (like Latin). That physical closeness is like a force-field envelope as the leader powers back the follower.

No, it is not sexual, genital knowledge of each other that electrifies the dancers and those who watch them – it is the passion of their endeavor and the elation that explodes with each joint achievement of perfection. That sense of epiphany – when it just fuckin’ works – is definitely resonant of sexual ecstasy – but it isn’t sexual ecstasy and it doesn’t derive from sexual lust. It is a thing in and of itself – it is the zen of collaboration, of pushing two bodies to achieve one marvel. It is an endorphin high and a profound thrill that doesn’t have to be compared to anything else in this world. 

FILM REVIEW: Oscar Nominated Short Films (live action)

Take a couple of actually-funny comedies and a few earnest narratives and you have the five live action shorts nominated for an Academy Award this year. Let’s look first at the films with a message. Miracle Fish (Australia) follows a young schoolboy and the mild if painful bullying he suffers at school. On his birthday (he only gets one present - a little miracle fish) he gets so sad that he goes to the school nurse, who is too busy on the phone to notice him. He slips into her treatment room and takes a nap. When he awakes, he is completely alone. From there, things take a nasty turn and leave the viewer with a sense of a horrid escalation we were not prepared for.

Kavi (India) is another besieged young man, but on a different level altogether. His parents are deeply in debt to a slimebag and the three of them spend their lives making mud bricks for him. Kavi is jealous of the schoolboys he sees as he is laboring and of their cricket games. Tackling the issue of slavery in a short film is not an easy challenge and the film itself is not as compelling as one would expect.

The only woman-directed film The Door (Ireland, filmed in Ukraine) relies on metaphor and symbolism – and woe be to the viewer – and their understanding of the film – who does not catch the single line relating to a “disaster” that causes a young family to flee – empty-handed – with the rest of their town. In fact, the film is, on one level, about Chernobyl and its aftermath, and about tradition in the face of miseries you can’t control on another level.

The first of two comedies is Instead of Abracadabra (Sweden). A socially inept dork, too old to be living with his exasperated parents, dreams of being a magician but unfortunately he is as useless at tricks as he is at everything else. When he falls for the new girl-next-door, he makes his reluctant dad let him perform a show at the man’s 60th birthday party. We’re treated to a couple surprise ending jokes. This film is a mixture of silliness and wit, with not a few easy chuckles along the way.

The best film of the five is a dark American comedy, The New Tenants. An eccentric, down-on-their-luck couple move into a crappy apartment and within a day they are subjected to ominous knocks on their door. The intruders reveal that there have been a couple of murders in that apartment and that the violence has only begun. The angriest of the strangers is played by Vincent D’Onofrio – otherwise known as the creepy detective Robert Goren on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” When D’Onofrio’s character accuses the couple (both men) of screwing around with his wife, their reactions are priceless. It’s a snappy, dead-pan film, fast-paced and well-written.

The New Tenants trailer from Det Danske Filminstitut on Vimeo.

Speed Skating Cancelled: Apolo Ohno’s Face Substituted

Of all the absurd, anti-sport coverage we have had to suffer at the incompetent hands of NBC, last night’s over-hyped 1,000-meter short-track speed skating final hit new lows. I like speed skating and I think Apolo Anton Ohno is incredibly talented, very charismatic and wonderfully strategic. However, he is one of many Olympic athletes competing – a fact NBC apparently missed.

The run-up coverage to this event was all about the amazing record Ohno was about to break: Having matched the six Olympic medals held by USA long-track speed skater Bonnie Blair earlier in the week, he was teetering on beating her record. Okay, that’s nice. It is, after all, simply a USA winter Olympic record. Like swimming, there are numerous speed skating events to win, so of course a skater is more likely than say, a figure skater or a hockey player (who only have one event), to rack up the numbers. In any case, it is a local (i.e. USA) matter – not an international Olympic record.

However, we never get to see much of the race or even to see that it is being held at the Olympics. All we get is close-up after close-up of Ohno – yawning before the race, getting ready to start, relieved at the end to squeak out a bronze. We hear and see almost nothing of the South Korean winners Lee Jung-su (gold) and Lee Ho-suk (silver). We can hear the crowd – made up of the world’s fans – but we sure can’t see them.

Fans, non-American athletes, and even the venues are absent in the NBC coverage. It’s not about speed skating: it’s about a specific individual American hero. This sometimes takes us to the edge of surrealism. We are shown the luge and skeleton and bobsled racers, for example, as they whip around one out-of-context curve after another. We don’t see the whole track and how the racers navigate it – we see slices of similar blurs whipping around a small section and then another section and then another. NBC is the gold medalist of turning something mind-boggling into something boring.

We don’t see the ski jumpers at sufficient distance to appreciate the amazing length and height of their flights: we see them in crotch shots from below appearing to hover (whereas they are speeding along), legs spread, each jump looking much the same. Without the hill below and the sky above, without the angle of the mountain and the energy of the crowd, we understand very little about the event.

Last night’s 1,000-meter race coverage wasn’t about skating or competition or this great international event. It was about a millionaire athlete beloved by the camera and the corporations he represents. All NBC proved was that the pores and nasal hairs (see nasal hair photo on left) of even such a great skater as Ohno, are no substitute for coverage of the actual world Olympics.

Get Ready for Ice Dancing

In just an hour or so the broadcast of the Olympic Ice Dance competition will begin. For me, it is the high point of the Olympic calendar – winter or summer. If you’re a fan already, just skip ahead to the nostalgic video clip. If you’d like to know the difference between the Pairs skating we saw last week and the Dance event that starts tonight, read on.

The Pairs is an athletic, even acrobatic approach to couple figure skating. One of the two primary challenges is the overhead lifts and the throws. The men are often large and strong – and they do the lifting. The women are petite and wiry – they get tossed around. The other challenge is that much of the skating is done side-by-side and the couple wins points for being in absolute unison. That means that their steps must match despite the difference in the length of their legs; their spins need to be identical even though their rotating bodies are so disparate; and they must maintain the same musicality even though they are often not holding hands or otherwise touching each other, during spirals and leaps.

While the Pairs competition is gripping and often beautiful, it is so genderized that it sometimes distracts me. The pairs don’t look at each other when they’re dancing next to each other. They can seem like cartoon versions of masculinity and femininity, although I’m well aware of the strength required to be the liftee, as she needs to hold her own weight up.

Ice Dancing is a different story altogether. The couples are usually of similar size and they dance in partner dance hold, for the most part, to ballroom and latin dance rhythms. As they are face-to-face, their mutual chemistry and passion make a huge impact on the viewers.

Ice dancers are not permitted to do lifts with arms raised higher than the shoulders. Their expertise is not in acrobatics, but in elegance, in aesthetic lines and in musicality. Routines are generally based on a ballroom beat – such as rumba or swing or waltz. While there are many required elements, two of the three sections that comprise the event are based on original choreography.

I adore ice dancing because I adore ballroom dancing. The connection between the couples combined with the intimacy of the dance hold heats my blood. Instead of blathering, I give you the greatest ice dance ever performed by the remarkable British champions Torvill and Dean. With this 1984 Gold Medal Olympic performance, they set a standard that has never yet been matched.

What's Rachel Maddow's Mainstream Magic?

Why is Rachel Maddow such a magnet for viewers? I'm not talking about progressives and queers and feminists - I'm talking about the biggest numbers "Meet the Press" has seen for some time. According to Huffington Post:

"Meet the Press" has benefitted from another Maddow Bump.

The NBC Sunday morning program moderated by David Gregory averaged 4.162 million total viewers for first place. That's the show's highest total viewer delivery since March 22, 2009.

Maddow's first appearance, in August, brought the show its highest numbers since April. She battled Schock in a particularly memorable clip on this Sunday's episode.

So what is it about Maddow that has attracted such huge numbers. She's not an anti-intellectual; she delivers in her own style; she is a liberal (not a radical); she is an out dyke.

Is it that she tells it like it is?

That she speaks with clarity, not jargon or slogans?

Is it that people are amazed to see a woman on tv with short hair and pants - just like an actual human? After all, that is such a glaring difference between Maddow and almost any other woman (except Ellen) with a television platform.

I'd be interested in what you think is her mainstream appeal.

NBC Scores Gold for its Tabloidization of the Olympics

To those readers who have asked me why I’m not posting about the Vancouver Winter Olympics, I want you to know that I am following them as closely as always. The problem is that I don’t want to repeat myself. I wrote a half-dozen commentaries during the Beijing Summer Olympics and one of my main themes was the unparalleled ability of NBC – obviously attributable to years of practice and sponsor influence – to ruin a good thing.

I have watched the Olympics faithfully all my life – for there’s something about the zen of seeking perfection, no matter whether or not I otherwise admire the specific sport, that is exhilarating to the viewer as well as the participant. I dig the international aspect of the Olympics, in particular the opportunity for young (and older) athletes who are their own national champions to travel abroad and meet the world. The sacrifices they and their families have made to get them to this arena are often gargantuan and their personal stories are often riveting.

If only, that is, we get to hear them. As I have said before, I’ve watched the Olympics in various countries and been charmed by “meeting” athletes from small countries, from poor countries, from other cultures.

NBC doesn’t go for that kinda thing. They don’t give us an Olympics; they give us a two-week tabloidization of the experience of only the top USA athletes at the Olympics. This is a very different animal from what much of the rest of the world sees. We know everything the sponsors want us to know about the snowboarder Shawn White or the downhill Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn. It’s all about the personalities of the top USA contenders, never about the broad canvas or even other countries’ stars.

In fact, there are over 2,500 athletes. Perhaps I missed NBC’s profiles of alpine skiers Anna Berecz from Hungary and Leyti Seck from Senegal, or of cross-country skiers Erdene-Ochir Ochirsuren from Mongolia, Pakistan’s Muhammed Abbas and Kazakhstan’s Elana Antonova. No?

NBC Commentators
From the first night’s pre-program, we were give two white male broadcast commentators – the primetime Olympics anchor Bob Costas and the always smarmy Matt Lauer (“Today” show). Over the next day or so, they were joined on camera, one after the other, by an uninterrupted series of more white men. I was down-hearted. The only relief has been the late-night hours with the interested and interesting host Mary Carillo (see photo), memorable from her role at the Beijing Olympics for actually exploring the country and talking to real people.

The actual events commentary has been appallingly poor, with the happy exception of the woman who talked us through women’s downhill Alpine skiing. She explained the goings-on in non-jargon language: why this edge of the ski worked better than that, what decisions the skiers were making during their terrifyingly fast descents and how the judges were judging. I felt so fully engaged with the drama – the crashes, the injuries and the crazy courage – because she allowed me to understand just a dollop of what it is really all about.

Contrast that to the blow-by-blow of the guy calling the men’s halfpipe snowboarding event, which had been relentlessly hyped (since an American was almost assured of winning). The comments obscured the action instead of illuminating it for non-fans. He rattled off meaningless names of various tricks as they were performed, culminating in Shawn White’s much-anticipated Double McTwist 1260, to which the commentator added about a half-dozen aka’s – confusing instead of clarifying to the end. A post-competition glance at Wikipedia’s list of trick names reveals, by the way, certain culinary trends, including Ground Beef, Canadian Bacon and Chicken Salad (no, really.)

So NBC wins the Tarnished Gold for spending a crapload of resources to bring us this unbeatable X-treme narrow view of the Olympics. Oh, and gobs of offensive ads – but that, as my friend says, is another story.

My Paranoid Fear Has Legs

I felt both vindicated and chilled by a disturbing piece posted yesterday by Boing-Boing. Their title gives you the gist of the whole article: "School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home."

Although I have friends abroad who would love to chat by webcam, I've never agreed to have one on my computer. The idea of the eye of a camera staring at me while I work on my computer (most of time) has always been disconcerting. I am a user of technology but I'm not a geek. I have an intimate relationship with my computers and their accessories, but I have no clue as to how they work.

However,  I figure if the cam can relay my image to other locations at my request, it could as easily do so at someone else's command. I don't want an eye gazing at me when I have always suspected that whoever created and/or installed the thing could know how to secretly use it without my consent.

And, it turns out, that's just what these school officers have done. "...The laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families."

You might assume that I simply can't shake the ole 60s attitude of always looking over my shoulder. But remember, we all turned out to be right. They were spying on us; they were infiltrating the left; they were compiling records on civil rights, anti-war and feminist activists.

And now for a contest: Who said, "Paranoia is just a heightened state of awareness." Answers to the comments section please. (Unless you're keeping a low profile, in which case send your answer in invisible ink.)
 

Partner-Dancing Lessons in Boston Area

BOSTON-AREA PEEPS
We're starting to partner dance in Belmont, MA, on March 4th. Join us:
Call 617-993-5427 to sign up for 8-week course on Thursday evenings.

SHALL WE DANCE? Beginner Ballroom Dancing B.H.S.
Sue Katz 2nd Floor Hall Thur. 7:00 - 8:15 pm
$125/couple 8 wks. (3/4 - 4/29/10)
Learn to swing, waltz, fox trot and meringue–from the very beginning. In eight short weeks, you'll be amazed to find yourself ballroom dancing to all the different rhythms. You'll have the right steps for all the events and parties in your calendar. Learn how to lead or follow–your choice. The emphasis is on having fun with partner dancing. Comfortable clothes and hard-soled shoes are best. Bring some water to drink. Limit: 12 couples

LET'S CONTINUE TO DANCE Intermediate B.H.S.
Sue Katz 2nd Floor Hall Thur. 8:15 - 9:30 pm
$125/couple 8 wks. (3/4 - 4/29/10)
Have you already taken basic ballroom dance classes in Belmont (or elsewhere)? If you know the basics of the waltz, swing, fox trot and meringue, or maybe some cha-cha, why not continue learning and dancing. We'll brush up your basic style and then add advanced fancier steps. You will be a sophisticated ballroom dancer at the end of the eight weeks. The emphasis is on having fun with partner dancing. Comfortable clothes and hard-soled shoes are best. Bring some water to drink. Limit: 12 couples

Sue Katz performed Ballroom and Latin American dance in Britain for a decade before relocating to the Boston area in 2000 where she teaches both group and private lessons.