The artist appeals to that part of our being... which is a gift and not an acquisition --- and, therefore, more permanently enduring               

Joseph Conrad

Sunday, March 8, 2009

It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea...

Laurie, when you were talking about adding the structure of story into our "face" improvisations, I immediately thought of the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary, the everyday occurrence/place with something that is quite heightened. Poetry where prose had only existed before. An ordinary fable told in an unusual fashion.
So here are just a few examples of this in poetry, dance, movies:

The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

In West Side Story, the ordinary place is juxtaposed with the extraordinary choreography.

In the movie Raging Bull, where the fights - as gritty as you can get - are directed as choreography.

In the movie Stop Making Sense, where an ordinary object finds its way into a song in the middle of a concert.

Coffee Shop Exploration by Ethan Philbrick
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