Constellation

George Carlin on Stuff:

2010-01-31T11:34:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

... favorite line

"...that's the whole meaning of life, isn't it? Trying to find a place for your stuff."
"have you noticed that their stuff is shit and your shit is stuff??"

Have you ever thought about how awesome you might look with Angelina Jolie's lips?

2010-01-17T23:29:00.005-05:00

Have you ever thought about how awesome you might look with Angelina Jolie's lips? Or Daniel Craig's chin? Or Alexander Skarsgaard's piercing grey eyes? (They're just like the sky after a storm...)

Well, someone across the pond with way too much time on their hands has taken it one step farther--to developing the "Most Attractive British Man" by combining the best features of the most attractive Brits. I read a post about it a while ago, and when something similar came up in our talks about our obsession with beauty and self-image during "Corpus" rehearsal, I realized I had to share.

So here we have a "composite sketch based on answers to poll questions about the most desirable features of famous British men to create a picture of the 'ultimate British male.' In the end, they utilized Hugh Grant's hair, Daniel Craig's eyes, Orlando Bloom's nose, rugby player Jonny Wilkinson's mouth, racecar driver Lewis Hamilton's skin, and Ewan McGregor's jaw."

And the result?

Well, personally, I am a little disappointed. And slightly TERRIFIED that this plastic creature might somehow find its way to Brooklyn and find me next time I'm walking home from the F-train in the dark.

No, no--I know he's not really that bad, and if he were not clearly synthetic, I would not be so down on him. But it's fascinating to me that this might be something that people aspire to. We try to improve upon the looks of six very attractive men (again, begging the question: WHY?), and end up with a veritable Frankenstein's Monster. Isn't there some saying about liking people for their attractive qualities but loving them for their flaws?

And now I'm just babbling.

(Text and photos from towleroad.com. )

Brazen Beckham

2010-01-14T10:46:00.002-05:00

Hello everyone! David Beckham came up in rehearsal for "Corpus" recently, and I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts on the footballer as it relates to our theme. We’ve been exploring the body as both a tool to be used(working in the field, typing on a computer) and an aesthetic to be sculpted(painting your nails, plastic surgery). Working in an exclusively male ensemble, the subject of masculinity has inevitably begun to intersect with our exploration. How we view it, how we deal it, and how we define it have all been touched on in the rehearsal room. This leads me to some thoughts on David Beckham:

Looking at this picture of David Beckham, he seems to inhabit a space both “masculine” and “feminine“.

Beckham brazen and assertive this displays of his body, but there is also something demure and fragile about him in this photo.

The photo is fiercely sexual, but in what way...

Perhaps he is so brazen in his masculinity, so fiercely confident, that he dares to be oiled up, half-dressed, and clutching a massive rope. His masculinity has such force that it can invade and occupy feminine territory.

But more importantly, what do YOU think about Beckham’s fashion spreads?

Frankenstein + Jersey Shore

2010-01-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking about Frankenstein lately. Or rather, Frankenstein's creation - a monstrous being he created in the search for the secret to life.

And then I started thinking about Jersey Shore. (Work with me here).

I don't even watch this show but I've heard about it so much that I know that this guy's nickname is "The Situation."

As we are finding Corpus - one of the three dance plays that makes up For the Love Of..., I have been returning to these two cultural landmarks.

I'm intruiged by our colletive obsession with the body and with being attractive. Victor Frankenstein made his monster out of old body parts. It was only once they were fully assembled and came to life that he was horrified by his creation. It occurs to me that The Situation is in some way one of those monsters. He is endowed with physical attributes that our culture typically finds attractive:

1. Thick hair
2. Tanned or golden skin
3. A muscular, toned body
4. Confidence

However, once combined, they become horrifying (or at least that's my opinion).

Your thoughts?

Speaking of Hoarders....NYTimes reports: Stuffed!

2009-12-22T11:51:00.002-05:00

To follow up on Jean's post about the show Hoarders:

Rob Walker wrote about the new reality show, and the mental disorder of hoarding stuff, in this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine's Consumed section. Two choice paragraphs:

It’s interesting then that “Hoarders” has found its audience now. In a sense, the show can be read as a metaphor for an entire culture that has lost perspective on the relative importance of things and desperately needs help. Steketee says the disorder is “an age-old problem” but adds, “I do think our consumer culture has probably made it considerably worse.” Then again, it could be read as perversely reassuring, inserting distance between the rest of us and a handful of out-of-control freaks.

Sharenow, however, insists that the show’s subjects are “relatable.” Imagine if strangers tossed your irreplaceable family mementos in a garbage truck; now imagine you had the same attachment to every single object you possess, right down to candy wrappers and crumpled receipts. That is, most everybody’s identity is partly tied up in, or reflected by, their things — and plenty of us have moments of anxiety about that, perhaps in the last year especially. It’s certainly true that after I watch the show, I cast a wary eye on the deposits of object clutter here and there in my home. The scariest reading of “Hoarders” is that these freakish piles of stuff it documents simply reflect what plenty of us consume as a matter of course; our ability to dispose of the evidence properly is what makes us normal. “The line between the people on our show, who have very severe cases of the disorder, and, you know, most of the population,” Sharenow says, “is kind of thin.”

And here's the entire article! Read on!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20FOB-consumed-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hoarders&st=cse

Hoarding

2009-12-15T10:47:00.004-05:00

I'm living in a hotel room for this next week and therefore have a TV!!!! very exciting!!!... anyway, I came across a show called 'Hoarders' on A&E which was pretty enlightening and pretty relevant to Excess!

According to Wikipedia Compulsive Hoarding "is the acquisition of and failure to use or discard such a large number of seemingly useless possessions that it causes significant clutter and impairment to basic living activities such as mobility, cooking, cleaning, showering or sleeping.".. .. showering?? sleeping!?!?!?!?!? ack!!

Here is a picture of hoarding I found online at www.anxietyandstress.com/hoarding.html:

I found this fascinating for a few reasons:
the hoarders on this show seemed to know that what they were doing was detrimental to them and those around them, but just really didn't know how to stop...
there are probably many people who have not let their hoarding get so out hand, but are also close to the edge- my dad used to keep a lot of useless things and I have this distinct memory of the family helping him throw things away once a year..
I also relate to hoarding!! I find myself battling with throwing things away that I don't have any use for... part of it is the want of stuff and part of it is hating to feel like something is going to a landfill (and maybe a little genetics??)... I wonder if I could ever get out of hand like the people in the A&E show?!?!?! am I a closet hoarder?!?!?!?!

For the Love Of...Marriage Equality!

2009-12-14T09:03:00.002-05:00

This profile was in the NY Times Weddings Section last Sunday, Dec 6th. I loved the story, and just wanted to share; also, The Anthropologists are planning to connect with an organization that supports marriage equality during the performance run of Constellation: For the Love Of... and donate part of our ticket sales to the cause. Love for all!

Read on about the marriage of Stephen Davis and Jeffrey Busch...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/weddings/06vows.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=vows--busch&st=cse

Cargo Cults: The Worship of Objects

2009-12-10T14:36:00.006-05:00

I came across this interesting and somewhat disturbing interview with monologuist Mike Daisey in last week's TimeOut New York. Here's the link to the whole article:
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/81093/mike-daisey-qa#ixzz0ZJiXBqTs

In it, he discusses his new piece, The Last Cargo Cult. I'd never heard of a cargo cult, and was shocked to find out what it is:

What exactly is a cargo cult?
During World War II, the United States set up military bases on islands far away from the conflict. That meant that some islands that had very little contact with the outside world abruptly had airfields and U.S. airmen on them and chocolate and cigarettes and refrigerators and radios and all this magical awesome shit. When the Americans left, religions sprang up that worshipped America—or, more specifically, the objects of America. What they want is cargo, which we often infantilize as, like, iPods and tissue paper and jewelry. But cargo is medicine and guns and knives: It’s tools. They want power. And they want that power explicitly to preserve their way of life.

Can you imagine?! An entire religion centered around the obsession with material objects?! And how fascinating that the possession of these objects in turn symbolizes power for these isolated islanders. Daisy goes on to talk about the parallel with this seemingly absurd belief system and "what I believe is the overwhelmingly dominant religion of the first world, which is the financial system—a belief system that relies on trust and faith and sympathetic magic." Our belief in the financial system and desire for wealth in turn leads to the buying of, and perhaps obsession with, material objects. So in actuality, while it may seem crazy to create an entire religion around cargo, how far removed are we Americans from the things we worship ourselves?

Photoshop! and how it affects our view on the body

2009-12-06T10:59:00.004-05:00

I love the multimedia pieces that the NYTimes does and so happened upon this piece the other week.. A piece on photoshop and the idea that there should be some recognition that most (all?) photographs in magazines and ads and such have been worked on:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/09/opinion/1194838469575/op-ed-sex-lies-and-photoshop.html?nl=&emc=urb3

I thought it was a great compliment to what we had been talking about at the Corpus rehearsal the other night..

I also liked this piece because, while this is a topic I'm familiar with, I was surprised at some of the information it provided and also really appreciated hearing what the re-touchers themselves had to say (both about their job and the role of retouching is society). ... I also liked the idea that if we can be able to see these photographs as art instead of depicting true life we might be able to change our perspective on beauty (and change our self esteem??) ... maybe?? :) ...

Body & Perspective

2009-12-05T10:49:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to touch on the work of Ron Mueck, a fascinating sculptor. I saw his exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum a few years back and it was a wild and eye-opening experience. His sculptures are incredibly life-like. Even that description does it no justice - you would swear these pieces are breathing when you look at them. One thing I like about his work in particular is his use of perspective. Sometimes the size is larger than life, other times 2/3 scale and also miniature, but always incredibly and biologically detailed.

There are some good pics on the Brooklyn Museum site.

Visuals

2009-11-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

I love the website etsy - it's an online store for artists and crafty types and I've found many a beautiful object there (and have a long, long "need/want" list).

So, I was procrastinating at work and decided on a whim to do a search for the word "corpus."

This is the first thing I found:

It's made by an artist named Tom J. Byrne. You can find the print at his etsy shop.

I like that it's at once a simple, natural pose (torso & legs), yet his arms seem to be in a torqued position. Simultaneous action and repose.

Your thoughts? Leave them in the comments box!

Why Do We Seek?

2009-11-17T15:06:00.003-05:00

Here is a fascinating article that Melissa sent around about our obsession with seeking information, and how technology today is very well, and dangerously, suited to the way our brains work. Anyone who has a day job in front of an internet-abled computer should read this article!

http://www.slate.com/id/2224932

Here's a highlight:
"So addicts become obsessively driven to seek the reward, even as the reward itself becomes progressively less rewarding once obtained. 'The dopamine system does not have satiety built into it,' Berridge explains. 'And under certain conditions it can lead us to irrational wants, excessive wants we'd be better off without.' So we find ourselves letting one Google search lead to another, while often feeling the information is not vital and knowing we should stop."

I think this definitely applies to our addiction to obtaining material objects. We shop and buy and consume because we think it will be rewarding somehow, but when we actually make the purchase, we go home often feeling let down, because the seeking of the object, the desire for it, is more exciting than actually having it.

In addition, we are using material objects to fuel our addiction to seeking information: computers, iPods, iPhones, Blackberrys, etc. We need the newest gadgets to get the information faster and make everything available right at our fingertips at all times.

I also really liked this list of adjectives: It is an emotional state Panksepp tried many names for: curiosity, interest, foraging, anticipation, craving, expectancy. He finally settled on seeking.

It appears that seeking information is a drug like any other, and a very addictive one at that. After all, they call it "crackberry" for a reason, no?

New Post from Alex

2009-11-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

This is from Alex, our costume designer, until we can figure out how to get her account going!!

Thanks to the magic of whatever records my tv shows for me, I was able to watch Tuesday's So You Think You Can Dance tonight and wow, Kathryn and Legacy danced to Two Steps away by Patti Labelle. Though they were focusing on fear, i think the movement really illustrates what we were talking about in terms of the weight of excess and what i was trying to hit on in terms of the emotional attachment we have to our things. Although Kathryn is trying to escape Legacy, there is an element of wanting him at the same time. She reaches for him, caresses him. Anyway, here is the link, enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Hqa9YJAmQ

Thanks Alex!

Lyrical Inspiration

2009-11-06T10:35:00.002-05:00

On my way to work this morning, thinking about our rehearsal last night and the project at hand, I suddenly found myself singing this song:

Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you think
Sure, she's got everything
I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty
I've got whozits and whatzits galore
You want thingamabobs?
I've got twenty!
But who cares?
No big deal
I want more

Synopsis: Excess

2009-11-05T14:36:00.002-05:00

Excess will look at our society’s obsession with and intense love for stuff. We’ll investigate how our materialism has manifested itself into loneliness, isolation, and disconnection in exchange for the satisfaction of inanimate objects.

Text: The Cherry Orchard

Preparation: Excess

2009-11-05T12:30:00.001-05:00

Here are some articles of interest that we looked at when talking about/brainstorming on Excess:

Storage!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06self-storage-t.html

Excess squandered:
http://nymag.com/fashion/09/fall/58346/

Finding romantic love in material objects:
http://jezebel.com/5331003/woman-to-wed-amusement-park-ride
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-2DLove-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

And just plain excessive behavior:
http://jezebel.com/5350154/hey-nineteen?autoplay=true

The Unveiling

2009-11-05T11:06:00.001-05:00

Hello! And welcome to the blog Constellation.

This is a process journal that will be created by the artists working on The Anthropologists' newest show: For the love of....

For the love of... is a series - or constellation - of short dance theatre pieces. This series is all about love and obsession. Juicy.

For the love of... is a mash-up of classical texts with contemporary dance and movement. In three original pieces - Falling, Excess and Corpus - the words of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Kafka will illuminate our obsession with other people, material objects and our own selves.

We'll be posting updates on the scripting process, some rehearsal video and pics as we create these pieces. We hope you'll feel free sharing your thoughts and helping us find our way to something great to show you in February 2010.