Over the weekend on Sunday our seminar class attended the Arpino Dance Festival at The Joyce Theater. The trip their wasn’t atrocious, me and Julia strolled over to the bus stop and had some good conversations. Only almost panic was when we were still on the bus at 12:20 and we were catching the 12:30 ferry , but we hit a slight jog and made it! Riding the subway is always an interesting time, but we survived and me and Julia then got Starbucks (Pumpkin Chai is AMAZING!).
Attending the dance festival, I didn’t really know what to expect, as I’ve never attended anything of that sorts or watched dance beyond Dance Moms. Walking in it seemed to be a very nice location, especially with the looks of the other guests. I also experienced extreme sonder, as for our class we had to attend this event, but these people each had their own life and reason to attend.
As this was free, I won’t complain crazily, but the seats were a tad too close and whoever constructed the stage in general should be fired (personally). Looking at the stage I couldn’t see their feet, and to me, with little dance knowledge, sees their feet to be a huge part of their technique and not being able to see it, I feel like I lose some of hard work they put into their dances. Also in Valentine, I could infer what she was doing when she was on the ground but I honestly could only see parts of her head.
To the dances, I enjoyed them, but I don’t have a extremely long attention span, so I lost the plot very quickly in my opinion. Within the first dance, Confetti, I honestly was amazed by what they did dance wise, but the costumes for the men personally fell flat. Those pants… White should historically be banned for everyone. I will say in Valentine that I could relate to the guy dancing, as I too sweat an extreme amount, but boy, was it just raining off of him onto his poor partner the entire dance.
I will say that all the dances had amazing technique and beautiful overall setups. However, I don’t entirely find a vast appeal in this art. I was talking to Julia about how in the 2nd grade my school attended The Nut Cracker, and I had never been more bored in my entire life. Staying completely silent isn’t extremely hard for me, but when it’s a rule it then becomes hard and takes away my interest as I have thoughts to share but have to suppress them, which usually leads to me forgetting them. So I’ll say it correlates to the dances we saw, as I wanted to say somethings to Julia, but being so close I almost felt as if we were being watched, so we stayed silent. I know it would be distracting to other guests and the performers when talking, but I feel as I would enjoy it more if it wasn’t as strict, but that usually doesn’t coincide with the fine arts.
To conclude the trip, I will say it did create an overall good day as it gave an excuse to be out in the city on a rainy Staten Island day, getting to tour parts I hadn’t seen and an insane Raising Canes with a DJ.
Leave a Reply