Expert Rites
I marvel at the wonder of it in our souless age
Fast flow the tears upon the page.
Don't be alarmed I am her friend
Will I be excused if I presume
It's more than disappointment that we share.
You share the same sorry life, the families fight,
that unhappy blade you both invite.
This romantic ideal has a lonely appeal
I once loved someone the way that you do
But I had to let her go
I live with my regret
Don't despair my would-be Juliet.
~MacManus
Fast flow the tears upon the page.
Don't be alarmed I am her friend
Will I be excused if I presume
It's more than disappointment that we share.
You share the same sorry life, the families fight,
that unhappy blade you both invite.
This romantic ideal has a lonely appeal
I once loved someone the way that you do
But I had to let her go
I live with my regret
Don't despair my would-be Juliet.
~MacManus
posted by dyingember at 6:43 PM
1 Comments:
Saturday (I'm a day late)
It's the anniversary of one of the most legendary moments in modern art. On this day in 1913, The Rite of Spring had its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs- Élysées in Paris, a ballet with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky and music by Igor Stravinsky.
Igor Stravinsky got the idea for the ballet, which would be about a pagan ritual in which a virgin is sacrificed to the gods of spring by dancing herself to death. He drew on dozens of Russian folk songs for the melodies, but instead of using those melodies in any conventional way, he chopped them up and threw them together into a dissonant collage of sounds with a relentless staccato rhythm.
It was unseasonably hot on this evening in 1913, so it's possible that the audience was more restless than usual. The audience sat quietly through the first several minutes of the piece, but when the music suddenly turned harsh and dissonant, people in the audience began to shout at the stage.
Fights broke out between the audience members. People who were enjoying the music attacked those who were booing. People spat in each other's faces. Between the first and the second act, the police were called to remove hecklers, but the disruption continued. Stravinsky was so upset by the response that he left his seat in disgust. Nijinsky stood on a chair in the wings shouting out the counts to the dancers who couldn't hear the music over all of the booing. The piece lasted only 33 minutes, but by the end, the audience had nearly erupted into a riot.
Almost overnight, Stravinsky became one of the most celebrate artists in the world. A year after its premier, The Rite of Spring was performed without dancing, and when it was over, members of the audience carried Stravinsky out on their shoulders.
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