Bloody Burlesque, Damn It

The future of burlesque is here. The grandmother of strip tease has spawned a new child. The dance that used to get sailors and married men alike to shout obscenities at the stage has rewritten its codes of conduct. On my birthday, in mid-October, I found myself celebrating at Bordello Bar with a group of friends, whilst being entertained by a troupe of modern-age burlesque performers. They had created a Halloween-inspired evening called Bloody Burlesque which consisted of stripteases in the style of the retro dance, but with a twist. All of the performers incorporated something bloody or violent into their routines. One ripped fake pieces of skin off her body, another drenched herself in fake blood while never letting her nipple tassels stop spinning. Though I was unimpressed with the production at Bordello, I had seen others perfect this contemporary burlesque thing. I once saw Legs Malone strip down to nothing on account of there being (fake) cockroaches, spiders and snakes lodged in her gloves, bra and underpants. The entire scene, to me, is such a creative outlet for artists who aren't afraid to show their bottoms to a crowd full of strangers. And while showing their bottoms, they invent unique and undeniably witty ways to take off the rest of their clothes. The humor is contagious and the performance remains somewhat sexy.

Modern-day burlesque is one of my favorite forms of entertainment. It beats the usual drag show and often even the over worn rock show. There is nothing like it and it continues to grow and become something new with each never-before-seen trick. There is so much room to utilize one's creativity - costume, props, performance, music. And ultimately, it is the best way to create a persona that followers will worship. A persona that you create on your own, through your presentation, on stage and off. You are a burlesque dancer. You are timeless. You are fat or skinny. You are kind or severe. You are nasty or cautious. You are naked on stage and you know you own the room. You have a great deal of power over people. You are mesmerizing.

Lena And The Blowfish: The Classics

Our art project took a step back in time, using a soundtrack from the 1780s and a filmic style from the 1920s. We came together to make a short music video to an operatic tune. Andrew used his knowledge of opera to choose a piece composed by Giuseppe Giordani titled "Caro Mio Ben." The lyrics, originally in Italian, tell the story of a woman who decides to kill herself after her lover leaves her for another woman. We all agreed upon the song and proceeded to choose a style to represent the song. We thought the films of the 1920s had visual elements that might help us tell the story (because the song is in Italian). The title cards and choppy editing added a lot to our film. Andrew and John recorded the song before we all went out and shot the footage. We had a vague idea of which shots we needed and how we wanted to film the story, but a lot of the process was done on-the-spot. We came up with ideas and a couple of story sub-plots as we were filming. It was a great environment for collaboration, where Lena incorporated her acting skills, taking some direction from me, while Andrew and John gave input and advice in the right places.

My roles in this project included cinematographer and editor. The cinematography was a very fun to take charge of, as it dealt a lot with capturing many small moments. Though I used the tripod sometimes, most of our film was shot handheld so we could get all the details and give the film more energy. The acting style we went for was that of the silent film era, when gestures were exagerrated and the actors had to use their bodies instead of words. We used different areas of campus as well as the rose garden across the street as filming locations. After recording about an hour of footage, the film was ready to be edited. I used FinalCutPro to string together a variety of quick shots that told the story while keeping the pace fast and energetic. I added the title cards as I went along, exagerrating the moments and letting the audience know what was actually going on. Because the title cards turned out being so straight forward and dry, they became the funnier parts of the film. To create the 1920s film style, I used a plethora of visual effects, including: flicker, blur, grain, noise, color correction, and vignetting. I took inspiration from the films of Guy Maddin. Once the project was cut and stylized, it felt like we had truly accomplished what we had set out to do. All of the elements, our varied talents, came together as we had originally hoped. Perhaps even more organically than we had once imagined. It was truly amazing to see this short film that originated from what seemed like a haphazard idea, and turned into a culmination of sorts - a musical, emotional, and visual experience.

Homeless Art: For Museum Directors Who Double As Beggars (From A3)

We look to many things for records of history – photographs, books, religious texts – but one of our central sources of information is the museum. There, we find paintings that bring us closer to the Renaissance, documents that help us understand the past, and retrospectives that assist us in the universal recognition of an artistic movement. The agenda of a museum is as important as the content of a historical text that will almost wholly represent a period in time. In 2000, when the Guggenheim Museums in New York City and Bilboa agreed to present an exhibition of Giorgio Armani garments, receiving $15 million in “contributions” from the Armani clothing company, the museum directors must not have considered the damage that they were facilitating (Vogel). The exhibition spaces became showrooms for Armani, wherein visitors were being charged to enter a museum that very much resembled a high end clothing shop, where sales and promotions are imperative. More and more frequently, museum culture has denounced artistic value and significance so as to replace them with marketability and universal appeal.

Filip Noterdaeme, a long-time educator and gallery lecturer at the Guggenheim in New York City, has spoken up and created a project that brings light to nearly all of the flaws and controversies that define many modern-day museums. Noterdaeme uses a variety of tools and mediums, continuing to add on to the project that calls itself The Homeless Museum of Art, or HOMU. The Homeless Museum seeks to challenge the unfortunate direction that cultural institutions are following in hopes of becoming more profitable and popular (The Homeless Museum of Art). Noterdaeme, HOMU’s director and founder, uses his knowledge, subversive nature, humor and unpredictability to make art projects that give us a better understanding of the business of museums.

It is important to acknowledge that HOMU is not an anti-museum, but rather a deviant one that chooses to express museums and museum culture (Noterdaeme). For example, at the HOMU Gift Shop, a pack of the director’s “specialty” cigarettes will cost you $99.99. This is anexpression of the typical museum gift shop today, where a plastic brooch might cost as much as a gold necklace might cost elsewhere. Through concepts that enthuse and motivate viewers, HOMU is an inspiring force that calls for others to participate and speak up against the sellout nature of museums today. Using a HOMU has prompted others to explore new art avenues and persuade recognition and change in society, battling ethical issues – it is a new medium through which artists, businessmen, and the homeless alike are motivated to speak up and be recognized. HOMU is a response to the museum’s growing relationship with market capitalism – the director’s understanding of what a museum should be like.

Here Is A Strange Fruit (From A1)

Just across the river in Long Island City, a warehouse full of freaks. I’m holding a video camera trying to keep it steady. A masked lady appears on a rotating stage completely naked with a giant afro. And then Whitney singing I’m every woman it’s all in me. She takes big hoop earrings and a belt out of her mouth. She’s got her heels stuffed away in her hair. A shirt too small for her breasts but fitting her tiny waist comes out from between her legs. And then a pair of shorts. Shit…I brought a republican with me. Now she’s not naked anymore; raises her hands above her head. Fade out I’m every woman. Clap clap clap. Finally I think to myself, someone’s doing something that’s making my eyes bigger and my smile wider. The republican says it’s not the real thing and I tell him that she just pulled leggings out of her ass and she’s every woman and it’s all in her.

The same night, an accordionist steals my heart but forgets my name. A year and a half earlier, my friend Mashinka gets married and I turn to my date Selin and say: “It feels like we’re in a movie.” The New Orleans jazz band and the lady singing the blues I’ll never forget.

I am in Prague, drinking a raspberry daiquiri like I’ve never tasted before, sharing a conversation about Moscow with the two most fascinating people in the world. I am in Granada, smoking a peach flavored hookah, drinking Moroccan tea, and watching the tiny mirrors reflect candlelight onto the walls. I am in Paris, riding up an escalator. I am in New York, bicycling through the Bronx to Orchard Beach, where I am attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. I am in Los Angeles, dreaming. I am always on the look out for moments that seem too cinematic to be true.

Artist's Statement

Very frequently, people are quick to judge someone or something because he/she/it is different, out of the ordinary. Or perhaps they try to legitimize something about themselves by talking others down. I am guilty of this myself, as I believe everyone is to certain degree. This is why my aim is to make films that disrupt the normative functions that exist within each individual. Rather than attacking any particular issue, I hope to touch people personally, giving them a new outlook on their narrowed views. I am most interested in demonstrating the ways that everyone is his own person, with his own eccentricities that should be rewarded rather than put down. My films investigate the way that people connect and disconnect with each other, and how their judgments might prevent them from moving forward in the right direction. I am inclined to making films and other art projects that are based in irony and my favorite method of subconsciously injecting irony into a scene is by way of controversy.

I incorporate controversial elements into my projects so as to more practically excite a viewer and make him/her remember the message. Recently, I directed a scene about junkies from the play La Negra by Luis Miguel Gonzalez Cruz. The scene deals heavily with violence, sex, and drugs, yet the connection between the two characters, the love and the vulnerability of their relationship, remains visible. I use controversy as a tool for heightening the stakes and keeping the audience focused. Ironically, controversy sheds light upon the otherwise hidden human emotions within any scene. For me, disturbing the audience usually allows them to be more attentive and takes them outside of their personal bubbles. I hope to make people feel uncomfortable and uneasy, and then introduce them to a relatable and emotionally charged moment between two or more characters, thus making them feel connected to the thing that had bothered them at first. In this way, I feel I can make audiences feel close to something they could have never imagined relating with before, and so their views broaden. If someone feels as though they could never truly understand a heroin junkie, I hope to open their eyes. Through tactics that make viewers feel discomfort, I take them on a journey and help them discover how they can remain comfortable and accepting in the most outlandish of situations. So that they can be comfortable with their own flaws and the flaws of those around them. So that they can feel comfortable enough to be confident. And confident enough to attempt the impossible.

The Most Misogynist Movie from the Self-Proclaimed Biggest Director in the World

What is it that attracts me to the films that get booed at during film festivals? And the directors who are arrogant enough to answer a question like, "Why did you make this film," with a response that goes something like, "I don't think I need to answer that question. I am here to show my film and you are my guests watching it. I owe you nothing." Lars Von Trier is one of my favorite directors and will forever remain a genius in my eyes. He is attacked left and right for being Anti-American, misogynistic, crude, and disgusting. To me, he is all these things, yet that is what draws me to his films even more. They shed light on so many things in life that are, by their very nature, cruel, manipulative, and heart-wrenching. He doesn't tip-toe around any subject he is exploring. He doesn't feel the need to stay on the surface - he always goes deep inside whatever it is he wants to show his audience. I was first introduced to him when I saw the film Dogville. Since then, I am becoming more and more obsessed. While watching his latest film, Antichrist, I realized how powerful a director he is and how powerful the medium of film can be, when its boundaries are pulled further out. By breaking all the rules, he instigated timeless, unforgettable discoveries.

Antichrist is a film about a married couple whose 2-year old son jumps out of a window to his death. The mother progressively goes insane and the father decides he will leave his position as husband and take on the role of psychiatrist in hopes of healing his wife's pain. The two go to their vacation cabin in the woods to take on and conquer their biggest fears, but instead are met with more insanity and uncontrollable grief. The lead actress, Charlotte Gainsbourg horrifies the audience with a performance that feels so real you want to turn away. The physical and emotional pain that she goes through on screen seems intangible, yet Gainsbourg acts as though she herself had lost her only child. Her night terrors, and other such moments when her body is taken over by something outside of herself, a grief that takes control of her even physically - these scenes are forever ingrained in my mind. I was shaking for two hours after the screening. Driving in the car, on the way to dinner, I had an uncontrollable physical reaction to the film - I had short and sudden convulsions. My shoulders would twist suddenly, for example. I could barely believe that this was happening to me as the result of a film.

The movie itself is not all that gruesome or violent, up until the last half-hour, when all hell breaks loose, quite literally. Though the last portion of the film will forever frighten me, when I think back to how I feel, it is the overall tone and visual style of the film that will always remind me of the mood of the film. The camera is manipulated perfectly and sets the viewer into the heads of the somewhat deranged subjects that appear on the screen. We feel the nausea they feel, the horror, the intimacy. With Antichrist, Lars Von Trier brings the audience a new form of cinema. A kind of style that defines a movement. While being so intellectually stimulating and involved, the film is so guttural and raw that one cannot help but feel infected. At a certain point in the film, I felt my body sinking into my seat and I had never felt that way before while watching a movie. The acting, cinematography, and overall sense of direction proves that this Swedish filmmaker understands how to horrify an audience. The medium of film is used as a hypnotic force that moves viewers physically, as I can vouch for the fact that I felt physically as much as I did emotionally during the screening. The amount of power that a film director can have over a group of people sitting in the dark is now obvious to me. The opening sequence alone proves how very chilling, gripping, and mythical a film can be:

MONO: A New Type of Concert (Blog #2)

The relationship between audience and musician varies quite a lot between different bands and types of music, but a few simple standards remain, especially during "rock shows." Of these, there is the notion that a performer must keep an audience entertained, excited, and interested. The musician must also usually create and uphold a personality, and make his/herself available to the audience. In light of this, he/she usually makes a funny remark or even a quiet gesture (a smile, a wave). Another way a musician might create a bond between performer and audience might be to dive into the depths of the crowd and come out with the sleeves ripped of his/her shirt. As long as the cheers grow louder and the security guards become more cautious. The Japanese instrumental band MONO rejects all of these prescriptions and refuses to fabricate any sort of relationship with the audience that is not motivated by the band's music.

Last Tuesday, on the 13th of October, I went to see MONO's Los Angeles concert at the El Rey Theatre. This was only the 2nd time I was seeing them live, but their music has inspired and impacted me for the last couple of years. I even used one of their tracks in a film of mine (their managers allow student films to gain the rights to their music). The band mates walk onto stage, wearing very simple, black outfits, and go to their respective instruments, paying little attention to the audience of cheering fans that have filled up the venue. They begin to play their first song, and it goes on for about 15 minutes (most of their songs are quite long). Throughout the course of this song, the female bassist does not even glance up to see the audience, the two other guitarists, who are seated, have their hair completely covering their faces - we see only bodies with instruments. As the music grows louder and louder, (and their songs get quite loud, with a lot of distortion and deafening melodies), several people begin to nod their heads, but most remain still. The music is enchanting, but it is obvious that the performance is not a presentation of charm and personality on behalf of the band mates, but rather an introspective relationship with the music, for both the band and the audience.

The band mates are completely involved with their instruments and the sounds they are creating, paying no attention to the audience. The audience, sensing this disconnect, is not forced to jump up and down or even watch the stage - several audience members are seated on the sides, just listening. One girl is sleeping in a dark corner (slight chance she's a junkie), many others seem to be in a daze. My friend faints at a certain point (perhaps it's the extremely loud distortion) and we sit down. The loud sounds and melodies have turned into lullabies and everyone seems to be taken by the music, but not enthralled by the performance.

In this way, MONO creates a completely new type of concert - one where music and emotion are key, leaving audience participation and audience invigoration out of the realm of performance. The last song finishes and the band mates walk off the stage, waving goodbye. None of them spoke a word for about an hour and a half. There is no encore, though the audience cheers for one. My friend and I go to grab a late dinner, but we both feel more drained than usual after a show. Without having danced, jumped, or screamed, we are exhausted and taken. The trick has worked.

Sergei Parajanov (Blog #1)

Sergei Parajanov is one of the most appreciated experimental filmmakers that ever came out of the Soviet Union and I find his films to be made of genius and heart. His collages, furthermore, have inspired me tremendously, and I often attempt to emulate his technique. Below is one of his collages:

And here is one of mine, done not too long after I visited his museum in Erevan, Armenia in 2004:

As an avant-garde auteur, Sergei Parajanov became a legend after the release of his film, The Color of Pomegranates, because of its then racy content, abstract design, and genius. The film gained him a lot of success and popularity internationally, but it was also banned in the Soviet Union and, soon after, he was arrested on a variety of nonsensical charges. Exploring the realm of obscure film, Parajanov uses unconventional sound techniques, unique acting, experimental filming and editing, and a vast amount of symbolism to tell the story of the famous Armenian poet and musician, Sayat Nova. The tortures of his physical and psychological existence are pieced together in this abstract visual representation of Sayat Nova’s life.

With a script containing no dialogue, The Color of Pomegranates became a strong force mainly because it revisited silent cinema and revamped it. Similar to films of the 20s, the main characters do not speak to one another in audible words. More is explained through the visuals, music, and text. For example, near the beginning of the film, there is a scene with Sayat Nova as a youth, watching his family dye wool to make rugs. A large metal disk is placed nearby the heated pot full of wool and dye. As the men retrieve the mounds of wool from the pot, they drop it onto the disk. Before the wool falls, the viewer hears the loud dripping of the dye onto the metal and then an even louder thump when it lands. This action is repeated several times and the noises themselves create the mood and help the viewer understand the kind of childhood the main character had. Being raised amongst workers who constantly followed the same perfunctory routines daily, Sayat Nova felt separated from them and did not want to continue in their tradition.

Sergei Parajanov remains one of my favorite filmmakers and I hope that I too will have the ability to tell stories in such a guttural and raw manner one day.

After Parajanov’s death in June of 1990, Federico Fellini said, “With the death of Parajanov, cinema lost one of its magicians."