Ballet

So I just realized I never blogged about the ballet. I suppose "better late than never" comes into play here. Anyways, here it goes.

I really enjoyed the performance. I never inherited any of the coordination or balance to dance well, so I admire anyone who can. I particularly liked the way exaggerated movements of the shoulders, neck and head were used to convey emotion, where (I think) tone of voice would have been used in the play.

At the risk of incurring the disapproval of my undoubtedly more fashionable classmates, I must say that I quite liked the costumes. They were bright and colourful and entirely fitting for an adaptation of a play in which the characters are also quite colourful. I especially liked the use of similar colours and similar styles to emphasize association between the characters.

BBC archive results..and some Deutsche Welle

BBC results on the search "Berlin headscarves schools":

November 11, 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3261147.stm
Note: "The ban will not apply in religious education classes, and Christian and Jewish symbols will not be banned."
March 29, 2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6506889.stm

Also Deutsche Welle had a ton of articles. When I have finished with my homework actually due tomorrow, I shall look through them more thoroughly. Until then:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1047227,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,978888,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1152539_page_2,00.html
That last one has a quote from an Islamic Studies lecturer at Humboldt.

Topic

In order, my three areas of interest are:
Immigration and Migration
Youth Culture
Memorials

In specific, I would like to explore the competition between the Abrahamic traditions for representation in the public education system, contrasting the classes for younger grades with those for high school.

Ghosts and landmarks of Seattle

The stretch of Second Avenue between Virginia and Stewart is full of what short history Seattle boasts. The Moore Theatre downtown is the oldest theatre in Seattle; it celebrated its centennial last year. The theatre was, according to their website, partly responsible for the establishment of Second Avenue as the center of Seattle's Theatre district. Its architecture and decor (plain outside and lavish, almost baroque inside) was heralded as magnificent and offers insight as to the the trend of theatre building at the turn of last century.

My encounters with the Moore are infrequent; I show up annually. My high school puts on its spring musical at the Moore every year and a great number of my friends were either crew or musicians. They would tell stories of sneaking down into what used to be the speak-easy in the basement or finding a long forgotten program decades older than they in some back closet. One of my friends was shocked to discover that the explanation for the back staircase (which has a ridiculously creepy looking exit) to the balcony was that of segregation policies.

Incidentally, the building next door, the Josephinum, is also quite old, as far as Seattle goes, and is the only place left in Seattle where the Latin Mass is celebrated.

Seattle, in comparison to Berlin, is a very young city. Any "ghosts" we have are of the recently deceased. Our city is still populated with the soon-to-be-gone, what one might call the dying.

The First Class

So far, I have put off writing a response to last Thursday's class in the hopes of divine inspiration. Alas, no luck. But it is now Wednesday afternoon, so I had best type this up.

Drama, in general, has always been one of those forms of art of which I have a very shallow understanding but am quite curious about, so it was enjoyable to read the Viewpoints book. A lot of it required consulting earlier chapters to understand, but I related really well to the idea of jo-ha-kyu within music. The practice exercise was also enjoyable; not only did it give us the opportunity to fumblingly put what we learned into practice, it acted as an icebreaker for the group.

I thought it interesting how many of the students sought to convey a progression or growth of some sort, rather than a specific moment in time or space.