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Showing posts from January, 2021

Of "poetry and power," Robert Frost and his inaugural successors have thought big

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On that uplifting day of January 20, someone near and dear to me texted for my opinion of Amanda Gorman causes sensation with "The Hill We Climb" Amanda Gorman' s performance of her poem at the Inauguration, and what I thought of "The Hill We Climb" itself. I replied that it suited the occasion, yet seemed too oratorical for my taste. I became more aware of its integrity and skill as poetry once I saw the text: The tone is well-measured, intense, and appealing, and the rhymes (ranging from true rhymes through "slant"or para-rhymes, to assonance [matching vowel sounds]) ring out, sometimes in close-order drill, sometimes more spread out. There's alliteration and the line parallelism known in rhetoric as anaphora. But oratory still seems the main category of discourse in which Gorman's poem takes its historic place. And of course her delivery and poise — her very presence — displayed mastery, a splendor that amounted to more than her bright yello
  . @JKCorden and an array of Broadway friends bid farewell to President Trump, Les Mis style. pic.twitter.com/l9PiSRvCOA — The Late Late Show with James Corden (@latelateshow) January 20, 2021

Embracing the new era, Dance Kaleidoscope posits 'A New Dawn'

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Masked and with touching mostly proscribed by pandemic protocols, Dance Kaleidoscope has expanded its art for the era of video streaming with a two-work program titled "A New Dawn." The world-premiere pieces draw from the limitations imposed by Covid-19 to send a sinuous message of hope and new spheres for creative expression. With supple, well-coordinated camera work by WFYI-TV, the company is shown in its usual performing space, the main stage of Indiana Repertory Theatre . Visual components that make the choreography appeal to the senses (on screens through Jan. 24) come from the troupe's veteran lighting designer, Laura E. Glover, and costume designers Guy Clark and Cheryl Sparks. Natalie Clevenger in a "New Dawn" scene   Guest choreographer AndrĂ© Megerdichian, a former DK member, has compared his habitual way of unifying his ideas for a piece to attempting to assemble a satellite out of stray pieces gathered in outer space. The new work has that pieced-tog