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Sunday, November 09, 2008
Conservatory Hour
Conservatory Hour for Monday Nov. 10th
Is from 5-6pm in the Checco (Studio A)
This week’s focus will be a critique of
Eurydice.
Attendance is required for all involved with the production and all freshmen.
All others are strongly encouraged to come participate in this discussion.
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Alright. I think that this conservatory hour was really interesting and I felt that there was a lot that the audience had to say. With that stated, with all the wonderfu+l input we had to offer I felt that we werent allowed to say a lot.. We were cut off mid sentence, we were told to be quite while we were talking and it was as if we jumped from question to question with out ever getting through all that should be said about a certain topic. I am a bit upset with how we were treated by the dramaturg because she was not very accepting of what we had to say. I think that it would have been an awesome discussion if we were allowed to actually say ALL of what we wanted and then move on to the next topic.
After seeing Eurydice I was very exited for this conservatory hour however, I was very disappointed with the outcome. While I understand the insistence in getting us to justify our feelings abut the play with facts, and to focus on wether the production accurately conveyed the desired message, I did not think that those in charge were gracious when trying to encourage the discussion to stay focused. It is an important leadership quality to be able to gage when a topic is exhausted or still fresh and to be able to take control when a change of topic is necessary without discouraging all those involved in the discussion. I did not feel this was achieved.
I feel that while this Conservatory Hour certainly had a sense of tension amongst both the presenters and the students, I feel that it is the process and not the people which made it so. There is an abnormal amount of pressure on the dramaturg during these postmortem Conservatory Hours and I felt that this pressure, coupled with the very strong opinions of the audience and unclear expectations of the staff made for a tense environment. However, I have one question: where the hell was Kate Pines? While she was certainly physically present, she was surprisingly mum about the piece she had been working on for several weeks previous. She did not seem personally invested AT ALL. Nor was she visibly interested in the comments and/or questions of the students. The problem was with Kate Pines.
It's just hard to have a discussion like that in a group that large. You ask one question and five people want to answer it, but in the first person's answer, 5 more people hear something they really want to talk about which is completely unrelated to the original question, so it eventually turns into just random statements about the show being stated in complete non-sequitur. The dramaturg leading it, whose name completely escapes me was working really hard to do what Dick and Doc wanted, as well as keep the discussion somewhat on track... it just didn't work out very well.
I agree with Michael that in such a large group discussions of this nature are more difficult but i think their are ways to make it work. I believe that if the evening had been opened up with one main question, rather that a bunch, it would have centered the discussion more. Also if the audience had focused more on coherent concise answers i think this would have released some of the tension with answers too long, answers too short, and people being cut off on their answers. Finally it seemed that the instructors were slightly degrading when they told the audience to give better answers, which talked about how the work told the story. In general it seemed that everyone has stuff they need to learn - and it is just frustrating to watch everyone struggle as they learn.
5 comments:
Alright. I think that this conservatory hour was really interesting and I felt that there was a lot that the audience had to say. With that stated, with all the wonderfu+l input we had to offer I felt that we werent allowed to say a lot.. We were cut off mid sentence, we were told to be quite while we were talking and it was as if we jumped from question to question with out ever getting through all that should be said about a certain topic. I am a bit upset with how we were treated by the dramaturg because she was not very accepting of what we had to say. I think that it would have been an awesome discussion if we were allowed to actually say ALL of what we wanted and then move on to the next topic.
After seeing Eurydice I was very exited for this conservatory hour however, I was very disappointed with the outcome. While I understand the insistence in getting us to justify our feelings abut the play with facts, and to focus on wether the production accurately conveyed the desired message, I did not think that those in charge were gracious when trying to encourage the discussion to stay focused. It is an important leadership quality to be able to gage when a topic is exhausted or still fresh and to be able to take control when a change of topic is necessary without discouraging all those involved in the discussion. I did not feel this was achieved.
I feel that while this Conservatory Hour certainly had a sense of tension amongst both the presenters and the students, I feel that it is the process and not the people which made it so. There is an abnormal amount of pressure on the dramaturg during these postmortem Conservatory Hours and I felt that this pressure, coupled with the very strong opinions of the audience and unclear expectations of the staff made for a tense environment. However, I have one question: where the hell was Kate Pines? While she was certainly physically present, she was surprisingly mum about the piece she had been working on for several weeks previous. She did not seem personally invested AT ALL. Nor was she visibly interested in the comments and/or questions of the students. The problem was with Kate Pines.
It's just hard to have a discussion like that in a group that large. You ask one question and five people want to answer it, but in the first person's answer, 5 more people hear something they really want to talk about which is completely unrelated to the original question, so it eventually turns into just random statements about the show being stated in complete non-sequitur. The dramaturg leading it, whose name completely escapes me was working really hard to do what Dick and Doc wanted, as well as keep the discussion somewhat on track... it just didn't work out very well.
I agree with Michael that in such a large group discussions of this nature are more difficult but i think their are ways to make it work. I believe that if the evening had been opened up with one main question, rather that a bunch, it would have centered the discussion more. Also if the audience had focused more on coherent concise answers i think this would have released some of the tension with answers too long, answers too short, and people being cut off on their answers. Finally it seemed that the instructors were slightly degrading when they told the audience to give better answers, which talked about how the work told the story. In general it seemed that everyone has stuff they need to learn - and it is just frustrating to watch everyone struggle as they learn.
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