As I was reflecting on the ballet performance, some of my own dance memories came to mind.  Having danced for the majority of my life, and competitively for seven or eight years, I remembered some issues of choreography.  In one instance a graduate of our company came back to teach a class.  He knew Michael Jackson and was in the midst of the audition process for the “This Is It” tour.  When he came to teach us, he decided he wanted to do an excerpt from one of the numbers that would be featured on the tour.  In class, many dancers liked to videotape themselves doing the choreography from that day and then post it on youtube or Facebook. Knowing this, the graduate told us we could record the choreography just not post it anywhere public because he did not own the rights to the choreography and could get in serious trouble.  Upon remembering this instance, I became interested in how one can copyright choreography. This link provides brief requirements.  I believe that this did not fall under fair use for two main reasons.  The first being that none of the choreography was changed when it was taught to us and the second being that the choreography was being taught to us in a commercial setting where we were essentially paying to learn the choreography through our paid dance lessons.

In my English class today we were discussing the turn of the century in literature.  My professor mentioned how throughout different eras, different concepts affected us, mainly that of religion.  We were talking about how by the Renaissance period, people began to look less towards the word of God and more towards newer philosophies. At one point my professor exclaimed, “we are sons and daughters of the Gutenberg revolution!”  Without Gutenberg, this transition form mainly religious writings to more humanistic ones may not have occurred. I found this website which briefly mentions this transition.

Last night I attended the ballet performance being given at Williams.  Choreographed by Marie Chouinard, the performance was much more avant-garde than I was expecting. This drew my curiosity and led me to find more information on Marie Chouinard. Biographical notes state, “The works created since 1978 reflect the concerns of this surprising choreographer: her view of dance as a sacred art, her respect for the body as a vehicle of that art, her virtuoso approach to performance and the invention of a different universe for each new piece.”  In her piece, “The Rite of Spring”, Chouinard chose to focus on solos as to show the depth of each dancer, something different from others who worked with the same piece of music.  I find it fascinating how one piece of music can evoke such different interpretations from different artists.  I used to competitively dance, and I can remember at competitions, the same song being used, but completely different dances being performed.  While the music may have been the same, the dances evoked different emotions from audience members.

What a magnificent showing at the playhouse last night.  Im amazed at the unique events that are sometimes shown at our theater.  I haven’t seen such an unorthodox event at the Williams Arts Center since William Pope.L’s statue of a pirate with MLK’s head and chocolate sauce dripping from his head.  The distinctive characteristics of these works made me think about how copyright has promoted individualism and creativity.  Artists may feel more inclined to add more personality and unusual features to their works not simply for the sake of art, but for protection against copyright.

Tonight’s performance at the Williams Center was an amazing experience.  The style of dance was very different than what I am used to (I was a ballet dancers for years).  Marie Chouinard’s choreography combined modern dance with ballet to evoke a wide variety of feelings in the audience.  The first act, 24 Preludes by Chopin, channelled every possible emotion.  The main feature of the night, though, was Chouinard’s version of The Rite of Spring.  Originally composed by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1913, the 100 year anniversary of this historically famous piece gives us much to think about.  The score is in the public domain only in the United States.  The original choreography has no copyright, although extensive research led one company, the Joffrey Ballet, to re-stage the piece according to Nijinsky’s original choreography in 1988.

Because the original choreography is not protected by copyright, many choreographers throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have created their own choreography to accompany the musical piece.  (A list of some of the most famous adaptations of the work can be seen here.)

What do you guys think of this?  Is it fair that other choreographers can re-do what has already been done?  Or should we encourage this creativity?

After Professor Lodge’s brownbag this afternoon, I decided to research a bit further into the play she mentioned, Grease and Desist.  As Professor Lodge mentioned, Grease and Desist came out of a cease and desist letter that was sent to a theater company in Philadelphia, from the publishing company Samuel French, who own the rights to the original production.  The Philadelphia company received this letter as a result of their decision to perform Grease with an all-female cast.  According to Samuel French, “changing the gender of the actors was the same as changing the script.”  Madi Destefano, the artistic director, reacted, saying that she and her coworkers “did not seek permission to change the gender of the cast because they didn’t know they should.”

I found this example of copyright and licensing exceptionally interesting and a good example of the intricacies of copyright law in theater.  I’m sure there are many others like it, that run despite their contracts, that are shut down because of copyright infringement, as so on.

There were many factors to Arabian Nights that I thought were good. First off, the theater was small and intimate, which I thought was a nice touch. The set was very well designed; a lot better than I thought it was going to be.  It allowed for a lot of variations in acting by the participants to make the play their own. I think its cool that no two plays will be the same.