It is not necessary always to saw the air

Two favorite quotes from my rereading of Gilbert Austin's Chironomia. First, on the difficulty of delving into the topic and the tendency, then, to let the hands fall as they may:

Every man has to begin for himself; and hence few are willing to venture upon the labour of contriving a system, and choose rather to trust to the gesture suggested by the momen, than hazard the more dangerous exhibition of gestures imperfectly conceived, and which will consequently be imperfectly executed. (p. 5)

I turned this around, and took it as encouragement to conceive of my work as deeply and fully as possible, in order to come up to a decent standard of execution, however imperfect it may be.

Second, on the variety of gesture and remembering to include passage with less gesture:

The art of gesture however cultivated, is not to be used for incessant flourishing; as well might the steps and bounds in dancing be adopted on all occasions, instead of the simple movement of walking: and our art my serve the same excellent purpose to the awkward gesticulator for which the father sent his clownish son to the dancing school, that he might learn to stand still. (p. 137)

Or, in his more succinct summary from the same paragraph, "It is not necessary always to saw the air..." (p. 137)

Gesture at Work

My colleague around the corner asked me today if I had any idea why her photocopies were coming out blank on the new copier. "Did you place the copies on the glass yourself?" I asked her. "Because on this new machine you don't put them on the left, but on the right." It is totally confusing and I'll confess that I made several blank copies on Friday and I'm sure I'll do it wrong some more before the week is out. I accompanied myself with what I call when I teach the old baroque one-two, a gesture on one hand (here, noting on the left) and another on the other hand (slightly more emphatic, to the right). Gesture, gesture everywhere.

Poppea Photos part 3

This is what it's all about: the Consul and Tribune (Neal Plotkin and Bruce Rickenbacher) crown Poppea (Molly Quinn). Photo, Andrea Taras.

Poppea Photos part 2

More photos from last Friday's performance of scenes from L'incoronazione di Poppea with the New York Continuo Collective. All photos courtesy of Andrea Taras.

Sophia Dimitrova (Damigella) and Amaranta Viera (Valletto) consider the nature of love:Nerone (Tova Dodge) dreams of his beloved while Lucano (Jason Kim) serenades him:

Poppea (Molly Quinn) fantasizes about marrying Nerone while Arnalta (Deborah Malamud) admires her imaginary wedding ring:

Ottone (Sarah Gallogly) works himself up to kill his treacherous wife, Poppea (Molly Quinn) in her sleep:

Nerone (Tova Dodge) watches as his former Empress, Ottavia (Elizabeth Baber) falls apart while preparing to leave Rome forever:

The Gesture in the Uffizi

We went to see The Light in the Piazza last night and we really enjoyed this old-fashioned (in the best sense) broadway musical. It's closing July 2, and we were glad we managed to see it. Great roles for both the mother and the daughter and a top notch score.

In the second scene at the Uffizi Gallery, Clara is wandering around looking at the art while her mother has temporarily joined a tour. Clara stops in front of this annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci (also attributed in some sources to Ghirlandaio):

Before you know it she's trying out the gestures for herself, first Gabriel's gesture of blessing with the two fingers of the right hand raised, the others curled around; then Mary's left hand that accepts the amazing news, open palm towards the angel, while also registering her surprise and perhaps a hint of fear.

I'm always surreptitiously doing this in museums because it's fun, it helps me remember what I've seen, and it's a way to work and play at the same time. Just about every gesture text from the renaissance and baroque eras recommends looking at good art and imitating it as a way of adding to your gestural repertoire and perfecting your style. I sense a couple of summer trips to see some art in my future!

From the Mint

I'm rereading Gilbert Austin's Chironomia, or A Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery (London, 1806; I have a reprint, Carbondale: Southern Illinois Universit Press, 1966) at the moment, which I am sure will spark a number of posts. I'm working on learning the rest of his notated examples, and just this morning finished memorizing the basic structure of Gray's Elegy, though it is going to take a lot of work to make it good and to feel as comfortable with it as I do with the one piece I learned many years ago and often use as a demonstration, John Gay's "The Miser and Plutus".

This morning I read the introductory material and the chapters on the voice while taking the subway to work. Austin begins with voice and countenance, which along with gesture comprise the triumvirate of Rhetorical Delivery. I loved this quote about articulating text, which is so beautifully specific as to foreshadow a gesture itself:

[Words] are to be delivered out from the lips, as beautiful coins newly issued from the mint, deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, sharp, in due succession, and of due weight. (Austin, Chironomia, p. 38).

May we all mint our words like coins this weekend, and may they prove to be as valuable as actual currency! Happy Memorial Day.

Poppea Photos part 1

Here are a few pictures from Friday night's performance with the New York Continuo Collective in the beautiful Riverside Church 9th Floor Tower Room. Many thanks to Andrea Taras, not only for her fabulous photography, but also for getting these in the mail to me pronto!


First, here are Tova Dodge as Nerone and Molly Quinn as Poppea. This is from the end of the show and I love the sense of mission accomplished they exude.

Here are a few favorite moments from the show that Andrea captured for us:

At right, Ottavia (Elizabeth Baber) and the mirror in which she hopes Nerone will see, behind his pleasure, her suffering.

Below, Amore (Sarah Morrow) tells us how it is in an unguarded moment.

Below right, a self-satisfied Fortuna (Sarah Gallogly) gets the evil eye from Virtù (Amaranta Viera).



















A little pre-show action: music director Grant Herreid gives notes to the wonderful Continuo Collective band (below) while I hover in the foreground (purple shirt). Below right, Amore gets a little help with her wings from her colleagues.


















I will publish a few more pictures once I get better at editing them and laying out the pages.

And then you drive down the coast...

Spotted on the subway: the traveling gesture. A nicely dressed woman speaking animatedly to her friend, describing how you get to a location along the coast--you drive down by the water this way and that way--while her right hand described the trajectory out in front of her body. She ended her gestural phrase with a couple of rhetorical bounces of the hand and then a perfectly timed "ok" gesture with the right hand coming just before she said "it's very nice" as she recommended this oceanside getaway. I used the same traveling gesture in Poppea for "guida mia speme in porto"--Poppea's prayer that Amore guide her hopes into port. I loved seeing it in a totally contemporary setting.

What else could it be used for? It seems totally descriptive or imitative in its nature:

• looking for something right and left (rather than high and low)
• detective work, sleuthing (from the above)
• animal movement: a snake in the grass, a goldfish swimming in a pond
• an meandering state of mind, indecisive (a move away into metaphor)

And many more, I'm sure.

Playing games

From a surfeit of gesture to a lack of it...the two performances of scenes from Poppea went well on Thursday and Friday. I'm waiting for pictures, which I hope to post before the week is out. It's always interesting seeing what actually happens, after all that preparation, and how the audience responds. Considering the sight-line issues (we ended up performing on the floor of the room with audience on two sides and orchestra on the third side instead of on a raised platform, due to some last minute issues with the venue) it was a very enthusiastic response. Two new gestural elements I used that I really liked in performance, both for Ottavia, were the isometric gesture of palms pressing together perpendicular to each other for "i miei martiri", a gesture we made up together, and a very ancient one, the kissing of the earth by the banished empress as she leaves Rome forever.

We're also entertaining houseguests, and last night we played two rounds of Sequence, given to us by my parents who were obsessed with it this winter, after dinner. We've played occasionally with two people, but last night we had four, so we played in two teams, however communication between partners is prohibited about strategy or what you have in your hand. I was highly aware of downplaying my gestures and keeping my gaze on cards or board. It's so hard not to communicate! Tom (my Sequence buddy) and I had an interesting moment when I saw he was searching for a card on the board to no avail and I realized that must mean he had at least one jack, because those are the only cards that are not printed on the game board. A little inadvertent communication! We laughed and our opponents had no idea what was going on. We won both rounds, rematch tonight.

L'Incoronazione di Poppea

By the way, I have a show tonight...the second performance of a program of scenes from L'Incoronazione di Poppea with the New York Continuo Collective. For more information, check out this link to their website.

An introduction

From my handy Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:

geste also gest n [MF geste,
fr. L gestus, fr. gerere] (14c) 1. archaic:
DEPORTMENT 2. archaic: GESTURE

I hope to have some fun on this blog thinking about gesture and the way it works on the stage, in art and in life. I've been working with historical approaches to gesture in opera for a while now--especially staging baroque opera, which is probably the music closest to my heart--and I'm hoping this will be a forum for me to do some writing and thinking about my work and what inspires me.