All posts by Morgan Rogers

Politics

Khmer Rouge

For those like me who need a little more background information about the history of Cambodia, specifically with regard to the Khmer Rouge, here are a few helpful links.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1879785,00.html
http://www.cambodia.org/khmer_rouge/
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/khmer_rouge/index.html

The first is a history of the Khmer Rouge that appeared in Time magazine in 2009.  The second is from the Cambodian Information Center and obviously provides a different perspective.  The last is 2009 New York times article outlining the trials of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders which just began in 2006!

Haiti, Haitian Revolution, Haitian Revolution Film Ideas

Les traitements

Pour ceux dans le cours de Reginald Patterson jeudi, voici un <<post>> pour nos traitements…

L’idée de notre groupe pour le traitement est de commencer par une série de vignettes des révoltes manquées (comme celle d’Ogé).  Puis, on voit la révolte de Boukman qui a détruit la plantation de Gallifet, un des plus grandes plantations sucrières.  Il faut montrer la passion des esclaves et la destruction dramatique de toutes les machines sucrières, etc.  A notre avis, l’évolution des événements est cruciale…

Ensuite, on voit des extraits alternats en France et en Haïti qui montrent le débat au sujet d’esclavage et des droits universels.  A la fin de cette série des extraits, la République annonce des droits de l’homme pour tous et la fin d’esclavage.

Enfin, on voit les soldats de Napoléon qui tente de rétablir l’esclavage en Haïti et le refus fort des Haïtiens, se terminant en la réussite des Haïtiens et l’établissement de la Haïti comme un pays indépendant.  Le traitement doit finir avec une narration comme « Donc, nous souhaitons remercier les Haïtiens courageux pour leur bataille infini qui a établi des droits vraiment universelles. »

-Morgan, Lizzy, et Robert

Orientalism

Scheherazade continued

2 Comments

Attending the LINES ballet was an incredible experience as I had never seen anything like it!  The dancers all seemed to be classically trained though the dancing was quite modern.  In addition, some of the movements and poses that the dancers executed were truly awe-inspiring, and gave the name LINES a whole new meaning.

I had not realized beforehand that the performance was actually two separate pieces (Scheherazade being the latter) with an intermission in between.  The live music during the first half was certainly added entertainment though the music recording in the second allowed one to focus more attention on the dancing and the exact harmony of the dancing with the music.  In my opinion, the dancing in the second half seemed to be more energetic as well.

The set was simple overall though the “flowy” lights that floated from the ceiling all the way to the floor provided a nice dramatic effect.  The music, for the most part, embodied what I think of as Oriental though it is difficult to put that definition into words (as we discovered in class last week).  On the other hand, the costumes, especially those of the female dances, did not seem particularly Oriental to me (in addition to the fact that the dancer playing Scheherazade looked very European with her pale skin).  In fact, I found the costumes a bit confusing at times as Scheherazade switched from a white sparkly leotard to a blue one part way through the ballet (or maybe I was just confused so please correct me if I am wrong).  As a side note, I wonder what King’s aim was in including the two veiled figures (perhaps a reminder of Arab culture) who stand in the background during one of the dances.

Furthermore, as Veronica mentioned, it was challenging to figure out which parts of the Scheherazade tale were being depicted in the dances though I believe King made a conscious decision to not really follow the storyline as the article and our visitors discussed (and instead to embrace women as savior, etc.).  I actually did not get as strong of an impression of the female as savior as our visitors had implied but am interested to hear others’ thoughts on this topic.  However, regardless of the somewhat ambiguous (though intriguing) interpretation, the ballet was a beautiful piece of art in its own right.

(I thought I would post this time in English since there is already one posting about the ballet in French and this way, those from both sections can respond.)