Last night was Ballet Magnificat's tour through Panama City - as well as their last night to perform The Scarlet Cord before officially retiring it.
This specific "ballet" was a rendition of the story of Rahab the prostitute from the book of Hosea. Although the message of the story has always really gotten to me, I wasn't particularly a fan of the way they portrayed it. Taking place amidst the communism of the Soviet Union, the story is more about underground missionaries than it was about the unfaithfulness of Rahab and the steadfast forgiveness of God. It was a loose rendition, to say the least.
In addition, I just felt it was too "preachy." Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people wanting to use their talents to share Christ..but I also feel that it needs to be done in a careful way or else you run the risk of being completely written off. When that happens, you may have done more damage than anything. So a balance needs to be found. Personally, I feel they could have better found that balance if they omitted the few soul/gospel MaryMary songs they threw in there.
I'm not a fan of that kind of music to begin with, but when you throw it in the mix of a so called "ballet" and the genre of music that comes along with it, you completely lose your audience. The flow of the music is fractured, and therefore the flow of the storyline becomes damaged as well. You go from being in the middle of a story to feeling like you are in the middle of a dance recital. If it had been a dance recital, I wouldn't complain (aside from the fact that it's a terrible selection of music). But it wasn't a dance recital; it was a ballet.
I like the idea of revising the story in Hosea to fit a different time period, but The Scarlet Cord wasn't exactly what I expected, both musically and in terms of the plot. All of that excluded, the dancers were incredibly talented. Despite my opinion of the ballet as a whole, I did enjoy myself. Dance is something that I could never NOT enjoy, and I certainly had a good evening. Although, Ballet Mag wasn't the only reason it was a exciting night.
Unless you've been hiding in a cave for the past few months, you should be fully aware that last night was also the premiere of the first segment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Kids worldwide wrapped up in Gryffindor scarves, tied on their Slytherin ties, and joined the masses of fellow fans to witness the opening of the close. Well, the first part of it at least; the grande finale is yet to come. I did, in fact, happen to be one of those excited little nerds sporting the Gryffindor uniform. Yes: tie, badge, and all. I know, I'm lame. Don't hate (:
This specific "ballet" was a rendition of the story of Rahab the prostitute from the book of Hosea. Although the message of the story has always really gotten to me, I wasn't particularly a fan of the way they portrayed it. Taking place amidst the communism of the Soviet Union, the story is more about underground missionaries than it was about the unfaithfulness of Rahab and the steadfast forgiveness of God. It was a loose rendition, to say the least.
In addition, I just felt it was too "preachy." Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people wanting to use their talents to share Christ..but I also feel that it needs to be done in a careful way or else you run the risk of being completely written off. When that happens, you may have done more damage than anything. So a balance needs to be found. Personally, I feel they could have better found that balance if they omitted the few soul/gospel MaryMary songs they threw in there.
I'm not a fan of that kind of music to begin with, but when you throw it in the mix of a so called "ballet" and the genre of music that comes along with it, you completely lose your audience. The flow of the music is fractured, and therefore the flow of the storyline becomes damaged as well. You go from being in the middle of a story to feeling like you are in the middle of a dance recital. If it had been a dance recital, I wouldn't complain (aside from the fact that it's a terrible selection of music). But it wasn't a dance recital; it was a ballet.
I like the idea of revising the story in Hosea to fit a different time period, but The Scarlet Cord wasn't exactly what I expected, both musically and in terms of the plot. All of that excluded, the dancers were incredibly talented. Despite my opinion of the ballet as a whole, I did enjoy myself. Dance is something that I could never NOT enjoy, and I certainly had a good evening. Although, Ballet Mag wasn't the only reason it was a exciting night.
Unless you've been hiding in a cave for the past few months, you should be fully aware that last night was also the premiere of the first segment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Kids worldwide wrapped up in Gryffindor scarves, tied on their Slytherin ties, and joined the masses of fellow fans to witness the opening of the close. Well, the first part of it at least; the grande finale is yet to come. I did, in fact, happen to be one of those excited little nerds sporting the Gryffindor uniform. Yes: tie, badge, and all. I know, I'm lame. Don't hate (:
I'm not as disappointed as I thought I would be. It's nothing compared to my disappointment in the Half Blood Prince disaster. On my nerdy obsessive side, I loved the movie. Considering Rowling's books are freaking epic, I just enjoy seeing them come to life. Sadly, it tends to be a muted depiction. Nothing about the movie (or movies) can compare to the brilliance of her books. Granted, that almost always tends to be the case whenever a book is made into a movie, but even as films in themselves, most of the Harry Potter movies (especially the Half Blood Prince) lack quality.
I think my biggest complaint is just their lack of character development. Take Fleur and Bill for example. They've been in the story since year four. At the time, they didn't seem all that important to the films, but now the directors decide to just throw them back into the film with a sorry introduction as to who they are and why they are there.
Or consider Dobby, who shows up in the second movie to try and save Harry's life. All throughout the rest of the book series, he pops up here and there, helping them with various things, providing inspiration for Hermione's SPEW project, etc. It all provided a bit of insight into who Dobby was, so that when he sacrifices himself, the reader is more impacted by that sacrifice. But because the directors decided to discard Dobby's character from the majority of the films, and because he had no impact or interaction with the story since their second year at Hogwarts, the blow of his death becomes softened and they lose the effect.
I feel like the only reason it tugged on the hearts of the viewers, and in some cases made them cry (as it was for some girl who sat a few seats down from me), was because they all knew Dobby from the books. Since about ninety-seven percent of the people seeing the movie have read the books, they already know who everyone is. Perhaps the directors took advantage of this, or perhaps the priority of keeping character development alive got lost in the confusion of switching directors four times throughout the course of the movie series. I know that there are millions of reasons why directors don't follow the books to a tee, but had they not completely effed up some of the previous movies, I think I would have been happier with the final product of this recent one.
(steps off soapbox)
No comments:
Post a Comment