Two nude men are featured in this three-panel photograph, entitled Daybooks (2009). Photo courtesy of David Hilliard.

David Hilliard is the current Artist in Residence here at Dartmouth, creating photographic polyptychs: multi-paneled art praising ordinary life. Hilliard grew up in rural Massachusetts, and now creates photographs that are detached and isolated, much like the landscape of New England, from which he draws inspiration. This week, I got the chance to sit down with Hilliard and ask him a few questions about his recent exhibition, Highway of Thought, which was on display in the Hop a couple of weeks ago.

DFP: So your exhibition is called Highway of Thought, which I found it to be an aptly named collection. How did you come up with the concept of Highway of Thought, and how did you end up naming it that?

DH: Well it’s named after one of the pieces in the show, which is a portrait of my father’s—I call it his journal, but it’s not really his journal—it’s a book of quotations that he keeps. My father’s a kind of atheistic historian, so there are different quotes and Highway of Thought came from one particular quote in that journal. The photograph is my father’s book open with this beautiful penmanship. He has this incredible handwriting that he tries to perfect. And then on either side—it’s a four-panel photograph—on either side are just his big hands, which are working class hands. My father was a factory worker, never went to college, but is enlightened and self-taught, so I was interested in this kind of juxtaposition of those hands that seemingly couldn’t have written those words. I like that disconnect between the two, and that’s where the title came from.

But in general, the exhibition, which I think is 15 photographs, is a kind of overview. It was an opportunity coming here to Dartmouth for me to look back at my work and choose a series of pictures that show different ways in which I create pictures formally, that touch upon different themes in my work.

But Highway of Thought seemed like an apt title because it was like an overarching theme—if this were a show in New York or at a gallery, it’d be work made within the past year and it would be much more thematically cohesive. This is a bit of a stretch; I like to think the show is comprised of various portraits of people engaged in a search—a kind of journey, a spiritual journey, a sexual journey, a search for identity, people longing to forge their way in the world. And I know that’s a big net to throw around work, but that’s a portrait of free thinkers. The pictures range from my mother sitting on the beach in southwest Florida reading the Bible, two men together in a Connecticut cabin reading art books, a couple engaged in a kiss on a bed, a pregnant teenager with her boyfriend. It’s all a journey that everybody’s trying to figure out as it goes along. It’s a little touchy feely, but I like it; it seemed cohesive in that way for me.

DFP: How do you explore the diptych or triptych form, which a lot of your work features. Do you ever branch off from that or do you like the way you’re able to talk about space and time?

DH: Although I studied cubism, really my roots are in performance theatre and film. And I love narrative and I love narrative writing and fiction. But for me it’s like storytelling and it’s a way to link photographs together with shifting focus that allowed me to kind of move through a space. So it is very much about cinema. Although I love the triptych form, it’s really just about gathering pictures. You could say, “Why can’t you do that in a single photograph?” Maybe, but I don’t think you could point in quite the same way. It’s a combination of photography meets cinema: the still image meets the moving image.

DFP: Are you influenced by a certain geographic area or some other kind of space?

DH: I’m interested in this thing. The official term is environmental portraiture, which is quite simply the figure of a space, and the figure informing the space and the space informing the figure, so the two are in dialogue with on another. I’m definitely interested in the New England landscape. I’m from New England. I love the kind of gentle nature of the New England landscape. It’s not particularly grand; there’s a lot of subtlety. It’s softer; the weather isn’t particularly dramatic for the most part. But its subtlety— I like that.

DFP: I noticed that many of your photographs feature raw sexuality. Part of what appeals to me about your work is its discussion of being gay, especially in Daybooks, where there’ s this physical and emotional distance between two men. Could you tell me more about that?

DH: In that same exhibition, on the other side, there’s a picture from way earlier (in 1994) where you have a blatant kind of sexual moment where one man is bending down kissing the other man. And there’s also nudity, there’re testicles, there’s kissing. So it’s not just sex, it’s also love. And I made that a while ago. And that was a different time. Not that I was an angrier artist, but I was, as far as my politics, maybe pushing a little bit harder to be in-your-face about it. And that photograph is totally voyeuristic. You’re in a doorway looking at something. So depending on your politics or your point of view you’ll either walk by that door, close that door, so it implicates the viewer.

And then years later, quite recently, I make Daybooks, which is still about love between two men. There’s a physical distance between them, maybe an emotional distance, but I like the idea that they’re two men, they’re both undressed, they’re in the same room by the fire so it’s highly unlikely that they’re arguing. They’re just in their own space. They’re together but they’re not together and that’s another beautiful part about being in a relationship. It’s not just about the sex and the kissing; it’s also about being together but in your own space.

And it’s not just that I identify myself as a gay man. Yes, I make queer art. I’m politically active. And you know, it’s funny that you talk about Daybooks. One person who came into the gallery said, albeit nicely, that I was perpetuating stereotypes. And I said, “Well, you know, I’m sorry you feel that way, but I would just say that for me it’s quite political. I’m just standing up and being counted. These moments happen.”

There’s something very political about making this fireside, almost Edwardian, photograph of two men together. I don’t see a many pictures like that. As a graduate student, I set out to make work righting that wrong. I want to make beautiful photographs of men together languishing in landscapes and kissing and holding and I want to fill all those voids that exist in the history of art where [gay men] were shamed and avoided. At the same time, I make other work. I don’t put the pressure on myself to address every major topic, but I think being a gay man and standing up and showing normal sides of a lifestyle is very political. And if someone sees that as perpetuating a stereotype, then that’s unfortunate.

DFP: But it’s interesting how, in Daybooks, the image of two men involved romantically is not just sexualized, but seems to be going something beyond that to something more taboo.

DH: Yeah, maybe it’s taboo. Well you’re a smart guy; you’re at Dartmouth. I’m going say something you probably already know: the reason it’s interesting for me to have the picture of two men kissing, and across from it is Hot Coffee, Soft Porn. It’s two photographs that represent two men each engaged in something that is decidedly personal, private, like two men in a bedroom kissing, making love, and then the other photograph—it’s two brothers eating crappy food and watching porn together. One isn’t better than the other. It’s a personal choice. At the end of the day, it’s the choices that we make and I could keep going. Many of my photographs dealt with that.

I had a whole body of work about that (and some of the pictures are in the show). I was making pictures down in Florida with my mother, who’s a born-again Christian, and she has her crazy lifestyle. It makes her happy, it keeps her going everyday. She gets out of bed and reads the Bible, I get out of bed and I do something else, and you get out of bed and you do something else. I love the idea, that in that picture, in those two photographs are men engaged in their own kind of personal choice and moment. Sometimes it’s funny to see who takes issue during First-Year Family Weekend; it’s funny to see who wouldn’t look at what, who got a chuckle. There are issues of taste in that show that are brought up.

DFP: It is very homoerotic. When I saw that picture, I thought about the possibility of this pseudo-incestuous relationship going on.

DH: Oh you mean the homoerotic between the two brothers? Wow (laughs), I love that.

DFP: It’s not quite like they’re together but then it is.

DH: That’s a very interesting read. It is intimate because it’s not a bunch of men. It’s two men watching porn and they’re sitting on a couch together. Whether it’s homoerotic or not, it’s definitely an intimate photograph; it’s more intimate than a lot of men would get with one another.

DFP: And I guess a lot of it goes back to defining masculinity, because I know much of your work also does that.

DH: There are definitely rites of passage. Of course, I’m a man; I’m a gay man. My world was decidedly masculine. I address the feminine in my work, but it’s very different, it’s somewhat distanced in a way. But men fascinate me. Straight, gay, old, young, boys becoming older boys, becoming teenagers, becoming young men, becoming middle-aged men, becoming old men. All of those phases of your life have their complications. You’re 20-something and I’m 40-something. At 19, I had very different issues than I have now and I love that.

There was a time, when I was 19, that I wasn’t making my artwork—but it was a time like the Kiss photograph. That’s me in that picture. I was young, that moment was real. And now in some of my photographs, it’s more like an older man looking back and remembering. It’s funny getting older as an artist. I make work in real time about being 40. And this is to answer your question about the rites of passage: the evolution of men is great. I love that there’s a subtext to my work on masculinity.

While it is often lamented that fraternities dominate Dartmouth’s social scene, many successful alternative events have emerged on campus. Usually something considered an “alternative” social space was considered lame and not fun. Previously, the presence of alcohol separated all “fun” and the “boring” social events. But now many events held in Collis serve different alcoholic beverages.

Friday Night Rock, a student group that showcases emerging rock bands, features live concerts on campus. The selection of artists, which has included Of Montreal and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, reflects with surprising accuracy new and buzz-worthy artists. Many of the groups have appeared on Pitchfork.com’s annual “best-of” list, while others have played at large music festivals like South By Southwest (SXSW), the highly-popular Austin, TX music festival. Best Coast, a California band that visited Friday Night Rock in April, was featured on MTV2’s Subterranean two weeks after playing at Dartmouth.

The group, which charges no admission for its shows and supplies free alcohol to students over 21, has also held showcases for Dartmouth-based student bands. However, despite its ability to bring quality bands to campus, Friday Night Rock remains a relatively low-key venue. This status is probably due to the collective music taste of the Dartmouth community, which isn’t known for being geared towards indie rock music.

Meanwhile, Programming Board, another student-run group, has made attempts to provide alternative nightlife events at Collis with alcohol and flashing lights. On May 8th, Super Mash Bros, a mashup group that describes themselves as “Girl Talk’s hot cousin,” played a show that had the crowd flowing from the basement to the help desk. The event, promoted as “Klub Kollis,” featured two other campus DJs, DJ Hollisto and DJ Janski.

Although frat-hopping will probably still be preferred to cool concerts like these, I definitely welcome Friday Night Rock and Programming Board’s alternative social spaces. Let’s hope they keep these spaces open with awesome, jamming music.

One of Chris Jordan's more famous works. Each Barbie Doll represents a breast augmentation surgery done in the U.S. every month. Photograph by Chris Jordan.

Four million is a big number. Forty million, the number of paper cups we use every day, is even bigger. I’d never seen four million of anything before—that is, until I heard about the photographer Chris Jordan.

Chris Jordan uses his art to help viewers visualize America’s consumer-addicted culture. In an interview with Bill Moyers he explained, “All of my work is meant to evoke a whole bunch of different layers of discord between the attraction and repulsion that we feel toward our consumer habits and our consumer lives. It’s like there’s this tremendous power in our culture that has a dark side to it that has surfaced lately. And that’s kind of what I’m working with.”

With Plastic Cups, 2008, Jordan enables us to visualize one million plastic cups—six hours’ worth in the American airline industry—as part of his Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait project. In this collection, he reconstructs a Charlie Brown comic using pictures of 10,000 collars—the number of unwanted dogs and cats euthanized in the U.S. every day. In Skull With Cigarette, 2007, Jordan uses 200,000 cigarette cartons (the number of people in the U.S. who die from smoking every 6 months) to recreate Van Gogh’s famous painting by the same name. Paper Bags, 2007 depicts the 1.14 million brown paper bags that Americans use every hour. And Ben Franklin, 2007 uses 125,000 one-hundred dollar bills (the amount spent in Iraq every hour of the war) to create an image of our founding father.

The images on this page are from Barbie Dolls, 2008. The full image is that of a woman’s chest. Zoomed in, we see an intricate floral pattern. And looking eve more closely, we see that each ‘flower’ is actually a circle of 24 Barbie dolls. In total, the photo uses 32,000 Barbie dolls, the number of women who undergo elective breast augmentation surgery each month in the United States (for a total of 384,000 women a year). The photo is beautiful; the message is haunting. Chris Jordan explains this intention: “I [use] beauty as a seduction, to draw the viewer in to sit through the piece long enough that the underlying message might seep in.”

And seep in they do, beginning with the moment you read the statistic attached to each of Chris Jordan’s photos. I, for one, will be packing my Nalgene this spring break.

The true potential of music cannot be realized until its beauty has been shared. As a violinist in the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, I rediscovered this seemingly obvious statement through the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 on Saturday, February 27th, with Philip Back ’10 performing the virtuosic piano solo.

In a sense, hearing the Rachmaninoff piano concerto is a remarkably personal experience. You realize that the soloist has invited you in to share the profound passion and commitment he himself feels for the music. When you first meet Philip, you get a sense that he’s extremely reserved, as though mysterious barriers have been constructed around him. This may compel you to maintain your distance, not wanting to disturb or impose upon the reputedly impenetrable Philip Back.

But when he plays the piano, you hear the rapturous melodies of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, and you cannot help but become inextricably drawn into the thrill and intensity of the music, his music.

For any musician, one of the most gratifying elements of a performance is the ability to share it with others. While this satisfaction makes any concert worthwhile, it made Saturday’s concert even more so—because that night, our orchestra not only performed musical masterpieces, but we also saw one of our peers, Philip Back, share his own music and passion with a public audience in Spaulding. And as fellow musicians, we could all relate with and respect the commitment it takes to perform the Rachmaninoff concerto.
After the concert, a piano instructor Phil and I both share told me that he once asked Phil: “Out of everything you could have performed, why did you choose the Rachmaninoff?” Philip answered that he’d heard the piece when he was young, and fell in love with the music. With that early fascination, Philip (a philosophy and music major, soon-to-be 2nd lieutenant in the US Army) committed himself to realizing those dreams at Dartmouth. And for anyone listening, to experience the culmination of that dedicated passion inspires an even greater appreciation for the music itself.

The Rachmaninoff piano concerto ended in a powerful, dizzying climax, immersing the entire orchestra with tangible energy and emotional connection. As I heard the audience explode, surging into a standing ovation, I felt the unexpected and uncharacteristic traces of moisture on my own cheeks, and at that moment, I realized that sharing music is not a one-way street. Because ultimately, the music Philip offered was for the audience, for our orchestra, and for himself. After that concert, no one could doubt that the true potential of music is meant to be shared.

In a sense, hearing the Rachmaninoff piano concerto is a remarkably personal experience. You realize that the soloist has invited you in to share the profound passion and commitment he himself feels for the music. When you first meet Philip, you get a sense that he’s extremely reserved, as though mysterious barriers have been constructed around him. This may compel you to maintain your distance, not wanting to disturb or impose upon the reputedly impenetrable Philip Back.

But when he plays the piano, you hear the rapturous melodies of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, and you cannot help but become inextricably drawn into the thrill and intensity of the music, his music.

For any musician, one of the most gratifying elements of a performance is the ability to share it with others. While this satisfaction makes any concert worthwhile, it made Saturday’s concert even more so—because that night, our orchestra not only performed musical masterpieces, but we also saw one of our peers, Philip Back, share his own music and passion with a public audience in Spaulding. And as fellow musicians, we could all relate with and respect the commitment it takes to perform the Rachmaninoff concerto.

After the concert, a piano instructor Phil and I both share told me that he once asked Phil: “Out of everything you could have performed, why did you choose the Rachmaninoff?” Philip answered that he’d heard the piece when he was young, and fell in love with the music. With that early fascination, Philip (a philosophy and music major, soon-to-be 2nd lieutenant in the US Army) committed himself to realizing those dreams at Dartmouth. And for anyone listening, to experience the culmination of that dedicated passion inspires an even greater appreciation for the music itself.

The Rachmaninoff piano concerto ended in a powerful, dizzying climax, immersing the entire orchestra with tangible energy and emotional connection. As I heard the audience explode, surging into a standing ovation, I felt the unexpected and uncharacteristic traces of moisture on my own cheeks, and at that moment, I realized that sharing music is not a one-way street. Because ultimately, the music Philip offered was for the audience, for our orchestra, and for himself. After that concert, no one could doubt that the true potential of music is meant to be shared.

On February 19th, the World Music Percussion Ensemble sought to remedy that. That night Spaulding Auditorium was filled with the drumming of djembe and pipa—along with a variety of other drums and keyboard. The program of the night included Iya Ni Wura, Dounobah, as well as offerings such as Written on the Wind and Blue Pipa.

The entire ensemble performed well, but the stars of the night were the featured guests on the pipa, Min Xiao-Fen and Si Jie Loo ‘12 who has studied the drums for years. Min Xiao-Fen was amazingly dexterous on the pipa, filling the entire room with multiple lines of melodies that sounded more like an entire Asian symphony of zithers.

Amusingly, she cried out some unintelligible word over and over for “My Friend” which she later explained was her dog.

One of the odder performances of the night was a solo by Ms. Min where her performance was backed by a “kinetic painting” by Norman Perryman. Although the music was interesting, the kinetic painting itself seemed like a child playing on an old overhead projector, leaving the audience confused about the purpose of the song and the significance of the painting.

Less abstractly, Si Jie Loo was incredibly energetic, moving between different drums and acting as the driving force behind many of the night’s pieces. Matsuri and Mukala-Mukala were especially impressive. Matsuri, a Japanese “Shinto temple song” was introduced by Hafiz Shabazz (the ensemble director) as a piece that Si Jie personally brought to the group. Both pieces were filled with energy and made the audience move to the powerful beat of African drums.

Overall, it is difficult to say how much appreciation the performance brought to African and Asian music.

The audience was certainly entertained, but the turnout was somewhat disappointing, with only about half of Spaulding filled.

However, one cannot fault the performers given their energy and expertise. The music was enjoyable, and the Upper Valley experienced the strings and drums of Asia and Africa in one evening—a rare occurrence indeed.

It was a good movie, simply said. I enjoyed the movie even more than Up in the Air—another dark comedy—which was well-written, but unfortunately plagued with obvious moral judgments of its protagonist’s lifestyle. The acting in A Serious Man was definitely the best of all the Best Picture nominees I’ve seen so far.

A Serious Man is full of dark, almost absurd humor told on a subtle, even keel. You’ll find the plot quite familiar if you are familiar with the story of Job in the Bible. Larry, the protagonist, is a good, normal, serious man who’s suddenly plagued with troubles at home and at work.

Some seemingly strange bits are directly tied to Job and other Bible stories. Larry’s monitoring of a beautiful naked woman from his rooftop echoes the story of David and Bathsheba; a random tornado at the end of the film mirrors God’s final answer to Job’s laments over his fate.

Not only did I appreciate these Biblical references, but I also appreciated being immersed in the Jewish-American landscape of the 1960s. It was a rare depiction that was done well—artfully, eloquently and certainly not stereotypically. The landscape felt real, updating an old parable and bringing Job into the twentieth century.

Like Job in the Bible, Larry wonders why Hashem seems to be punishing him unfairly. But the story was also a nice touch on a very human theme that anyone with a notion of a god or morality could understand: why do bad things happen to good people?

The award-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen have done it again. I’ll be disappointed if this movie doesn’t win Best Picture. I heartily recommend A Serious Man.

The men casually wear guns strapped to their backs, using them occasionally to demonstrate their support for the Taliban. Women are nowhere to be seen—they only sit around at home, bored and uneducated in their black burqas. And children? Do they even exist in this glee-barren land?

Though it may not be its primary purpose, Afghan Starr certainly debunks the Afghan media myth in this American-Idol-style documentary. Filmed in late fall and winter, snow blankets the streets of Kabul. The attention is on the majority—60 percent—of Afghan population under twenty-one years of age. These youth, outfitted in trendy G Star Raw puffers and embellished jeans, spend their time shooting pool, clowning each other, chilling and listening to music.

Afghan Star stresses that music and singing remain popular in Afghan culture, as they always have been. Assuming that the Taliban and Mujahadeen crushed Afghanistan’s love for music is akin to believing that religion died in the Soviet Union or that Americans don’t do drugs. Appreciation for music and talented singers is what makes the pop idol television show Afghan Star so successful. The process is analogous to American Idol: 2000 people audition around the country, the judges cringe when most open their mouths, and a handful get the golden ticket to Afghanistan’s Hollywood, Kabul.

The documentary follows the story of four young Afghans in particular as they all vie for the $1,000 prize. The two male contestants are Rafi, a 19-year-old from Mazar e Sharif, and Hameed, a 19-year-old from Kunduz. The film focuses differently on the lives of the two female contestants: Lima, a 25-year-old from Khandahar, and Setara, a 21-year-old from Herat.

The sensationalized advertisement for Afghan Star reads: “In Afghanistan, you risk your life to sing…”

Then you watch the movie, and realize that it is really only Setara, who dances and allows her headscarf to slip from her head, that is threatened.

Men interviewed in the street felt she should be killed for this behavior, and even her fellow contestants on Afghan Star thought she had crossed the line. Of course this is upsetting, and no one’s life should be threatened for dancing (or anything, for that matter). But was this really the point of Afghan Star? Was the fact that Afghans cannot dance in public what we should take away?

A Sundance Channel interview with host of Afghan Star Daoud Seddiqi and Director Havana Marking exemplifies this mistaken point. The interviewer asked what Seddiqi’s goal was with the show. He replied, “You know, at first we need peace. I want to bring peace to my country with my show, with my work, with my everything. I hope my people, after that, don’t think about war and weapons; after that, they choose a good life, and music…” The interviewer cut in, asking, “And maybe a little dancing. Just a little bit?”

What a juxtaposition of priorities. The Afghan singer wants peace for his country, while the American interviewer wants to see Afghans dance in public. Is this what we derive from a presupposed stereotype of Afghanistan? Does that lessen our guilt and justify the U.S. invasion? Does Setara need the U.S. military to save her because she cannot dance on public television?

Perhaps it is this obsession with saving the women of Afghanistan that caused Lima and Setara to become the focus for most viewers and reviewers. Afghan Star gives us a chance to move beyond criticizing the gender dynamics of Afghanistan, enabling us to de-exotify the country and better understand their culture.

Fittingly, this screening comes at a relevant and exciting time as talks between Tibetan officials and global leaders have been going on in recent months. By the end of January, envoys of the Dalai Lama resumed talks with Chinese officials after nearly 15 months of silence, leading a positive step towards solidifying open communication between both parties. However, the upcoming talk between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama on February 18th has remained highly controversial. The Chinese government, which views the Dalai Lama as a separatist, has warned the US against such a meeting, claiming it will further damage relations between the U.S. and China. President Obama, however, has chosen to overlook the Chinese’ warnings and has continued with the meeting as planned.

Kundun encapsulates this ongoing tension between politics and intercultural progress in recent Tibet. It poignantly expresses the struggle between oppressors and the oppressed, the conflict between the traditional Buddhist ideal of nonviolence and basic human necessity of self-preservation. The Dalai Lama remains conflicted between his upbringing as a devout Buddhist and his duty to protect the Tibetan people by any means necessary. In one instance, he discusses the Chinese invasion with one of his guards and states that “nonviolence takes a long time,” and he does not know if he has enough time to accomplish his goals by abiding his principles.

The Tibetan invasion, which led to a massacre of monks and civilians, brings this moral dilemma to focus as the Dalai Lama questions his role and the responsibilities that come along with it.

He is ultimately forced to abandon his people or risk becoming another Tibetan casualty. Overall, the film elicited great emotional response from viewers, due in part to its sublime cinematography and Philip Glass’ entrancing musical score.

Although the Dalai Lama has remained in exile for nearly 50 years, the film’s message still resonates with audiences. At the conclusion of the movie, many audience members still remained in their seats, entranced, straight through the closing credits.

While it is a great film, Kundun would be even more spectacular if it had extended further the history of the Dalai Lama. The film ends abruptly after the Dalai Lama arrives safely as a refugee in India, and the closing shot is one of him staring off at the Himalayas wistfully through a telescope.

It may be cinematographically beautiful, but the ending leaves the viewer feeling somewhat cheated in the otherwise epic grandeur of the film. The film leaves no hints of his life in exile and the Tibetans’ eventual fate. Ultimately, Kundun’s moving portrayal of the Dalai Lama’s life is unfortunately weakened by what the film is missing: how his decisions as a young leader continue to resonate today.

Fortunately, the brilliance of the Grammy-winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra stopped at shaking the dust off of Spaulding’s rafters. The band’s potent concoction seductively combined sultry modern jazz with the sounds of the city, as their thin tendrils of smoky sound snuck through the audience like the mist on a cold mountain day.

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra was formed in 1966 by jazz legends Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, and they’ve never looked back. When Lewis died in 1990, they changed their name to honor their favorite night club, the Village Vanguard. In 2009, they won the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance in recognition of their album Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard.

Vanguard’s set kicked off with a stirring rendition of the jazz standard “Mean What You Say,” an upbeat composition to start the audience’s journey. From there, the band slipped into “Eye of the Hurricane.” Keyed by Gary Smulyman’s frenetic baritone saxophone solo, the performance was so riveting that the floor shook with the vibrations of two thousand tapping feet. The trumpets spoke the truth of life itself. After this, Vanguard waltzed into the highlight of their performance, “St. Louis Blues.” The band started out with a slow march, which gradually picked up into an up-tempo weave of passionate, triumphant swing. Replete with joy, the fast section sank into Jim McNeely’s poignant piano break, retrieving the main theme once again closing the great circle the group had painted for us.

The performance was remarkable for a variety of reasons. Each member of the band had clearly reached the absolute height of their craft on their respective instruments, and expertly displayed all of their incredible skills throughout the entire show. They tore through some incredible passages—whether improvised, fixed, or a little of both—without missing so much as a note, and what’s more, they did it with emotion. The highlight, however, was the onstage chemistry and the connection the group forged with the audience. The group would laugh and joke amongst themselves onstage during the songs, and then cue the audience into becoming as much a part of the act as they were. They reached out to us, asked us to give feedback, and acted out their music. They danced, they bobbed, and they made funny faces, making this performance as memorable as possible.

Good performances lead to a sense of happiness and a sort of satisfaction. Great performances sweep the brain’s folds—a housecleaning for the mind. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra put on a truly great performance.

Red Cliff is an epic film that succeeds in its grand ambitions of bringing to screen one of the most complex battles of Imperial China. Director John Woo recreates the famous Battle of Red Cliffs of 208 to 209 A.D.—a David vs. Goliath affair that pits Chancellor Cao Cao’s (Zhang Fengyi) Imperial army against the allied forces of Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Interlaced between massive battle scenes on land and water are romantic subplots and the exploration of rapport between military generals. Earlier on in the film, Zhuge Liang approaches Zhou Yu in hopes of forming an alliance against Cao Cao, and the two perform a duet on the stringed zither-like qin instrument, which USC’s Asia Pacific Arts calls “one of the most bromantic scenes in recent cinematic history.” To top it off, they each deduce, merely through their duet, each other’s intentions to enter into war with the Northern army.

Despite this unfamiliar setting, film buffs and casual film watchers will still be able to find solace in the themes and tropes of Red Cliff that are similar to today’s epic films—men fighting over women, for instance. Cao Cao starts his all-consuming war in pursuit of Zhou Yu’s wife Xiao Qiao (Ling Chi-ling), similar to how Menelaus started the Trojan War to reclaim his wife Helen in Troy. In addition, the Southern alliance’s severe troop disadvantage is similar to King Leonidas’ predicament at the Battle of Thermopylae in 300, albeit without Gerard Butler’s chiseled cobblestone abs.

Yet, where Red Cliff marvels most is when it is least predictable. Drawing from Chinese historical texts, the movie is chock-full of “wow” moments, especially for those unfamiliar with either the battle or ancient Chinese culture. From the use of the ba gua battle formation, which resembles a tortoise’s shell, to the execution of melee combat scenes that would impress even a sober frat brother, Red Cliff has a full platter of enthralling eye and brain candy.

Unfortunately, the North American cut of Red Cliff runs only two and a half hours long (in comparison to the five hour original cut). Thus, while it has received praise, there has still been criticism of the film being action-heavy and lacking character development. While true, especially since the movie presupposes a shared cultural lore that American audiences lack, the shorter version is well paced after a descriptive opening narration that might confuse some and alienate others.

Instead of nitpicking, John Woo and Red Cliff should be commended for providing a different flavor to the war epic genre that consistently falls under the spell of Hollywood’s Eurocentrism. For that, it deserves emphatic praise.