Rhiannon Giddens (above) is one of the three members of Carolina Chocolate Drops, which performed at the Hop on Jan. 16. Photos by Kenficara.

Under the gaze of a projected moon, the sparse twang of a banjo resonates through Spaulding Auditorium interlaced with the sounds of the fiddle, jug, and snare. A distinctive Appalachian air graced the Hop, one that seemed out of place in Northern New England.

It was nothing short of revelatory.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are an old-time string band consisting of Phoenix, Arizona-native Dom Flemons and Piedmont, North Carolina-natives Justin Robinson and Rhiannon Giddens.

Besides the group’s ostensible technical skill, versatility and range in instruments, the trio is undeniably unique as one of the few remaining African-American string bands.

Old-time music has its roots in the traditional music of Great Britain. But with the migration of immigrants to the United States that sound mingled with others in the proverbial American “melting pot”. In this case, this British music merged with traditional African music to create an entirely unique, distinctively North American, sound.

Despite its roots in African-American music, old-time music has generally been characterized as white. For instance, The New Lost City Ramblers is an old-time string band formed in 1958 consisting of Mike Seeger (Pete’s brother), John Cohen, and Tom Paley, all of whom are white. There’s also the contemporary Old Crow Medicine Show—again, all white.

But aside from merely their race, what made Carolina Chocolate Drops so exhilarating was the enthusiastic audience participation in the music. Giddens and Flemons encouraged the audience to sing along, clap and dance.

Giddens was particularly engaging; she flirted shamelessly with the audience, imploring members to holler when they knew a particular artist or song they were about to play. Her vocals carried many of the songs performed; far beyond soulful, Giddens’ voice is gravelly and powerful—perfectly suited to the songs, many of which were originally performed in the 1920s and 1930s.

One particular standout was “Old Black Annie”, an extraordinarily fast-paced banjo tune; Giddens’ vocals were ideal for its frantic pace. Another great song was the powerful “Arkansas,” performed by Flemons, featuring no instrumentals. The silence that accompanied Flemons’ voice only enhanced the melancholy of the song. Its starkness stood out among the more involved and frenzied stylings of other songs.

The show culminated in the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ rendition of “Genuine Negro Jig.” Gidden elaborated on the purported origins of the jig, which is attributed to Dan Emmett, but may in fact have been written by an African-American family living in Emmett’s Ohio town. Nevertheless, the song, which features Giddens on the fiddle, is haunting. Like “Arkansas,” the song is melodic and somewhat mournful, with long lamenting fiddle strokes.

The trio ended the show with a rendition of 2001’s “Hit ‘em Up Style (Oops!)” by Blu Cantrell, perhaps an improbable anachronism, given the group’s focus on 70- and 80-year-old music. However, the ending seemed rather appropriate—it highlighted the importance and relevance of old-time string music in the modern age.

Lady Gaga at one of her sexified concerts. Sexy costume included. Photograph by Stephan Carlile.

Thanks to Lady Gaga, quality pop music is still alive in the 3rd millennium. If you are an anti-radio purist who claims that pop perished sometime in the 90s, there’s now a way to redeem yourself—for Lady Gaga has resurrected pop in the form of the macabre and the uncanny, the oversexed and yet threateningly asexual.

And while she may not be restoring life to popular music, Lady Gaga is instead drawing on our fear of its demise by taking what is passé and reanimating it as the culturally undead.

If you were to ask me what I mean by “uncanny,” I would ask you to hit up YouTube and watch Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” That shit is FREAKY. If you want a definition of the “undead” in Gaga’s work, just watch the video of her sanguinary performance at the VMA’s, in which she looks like Sissy Spasek in Carrie and eventually hangs herself from the ceiling.

Just as she writes and produces all of her own music, Lady Gaga herself choreographed this figurative murder and rebirth of Pop. She later commented to shocked reporters that to the performance was a way of “say[ing] something honest and real.”

Amidst Lady Gaga’s cryptic responses to news reporters—she told one that the only thing she looks for in a man is “a big dick”—and rumors of her being a hermaphrodite, you can’t help but wonder if she is hiding something.

When an MTV reporter commented on her heavily stylized persona and asked her if he was speaking with “Lady Gaga the person or Lady Gaga the character,” she passionately responded, “For the last 10-15 years there has been an absence of theater in Showbiz.

There is an assumption that unless I am showing you myself with no makeup and a t-shirt on, doing no dance moves and strumming on a guitar … that I am artificial, and I’m not. I am simply a performance artist … and my life is my art.”

As for her being a hermaphrodite, the sources of those rumors have all been proven unsubstantial, though Lady Gaga has not commented on the issue. All publicity is good publicity, as they say.

Yet if Lady Gaga’s untamed art is her life, then we should also assume that her life is her art. But what is the life of Lady Gaga like?

Well, a starting point may be what Lady Gaga claims as her deepest conviction and primary inspiration: the gay community. According to Gaga, the single most important moment of her career was when she spoke in Washington D.C. for the National Gay Rights Rally. As usual, though she has refrained from any comment on her sexual orientation.

Then there is Gaga’s method of work. The so-called “Haus of Gaga” is the nexus of all production and collection of props, sets, and clothing Lady Gaga uses in performance, and everything is manufactured there, in-house, by Gaga and a team of close friends. In a warehouse reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s “Factory” (admittedly, Warhol is one of Lady Gaga’s main influences), Gaga evades the limelight in order to focus on her creative endeavors. The Haus of Gaga, given its self-referential and self-aware concentration of creativity, is likely one of the keys to Gaga’s success in a world of otherwise impersonal collaboration.

Considering even this romantic image of Lady Gaga as a rogue, anti-social burlesque-dancer-gone-celebrity, there are still many who believe she is undeserving of both critical and mainstream attention. She possesses neither the sex appeal of Britney Spears nor the vocal chords of Celine Dion, so what is it she has—beyond pop-art savvy and a derivative, self-conscious public image—that no one else has?

The answer is this: Lady Gaga is a mistress of covert suggestion. Take a closer glance at her music videos and lyrics (which, I am ashamed to admit, I have done obsessively), and you will notice a slew of hidden linguistic, visual, and formal meaning. I am no psychologist, and certainly don’t find Lady Gaga to be all that attractive, but perhaps that detachment is exactly why the red flags go up so easily for me.

To highlight what is going on beneath the surface of Lady Gaga’s work, let me point out a few things that require no embarrassing Lady Gaga YouTube sessions. Some background: the two events that first catapulted Lady Gaga into stardom were her hit singles “Poker face” and “Just Dance.” The pronunciation of this former song’s title is essential; if you listen to phrasing of “p-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face” when sung, it sounds exactly like “fuck her face” the second time.

During the bridge of the song “Just Dance,” the lyrics “half psychotic, sick, hypnotic, got my blueprint, it’s psychotic” sound exactly like the words “have sex” repeated over and over when she says them. During this sequence in the music video there is also a clip of Lady Gaga humping a whale and a flash of the word “join” for no apparent reason.

To be fair, Lady Gaga does not necessarily hide the smoke and mirrors, and she may consider subconscious influence a part of her art—something half-concealed that lends entertainment value and intrigue. In an another interview with MTV, a reporter suggested that the death of Princess Diana was a direct result of her fame (“the fame” was the name of Gaga’s first album) and that fame may place Gaga in a similar position of undoing. Gaga calmly responded, “You know, it’s actually interesting you say that, because I speak that way too.”

If Gaga is so keen to recognize and critique an attempt at unconscious emotional persuasion, we can imagine the role it might play in her work.

Sometimes Lady Gaga’s attempts at leading her audience into a trance take the form of explicit, self-conscious comedy. In the music video for the song “Paparazzi,” one scene has Lady Gaga falling into a whirling black-and-white spiral while a voice in the background says the word “beautiful” repeatedly.

Maybe it’s just me, but Lady Gaga’s absurdist and deliberately derelict style reminds me of Mugatu from Zoolander, only instead of getting you to relax, she just wants to turn you on.

Any critique of Lady Gaga’s powers of suggestion begs the question of whether she is really something unique, or if she is just a more “manipulative” version of countless other musicians in the past.

After all, there will always be verbal ambiguity when words are spoken instead of written—we have all gotten song lyrics wrong before. And doesn’t music, by pairing sound with the written word, inherently imbue words with extra-lingual meaning?

At its end, music is about making the listener feel a certain way. How, exactly, that feeling comes about isn’t always relevant to the person experiencing it.

So, if you are a born-again conservative, Lady Gaga is probably what you would call (as many bloggers have) the “antichrist.” However, if you are an intelligent person who is willing to look deeper into the inspiration and methods of her work, you will notice that she is, quite likely, a genius with an overactive sex drive.

Go Lady Gaga!

If you thought you knew all that’s in the small town of Hanover, I have a surprise. I, too, thought I knew all the nooks and crannies of this small town until a few days ago. I took a shortcut between Eastman’s Pharmacy and The Gap, and I noticed for the first time an inconspicuous underground art gallery. Hasse Gallery, to be exact.

People like to say that you can run into fellow Dartmouth alumni across the globe. When they say this, I don’t think they expect you to meet one just across the street in Hanover. While the sentiment still holds as true, I’d like to add that you can meet some of the most interesting people—people such as Eric Hasse—right near campus.

Established in October 2006 with the support of friend and fan Paul Olsen, Hasse Gallery has been the gallery and studio space of Eric Hasse ’80. Hasse has early onset Parkinson’s disease, and is unable to talk or hold a brush. However, through his newly digitized method of artistic expression, he is still able to practice visual arts on a daily basis.

Unlike a “usual” art gallery, where exhibition openings are held with wine, cheese, and artsy schmoozers throughout trying to make superficial conversation and win facetime, Hasse Gallery looks—and is—anything but that. With several pieces in a store display window, a “for lease” sign for a home taped on the window, and the interior of the gallery containing as many artworks as Beast’s Library in Beauty and the Beast, Hasse Gallery is more of a secluded oasis and trove of discovery than just another pretentious art gallery. At Hasse, all that is important is art and the free-flow of expression. Fortunately, the gallery was open that day, and I finally had a free afternoon to check it out.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Hasse moved to Connecticut when he was 7 years old, where he adjusted to life on the East Coast. An English major who graduated Dartmouth in three years (to save money, he wrote, to which I agreed), Hasse has also been committed to literary arts, particularly poetry. Even though he has not continued writing poetry, he continues to publish his work—one of which was through an International competition published in 2008 and was on display at Oxford.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Hasse was a chef at the 5-star hotel The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, ran Jesse’s Restaurant in 1980-1981, and toured Europe, North Africa, and Greece for 10 weeks. After his time working professionally in the culinary arts and traveling, he came back to the Upper Valley to work in various aspects of finance and ultimately raising capital for Internet start-ups. Despite his life on the fringes of the corporate world, as an artistic person, Hasse continued to write poetry, read all of Carl Jung’s works, and picked up visual arts (sumi ink drawings) in the 1980s, the decade before his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at age 35. He continued to work in finance until 2003, when the progression of Parkinson’s put him “at death’s door.” He writes that his health is “far better today since my deep brain stimulation neurosurgeries.” Still, the uncertainties of Parkinson’s causes him to be particularly vigilant of taking “each day as it dawns.”

Despite his condition, Hasse works at his gallery most days, creating giclées on canvas. Hasse defined a giclée as a French term meaning “ink spraying” to define the technical process of printing digital files. Currently, he scans different objects such as fabrics and combines different images into a single image. He particularly focuses on creating images from mundane objects I scan. Images from this series are extremely colorful with layers of texture, each seeming to accent the beauty of the objects within.

In some of his earlier works around 2003 with a focus on visual arts, he applied saturation to the black and white sumi ink drawings he made during the 1980s to produce color and create new works of art. Each digital image is made into a print, of which Hasse displays throughout his large gallery space. This entire process is done right in Hasse’s gallery, allowing him to be fully self-sufficient in making art. “I can’t imagine returning to paint. The possibilities for print series are huge,” writes Hasse, with a smile.

Besides displaying his work at the Hasse Gallery, Hasse is not interested in seeking fame or fortune, or to “fill the void with my visions in the usual careerist sense of narcissism.” He is most interested in “conveying my joy and wonder in the world of living,” especially his consideration of “the life immanent in all things and their luminosity—an outpouring of the spirit.” Carl Jung is one of his primary influences, particularly Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious. He also believes in the “Zen/Taoist concept of living in the present moment,” which is constantly apparent in his work.

Since The Dartmouth’s reporting of the opening of his gallery in 2006, Hasse has created 5,000 new prints. His goal is to make “10,000 digital images in honor of the Taoist ‘ten thousand things’ [their way of saying infinity] by my 30th reunion in June.”

Besides working at his studio, Hasse continues to “devour art books from the Sherman Art Library, make repeated visits to the Hood Museum of Art, and listen to and absorb more fully the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tsu.” With the help of his friends and family, he hopes to “continue my quiet work in the gallery space beneath The Gap…providing an oasis of contemplation in a boogie woogie world upstairs, outside, and far, far away.”

Amidst the countless aspiring artists and gallery owners, Hasse is indeed one of the most successful, though he may lack the grandiosity of more celebrated artists. Shedding the superficiality, prima donna attitudes, and unnecessary glamour associated with the arts, what Hasse conveys through his art and space is genuine curiosity and loyalty to the arts—a rare find these days with the loudness of the contemporary art world. In the manner he makes and presents his art, Hasse does have a unique voice to contribute to the contemporary art canon that should not be missed.

Finally, as I usually do with all Dartmouth alumni, I asked Hasse about how to make the most of one’s college years, and how to prepare for what’s to come after college. With that, I’ll leave you with his words:

“If you seek fame and fortune, I am not your counsellor. If you are in quest of a life comparatively contented and at peace with your modest place in the grand scheme of the Tao, I would encourage you to start your journey of a thousand miles with your first footsteps here at Dartmouth. Learn all you can from courses, experiences, and folks you meet along the road about the lessons of compassion and tenderness and let them ripple out from your center in the life ahead.

Finally, in the words of T.S. Eliot: ‘Teach us to care, and not to care. Teach us to sit still.’ …tough advice in our hustling world, but still the best if we are to survive as individuals, and as a species.

Oh, and have fun!”

The Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble plays. Photo courtesy of the Hopkins Center.

I grew up listening to the Pat Metheny Group, Thelonious Monk and the Yellowjackets. I am no foreigner to the world of jazz, yet Big Band Now: The Sound of Young New York was a necessary addition to my jazz education. Don Glasgo and Dartmouth College’s Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble put their best foot forward with special guest, Jason Lindner at the Hopkins Center of the Arts. Pianist, composer, arranger and producer Lindner “is a musical universe” according to prolific pianist and composer Chick Corea. The New York Times takes it a step further, describing him as “only partly interested in jazz’s idiomatic customs. What matters to him is groove.”

The journey began with “Song for Jason,” a piece written for Lidner by his friend and colleague, Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen. Grant Neubauer ‘13’s nostalgic piano solo brought me back to busting afternoons on 34th Street, the notes rushing past me like a line of taxi cabs at rush hour. “Rumors” was supercharged with angst and grit. Lindner spilled his soul all over the keys in an improvisation that sent chills down my spine. Yet overall, the sound was silky and smooth. Alan Gottesman ‘13 lent the smoky sound of his tenor saxophone to the contemporary collage. For me, the piece embodied the rich flavor and glamour of New York, from Greenwich Village, to DUMBO, to the heart of Flushing. “Freak of Nature” was by far the classiest piece, evoking elegance in the midst of hustle and bustle. Trumpet and trombone solos distilled the sweet essence of the music. The saxophones swayed in a group solo reminiscent of mambo. Graduate student Patrick Barter’s drum solo moved the piece to its powerful climax.

“Aquarius,” originally called “Self-Portrait,” is the only piece Lindner wrote in the A key. In an intersection of music and astrology, each of the twelve music keys are assigned their own astrological sign. It just so happened that Lindner’s astrological sign, Aquarius, corresponded to the A key and the name stuck. The piece began with a floating flute solo from Stephanie DeCross ‘13. The song was not only a portrait of Lindner, but a portrait of a sunny autumn afternoon in Central Park, at times soft and warm but a bit melancholy at others. In contrast, “Space” had a cool, blue sound of the city at twilight. The piece listed back and forth like a more traditional 1950s big band song.

Lindner also gave tribute to John Coltrane in his arrangement of “Giant Steps.” While most of the music of the night came from his 2007 album Live at the Jazz Gallery, this piece came from a 2009 album of Linder’s more experimental works, Now vs. Now. “Giant Steps” began with the refreshing sound of an electrical keyboard, and Lindner interwove the keyboard’s unique sound into the waves of energy emanating from the band.

The final piece was “U Near Blew” which started out with a piano piece by Lindner that evoked gospel and 1930s blues. Suddenly the song swelled into a powerful big band number with Katie Pine ‘11 and her lean, mean tenor saxophone at its helm. Then there was a soulful interplay of trombone solos with Chris Martin ‘10 and Erin Michet ‘13 on trombone and Paul Finkelstein ‘13 on bass trombone. Lindner’s piano spoke back and forth with Neubauner’s organ before the meat ‘n’ potatoes of Andrew Lohse ’12’s bass solo. And of course there was a spectacular big band finish.

Lindner’s, Glasgo’s, and the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble’s music was a pleasure to listen to. It was also a pleasure to play. Grant Neubauer will never forget trading solos with Lindner: “Playing in my first Coast concert with Jason Lindner was a truly amazing and humbling experience. He is so talented, and at the same time, friendly, down-to-earth, and an all-around great person. It’s clear that instead of showing people his music, he would rather share it with them… Everyone was so inspired and played with such passion that I was just swept up in the musical energy. I can’t wait for future shows!” Katie Pine also enjoyed having Lindner as a special guest: “Being a part of Jason’s compositions and playing for an attentive, excited audience was thrilling. I’ve never been part of a musical experience so magical.”

Playing Lindner’s “Live at the Jazz Gallery” a day later, I reflected on the fact that he is a native New Yorker as I am. I feel his music did the city justice. The soul of his jazz embodies the soul of the city, an essence easily recognizable to anyone who’s been there. His music pays homage to the big band tradition going back to the “young New York” of 1920s Harlem and Sinatra’s 1950s. Yet it also speaks to the modern feeling of youth and freedom in a world of opportunity—a city like New York, or a college like Dartmouth—where anything is possible.

Ornaments made by Claflin Jewelry Studio staff for sale. Photograph by Candais Crivello.

This past weekend several DFPers and I took a trip to the jewelry studio in the basement of the Hop. For most of us, it was our first time stepping into the studio, much less making jewelry.

If you’re curious about the jewelry studio, now is the time to go. Schedule a time in your planner and go with some friends. If you’re like me and don’t get around to it until senior year, you may regret passing up the jewelry studio for watching YouTube or playing Farmville all afternoon—save that for your 2 a.m. procrastination.

The jewelry studio offers much more than expected. You can make beaded bracelets and earrings, but metal engravings, rings, and soldering tools also (with supervision). Not everything that comes out of the jewelry studio is girly and froo-froo, either. It can be anything whatever you imagine. It doesn’t even have to be jewelry. Just check out some of the samples that are by the window or inside the studio; there’s a wide array of styles you can make.

You can also come in and fix broken jewelry or take apart your old jewelry to create new pieces. And, if you’re feeling really creative, you can probably bring in normal objects to turn into jewelry. That way, you can not only make something cool, but can also take pride in being sustainable. By using things you already have, you not only recycle and give use to your broken pieces, but you also save money on material costs. The studio accepts cash or DA$H for any costs, which are pretty reasonable. A simple silver ring, for example, only costs about three dollars.

Although I realize I’m waxing poetry on the jewelry studio right now, I know it’s not for everyone. First, it can be difficult to schedule a time to go to the jewelry studio while you’re busy with classes, organizations, hanging out, and living the Dartmouth life. Although the jewelry studio is open on Saturdays, it isn’t open on Sundays. The hours are pretty flexible during the week though it might become difficult to keep going to the studio during midterms and afterwards.

Secondly, if you want to make a super-amazing-extravagant-detailed-10-years-of-skill-necessary jewelry piece, you can’t do that if you only go to the jewelry studio once or twice. Generally you start with something simple, like a band ring or simple beaded jewelry, though you can elaborate on the first piece of jewelry you’ve made by adding a stone or engraving on it. If you want to get serious about making really stylized jewelry, you need to make going to the jewelry studio a commitment. You get what you put into your time at the studio. Like everything else, you’ll benefit the most when you do put in that effort.

Lastly, jewelry making isn’t for everyone, and that’s O.K. You might find that you absolutely hate making jewelry, that it’s too cumbersome, or your appreciation for jewelry stops at wearing it. Still, if you’re curious about the studio, it doesn’t hurt to try it. Find out if you enjoy it and spend a few hours in the afternoon or evening. At worst, you’ll come out with a shiny new ring, bracelet, or pair of earrings. You might even find that the woodshop next door or the pottery studio across the bridge in Norwich may be more your thing. Finding a new passion can be a fulfilling lifetime joy.

I had never heard of The Rocky Horror Show before watching the Dartmouth College Theater Department’s production. I bought my pre-season ticket because I was attracted to the show’s unique name. But even when I saw the exciting decorations heralding Rocky Horror all around the HOP, I refused to Google the show, anticipating that which was to be delightfully unknown and grand.

The opening night exceeded my expectations. From the time the usherette, Chiara Klein ‘10 introduced this remarkable “Science Fiction Double Feature” to the starry light of a gorgeous disco ball, I knew I was in for the most extravagant, flamboyant and fun show of my life. When conservative 1950s couple, Brad (Jay Ben Markson ‘10) and Janet (Talene Monahon ‘13) enter Frank ‘N’ Furter’s (David Mavricos ’10) mysterious, out-of-this-world castle, I knew they weren’t ready for this sweet transvestite from Transexual Transylvania’s world of extravagantly sensual surprises.

So much effort went into recreating Richard O’Brien’s powerful story of sex, rock ‘n’ roll, pleasure and freedom. Evan Ross ‘13, who played Eddie, described his experience with the Dartmouth Theater Department as “incredible. They’re wonderful, kind, talented—everything you could hope for. The show was a blast.”

There was Dan Kotlowitz’s psychedelic lighting, Laurie Churba Kohn’s colorful costumes and Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili’s spectacular set design. Dazzling special effects breathed life into the magnificent floorshow and even a rocket ship take-off. Gregory Daniel’s choreography and the Louis Burkot’s music direction brought the rock ‘n’ roll era to the stage. All of this was guided by director Carol Dunne, who expertly channeled O’Brien’s genius.

And who could forget O’Brien’s genius? Musical numbers like “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me” and “Rose Tint my World” carried the cult midnight movie classic and the internationally acclaimed theatrical performance through more than three decades. His same-sex couplings, and Frank’s maxim of “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure,” pushed the gender and sexuality boundaries of the time.

Granted, Frank, the supercharged AC/DC of the story, is killed off by one of his henchmen in the end—the predictable fate of a character that challenged the heteronormative status quo back then. Yet, the fact that such a character could exist with such vigor and confidence is a testament to O’Brien’s bravery and the progressive nature of the ‘70s.

The audience is left free to decide whether Brian and Janet understand the implications of their sexual romp through a long, beautiful night or consider the entire debacle a Bacchanalian dream.

Yet, I was touched by what the director’s notes called “a roller coaster of the ridiculous and the imaginative.” I was inspired to live Frank’s words “Don’t dream it, be it.”

The road to personal fulfillment and pleasure doesn’t have to be the broad, heavily-trodden path, but instead a path of one’s own choosing, a path one shouldn’t be afraid to tread.

I sat down with Aimee Le ’12, nude model extraordinaire, to discuss the politics of nakedness, the difficulty of holding poses and the possibility of starting a naked crusade on campus.

Did you have any prior experience nude modeling before you came to Dartmouth?
Yeah, I actually modeled in my high school. We couldn’t get completely nude because it was a high school so that was not allowed—you’d wear a form-fitting garment. So I was pretty familiar with it, plus I had worked with models before—I went to this summer program at the Rhode Island School of Design because I was originally thinking about going to art school. I’ve always been really fascinated by models. I found the job on JobNet actually because I’m on financial aid so I was trying to find a work-study job. I sent a bunch of emails and at first everybody was like, “Nah, we’re full”, so I kept sending emails and then finally there was an opening. I’ve done this since freshman fall actually.

Were you initially nervous about modeling?
I was nervous about it the first time partially just because I wasn’t sure what the models thought, because they’re standing there for like two hours. So I had no idea. What do you think about? What do you do? Where do you look? How do you figure out what the next pose is? It seemed like the models I had worked with previously would keep the time in their heads. So I actually had to start figuring that stuff out for myself. That was the hardest part, trying to figure that out. Plus obviously questions like, “Am I going to get cold?” [and] stuff like that.

Is it difficult to hold poses?
It’s really, really hard. It’s hard to know whether you’re going to be able to hold something immediately—you’re not going to know after the first few seconds, and you’re not going to know after the first five minutes, you’re pretty much going to start to know five minutes before you’re supposed to [come out of the pose], and then you’re just going to be like, “[O]h no, I really want to break out of this pose.” Sadly, I like to count or sing a song in my head. Sometimes if I’m really having trouble holding a pose I’ll let my eyes move as a substitute for letting my body move, because usually I’ll fix my eyes in one spot so I don’t move my head. I’ll try to move as little as I can, but I’ll try to move things that aren’t a big issue for the pose, so, I’ll compromise. Sometimes it’s really, really painful and I have to break the pose. One time I actually stepped off a platform because I was getting really dizzy. And that can be a really vulnerable moment. [Nudity] is not a problem when you’re doing your job but suddenly if you fall over—which I did once, I fell off a platform—it’s like, you’re naked, and now people don’t necessarily feel as comfortably helping you. They can’t come over and be like, “Hey, you’re dizzy, can I bring you some water, can I lift you up?” because they don’t feel comfortable touching you.

How does the art department at Dartmouth differ from the Rhode Island School of Design in terms of nude models?
I think in terms some of the practices I’ve seen within the department, I guess it is kind of—I wouldn’t say puritanical—but more conservative. In Rhode Island, we would work with multiple models but I think that’s a price issue.

Do you think Dartmouth kids have a more conservative attitude towards nakedness?
In terms of nudity on campus, I think the attitude among the student body is that nakedness is a joke. There are people flashing and streaking, and I feel like [nakedness] used as a joke underscores the fact that it’s taboo. Because I do lingerie at Tabard and stuff, I feel like the consensus around campus isn’t “Don’t be naked” but “Only be naked if you have the perfect body”. And that’s not what people impose on each other—I feel it’s what people are imposing on themselves. I’ve heard so many people be like, “Will the modeling department take me, I don’t know if I’m that attractive?” But actually, the art department wants people whose bodies are interesting to draw, and so that means sometimes having people that have a ton of wrinkles or a lot of body hair, or something that wouldn’t be considered conventionally attractive. You can sit anyone down and say, “Draw the ideal of beauty” and people don’t need a visual reference anymore, they can just actually draw it. But when you sit them down and say, “draw a ninety-year-old woman naked who’s given birth four times”, they have no idea. That’s part of the reason why I think the art department strives for a range of bodies in terms of every demographic: young, old, fat, skinny, etc. That’s what you’re trying to break the students out of— that ideal. But I feel like people on this campus think, “If I don’t look a certain way, maybe I shouldn’t take my clothes off.”

Do you think this attitude toward nudity is unique to Dartmouth or rather something widespread across our generation?
I think it’s a larger issue as a whole, but I mean, I feel like at Dartmouth there’s more pressure because you’re among people your own age. Sometimes people skimp on expressing themselves in high school because they feel when they get to college they will become the people they’ve always wanted to be. But people are so concerned with status. It becomes this big thing that fucks them up.

Do you have any advice to someone who has never modeled before but is interested?
I would say don’t do it because you’re interested in being naked in front of other people, because there are so many opportunities to be naked with other people that don’t require a having a job. If you want to express yourself and show off your body, do it immediately. Don’t wait for someone to hire you in the art department. Part of the issue is that there is this taboo against nudity—people are trying to find a way to sanction it. “I just want to get naked” is not an acceptable reason.

As a model, I’m just as comfortable working in clothes—a lot of the poses I take aren’t “Tyra-Banks-smiling-with-your-eyes” poses. I’ll be down on all fours or something because the point is to show people something that they don’t see, something that they don’t have access to. Also, being persistent is the biggest thing because I was really persistent, but if you want to be a model because you want to start learning your own body, you could set it up yourself. Be in lingerie. I guess you probably can’t be naked all the time because there’s public nudity shit, but there’s always people running around basements naked. Be that person [and] join them. Have a big naked crusade.

Despite his many accolades, Ravi Shankar is a humble man. Dressed in simple white garments, he bowed in respect to the crowd. For someone who has performed and composed with the likes of George Harrison of the Beatles, Andre Previn, Yehudi Menuhin and Phillip Glass in major musical capitals like New York, London, Woodstock and Vienna, his smile radiated not pride, or distance but an aura of quiet confidence and warmth.

When I sat down to listen to him in the Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center of the Arts on October 20th, I honestly did not know what to expect. I’ve experienced only isolated performances of Indian music. In high school, a Bengali friend was very involved in traditional Indian dance. My experiences with Indian music were limited to the modern hip hop, dancehall and techno infused variations found on albums like DJ Rekha’s Basement Bhangra. But unlike DJ Rekha, Shankar opened my eyes to the roots of Indian music.

Shankar’s musical contribution to the world has been met with honor and appreciation. In his homeland India, he has won three of the nation’s civilian awards including the most imminent prize, the Bharat Ratna or “Jewel of India” in 1999. Shankar was awarded the Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur, the highest civilian award of France in 2000 and the Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2001. Additionally, he is the recipient of three Grammy Awards, and the International Music Council UNESCO award in 1975.

Onstage, Shankar was accompanied by Ravichandra Kulur on a tradition Indian flute, Tanmoy Bose on the tabla, a pair of hand drums, and Pirashanna Thevarajah on the mridangam, a large double-sided drum. Each of Shankar’s two young protegés played the tanpura, a North Indian lute that resembles a sitar. Shankar’s daughter, Anoushka, could not accompany him that night due to illness. It was, as he said, the first time in fifteen years that she would not be performing with him, yet Shankar was kind enough to still grace us with his performance.

Before Shankar came on, Kular and Bose wetted the crowd’s appetite with a dramatic South Indian hymn to the Hindu god Ganesh. As the tanpuras murmured wistfully in the background, Kular’s flute soared above us all, like bird surveying a grassy plain. Bose’s tabla galloped alongside us like a sure-footed gazelle. Basking in the sunlight of their music, we were carried between heaven and earth. Our hearts were in tune with the joyful ragas of the flute and the drums.
At the heart of classical Indian music is the raga, “a precise, aesthetic, melodic form” says Shankar in On the Appreciation of Indian Classical Music. Although Indian music is characterized as modal, the raga must not be confused as the scale, melody, composition or key found in Western music. A raga can be best characterized as the soul of a piece of music. A saying in Sanskrit translates as “That which colors the mind is a raga.” The raga colors the music, effecting notes and embellishments while setting the emotional tone of a piece. While music students in the West learn through the notation method, in India gurus pass their knowledge of the ragas to their disciples within the oral tradition of classical Indian music. Shankar himself trained under the renowned guru Allauddin Khan.
There are ragas for the nine rasas or sentiments, ragas for particular times of day, ragas for each of the seasons and ragas for every cycle of life. Each raga has a vadi , or principle note, a samavadi or secondary note, and a jan (life) or mukhda (face) which are the cluster of notes that truly define the raga. All these notes make up the characteristic note patterns of a raga. Over 6,000 ragas arise from the permutations and combinations of 72 parent scales.

Shankar breathed life into his ragas. Once on stage, he began the traditional recital with calm and slow exploration of the chosen raga. The immense sweeping song of his sitar ran like a river running through a dusty land. From this introspective beginning, Shankar moved on to the jor, in which different rhythms were used to elaborate and embellish the raga’s basic theme. He then reached the gat, 4 to 16 bars of rhythmic structure and fixed composition within the raga. Here Bose and Thevarajah entered on the drums. Bose also lent his vocal expertise to the piece. The gat culminated in the jhala, a partly improvised part of the raga. The piece reached its climax in the sawal jabab, where there was a beautiful, exhilarating and rapid interplay between sitar and tabla, concluding in a sensual, romantic thumri.

As I listened to Shankar’s sitar that night, the raga, the soul of the music synced with my individual consciousness, my own raga, and elevated my soul to a higher realm of awareness. The soul is a frequency of pure energy vibrating in the shell of our bodies. This frequency can harmonize with that of the universe, thereby enhancing our entire being. “Our ragas are the vehicles by which this essence can be perceived.” explains Shankar. The soul is a wave among waves. Like the sound waves of music or the electromagnetic waves of color, such waves are packed with energy that can be amplified, harmonized and synchronized. When all these waves resonate, when soul and universe harmonize, the subsequent release of energy is not only powerful, but also purifying. It is through this revelation do we realize of the true essence of our existence.

At the end of the performance, the entire auditorium jumped to its feet and applauded long enough for the musicians to bow three times. Shankar is indeed perfected through his music. It does not take a guru to appreciate his musical mastery.

Has Michael Moore lost his touch? Or does his new Capitalism documentary deserve more awards than Taylor Swift’s Love Story? Moore’s latest is much more like Beyoncé—good, but not good enough to win (over hearts and minds of diehard capitalists, that is).

Would staunch believers in the wonders of capitalism even go to see this Michael Moore flick? And if they did, would they be swayed at all? As a socialist, I loved Capitalism: A Love Story; I already think capitalism is evil. There are a few parts, however, I believe would resonate with any viewer.

As in all his other documentaries, Moore showcases the human side of this seemingly academic subject. Staying away from too much financial mumbo-jumbo, he follows the stories of several families evicted from their houses — homes they built themselves and grew up in. If you have no sympathy for people evicted from their homes, the story of children unjustly sent to juvy will probably wrench your heart a little more.

Both of these human-interest stories were meant to demonstrate the ill effects of greed, which Moore argues is fostered by capitalism. The greed of today’s capitalism is antithetical to Christian teachings, which most patriots and capitalists claim to follow. As several priests point out in the film, Jesus was a champion of the poor. If hearing from the clergy wasn’t enough, Jesus is then satirically portrayed as an advocate for greed, free market economics, and more tax cuts.
Other than these high points and a few other memorable moments, Capitalism: A Love Story follows the typical Moore format, but less successfully than his previous films. Moore tries once again to talk to the CEO of General Motors. He and his crew didn’t even make it up the steps to the entrance. The security guards on Wall Street also knew well enough to keep him far from the elevators and AIG execs. Perhaps that is what was missing from this movie— no interactions with CEOs as in Roger and Me, no interviews with Charlton Heston like in Bowling for Columbine.

Generally, Moore’s documentaries work because they deal with issues people are riled up about: school shootings, the War in Iraq, or healthcare. The real question to ask in predicting the movie’s success is: are people angry about capitalism? Sure, there has been a recent backlash with protests against AIG bonuses and the bailouts. But, is that anger directed toward capitalism? The answer most likely is no, which is why Michael Moore’s newest documentary probably won’t hold well against conservatives. Still, it is worth seeing, even if it doesn’t quite hold up to Moore’s other fabulous flicks.

Godot = God?

Waiting for Godot premiered at the Hop on October 1st, treating those who attended to a masterpiece. The play, performed by the Classical Theater of Harlem, analyzes human existence and questions man’s true purpose on Earth. The underlying message of the play quickly became apparent to the audience: everyone is waiting for something.

Throughout the play, the two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, idly wait next to a dead tree in the midst of a poverty-stricken area searching for hope. The audience quickly learns that they are waiting for God, a figure most people can only dream of meeting. This desolate scene sets the mood of the entire play.

Through a clever theatrical flourish, Vladimir and Estragon’s imminent encounter with God is made clear when Estragon slowly writes “Godot,” immediately after writing God.

If that gesture didn’t make the identity of their missing visitor obvious enough, a bright, illuminating light during the evening directly alludes to the heavens. As Vladimir shines underneath the light, the thought of the afterlife elates him. However, a subtler undercurrent that runs through the play is the grim possibility that Godot could also be Death, as the characters contemplate suicide several times because of restlessness.

Despite Vladimir and Estragon’s negative thoughts, they are nonetheless exhilarated by the thought of meeting Godot, until a suspicious character, Pozzo, appears instead. Dressed in white, Pozzo at first gives off an almost angelic aura. Minutes, maybe even seconds later, we see that he is not as heavenly as he appears to be. Pozzo owns a black slave named Lucky and forces him to commit degrading acts like wearing a rope around his neck.

The symbolic nature and afterlife images of “Godot” help add more meaning to the play, but several humorous wisecracks make the play more enjoyable. Right smack in the middle of the play, Vladimir performs an impression of Michael Jackson to catch the attention of those audience members who had lost focus.

Although much of the play consists of simply waiting, the play remained interesting. Nevertheless, it is understandable how Waiting for Godot may be confusing to some. The plot is somewhat difficult to follow, and the subtle acting can be a turn-off at times. However, as Dartmouth students, the play asks to be broken down and analyzed to reveal a deeper, more meaningful message underneath. Whether it be holding on to one’s faith, searching for meaning in life, or any other way you may have interpreted this very open-ended play.

Our minor criticisms are clearly outweighed by our overall praise of the play. Waiting For Godot is a well-crafted view into the disappointment and restlessness that permeates one’s search for God or meaning in the world.