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Nov. 11th, 2006 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonVirginia last weekend, Amar Gamal this weekend--I feel so incredibly spoiled by having these amazing dancers around! What i really liked about Amar Gamal's workshop was the innovative way she puts movement to sound. There were combinations I never would have thought of for particular moments, but made perfect sense once I saw/repeated them. Both Virginia and Amar Gamal are such supportive teachers as well--all in all this has been tremendously good for me.
Watched Crossing the Bridge: the Sounds of Istanbul when I got home. It's a documentary by Fatih Akin (who directed Gegen Die Wand/Head On) and featuring Alexander Hacke of Einsteurzende Neubauten as the intrepid researcher/recorder/narrator. It was a very interesting movie and I recommend it to anyone interested in the cross-pollination of predominantly Western forms of music with non-Western forms (though as the Turks in the film themselves point out, calling them non-Western can be a little problematic--yes, there's history and politics and ethnology too), or the impact of music on society. The focus of the film is mostly on musicians who are somehow marginalized (with one major exception, Sezen Aksu) because they are rock musicians, they rap and breakdance, they are too traditional, they are too influenced by Arabic music, they are old and forgotten, they are Romani, they are Kurdish, they are second generation expats returning home, or often some combination of those factors. All of the musicians were talented, but the Kurdish singer Aynar really left an impression on me. I'd like to find out more about Kurdish music. I know I've complained plenty of times about dancing to Turkish music, but I still like listening to it, and as the movie's opening Confucius quote suggests, you learn quite a bit about a country by listening to its music, I think perhaps all the more so when the music is in a state of transition. Though of course it's a transition from a past that was never really that cohesive to a future that doesn't have a vision or plan, and doesn't mind it that way... (oh, it's available through Netflix, fyi)
Watched Crossing the Bridge: the Sounds of Istanbul when I got home. It's a documentary by Fatih Akin (who directed Gegen Die Wand/Head On) and featuring Alexander Hacke of Einsteurzende Neubauten as the intrepid researcher/recorder/narrator. It was a very interesting movie and I recommend it to anyone interested in the cross-pollination of predominantly Western forms of music with non-Western forms (though as the Turks in the film themselves point out, calling them non-Western can be a little problematic--yes, there's history and politics and ethnology too), or the impact of music on society. The focus of the film is mostly on musicians who are somehow marginalized (with one major exception, Sezen Aksu) because they are rock musicians, they rap and breakdance, they are too traditional, they are too influenced by Arabic music, they are old and forgotten, they are Romani, they are Kurdish, they are second generation expats returning home, or often some combination of those factors. All of the musicians were talented, but the Kurdish singer Aynar really left an impression on me. I'd like to find out more about Kurdish music. I know I've complained plenty of times about dancing to Turkish music, but I still like listening to it, and as the movie's opening Confucius quote suggests, you learn quite a bit about a country by listening to its music, I think perhaps all the more so when the music is in a state of transition. Though of course it's a transition from a past that was never really that cohesive to a future that doesn't have a vision or plan, and doesn't mind it that way... (oh, it's available through Netflix, fyi)
