A "Swan Song (For Nina)"...Black Swan Constructive Review

Although this blog is entitled “A Swan Song (For Nina)” because of its motif in narrating life’s wide spectrum of events as told through the random melangerie of music in my i-pod, you should not confuse my intentions- this is after all a constructive review of the critically acclaimed Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan.

As a dancer, I am the first to guiltily admit that I have watched pretty much every dance movie that has premiered on the mainstream platform.  From Centerstage to Save the Last Dance, from Take the Lead to Step Up, and from Dance With Me to Dirty Dancing to Dirty Dancing Havana Nights and back… I have shamelessly indulged in all of the above and I even own most of these films.  However, I also recognize that the talent in these films lays if anything in the choreography, in the dancing, and in some cases even the acting, but the plots regrettably leave much to be desired.  I often wished to see a provocative film featuring Dance or about Dance break into the mainstream track without loosing its Indie quality.  I often yearned to see something along the lines of The Red Shoes, The Company, or One Last Dance break into cinema that the “average Joe” purchases tickets for.  Fortunately, Black Swan achieved just that, the fusion of Independent style filmmaking with mainstream box office success. 

An evocative, moving, and thrilling story, Black Swan boasts excellent writing, directing, acting, choreography, dancing, et al.  Where other Dance films have lacked in substance, Black Swan is rich in depth.  Beginning with Natalie Portman’s intuitive personification of obsessive compulsive and deeply troubled ballerina, Nina, and continuing with Aronofsky’s breathtaking cinematographic choices, it’s no wonder the film has such a gripping pulse.  Aronofsky manages to seduce our senses with a strategic combination of the beautiful musical score including a couple original versions of Tchaikovsky’s classic Dying Swan reprise, visuals of feathered tutus, classic ballet stage makeup, deliberate lighting and mirror placements for those jarring thriller scenes, and genius shots of Nina’s dancing including an enchanting slow-motion shot of her practicing a fouetté-pirouette combination on pointe. 

To further accent the films all ready epic quality, Aronofsky had the foresight to cast the demure and eloquent Natalie Portman as Nina. Natalie Portman deserves the Oscar not only for Best Actress for her role as Nina, but also for Best Preparation (if this category existed) for the role as well as best insight into the psyche of not only the character but also the pressures of the ballet world.  Portman truly engulfed herself in the dark and macabre facets of the character Nina as well as the physical and psychological demands of the professional Ballet world.  Trapped between a dysfunctional and possessive relationship with her mother as well as her own obsessive and self-destructive inclinations, Nina’s emotional and mental stability fouetté maniacally out of control as the pressure of dancing the coveted Swan Queen role pushes her over the edge.  Portman not only surpassed the emotional range necessary to convey Nina’s conflictive inner dialogue, but she also fully embodied the physicality of Nina’s dedication as a dancer, her submission as a person, and the cathartic instance when she finally snaps.

With such an emotionally charged story, blood-pumping scenes, breathtaking dancing, and a heart-wrenching musical score Black Swan is destined to grand jeté its way to the Oscars.

"La Despedida" as it relates to the Women of Juarez...

“Cuando alguien se va, el que se queda sufre más (When someone is gone, the one left behind suffers more)…” As of late these words, extracted from Shakira’s “La Despedida,” have very strongly reverberated with me.  Perhaps because it makes me think of the way the families of the Women of Juarez must feel.  Imagine having a loved one ripped from you suddenly, without a warning whatsoever…One moment they’re hugging you goodbye saying, “See you home for dinner,” and the next you’re staring at a mutilated corpse in the desert with a plethora of unanswered questions, unresolved emotions, and no one to turn to.  It sickens me to think of the agony that these families undergo without hope for closure, and at the same time it also amazes me the tenacity and courage with which they fight to seek justice for their daughters, nieces, mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, girlfriends…their women, their fellow human beings.

I, alike many of us, have not been able to forget since the first time I became aware of these heinous acts back in 2004 after seeing the Women of Juarez play at the Frida Kahlo Theatre.  I became so enraged, so infuriated, so appalled by the situation in Juarez that I in my own, meek manner began to take action to spread the word and increase the awareness of the issue. First, circa 2004 I chose to write my Moral Ethics Philosophy research term paper on the murders of Juarez.  In the paper I argued that in my opinion, both the U.S. and the Mexican governments shared equal ethical and moral responsibility to these families to not only provide closure, but also protection to the maquiladora workers. I supported my argument using Kant’s second categorical imperative, which states that every person must be treated with the dignity and profound worth they deserve simply because they have the gift of reason and are able to use it autonomously.  (I won’t go into details as to why; it took me 12 pages to explain!) This paper wound up being submitted to a national ethics committee for the government as I thought it was something our governments should account for.

However, I felt like that was not enough; so two years later I decided to take a step further.  In fall of 2006 I decided to take a risk and explore presenting a specific social issue to an audience via the fusion of poetry, acting, and dance.  So I wrote a poem called the “Butterflies of Juarez/Las Mariposas de Juarez”*(inserted below) voicing through the metaphor of Juarez victims as butterflies; the way in which these women were atrociously harmed.  I had my dancers attempt to evoke emotion in their reciting of each verse as they walked toward the audience, and finally, I added a dance performance depicting the anguish of the mothers as well as the daughters.  I have always maintained the solemn belief that Art, all Art, is the vehicle by which we convey truth; sometimes truths that we, as a people, don’t always want to admit or listen to, but truths that need to be expressed and heard nonetheless.  For this reason I feel that performance ethnography is a crucial necessity and in this particular case I thank my lucky stars that I was exposed to “The Women of Juarez,” because for me it was a catalyst not only as an audience member and performer, but as a human being.  And isn’t that the point of all this?

Mariposas de Juarez

Fui una vez una Mariposa

Volaba sin cuidado sobre el desierto Chihuahense

Los tumultos de la pobreza eran vida diaria

Pero el calor hogareño me protegia el soñar 

De repente ya no volaba libremente

Atrapada en una red malevola senti mi mundo caer

Mi captor me rompio las alas, me apagó el alma

Me robó el derecho a ser Mariposa

Aquella bestialidad me convirtió en victima

Me dejó en el vacio como cualquier basura

Horriblemente mutilada, degradada, e irreconocible

El salvaje me quitó la abilidad de volver a volar

Y ahora? Ahora soy una de cientas

Desaparecidas, mutiladas; mariposas sin alas.

Butterflies of Juarez

I was once a Butterfly

I flew carelessly over a desert covered Chihuaha

Strife and poverty were daily life

But home’s warmth sheltered my dreams

Suddenly I couldn’t fly so freely

Trapped in a malicious net I felt my world sink

My captor ripped off my wings, blackened my soul

He robbed of me the right to be a butterfly

That atrocity victimized me

It left me in the nowhere like common trash

Horrifically mutilated, degraded, and unrecognizable

The savage stomped on my ability to ever fly again

And now? Now I am one of hundreds

Vanished, mutilated; butterflies without wings.

by, Nahyr Bracamontes

We're All in the Dance of Life..

"Life's a dance we all have to do," says the lovely and insightful Feist through her ethereal vocals.  There is almost a childlike truth to her lyrics...  It is common and shared knowledge that Life has 'ups and downs,' 'bumps along the road,' etc...  Even as children this mantra was instilled in us through movies such as The Sword and the Stone in which the ever-so wise Merlin sings:

For every up there is a down
For every square there is a round
For every high there is a low
For every to there is a fro
To and fro
Stop and go
That's what makes the world go round 

(That's What Makes the World go Round
From "The Sword in the Stone"
Composed by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman)

However, for those of us who are dancers, afficionados of Dance, musicians, or lovers of music...I think you can appreciate the depth in the analogy of Life as a dance.  

When you dance, you have to dive in fully into each step, each moment and often leave a piece of you onstage.  If you fall onstage or forget the choreography, you keep going as if you meant to fall or as if improvising was part of the performance.  This philosophy also applies to social dancing or even dancing in your shower or living room- If you don't let yourself become immersed in the movement, you won't enjoy it!  No one 'half-asses' their underwear dance in front of the mirror? Why would they? That's not enjoyable! Instead you dance around in your underwear to your favorite song because it fulfills you and makes you happy because in that moment you are carefree of outside judgments and void of inner judgments- at that moment you are living fully.  

When dancing with a partner, you rely on trust; if you are performing with a partner you are literally placing your well being in their hands.  You are taking a risk with every lift, every acrobatic endeavor...  When on the dance floor in a social setting, you are quite often trusting a complete stranger with your Ego--trusting that they won't laugh at you if you step on them, or slip, and if you do trusting them to make light of an awkward situation... In the performance world, as if trust wasn't difficult enough to build...you must also share a deep, meaningful connection both physically as well as emotionally with your partner.  In this capacity, dancing strongly resembles romantic relationships.  Much like in Love, when dancing with partner you take the proverbial "Leap of Faith" not once, but several times...  Also, much like in Love you often have to make an active choice to keep dancing with your partner, to persevere through the drops and try the lift again, to work with them and learn with them, and to sweat out every awkward, clashing moment until your bodies move as one.  I think Bell Hooks would much appreciate viewing Love as a section of choreography in Life's dance as she very firmly believes love to be an action, a verb. In her book Bell Hooks on Love, Hooks describes the process of love as “climbing a set of stairs (the action), on each floor you stop, look out the window (the introspection), and decide to continue or not to continue climbing (the choice)”. (Hooks, 162)  and follows this description with the novel idea that “we would all love better if we used it (love) as a verb.” (Hooks, 4)  

However, sometimes you choose not to Love, or even if you choose to Love you still find yourself without a dance partner for whatever the reason may be...  Sometimes, alike in Life, you find yourself dancing solo.  It's as Feist sings, "We walk around and round, partners are lost and found-"  

Perhaps sometimes we forget the steps or where the dance is headed and how it will end... Sometimes we loose our connection to the music, the rhythm, and the beat...Sometimes we loose our partners and find others, sometimes we even loose ourselves...But through it all we keep dancing, through it all we keep living; we have no choice, "we're all in the Dance."


Let's keep dancing...-Nahyr

Waka Waka...This is Your Time

It seems fitting that my very first entry on this blog be linked to the song "Waka, Waka" by Shakira. The purpose of this blog is to attempt to explain life and offer advice by the way of music and sometimes other forms of art. It seems to me that even in light of this insufferable recession there is still a sense of hope in the air. For those of us who might be eluded by this hope or who at times feel like there is no light at the end of this grim tunnel, keep in mind that when things are at it's absolute worse it can only get better. I think that "Waka, Waka" has a very uplifting way of conveying this message of hope particularly in the phrase, "Today's your day, I feel it- You paved the way, believe it." So often we tend to forget that we are working toward our dreams and that paving a road takes time, patience, dedication, and above all relentless perseverance. The point is, don't give up, "this is your moment, no hesitation."