Insight
Cunningham’s Last Stand
A FEW WEEKS AGO I made a pilgrimage to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) to see the second to last performance of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Like me, many of you might think traveling to Brooklyn is on the same adventure level as traveling to Tasmania, but it can be easily reached... Read »
Perils of the Prom Dress
RECENTLY IN WASHINGTON, D.C., I encountered the city in its cherry-blossom beauty when Spring peeks under the cold hand of Winter and the city can bask again in its glory. I am always reminded that the style of this city is a perfect blend of aesthetics and ethics which was never protected from the... Read »
Collaborations: A Dance Concert
Submitted to the Creative Writing Corner by Gabrielle Schecker BACK IN MARCH, I attended the College of Charleston Department of Theatre’s annual dance concert, Collaborations. At first, I couldn’t make a connection between the title and the program. When the lights dimmed and the curtains opened, I concentrated on the dancers, the songs, the... Read »
The Spell of Spring
I FELT SPRING TODAY. Though it is a delayed reaction to the official calendar, I think there is an internal calendar which we can feel as the shift of a new season begins and our spring self emerges out of the our winter self with a certain lightness of being. Our eyes lift from... Read »
Performance Ponderings—what to do?
On Standing Ovations SHOULD YOU STAND during a concluding ovation for a performance? It depends on whether you think it is worthy of such an accolade. What happens often in Charleston is that a few audience members stand, then a few more, then a few more, then maybe almost all the audience stands. It... Read »
Billy Collins Was Here
TO CLIMB the stairs of the Charleston Library Society’s historic building on King Street under a full moon on a cold January evening to hear Billy Collins read his poetry for members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina Society was a winter highlight. Although this exclusive event was offered only to the Poetry Society (whose... Read »
Unsettling Beauty
THE FIRST THING that strikes you is the majesty, the serenity, the colors. Then you understand what you’re looking at, and it becomes heart-wrenching. An exhibit poster at the Gibbes Museum of Art says it best: “At first glance the brilliantly colored, impasto-like patterns that J. Henry Fair captures with his camera... Read »
N.Y. City At Christmas
THERE IS NOTHING more festive than New York City adorned in its Christmas splendor. The department store windows on Fifth Avenue never cease to boost the heart and soul of anyone who sees them, and always at the top of the delights stands the tree at Rockefeller Plaza which, no matter your age, prompts... Read »
Give in to Thanks
IN THE SPIRIT of holiday travel minus the inappropriate pat downs, I took a solo, 1000-mile journey to Washington D.C. and back. The purpose of the trip was twofold: to retrieve my daughter from boarding school for her first return home since September; and to check on my father who recently endured a stroke... Read »
The North and South of It
ONE OF MY earliest ‘movement memories’ (dancers think about these things) is swinging on an old tree swing and enjoying the feeling of being neither here nor there. Moving forward, there was the immediate pull backwards; and then came the momentum and rush of going forward again. Born in the North from a Southern... Read »
The churches of Charleston
are unique in their variety, grandeur, and architecture. We give you an in-depth view.~> Read more