Columbia Spectator Arts & Entertainment

Tamasha offers night of fun, culture

Gretchen Schmid — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Get ready to go wild this weekend at Tamasha, put on by Club Zamana, the South Asian cultural group on campus.

Although the club acts as an intergroup facilitator between many South Asian groups—including dance groups, a cappella groups, and more specific cultural groups, such as the Hindu Students Organization—Tamasha is its biggest event of the year. Rushal Rege, SEAS ’14 and president of Club Zamana, described it as “a celebration of South Asian culture and also a way to spread it to people who aren’t normally exposed to it.”

Tamasha is such a big part of what the club does that it’s composed of committees that are responsible for every aspect of the show, including decorations, public relations, and communications. Planning begins in December.

This year, the show is jungle themed, and marketed as “Tamasha Gone Wild.” But while the decorations and fliers reflect the theme, the dances themselves do not, in keeping with its mission of spreading South Asian culture.

“Tamasha is the largest South Asian event on campus and one of the largest culture shows, period,” Saketh Kalathur, CC ’13 and a four-year Tamasha participant, said.

The event will feature dance groups Bhangra, Raas, Taal, and Dhoom and an a capella group Sur, in addition to a new Tamasha act: a duet of two singers, Aakash Mansukhani, SEAS ’15 and Sonali Mehta, CC ’15.

The singers aren’t the only group performing at Tamasha for the first time this year. Stand-up comic Eli Grober, CC ’13, will be the master of ceremonies for the event, and Sabor and String Theory will also be performing, even though they aren’t part of Club Zamana.

Though in the past Tamasha has featured performers from outside Columbia, this year’s event will only feature campus groups.

“We believe that there is so much talent in Columbia itself that it’s better for our school and community to showcase their talent before reaching outward,” Rege said.

“As someone who has been very involved in this community, there is no event greater than Tamasha,” Kalathur, who was formerly a dancer with Columbia Bhangra and now acts as a senior adviser to Club Zamana, said. “Often, people tend to get caught up in their own friend groups, with their own activities. Tamasha brings so many of these people together to perform in a show for all of their friends.”

Similarly, Rege hopes the show can attract the attention of more than just the South Asian community.

“We want to sell to anyone who might be willing to take a chance and see some unique and exciting performances. A larger presence means that we successfully spread our culture.”

Tamasha will take place Saturday at 8 p.m. in Roone Arledge Auditorium. Tickets are $5 with a CUID and are available at the TIC. There will also be a hype dinner at Hewitt Dining Hall Thursday night from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. with free Indian food.

gretchen.schmid@columbiaspectator.com | @gretchl24

Student filmmakers hone skills collaborating on For Dad Films’ first short movie

Selby Byashimova — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

In October, Richard Whiddington and Paul Nungesser, both CC ’15, founded film production collective For Dad Films to provide undergraduates the opportunity to develop their filmmaking skills.

The group, whose first project was the music video for “I Can’t Call You” by student band Jeffers Win, has recently begun filming their first short film, titled “A Certain Tendency,” which addresses the challenges of being an international student, something which Whiddington and Nungesser, as international students themselves, are both familiar with.

“A Certain Tendency” tells the story of a Korean student struggling to adapt to life at an American university. “We are not telling the story where this Korean girl arrives to an American university,” Nungesser, the cinematographer, said. “This is a usual girl that happens to be a Korean. What we want to tell is the idea of being in a new place and more about who she is based on her friends ... and how she chooses to behave. In other words, how she sees herself after exploring and re-evaluating her new self and place.”

Whiddington, a London native, who spent time studying in Beijing, China, drew on his own experience while writing the script. “I have experienced this several times: What it is like to arrive to a place where the things are completely reverse,” he said. “I certainly sympathize with the idea of being new to a place.”

This theme also hits home for Nick Lieberman, CC ’16, the film’s director, although he is not an international student. “I changed schools a lot. I moved to different schools ... and every time was a new kid in a new environment,” he said. “So, there is always time when you come to a school like that, where you are not sure about the place, and defining myself in an existing community has certainly helped me.”

Members are enjoying the freedom afforded them by working without faculty supervision.“There are no teachers that are saying this was the right way doing it and this is not,” said Lieberman.

They also appreciate the chance For Dad Films gives them to explore their talents further. “I love to write. That’s what I want to do my whole life,” Whiddington said. “I never wrote a screenplay until last semester, and when I started it became really different way of thinking.”

The creators of “A Certain Tendency” plan to continue making films and refining their skills. “For me this is what I want to do in the future, so I do a lot ... to try to learn about this work and how magic happens,” Nungesser said.

“We really love working together. The goal for me is to make more film and more art,” Whiddington said.

The crew is filming mostly on campus, but has also used several off-campus locations, such as a karaoke bar in Koreatown. Production will wrap after three weeks, and the rest of the time will be spent in post-production. Students will be able to see the film in September.

arts@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

CC first-year to receive Hubbard award next week

Nicollette Barsamian — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Sida Chen, CC ’16 has visited other planets and fought dragons.

At least, she has through her award-winning illustrations. Chen is one of 12 illustrators to be honored at the 29th Annual L. Ron Hubbard’s Achievement Awards, to be presented next week. Sponsored by Hubbard, the science fiction writer and founder of the Church of Scientology, the award honors 24 young writers and illustrators and is offers them an introduction to the writing and illustration industries.

Nicollette Barsamian: How did you get so interested in illustrating?
Sida Chen: I doodled a lot when I was younger, and art was something that I just liked to do. When I started doing digital art, the illustrating just came along.

NB: When did you find out you got the award?
SC: It was last year, at the end of senior year of high school. I found it online while I was looking at sci-fi/fantasy sites and just sent a few pieces because you were allowed to give them anything you had created before.

NB: How did you feel when you got it, and what does the award mean to you?
Sida Chen: It felt really amazing. It is a great opportunity. They are taking us to L.A. for a workshop next week, so that we can learn.

NB: So, is this the first official award you’ve gotten?
Sida Chen: I had a piece on IGN [Gawker’s gaming site] for the Zelda games.

NB: What direction do you see your art going in these next couple of years while you’re studying?
Sida Chen: I write for the comics, but I haven’t published them yet. Nothing heavy, I don’t write novels. I am going to start a web comic online for fun, and I’ll just continue posting. It is really for myself and, for the most part, it will stay the same.

NB: Is your work usually sci-fi?
Sida Chen: Yeah, sci-fi and fantasy. Like Dungeons & Dragons, that kind of stuff.

Sida Chen: Probably because I read a lot of books in the genre when I was young, so that is what I ended up drawing. I read “Harry Potter,” “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell” (new, but also pretty good), and most of the “Redwall” series. More fantasy than sci-fi.

NB: Are you a fan of L. Ron Hubbard?
Sida Chen: I haven’t read any of his books. I’ve got to do that. Since I’ve been doing art, I haven’t had a lot of time to read sci-fi. I really plan to read his books. Hopefully I can read them on the airplane ride.

The awards ceremony will take place on April 14 in Los Angeles. Chen’s work, along with the work of the other 23 recipients, will be included in the 29th volume of the anthology “L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers and Illustrators of the Future.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity

An earlier version of this article referenced a planned meeting between Chen and L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard, being dead, will not be at the awards ceremony. Spectator regrets the error.

arts@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

Spring Theater Guide: All Columbia's a stage

Rachel Dunphy — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

With spring comes a plethora of student theater events. From original, student-written plays to Seneca’s “Thyestes” (performed in Latin), this year’s crop of spring shows offers something for the classicist or comedy fan in anyone.

Barnard Thesis Festival I
In the first of two upcoming installments of the Barnard Thesis Festival, six directing students will put on three on-act works by well-known playwrights. Three weeks from now, Kyle Radler, CC ’13, Christina McCarver, BC ’13, and Rebecca Clark, CC ’13 will put on their plays.
The design, performance, and management are all done by students in the theater department.

The Barnard Thesis Festival I will run from April 25-27 at 7 p.m. in the Minor-Latham Black Box.

Barnard Thesis Festival II
In early May, students will perform plays that Katherine Craddock, BC ’13, and Nathalie Molina Niño, GS ’13, wrote for their theses.

The event will also feature staged readings and solo performances by senior acting students Dana Bacharach, BC ’13, Evelyn Hammer-Lester, BC ’13, and Clarisse Van Kote, BC ’13.

The Barnard Thesis Festival II runs May 3 at 8 p.m. and May 4 at 3 p.m, 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. in the Minor-Latham Black Box.

Latenite Spring Anthology
A Columbia tradition since 1995, this anthology of “the zaniest, craziest, and most irreverent theater ever to grace the Columbia stage,” according to its Facebook event page, features six short plays written by students. The show is an opportunity for student playwrights to stage their work in a free, creative, and non-competitive environment.

“It’s theater based on entertainment and letting the audience have a good time,” said Steele Sternberg, CC ’13, co-president of Latenite, and member of Spectator’s editorial board.

The Latenite Spring Anthology runs April 4 through April 6 at 9 p.m. in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box.

"Opera Untapped"
A new group of Columbia students are hoping to make opera more accessible to their peers with this collection of six scenes that span operas from different time periods, traditions, and languages.

“There’s nothing else like it on campus,” the creative director, Martina Weidenbaum, BC ’13, said. “We have an amazing group of performers and singers, and people need to know what their peers can do.”

“Opera Untapped” runs April 4 at 7 p.m. and April 5 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the Austin E. Quigley Black Box.

NOMADS: "Expedition"
Written by Rae Binstock, CC ’15, this new play deals with circumstance and opportunity as it tells the story of two men in a long-distance relationship, one with a successful job in Boston and the other with an ailing mother and bills piling up in New York.

“It’s really in love with language,” Lorenzo Landini, CC ’13 and vice president of NOMADS, said. “It hits very close to home.”

“Expedition” runs April 18 through April 20 at 8 p.m. in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box.

The Light in the Piazza"
Put on by Columbia Musical Theatre Society, “The Light in the Piazza” blends a musical theater structure with operatic tradition as it tells the story of a mother and daughter who each find love and intrigue on a trip to Florence.

“I think the music is what’s going to draw most people into the show,” director Alex Hare, CC ’13, said. “It’s so attuned to storytelling, while at the same time being incredibly lush and romantic.”

“The Light in the Piazza” runs April 11 through April 13 at 8 p.m. in the Glicker-Milstein Black Box.

"Thyestes"
Columbia University is one of the only schools in the country to put on a full-scale classical play every year in its original language. This year’s selection, Seneca’s “Thyestes,” will be performed in Latin with translations provided.

The creative team played off the creepier elements of the story, which is about a man who gets revenge on his brother by making the man eat his own children, crafting “a carnival-esque aesthetic inspired by circuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

“Thyestes” is playing from April 4 through April 6 at 8 p.m. and April 6 at 2 p.m.

Corrections: An earlier version of this article stated that the NOMADS: "Expedition" is about a long-distance relationship between a man in Austin and one in New York. The two men live in Boston and New York. The Barnard Thesis Festival I features one-act, not full-length plays. The dates and times of the festival and "Opera Untapped" are updated. Spectator regrets the errors.

rachel.dunphy@columbiaspectator.com | @RachelLouie

'Game of Thrones' returns with solid premiere, much promise for third season

Chancellor Agard — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

After months of teasers, promotional photos, and press events, “Game of Thrones” has finally returned. The third season premiere was a strong episode that did not dwell on too many of the stories from last season but instead drove the epic plot forward.

As with the season one pilot, “Valar Dohaeris” began with a cold open that involved the White Walkers. The episode picked up within a couple hours of where the second season finale ended. Sam, one of the principals, is still fleeing from the nightwalkers, a race from the north. Right when we think he is about to die, a direwolf—an intelligent species of wolf—and the rest of the Night’s Watch, a military order, save him. After an updated opening theme—Winterfell castle is shown burning and the city of Astapor was added—the story gradually moves south to Dragonstone castle and King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms.

“Valar Dohaeris” catches us up with only about two-thirds of the cast. Without five of its main characters, this episode’s strength lay in its limited scope. Whereas in the last season there was some trouble managing the breadth of the story and all of its characters, this episode had no such problem. It transitioned quite easily and smoothly from showing how the Lannisters were surviving in King’s Landing after the Battle of Blackwater to Daenerys’ search for an army.

The strongest moments of the episode were those featuring interactions between just two characters, especially those at King’s Landing. The scene between Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Tywin (Charles Dance) was the best scene of the entire episode. Normally, any storyline that is driven by a character’s daddy issues can be boring because the trope is so often played in television. But Dinklage’s mastery of non-verbal communication, however, turned a scene that could have been very flat into a compelling, memorable one.

The scene between Tyrion and Cersei was another outstanding moment in the episode—not only because of the clever banter between the two characters but also because both actors effectively conveyed the underlying sibling tension.

Daenerys’ quest for the Iron Throne was given a lot more direction than it had been in the previous season. Her search for an army in this episode drives her story forward and helps to make her storyline more relevant to the contest for the Iron Throne. Last season, Daenerys’ plotline in Qarth remained rather static and uneventful until the final few episodes. The stunning visual of her rapidly growing dragons flying and fishing, coupled with the reintroduction of a character that we have not seen since season one, promises to be an interesting and entertaining storyline for Daenerys.

The season premiere of the third season of “Game of Thrones” very nicely leaves enough unanswered questions to tickle the viewers’ interest and entice them to return for next week’s episode. Personally, I am particularly looking forward to the increased importance of Dany and her dragons.

“Game of Thrones” airs on HBO (channel 15 on CUtv) at 9 p.m. on Sundays.

arts@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

'Passion Play' complex, compelling

Zoë Miller — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Biblical and secular history collided in CU Players’ production of Sarah Ruhl’s “Passion Play” this weekend, and the result was electric.

Directed by Cassie Hartnett, BC '14, the play presented a sensitive look at the social and political ramifications of two dramas about the death of Jesus—one being performed in a village in Elizabethan England, and one being performed in Oberammergau, Germany in the 1930s.

“Passion Play” was rich with complexity. Not only were the student actors playing actors in the plays-within-a-play, but there were also thematic parallels between the two eras and two plays being depicted.

In the Elizabethan play, Pontius Pilate was portrayed by a villager and fish gutter named Pontius (Michael Carter, CC ’14), while the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene were both portrayed by village girls named Mary, differentiated in the cast list as Mary 1 (Kat Christensen, BC ’16) and Mary 2 (Hannah Gorman, CC ’16), respectively.

Deceptively, Mary 1 was far less innocent than the biblical character she plays. She had an affair with Pontius, who was jealous of his cousin John (James Rodrigues, CC ’14), who plays Christ in the village’s play. The brooding Carter struck a careful balance between frightening and endearing, while Christensen played a fallen angel to sympathetic appeal.

In Oberammergau, Christensen played a girl named Elsa. Like Mary 1, Elsa was cast as the Virgin Mary in the town’s Passion play. As Mary 1, Christensen exuded feigned innocence with starry-eyed, coquettish glances. But as Elsa, she left the puppy-dog mask behind and embraced flirtation with worldly confidence and resolve.

Carter’s character in the German scenes, a lovelorn foot soldier, was just as devilish as Pontius was. The twist as that the character was in love with Oberammergau’s Christ, a carpenter named Eric (Rodrigues again, with more depth and intensity than in the first half).

Carter displayed more vulnerability as a man ridiculed than he did as a man grappling with envy and self-loathing. His discomfort was palpable during a scene in which he was harassed by his sadistic officer (played by Chris Browner, CC ’16 and Spectator Opera Critic) into groping Christensen.

What ultimately unified the play was a character simply named the Village Idiot (Gabby Lemonier, CC ’16). She was a not-so-silent observer, a stand-in for the religiously persecuted in England and Germany alike. All she could do was close her eyes and turn the sky red by her own volition—a freakish phenomenon that echoed the prominence of the many forms of passion in the world around her.

The play’s set, designed by Raphi Halff, JTS/GS ’16, successfully transformed the Diana Center’s Glicker-Milstein Blackbox into the emotionally fraught realm of Ruhl’s plays within a play. Appropriately, the set’s centerpiece was a large, foreboding wooden cross.

Finally, it was the costumes that provided the first and second halves of the play with distinct looks. Costumer design Yaël Wiesenfeld, CC ’14, had the English villagers barefoot, the men in austere pants and tunics, and the women wearing plain, sleeveless dresses or shirts tucked into skirts. The characters in Oberammergau wear clothing that would, for the most part, not look out of place today.

However difficult “Passion Play” may be in subject and scope, CU Players’ cast and creative team stepped up to the challenge. The production didn't quite bear a cross, but it accomplished something significant nonetheless.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated Gabby Lemonier's first name. Spectator regrets the error.

This review has been updated to include the director's name.

arts@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

Romanian pianist impresses in Italian Academy concert

Jenny Payne — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Romanian-born pianist Matei Varga filled the Italian Academy with gorgeous music celebrating Italian and Romanian heritage on Monday night, a highly successful collaboration between the Columbia University Romanian Club and the Italian Academy.

Varga performed pieces by Bach, Liszt, Lipatti, Scarlatti, and Enescu—a sampling of some familiar and some less familiar names with a focus on Italian and Romanian composers. As a pianist who has lived and performed all over the world, Varga was an ideal choice for engaging the audience in the Romanian selections.

As he took the stage, Varga told the audience of the fond memories he has of a competition he attended in Italy at age ten, from which he returned with two first-prize awards after competing against musicians decades older than him. Since then, he has toured all over the world, performing in locations including Stockholm, Venice, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, and New York’s own Carnegie Hall.

Varga opened the performance with Bach’s “Italian Concerto, BWV 971,” the same piece that he performed so successfully in Italy as a boy. With his beaming smile and palpable enthusiasm for the music, one could almost imagine what it must have been like to watch him perform as a precocious 10-year-old, though his musical artistry clearly indicated the talents of a seasoned performer.

Onstage with his piano, Varga had only his instrument to drive his performance, yet his ability to drop gracefully from higher melodies to the piano’s rich depths, and to manipulate dynamic changes to stir emotion in the listener, showed just how powerful of a musical tool the piano can be.

Varga’s physical movements brought the music to life on another level, communicating his emotional connection to the music. During light, delicate arpeggios, he bent his head low over the keys with the care of a surgeon looking over his patient. At dramatic final chords, his movements were expressive without being distracting, beautifully visualizing the music.

There was a surprisingly diverse and full crowd for a Monday night classical music performance, and the audience reflected Varga’s enthusiasm with standing ovations and strong applause. Attendees had the opportunity to speak with Varga and hear about his work at a reception after the concert.

Varga, the Romanian Club, and the Italian Academy created a lovely cultural feast at the performance, leaving audience members pleased that the world contains such a grand variety of music.

jenny.payne@columbiaspectator.com | @jennayne

Marketplaces for buying, selling clothes join forces

Michal Greenspan — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

A new partnership between two Columbia marketplace websites will make it easier for students to buy and sell clothes.

Tiana Stute, BC ’15, created the Facebook group Buy, Sell, Trade Barnard (BST), which currently boasts over 930 members, as a first-year. Students may be less familiar with the website Modabound, created last year by Carolina Garcia and Alexa Varsavsky, both CC ’12 —a new social marketplace that allows students at Columbia and NYU to sell their clothes to local buyers.

Now, the two campus marketplaces are combining, with the hopes that Stute will help to expand the site and BST users will have access to an improved online experience by switching to Modabound. Both of the sites were created around the same time, and for BST, it’s a move that makes sense with what Stute had in mind for the site.

“It’s pretty much in line with where I wanted Buy, Sell, Trade to be heading,” Stute said. “I think that the Facebook group is sort of a very basic, rudimentary [system]—it gets the jobs done, but I don’t think it does it so well because people don’t delete their items or write the prices.”

Like Stute, Modabound founders Carolina Garcia and Alexa Varsavsky, both CC ’12, who met at Columbia, were looking for an easy way to exchange clothing and maximize their dorm closet-sized wardrobes.

“It’s actually hard to sell on eBay and craigslist,” Garcia said. “For clothes, it’s really difficult, and in the end, I would just end up giving it away.”

Seeing the need for a different sort of e-commerce site, the two friends created Modabound, unaware of the already-thriving BST.

With just a few clicks, BST allows Barnard and Columbia students to buy and sell their clothing on campus.

“It’s a lot easier to buy something from the girl down that hallway than it is to actually go downtown,” Stute said. “This is sort of a way that you can constantly update and rotate your wardrobe without really losing that much time.”

Though both were developed almost simultaneously, Modabound’s website now looks like a more mature, sleeker, technologically advanced version of BST, largely due to a collaboration between Garcia, Varsavsky, and Stute.

Stute went to middle school with Columbia campus ambassador Sophie Mann, CC ’15, who is now the girl that Garcia and Varsavsky turn to for on-campus advertising and feedback. Mann got in touch with Stute to discuss the possibility of merging, since Modabound was hoping to emulate Buy, Sell, Trade.

Despite the partnership with Modabound, BST isn’t shutting down so fast. Buy, Sell, Trade users will be able to price clothing easily and tag it within the app, and Modabound is hoping to develop an iOS app, which would move users beyond cash exchanges, but Stute sees Buy, Sell, Trade sticking around as a way for people to sell items besides clothes.

“I’m fine with Buy, Sell, Trade still existing as an outlet for non-clothing and accessory items, but that’s not what we want Modabound to be,” Stute said. “Modabound is strictly for clothing and fashion-related items.”

While the site is currently only open to Columbia and NYU students, its creators are looking to expand to other colleges.

“We found that it’s a group of people who are close enough so that you feel comfortable not dealing with total strangers, but it’s large enough so that you have enough content to browse through,” Garcia said.

The team’s efforts to make the Modabound experience an accessible one include an upcoming on-campus vendor sale in late April, where students will be able to sell their clothing and accessories in person. It has also started distributing a weekly e-newsletter with fashion and selling tips as well as website highlights.

“The cool thing about Modabound is that it’s not just the buying and selling part—it’s this whole fashion blog as well,” Stute said. “It does a lot of social networking. It’s a lot cooler, and I think it serves the fashion-forward girl a lot better than Facebook does.”

arts@columbiaspectator.com | @ColumbiaSpec

RA adapts performance piece for Furnald lobby

Sarah Roth — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Marina Abramović's “The Artist is Present” met the Furnald lobby on Friday—sort of. The present artist, instead, was José Ricardo Moreno, CC ’13, who debuted an interpretation of the famous performance piece.

The piece focuses on one of the most basic human interactions—the gaze. For two hours, Moreno sat in the Furnald common room, as passersby sat across from him for as long as they liked, simply looking silently into his eyes.

After his performance, Moreno sat down with Spectator to talk about the piece, his inspiration, and what it meant to be performing in Furnald.

Sarah Roth: How did you get interested in performance art?
José Ricardo Moreno: I got interested my sophomore year when I met this woman named Gerry Visco. She is an artist and a mini-celebrity within the New York nightlife [and the Departmental Administrator in the Department of Classics]. I spent a lot of time around performance artists, and these individuals create personas that are bigger than life, and it always inspired me to try and work and do art in a different way. When I came to Columbia, I had done paintings and photography, but then going into my sophomore year and going into clubs and these really weird bars, you meet these people that just completely change your perspective on performance.

SR: In the Facebook description of the piece, you cite a particular interaction of when you were coming out of the restroom in a bar.
JRM: [Laughs] It was one of the times when I went with Gerry to one of the parties that everyone throws, and it was in this really dank, weird, warehouse kind-of looking bar, and I end up in the bathroom and I come out, and I stumble out, knock into a drag queen who was a mixture of “rabid drag queen” and Hellraiser. And even though it was the scariest thing I ever could have thought of, we connected in that one moment, and it felt amazing, and I wanted to do that again.

SR: So is that what inspired you to begin performance art?
JRM: It inspired me to explore different avenues of art, and then just in my own journeys of figuring out what I want to do with my life, I found Marina Abramović's exhibition, “The Artist is Present,” and for many individuals it was, “This is someone you need to know, this is a piece of work that is important.”

SR: What inspired you to put on this piece, this night, this time of the year?
JRM: Originally I was going to place it later in the semester, but I thought one of the darkest days within the religious calendar, specifically Good Friday, when Jesus spends his first couple days in Hell would be a great time to do reflection, to connect with another human being on a very fundamental level.

SR: Can you talk a little bit about the experience of sitting there for two hours, interacting with these people?
JRM: There were times where it was so hard, and I didn’t know how I should feel, because I felt that I wanted to cry. At times I felt overwhelmed. I felt so connected to some people that I felt that they became family in a way, but it says so much to the power of the moments we take to interact, to see our humanity within each other.

SR: Do you have any other plans for future performances?
JRM: I don’t know. I am an RA here in Furnald, and this is my home, and these are my people, and I wanted to see how Furnald would react to a piece like this, specifically because of its reputation of being very antisocial, but it proved otherwise, and it was just very beautiful.

SR: The basis of this piece is about eye contact, and that is something that is very intimate. How does it feel to have this very personal interaction with some you don’t know?
JRM: For me, it’s been a journey to make it almost natural. When I first came to New York City, it was very difficult to understand gazes within the subways, because as soon as you gaze at someone you looked away because you don’t want to acknowledge them. But as I progressed in my years at Columbia and really reflected upon what it is to be human, what it means to exist, I began really observing what is around me, and what drew me was gazes. You can enter someone’s soul through the eyes, it’s so beautiful. That might be a little meta. [Laughs].

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

sarah.roth@columbiaspectator.com | @sarah_e_roth

Star power not enough to carry 'Phil Spector'

Maricela Gonzalez — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

On the surface, an HBO movie starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren about music producer Phil Spector’s murder trial sounds appealing. But, perhaps due to too many Netflix binges of “Law & Order” and other crime procedurals, for all of the spectacle and cultural significance of the trial, “Phil Spector,” which premiered on March 24, isn’t that captivating.

If it weren’t for the fascination of seeing Pacino and Mirren together, it wouldn’t be worth watching. But it may be best to watch it sooner rather than later, as both actors are sure to be nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes next awards season.

Written and directed by playwright and filmmaker David Mamet, “Phil Spector” chronicles the 2007 trial of the legendary music producer, who was charged in 2003 with the murder of Lana Clarkson after she was found dead in his home. Pacino stars as Spector and Mirren portrays Linda Kenney Baden, his defense lawyer. The rest of the cast includes Jeffrey Tambor (“Arrested Development”) as Spector’s original defense lawyer and Chiwetel Ejiofor (“Children of Men”) as a mock prosecutor, but they are superfluous—Mamet is interested in Pacino and Mirren and not much else.

After Baden’s first encounter with the mysterious eccentric in his castle-like mansion, she is convinced that the prosecution’s case doesn’t add up. Throughout the film, she emphasizes how she is not completely convinced of Spector’s innocence, but also does not believe in his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Though Baden’s vacillation is meant to give the audience someone to identify with, the way Mamet highlights Spector and Baden’s relationship ensures that the film presents a firm case for Spector’s innocence.

Mirren is excellent in her role, which is to be expected of the veteran actress. It is Pacino’s performance that is more difficult to discern. His take on Spector lies somewhere between brilliant and self-caricature. Pacino's legacy as a great actor really stands in contrast to some of his more recent, and more lacking, performances, including this one. What is perhaps most captivating about Pacino as Spector isn’t his ranting and raving, but the small ticks he incorporates to the music man’s persona. His hand tremors and constant, disconcerting lip smacking are seamless—and most indicative of the strangeness and repulsiveness that Spector exudes.

Spector’s characteristic wigs belie the nuances of Pacino’s performance—they’re unreal, hilarious, and utterly bizarre. For better or for worse, the climax of the movie is the reveal of Spector’s most infamous trial wig—the Jimi Hendrix-inspired afro. Using the wig reveal as a major dramatic moment is the funniest part of this TV drama. Never has a hairdo been used to spell such utter doom for a film character.

The appeal of “Phil Spector” is not to learn more about the odd man who revolutionized the music business—all the information the film provides could easily be found on his Wikipedia page—nor is it to enjoy an intriguing courtroom drama. It is to experience a work that has attracted A-list movie icons—and to see how the film doesn’t really deliver in spite of its cast.

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