Class Presentations 5/11

Locavores, suffering artists, and aerial performing artists...its was an interesting night of divergent discourses our first class of presentations (for the purpose of this essay I won't include my own). The first thing I noticed was that groups that were covering one issue without splitting off were more effective in defending their point of view than groups that covered one subject matter. The second thing I noticed is that there is a lot of great stuff going on in Brooklyn!

I had heard of the locavore movement and been interested in it from going to green markets with my kids but never knew exactly what it was. Now I am energized enough to want to go to some of the restaurants mentioned and experience this first hand. I did however, have a few unanswered (due to time constraints) questions. For instance, don't you ever want a mango? I would like to have heard the view points of some die-hard locavores if they don't tire of the same locational fruits and vegetables. Surely these North-easterners tire of apples and potatoes at times? But I truly appreciated the POV and information presented and feel its really important to understand why these food movements are important to our overall health.

I found the 'Suffering Artists' presentation to lack a bit in the explanation of what exactly qualifies as 'suffering'. I would have liked to known what were their criteria for these artists to be considered as such. Surely most of us have had to do without when we were starting out in life. Particularly living in a major urban environment I had to question whether working at a job you don't love, while living in a apartment thats too small, saving your money to do what you love, was really anything out of the ordinary in this day and age. But I found the points of view of the individuals profiled to be fascinating as to their priorities at this stage of their careers and I felt they were all artists with a voice.

The aerial performers in the final presentation were a fascinating mix of athleticism and dance. I love it when performers allow us to see the strength it takes to perform. Much like dancers who make everything look so simple these performers are amazingly strong and agile. However it was difficult to imagine how difficult doing the 'silks' is because we had no comparison. I would have loved to have seen the presenters trying to do the 'silks' during their inaugural lesson trying it out. Maybe then I would have been able to appreciate it better. Overall I really enjoyed the outsider aspect of the activity and have investigated taking my kids to a show there sometime in the future.