I have an art gland. Lots of people I know have art glands. But not everyone has one. Personally, I think everyone who doesn't have one is seriously missing out.
Ok. So it's basically my appreciation for art. But I call it a gland because you can almost feel it react to beauty, the way you can almost feel your pituitary gland react to sunshine for the first time after winter.
But my art gland has been very happy the past few days.
I enjoyed 5 very different types of music this week. Rehearsals for part of a concert for MNM ( http://www.festivalmnm.ca/fr/2011/prog/concert/27415/), a tabla demonstration in ethnomusicology class, (http://www.shawnmativetsky.com/bio.html), a Cappella Antica concert, and the Interpol concert. And I've seen my first ballet, Giselle (http://pda.qc.ca/pda-evenement/4249/giselle-les-grands-ballets-canadiens-de-montreal.en.html)
I promised myself this wouldn't be a music blog, but I have to say that that's an awful lot of music for three days. It's hard to take in. But I think that's when my art gland is truly at it's peak. There's so much to take in that there's no time to second guess your thoughts on it. You have to just process all the information. All of it.
Seeing Giselle was definitely a memorable experience. It was visual beauty in a way I've never seen it before. It moves. And it's being created by someone right in front of your eyes. (The music to Giselle, however, is not remarkable.) There's so much to process because there are so many levels to this art. The story and all its implications, the choreographer's interpretation of the story, how the choreographer thinks the dance represents the story and the emotions of the characters, etc. There's an awful lot to think about when observing this art-form, and it's constantly changing. Then there's also the enormous feeling of admiration for these dancers.
My art gland is busy processing quite a few things at the same time, and the easiest way to do that is to compare the new information to the last time you've seen anything like this. My art gland immediately pulled out Degas' dancers. This was a bad choice on the part of my art gland, because the art appreciation hormones doubled at the image of Degas' paintings. After a smile and a giggle, and my art gland had heaved out as much awe as it could, I could resume my concentration on the ballet.
Ew.
My hungry art gland is pretty satisfied at the moment. But could this become an addiction?
