The marquee of the new Pershing Square Signature Center.

Before the Pershing Square Signature Center opened successfully at the end of January, adding a new cultural hub to the New York arts landscape, the path to its completion proved challenging. The Signature Theatre Company made the decision to move its headquarters around 2005, when it was selected to be part of a new performing arts complex at the site of the World Trade Center. The company was one of around 100 applications for the center and was the only theater to be selected. However, after several years of waiting for progress, the Signature realized the process was moving too slow—especially given the imminent expiration of the lease at their old home, the Peter Norton Space.

“We felt like we were busting out of our clothes,” says Erika Mallin, the Signature’s executive director. “We had a 160-seat house at the Peter Norton. The cost of business was going up but the number of seats was staying the same. We really needed a way to expand.”

Mallin recalls that the company and the city—who “almost became the real estate broker for the Signature,” according to Mallin—decided to move off the space and see where to move that would make sense. “The cost of doing the World Trade Center site was becoming prohibitive,” Mallin says.

Meanwhile, real estate firm Related Companies had obtained a piece of land on West 42^nd Street. In order to build higher on the property, Related would have to put a legitimate theater in its space because of a previous agreement regarding use of the land. The land appealed to the Signature because it provided around 70,000 square feet of a flat plane where theaters could be next to each other, as opposed to stacked on top of one another.

“This was a place that we wanted to have mentioned in the same breath as other cultural institutions in the city that people check out on a regular basis,” says David Hatkoff, the director of marketing and audience services.

Unfortunately, right when the Signature agreed to make the spot its new home, progress again stopped. “Just as we sign on the dotted line, the economy crashes and the building stops, dead stops,” Mallin says. “There was a crane sitting on a puddle I could see from my old office on Ninth Avenue.” The company was unsure about its new center’s future, so fundraising slowed, but executives continued to design the building.

In November 2010, construction started again. “There was this whoosh, a freight train to completion,” Mallin says. “The building went up in I feel like seven months. The economy made it possible to buy commodities cheaper and negotiate labor because no one was working. It went up in a minute. It was a total heart attack special. Everyone was working at breakneck speed. Two years later, essentially, we opened.”

The Signature’s new home contains three theaters and two rehearsal studios, plus a café and bookstore. While the building allows the Signature to run more shows and increase its subscriber base, its mission to focus on the playwright remains the same. “The mission about putting the playwright at the center of the theatrical experience starts with an individual,” says Hatkoff. “You as the audience member are integral to the experience of theater.”

Two of the first three shows to open in the center, Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot” and Katori Hall’s “Hurt Village,” just closed after successful runs. The third, Edward Albee’s “The Lady from Dubuque,” was recently extended through April 15. New productions written by Fugard, Will Eno, and Kenneth Lonergan all open starting in May.

Mallin refers to the new center as “a great urban development story.” She says, “We haven’t changed our direction radically. There was a fear that we would be too big and impersonal, but the response has been that people are loving the fact they can be a part of the center.”

At the NYC Improv Fest, local and national improv talents dropped by The PIT, including Scott Adsit and Rachel Dratch, both of 30 Rock and UCB fame.

Six of the best minds in improv gathered at a rare symposium last month for some straight talk—sort of—about the past, present and future of the increasingly popular art form. The discussion was part of the first NYC Improv Fest, a four-day marathon hosted by the Peoples Improv Theater, featuring approximately 75 performances and workshops,  nearly 400 performers from across the country and a number of celebrity drop-ins.

PIT instructor Ashley Ward discusses the finer points of musical improv.

The speakers agreed that New York is currently experiencing a “golden age” of musical improv. According to PIT instructor Ashley Ward, who performs in musical improv group Baby Wants Candy, that form is changing too. It’s no longer a “spoof on Broadway musicals,” she said. Now the genre tackles more realistic scenarios—just with song.

PIT Director of Classes Chris Aurilio led the lively one-hour talk and Q&A among veteran “big three” New York improv theater performers and teachers: Megan Gray, Scott Eckert, Ashley Ward, Peter McNerney, Jodi Lennon, and Ari Voukydis, accompanied by his dog Walter. Together, their experiences span borders, styles and decades. Though the Saturday afternoon symposium filled most of the front seats of the PIT’s basement theater, turnout was nowhere near that of the weekend’s often sold-out performances. That said, much of those audiences was made up of improvers themselves—and that’s fine with the speakers.

“Outside influence is necessary,” Voukydis said as he petted his seemingly sentient terrier. “When someone comes in from out of town, reschedule what you’re doing and take that class,” he said. “When people start to suck is when they think they get it.”

The speakers traced New York improv from its skeevy beginnings in sometimes hardly converted strip clubs to its current mainstream renaissance, in which Magnet, Upright Citizens Brigade and The PIT function as educational and performance institutions that frequently inform network television comedies. According to Magnet Artistic Director Megan Gray, improv’s community ethos and accessibility have created momentum for the art form. “More regular people are doing it,” Gray said beneath her signature torrent of curly brown hair. “Everyone knows someone who’s done it.” That popularity means the speakers no longer have to explain long-form improv in terms of short-form TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” a reference that has become moot as a new generation of improv artists grows up without it.

Six of the best minds in improv and a terrier go into an improv symposium...

Now, as ever, improv is a genre inherently in flux. According to former Magnet Artistic Director McNerney, who paraphrased his old teacher, “There’s no correct way to do improv because you’re getting up on stage and making everything up.”

The art form changes with time, technology and type. Voukydis compared different improv styles to different styles of kung fu—all effective, just involving different methods. These days improv is moving away from old staples like tag-outs, cut-tos and even the once-ubiquitous audience suggestions.

But as always, performers are urged to “play” and “follow the fear,” a slogan that’s painted inside the stage. The panel spoke of complacency as antithetical to progress and urged performers to continually do what’s uncomfortable. For example: killing off the characters from the start or immediately failing in an important mission. As Voukydis put it, “Sometimes you have to blow up a children’s hospital.”

The Disney Princesses in order of appearance

1. Snow White

Original Name: Snow White

Author: Brothers Grimm

Original Title: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Language: German

Date of Release: 1937

Snow White was the first feature-length animated movie Walt Disney decided to make. The original fairy tale is not all too different from the actual original Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale. The queen seems to be just as sadistic in this movie as she is in the tales. (She orders the huntsman to bring Snow White’s heart to her, and cackles heading back assuming she has killed the young Snow White.

I assume since Disney was doing this as its first foray into feature length works there was a concern about getting away from the original format of the story. Also it was all perfect in a little bow. They needed to . It also set the precedent that most of these features should be about 30 minutes longer than they needed to be. The formula laid out was a few minutes of tension, a lot of time in wandering about the woods with the animals and some high quality 1937 animation.

The Disney version basically uses the characters as a way to mark when a scene is getting a darker treatment. Darker colors and more sinister imagery is used when the queen is in the picture, whereas when we see Snow White there are bright colors and the music becomes much less ominous.

It is quite odd though that this year there are two live action Snow White movies set to come out: Mirror, Mirror a week from today and Snow White and the Huntsman on June 1, 2012. The new iterations of this story coming out are not just markers of the lack of creativity in Hollywood, but they show how versatile the story can be.

Snow White and the Huntsman

Mirror, Mirror

In Mirror, Mirror there is a more playful tone the movie takes, whereas in Snow White and the Huntsman there is a much darker more serious progression.

2. Cinderella

Original Name: Cinderilla

Author: Charles Perrault

Original Title:  Cinderilla, ou La Petite Pantoufle de Verre (Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper

Original Language: French

Date of Release: 1950

I don’t know how much money Charles Perrault would have made in royalties from Disney had he been alive but I imagine I could take just a portion and be a very rich man. Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales of Times Gone By), a collection of Perrault’s fairy tales accounts for two of the most popular titles in the Disney Catalog: Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

Cinderella was a much older tale, but gained a new level of popularity when Perrault introduced the pumpkin, the fairy godmother, and the glass slippers. These are arguably the pillars of the story.

The Disney version doesn’t actually differ too much from the original of Perrault. It does differ somewhat from a version by the Brothers Grimm.

Also, in a trend that seems not to be too surprising there will be a Cinderella live-action movie starring Amanda Seyfried coming out at some point in 2013.

3. Aurora

Original Name:

Author: Charles Perrault

Original Title: La belle au boit dormand (Sleeping Beauty)

Language: French

Date of Release: 1959

An entirely new homelife was invented for Aurora. Instead of living with her family like in the original, Disney decided to have here be raised by homely fairies who put down their wands for 16 years to raise the young girl.

Some might have thought it more than a little creepy, not sweet, to have a more than 100 year old woman being kissed by a 20-something prince, so Disney decided to have the young prince slay a dragon in order to get to the young beautiful princess what seems like the very next day.

4. Ariel

Original Name: Ariel

Author: Brothers Grimm

Original Title: The Little Mermaid

Language: German

Date of Release: 1989

The Brothers Grimm too, had multiple entries in the Disney Princesses vault, including: Snow White, Ariel, and most recently Rapunzel. Though Ariel of the Little Mermaid was nothing like the original character the Brothers Grimm had envisioned in their fairy tale.

Ariel is decidedly more upbeat, maybe more naïve in the movie than in the book, where she has a very pessimistic tone. In the original she is betrayed by the young prince and pretty much commits suicide at the site of the prince and princess sleeping in bed. So, you are telling me the writers thought that was too tragic? Well, I’m shocked.

In the Disney version the prince just looks like D.J. Tanner’s boyfriend. The ending is a little bit more upbeat, with Ariel and prince Eric living happily ever after, and she has her voice.

Yes, the castle on the VHS cover of the movie does look like a phallic symbol. No I don’t believe it was intentional.

Fun Fact: Ursula’s appearance in the movie is based on a drag queen named Divine.

5. Belle

Original Name: Belle

Author: Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

Original Title:

Language: French

Date of Release: 1991

Part of the Disneyfication of these fairy tales, which is fundamental to the storytelling, is the music. The transitional outbursts are imperative, because without them the mere acting out of the fairy tale would take half the time, wouldn’t be a feature and would be forced to fundamentally abandon the structure of the original. I say this because there is a ton of great music in this movie including “Be our Guest” by Lumiere (french for light) the candlestick and a theme song by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson, which you can listen to below.

Gaston plays the misogynistic douche-bag type. Belle plays the nerdy bookworm type, and the “beast” who ends up with the girl is a not-so-good-looking, well-meaning guy. I know, how unrealistic right? It seems like a cheap rip off of an 80s high school movie, actually it sounds like a rip-off of EVERY 80s high school movie.

Within Beauty and the Beast there is a phenomenon that is particularly popular among screenwriters when the turn the fairy tale into a Disney film. Disney likes to eliminate parents, siblings, whomever else to just have the one character. That is unless of course these siblings are absolutely crucial to the storyline like the evil stepsisters in Cinderella. I would love to see the scene where Gaston tries to propose with Belle’s three burly farmhand brothers in toe to greet him at the door.

6. Jasmine from Aladdin

Original Name: Princess (She is not named in the original)

Author: Unknown, Comes from a series of tales translated into English as the Arabian Nights.

Original Title: One Thousand and One Nights, Arabian Nights

Original Language: Arabic

Date of Release: 1992

Most striking to me to find out is that actually Aladdin and the Lamp, the original, is a combination of Aladdin and Aladdin II, The Return of Jafar from Disney. So how does the young Jasmine evolve from the original Arabian Nights series to what she is in the Disney version we see? There are myriad differences, chiefly that she is more fiercely independent in the movie from 1992 than she is in the original, something that will become part of a theme for other Disney Princesses as well.

The courtship between Aladdin and Jasmine, who is called simply Princess in the original, isn’t clear enough in the Arabian Nights version. In the Disney incarnation they have a montage of singing on a very romantic magic carpet ride, but in the original it is not made clear she really loves him until he comes to save her from capture (which is in Disney’s second movie, Return.

She is much more subservient in the original, something that affects her feelings for Aladdin greatly. Aladdin in the original is actually a slacker living with his mom, but for Disney they made him an orphan and gave him the voice of D.J. Tanner’s boyfriend from Full House.

As with Belle, Disney gave Jasmine a bumpkin for a father. His bumbling got him lost in the woods and in trouble with the beast. In the original tale the beast wants Belle as a sacrifice. In the Disney movie she comes to rescue her father and lays out her slavery as a way to free her father, something that gets away from the independence theme of many of the Disney princesses.

Throughout the story the beast woos Belle and the people who have been banished to a life of servitude as furniture come to life. It may be the best ending to a Disney movie.

7. Pocahontas from Pocahontas

Original Name: Pocahontas or Matoaka then Rebecca Rolfe

Author: Historians

Original Title: Pocahontas

Language: English

Date of Release: 1995

I don’t exactly know where to begin with the egregious liberties the folks at Disney took with this film. It should be said, however, the history I have received about what happened at Jamestown is more than slightly anglo-leaning.

From what I gather Pocahontas was, like Jasmine, not nearly as independent and curious as the Disney version portrays her to be. In reality she was captured by the settlers and had a Stockholm Syndrome-like conversion and fell in love with her captors. They took her to England as a poster girl for what civilization could do for the “savages”

In the movie she is a curious girl who runs around and, “Goes wherever the wind takes her.” She also, “lived a life of freedom.” Haha, cheah, right. She was lovely and all but I mean come on. The movie makes there love seem like a Romeo and Juliet thriller with the Capulets and Montagues feuding all the while. Obviously this belies also the fact that there was a massacre of most of these people and she actually ended up with a completely different historical figure than John Smith (She married and lived with John Rolfe in reality and took the name Rebecca Rolfe)

8. Mulan

Original Name:

Author: Unknown

Original Title: The song of Fa Mulan

Language: Chinese

Date of Release: 1998

Mulan is the oldest adaptation of all the Disney princess stories. It comes to us from the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534). The original piece is actually a song, a ballad or ode to the great warrior Hua Mulan(hyperlink). She is detailed as a masculine leader. She leads people into battle and until the end it isn’t revealed to her followers that she is a woman. (The reader knows throughout because of the pronoun usage of she and her.

The movie is feature length so the details need to be fleshed out and it seems impossible to make a feature length movie out of a poem but they do it. They fill in the cracks with overwrought stuff and

9. Tiana

Original Name: Emma

Author: E.D. Baker

Original Title: The Frog Princess

Language: English

Date of Release: 2009

Tiana starts out in the Disney version the daughter of a seamstress who caters to a wealthy member of the New Orleans Jazz Era southern gentry. She saves her money to start what her father and her had always dreamed of, a restaurant.

In the original story, The Frog Princess she is already a princess. I get that it would be hard to cast a black princess in Louisiana in the 1920s and make it believable, but nevertheless, I find it a bit disconcerting that a legacy such as Walt Disney’s, with such sketchy racial dealings, would present its first black princess as a Jazz Era southern ebonic speaking daughter of a tailor. It seems off-putting to me.

Maybe they decided they would try to buck the trend and make a bold statement with this but they seemed to fall a little short in a few aspects: The prince is a mulatto mix from a false country with a French accent, and the protagonist is stuck in a frog’s body for the entirety of the film.

Fun Fact: Alicia Keys contacted the studio directly to be the voice of Tiana. Later Anika Noni Rose was tapped for the spot.

10. Rapunzel

Original Name: Rapunzel

Authors: Brothers Grimm

Original Title: Rapunzel

Language: German

Date of Release: 2010

If a fairy tale were made into a pop song it would be Rapunzel in Tangled. The trailer is actually set to a song by Pink. The newest version has the good-looking prince cast as an edgy thief (Flynn Rider) who is particularly cunning. Of course he is no match for the wits and quirkiness of Rapunzel. He gets tangled up in her, if you will. (see what I did there)

In the original she is banished from the tower she is supposed to spend the rest of her days in, her hair cut off as a consequence of plotting an escape with the prince. In Tangled they both escape and in the end it is a tear from her eye that saves Flynn Rider. Just before he is thought to be dead he saves her from the bad guy, Mother Gothel.

There are a few variations on the ending depending on which one you read. In one she is trapped in the tower forever, in the other she lives with the prince happily ever after. I know, I was surprised too, when Disney chose the happy one.

Oh Yeah, and it is computer animated. (Cheating if you ask me)

(Video): Notice they take a Pink song for the trailer.

It seems odd to me that something called a “fairy tale” should need to be changed and in some cases completely rewritten. I understand the Disney motivations

Also enjoy:

Weeks after the closure of Southpaw, gig posters still line the walls of the back stage area while metal workers dismantle the interior

“I don’t like to use the phrase gentrification…”

This exact same quote was repeated both by Southpaw owner Matt Roff in a New Yorker piece called “Park Slope is Dead,” written in advance of the February closure of the venue, and by Craig Max, the venue’s former sound engineer when I interviewed him at the venue about a week after its last event. In each case, they’re talking about the same phenomenon: the gradual changing of Park Slope, first from an urban community to a young, artistic one, and then from a young artistic community to a more adult, suburban one.

Indeed, after the venue was first announced to be closing, most every news outlet and music blog who mentioned the story seemed to also mention the nature of Park Slope. This initial article in The Brooklyn Paper goes into the topic in some depth, quoting Susan Fox, the founder of an organization called Park Slope Parents (which should say enough in and of itself) as saying “We are seeing a lot more kid-centered things. But, you know, just because we’re ‘babyified’ doesn’t mean we don’t want good music.” The blog The Brooklynian did a very good piece about the closing of the venue, which also cites the diminishing non-family life in Park Slope—but also takes a critical look at other reasons the venue may have closed.

Indeed, it should say plenty that there exists a blog entitled “Fucked in Park Slope,” which, in a very self-aware fashion “is a blog about a pretty, gentrified, know-it-all neighborhood in Brooklyn.” The January 27 post on the site was even titled “We’re All Fucked: Babies are Officially Taking Over Park Slope,” and its author, Jessica, says “Although we’ve known for a while that screamers in strollers and on foot overrun the Slope, it’s just getting out of control. They’re pushing us out just like they were pushed out of their mother’s vaginas, and there is no stopping it.”

But of course, the closing of a music venue isn’t the only sign that the neighborhood is (again) changing. In 2008, Roff actually did an interview with The New York Observer, which touches on the opening of his beer garden location, but is really a rumination on the gentrification of Brooklyn as a whole, as Roff is a lifetime resident of the borough, born in Park Slope. But, not without irony, of the Crown Heights neighborhood (where the beer garden, Franklin Park, is located) Roff says “I guess I can see the area becoming more like Park Slope down the road but it will take some time.”

The gentrification of Park Slope is far from a new phenomenon, and has been well underway for decades. In a New York Times article from 12 years ago about the changing landscape of the neighborhood, one landlord is focused on, but so is a so-called “displacement free zone,” an attempt to keep existing residents in their place. The location of this zone? Fifth avenue, the same locale where Southpaw sprang up two years later.

So, as Southpaw was once a benefactor of gentrification and the ever-evolving lay of the land, it seems to have now become a victim, as that cycle has continued to its logical ends, from urban, to artistic, to suburban.

1947 British Partition of India (August 14th and 15th):

Before:

After:

_____
Partition of Korea into North Korea and South Korea resulted after the Korean War (1950-1953) and left two politically different nations. North Korea as a communist state and South Korea as a capitalist democracy.

Before and After:

______

The Partition of Berlin after the War resulted in East Berlin and West Berlin with the Western Allies (United States, United Kingdom, and France) with West Berlin and East Berlin (Soviet Sector).

Before and After:

In Brooklyn, Ben Rubin is hoping to make his mark with My Social List, a startup that blends social media with concert listings, a ticket sales calendar and information on artists and venues. Since it launched in April 2011, the website has over 5,000 Twitter followers and gets over 500 page views a day. Ilana Novick has been using the site for a few months now, and described it as, “a clearinghouse for show announcements.”

Although Rubin is happy with the pace at which the site has grown, it isn’t enough to make it a sustainable project. My Social List is a free service and devoid of any advertising. To make money, the website is a sales affiliate of Ticketfly. If someone uses My Social List to purchase a ticket for a Ticketfly event, Rubin’s site gets a small percentage of the sale.

Ticketfly, however, partners with smaller venues like Brooklyn Bowl and Knitting Factory that tend to feature less expensive shows. Bigger and more expensive concerts use the monolithic Ticketmaster, which scaled back its affiliate program in 2010. So although My Social List features bigger acts and where to buy Ticketmaster tickets, they don’t get a cut of the profit.

“The money we’ve made, total, [is] $50, and I haven’t even asked them to send it,” said Rubin, who pays for the site with his day job as a project manager. He keeps tight-lipped about how much My Social List takes to operate, but says he puts in “literally thousands of dollars a month,” including $100 a month for someone to operate the social media side of the website.

Rubin thinks that the site could generate a revenue stream if it ever got big enough, but the problem is attracting users without betraying the Do-It-Yourself ethos of the Brooklyn music scene by turning to advertisers.

His answer is a two-pronged approach. First, he launched a campaign using the online service Kickstarter to raise money for the creation of an Iphone app that uses geo-location to direct users towards the nearest live music. In 20 days, he surpassed his goal of $2,000, and plans to release the app soon.

Second, he is sponsoring Aputumpu, a four-day music festival featuring 25 up-and-coming New York acts. Rubin has pledged some money, but mostly contributes in the form of time and using his website for promotion. He won’t earn anything from the $25 tickets, but hopes it will bring My Social List the exposure it needs. His goal is to triple the amount of users by the end of the summer.

However, bigger sites like Last.fm have launched their own mobile apps that do similar things as My Social List. Most current users don’t use many of the site’s features, so even tripling the amount of traffic doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will start using My Social List to buy tickets.

Rubin says that making money is not his greatest concern. “If I make a useful tool that the community uses, I can live with that even if I invested over five figures,” he said. “I have a passion for building websites and a passion for music. This is my hobby, my art. This is how I am creative.”

After all, it took many of today’s biggest websites like Facebook and Twitter a long time to monetize their service.  But it’s a much more common story for an online startup to never find a way to be financially successful. Like the once ubiquitous MySpace, most either shut down or fade to digital obscurity.

With concert season quickly approaching, Rubin will soon know which fate awaits his project.

Established in 1980, Marty Moyal, who goes by his first name to most people, has been in the “camera business” as he says, for more than 30 years. He started out working for Nikon as a technician, repairing cameras that customers sent back to the company to repair and then left the company after a decade to start his own enterprise.

Marty Moyal with his most prized possession-the Kodak film camera made in 1906, in his store in Queens (Neha Banka\The Palette)

Squeezed between two retail chain stores on a busy street in Forrest Hills, Queens, Marty’s shop is unassuming and very easy to miss unless one traverses the busy commercial streets with single-minded determination. On the first floor of a rickety but not shabby commercial building, about two stories high, is Marty’s small camera repair store. Up a flight of stairs, the store doesn’t have any of the adornments one might see on other camera stores with flashy advertisements and bold lettering on store fronts. On entering the store, one realizes that this store’s owner is yet to commercialize this venture. Walls are crammed with cameras and tripods perched on shelves. Almost all the four walls have a collage of film prints stuck on them, some taken by Marty himself and others by his friends and acquaintances. On one corner of the wall is a printout of his store’s listing from the website ‘Yelp!’ that lists addresses of local commercial enterprises and their reviews. Marty has a 4.5 star review rating, which he is extremely proud of and points to. An adjoining room serves as his laboratory where all the magic of repairing old cameras happens. A long table is lit by a small lamp and is cluttered with tools of Marty’s trade. The walls of the room are filled with more cameras and lens. An Israeli, Marty moved to New York when he was 25 and got into the camera business. A short, stocky build with salt and pepper hair, Marty’s heavy accent is evident in his drawl and his manner of speaking.

Marty keeps film cameras produced by Kodak as far back as the 1900s, the earliest being one made in 1906, which is also his most prized possession. It was purchased from a woman whose grandmother was a photographer, “for $200”, he says proudly. “It’s a kind of point and shoot from the 1900s”, he says as he opens the camera to display its insides.

However, despite his love for the company’s products, he says that he hasn’t been affected by the company filing for bankruptcy or will ever be affected by it.

“Its not going to affect me too much because not too many people use Kodak cameras.” The people who do use Kodak cameras are mainly those who use film for photography. “If the company goes out of business, its going to be hard to find (good) film”, he says.
Marty’s business is more than just a repair shop. He is a retailer as well. While he loves Kodak products, he keeps digital cameras from other popular companies like Canon, Nikon, Olympus as well as photography equipment and accessories like papers, lens, film, printing equipment from other companies etc and this keeps his business running. He is sure that selling digital cameras and other photography products from different companies will prevent him from being affected if Kodak’s film business collapsed.

For Marty, Kodak holds sentimental value. “That’s how I started”, he says, looking at prints of photographs he took himself. “I don’t like digital”, he says. For him, digital fails to capture the richness and the feel of the image. Moreover, he believes that with digital photography, the photograph can be altered on editing soft wares such as Photoshop which destroys the originality of the photograph. “You can’t do that with film.” With film he thinks, what you see is what you get. He is yet to see another company produce film as good as Kodak.

A trend he noticed around six months ago was the increase in the purchase of film cameras. “Most people buying Kodak products are students. Because they ask them to use Kodak film cameras. Specifically the Kodak Tri-X 400TX Professional ISO 400, 35mm, Black and White Film”, he says. His bestsellers however, remain digital.

Now even professionals are turning to digital cameras. This is mainly because its cheaper to develop pictures. Students buy film because they are taught how to process film at photography schools and develop all their photographs themselves. Hence, the cost of developing for them is comparatively cheaper to what it would be outside.

He has a loyal clientele all over the United States that comprises of mainly film lovers. Other than students studying photography, those who buy Kodak products from him are collectors. They send their film cameras to him to repair and occasionally buy antiques or collectors’ pieces. Marty himself buys antique cameras and many of those are made by Kodak.

“Kodak is a good company and its always hard to accept that a good company is going out of business.” If the company stops making the film that he requires for all these ancient relics clustered around his walls, “its going to be hard”, he says. One of his interests is to try to take photos with these old cameras finding and using the appropriate film. For the camera made in 1906, he’s having difficulty finding the right film. He hopes the company is able to make a comeback, and more importantly, be able to continue making film.

Till then, he’s going to keep clicking away.

The photographer, Tatijana Shoan, walked in quickly and apologized for her tardiness.  Shoan, fashionable and blond, tall and upright, extended an industrious hand.  Latshaw stood, smiled, and shook Shoan’s protracted hand in a flowing motion.  Shoan had come to help Latshaw begin to create her image, to help her build her brand.  Latshaw’s publicist, Pamela DePalma, had called shortly before to say she couldn’t make it, so the meeting went forward with her assistant in her place.

First, Shoan wanted Latshaw to describe herself, explain who she was and what she was doing.  Latshaw talked about how she had always been a dancer, musician, and artist, and had been writing music forever.  She moved to New York in March, 2010, and had never heard of a viral video until mid-January of this year when a clip of her singing on the subway received over one million hits in two weeks, unexpectedly launching her into the music industry and its fine-tuned machinery.

“This is great,” Shoan said, “because it really is a story from obscurity.  Nothing happens overnight, people work on this for years and years.”

Over the past six weeks, Latshaw has recorded more songs and performed many gigs.  Her publicist scheduled this appointment with Shoan in order to begin the stages of brand and image building.

“It is important for you when you walk the red carpet that people can establish who you are,” Shoan said almost immediately after Latshaw finished telling her story.  “I think with you, because you are so different, the market is looking for another Jewel, someone sweet and fun who writes her own music and sings from the heart.”

Latshaw nodded.  She spoke minimally at first.  She seemed almost out of place, in a new world she was trying to figure out as fast as it came at her.  When asked what singer she related to, she didn’t have an answer.  Later, when flipping through “As If” magazine, a magazine produced by Shoan and her partner, Latshaw recognized very few of the important profiled celebrities.

Yet, she had no problem describing herself or asserting what she wanted.  She said she feels folksy but plays classic piano.  She loves old, beautiful things juxtaposed with the new.

“You have a romantic and rustic look,” Shoan said.

“I’m low maintenance,” Latshaw said.  “I want to stay me, but I’m not opposed to suggestions.”

“More than anything, in the music industry you need branding,” Shoan explained.  “You have to have your look. […] If people don’t know what you are, they don’t know how to follow you.  They need a message.”

They spoke together about the images of other music stars (Shoan said that branding is not as important for actors).  Katy Perry strives to be avant garde.  Lady Gaga loves theatrics.  Latshaw, however, has a romantic feel.  She is bohemian.  Today, for instance, she wore a lace sundress with a brown belt and vintage brown boots, covered by a large, olive green cardigan.

Shoan began to create an actual picture of Latshaw.  Blond highlights streaking down Latshaw’s dirty blond hair with her roots showing: make her look like she’s been in the sun.  The image that appeared before Shoan was of Brigette Bardot, a former French model and actress.  Latshaw did not know who she was.  They pulled up a picture of Bardot online.

Latshaw leaned forward and looked at the picture with a sundry of bags in various colors and styles hanging on racks over her head.  All three in the meeting loved the images.

Pivete (“Street Kids,” 1993; choreography by Marcelo Marcyr)

This work portrays the life of homeless young kids on the streets of Brazil.  Marcyr was deeply shaken by the Candelaria massacre – an event that took place on July 23, 1993 in Rio, during which a group of men killed eight young people in the streets.  The men were tried for the killings, but only two of them were convicted.  In Pivete, Marcyr shows the difficulty and the joy shared by these homeless young men, who represented a large population of homeless youth in Brazil.

Anastacia (2001; choreography by Carlos dos Santos, Jr.)

This work tells the story of Anastacia, an African princess brought to Brazil as a slave in the 16^th Century.  Also a high priestess in the Yoruba tradition (African religion brought to Brazil by the enslaved Africans in the 16^th Century), Anastacia helped her fellow countrymen keep their traditions and culture.  She was also a healer. For her outspokenness, she was condemned to wear an iron mask permanently attached to her face, and she eventually died of gangrene.  She is now considered a saint in Brazil and referred to as Santa Anastacia.

Divinities (2003, choreography by Carlos dos Santos, Jr.)

This piece is about the orixas – the deities in the religion of Candomble, which developed in Brazil based on the Yoruba tradition, brought to Brazil by the enslaved Africans in the 16^th Century.  The piece portrays the Yoruba lore version of the story of the creation of the world and explores the complex relationships and hierarchy between the deities in the religion.  It also shows the intricate connections and points of intersection between the world of the divine and the world of humans.

Angeos de Rua (“Street Angels,” 2008; choreography by Jelon Vieira and Carlos dos Santos, Jr.)

This work is based on street dance and ballroom dances (Lambada, Arrosha, Swing, Gafieira) that are especially popular in Brazil.  The piece was created with the purpose of drawing attention to the widespread phenomenon of male and female prostitution in Brazil and illustrates the reality of sex workers’ lives.  It aims to defy generalization and show the humanity in each person, regardless of their occupation or the circumstances in which life has put them.

A Jornada (“The Journey,” 2010; choreography by Jelon Vieira)

In this piece, Vieira tells the story of the journey of the African people from their homeland to the shores of Brazil.  The piece uses capoeira, the traditional Afro-Brazilian martial art, as a unifying thread in telling the story of both a physical journey from Africa to Brazil and a spiritual journey through time taken by the African people in Brazil as their new identity and culture evolved.

Capoeira

All pieces performed by DanceBrazil feature Capoeira – an Afro-Brazilian martial art developed in the 16^th Century by the enslaved Africans brought to Bahia, one of the largest states in Brazil.  Not allowed to practice self-defense, they disguised practicing their fighting technique as dance – and so Capoeira was born.  For a long time, Capoeira was actually banned in Brazil as a lethal martial art.  It is now legal again in Brazil and is widely practiced all over the world.

1.The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1976

 The Velvet Underground & Nico is known for the large banana, by artist Andy Warhol, on the cover. Original copies of the album feature a “Peel slowly and see” sticker, which have now become a rare collector’s item.

2. The Beatles Yesterday and Today, 1966

Tired of routine photo shoots, The Beatles decided to cover their ninth album with a photo of the group dressed in butcher smocks and covered in pieces of meat and doll body parts. Paul McCarthy described it as “our comment on the war” and John Lennon said it was “as relevant as Vietnam.” However, Capital Records decided to print a safer photo of the group: a picture of the band smiling from their “Paperback Writer” single. In 1966, Alan Livingston, then president of Capital Records, took a case of the butcher covers from the warehouse before they were replaced with the new cover. One of the original albums were placed for sale in 2006 and sold  for $39,000.

3. Michael Jackson Thriller, 1982

Thriller was Michael Jackson’s sixth studio album and his most successful, with 45 million sales worldwide. The cover features a shot of the 25-year-old. The poster size of the image reveals there s actually tiger in this shot as well. The rarest of Thriller albums features a photo of Michael on the disc with a clear sleeve.

4. Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols, 1977

The English cover of the Sex Pistol’s only studio album features a yellow background with pink blocked text. The alternate American cover features a pink background with a block of green text. Today, both cover sales for around the same price.

5. The Eagles Hotel California, 1967

The cover image, taken by photographer David Alexander, is of the Beverly Hills Hotel. On the back of the record you can find a photo of the Lido in Hollywood. This album went on to become The Eagles’ highest selling studio album.

6. Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon, 1973

This album is known to be one of the most popular and recognizable covers of all time. George Hardie, of the design company Hipgnosis, designed the refracting prism, meant to represent the group’s lightshows. The credits on the European version of the album are written in grey text, while they are white on the American version.

7. Led Zeppelin Houses of The Holy, 1973

The photo shoot for Houses of The Holy took total of ten days at a rock formation in Northern Ireland. The crew shot from sunrise to sunset to capture the light at dawn and dusk. The models in the picture are brother and sister, Stefan and Samantha Gate. The theme was taken from Arthur C Clarke’s Childhood’s End where all the children run off the end of the world.

8. The Clash London Calling, 1978

Photographer Pennie Smith originally didn’t want her photo of Simonon smashing his bass guitar to be used as the cover of this album. She thought the picture was out of focus. Still, Q magazine named it the best rock ‘n roll photo of all time in 2002. The photo was taken during a New York show at the Clash Take the Fifth US tour in 1979. Today, Simonon’s bass can be seen at the Cleveland Rock’n Roll Hall of Fame.

9. The Rolling Stones Their Satanic Majesties Request, 1967

The original cover design of Their Satanic Majesties Request was too expensive to print  in large. The group decided to printed small photos and dress the space in a white and blue graphic design. Inside the cover, fans can find a maze that cannot be completed.

10. Lynyrd Skynyrd Street Survivors,  1977

This original album cover features a photo of the group surrounded by fire. Three days after the album was released three of the groups members were killed in a plane crash. The record company decided it was in bad taste to sell the cover featuring the flames and removed it from future copies. The cover with the flames is still very popular today.

11. Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963

This album cover was taken by photographer Don Hunstein in the West Village close to Dylan and Suze Rotolo’s apartment home. Critic Janet Maslin described the cover as “a photograph that inspired countless young men to hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the girl do the clinging”. In Suze Rotolo’s memoir,  A Freewheelin’ Time, she said this was “one of those cultural markers that influenced the look of album covers precisely because of its casual down-home spontaneity and sensibility. Most album covers were carefully staged and controlled.”