The first two musicals that I remember seeing were “Wicked” and “Aladdin”. Each show, magical in its own right, had a common feature. During a climatic moment the main character is lifted off the ground, in such a way, that it makes it look like they are flying. These two moments are stuck in my mind despite having seen these musicals years ago. Due to the large impact these two instances had on my image of Broadway, I decided to look at flying in regards to actors as my area of theatrical special effects.
Within in my research, I discovered that flying machines have been used since Ancient Greek times. In Ancient Greek, to differentiate between actors playing mortals and actors playing gods, the god characters would be lowered down into the arena by a “crane like machine”(Theatre 2016). I was not shocked in the fact that actors have been flying since Ancient Greek times. What did shock me is that we have records of such things occurring. Someone in Ancient Greek times thought it prudent to record how actors were flown onstage.
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Flying a character in usually denotes some big event occurring within the show. In some shows, such as "Mary Poppins" and "Angels in America," flight is used to denote a character entrance. In others, such as "Women on the Verge," it reflects each woman's descent into a nervous breakdown. And for "Billy Elliot," the act of dancing is as liberating to the main character as flying—a metaphor, when made literal, that takes the show to another level. Flying emphasizes a point the director wants to make, leaving a lasting impression on the audience. This grand spectacle makes up for any limitations flying may have since it leaves the audience with such vivid memories that draws them back for more. The fact that a grand spectacle is what led me to research flying the first place shows just how much impact flying can have on the
Throughout literature it has been common for authors to use allusions to complement recurrent motifs in their work. In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Milkman learns that his desire to fly has been passed down to him from his ancestor Solomon. As Milkman is figuring out the puzzle of his ancestry, he realizes that when Solomon tried to take his youngest son, Jake, flying with him, he dropped him and Jake never arrived with his father to their destination.
The history of flying dates back as early as the fifteenth century. A Renaissance man named Leonardo da Vinci introduced a flying machine known as the ornithopter. Da Vinci proposed the idea of a machine that had bird like flying capabilities. Today no ornithopters exist due to the restrictions of humans, and that the ornithopters just aren’t practical. During the eighteenth century a philosopher named Sir George Cayley had practical ideas of modern aircraft. Cayley never really designed any workable aircraft, but had many incredible ideas such as lift, thrust, and rigid wings to provide for lift. In the late nineteenth century the progress of aircraft picks up. Several designers such as Henson and Langley, both paved the way for the early 1900’s aircraft design. Two of the most important people in history of flight were the Wright Brothers. The Wright Brothers were given the nickname the “fathers of the heavier than air flying machine” for their numerous flights at their estate in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville and Wilbur Wright created a motor-powered biplane in which they established incredible feats of the time. The Wright Brothers perfected their design of the heavier than air flying ma...
Staging and costuming a show for the stage requires a lot of time and hard work. When staging Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes one would have to consider how to dress each individual character and how to split the scenes to have them flow with the different characters. For example, the scene where Joe leaves Harper at the same time as Louis leaves Prior has to be staged carefully so that the audience understands what is happening. The playwright Tony Kushner allows for overlapping in conversations, but the director of the play has to figure out how to make the scene have an impact on the audience. The play examines significant themes of the time period such as religion and sexuality as well as AIDS. The play has to be presented cautiously to have a significant impact on the audience.
For my second dance show review, I went to Hollywood to watch a show called Billie Holiday Alive. This show was a performance of Billie Holiday’s greatest hits accompanied with dancing as someone portrayed Holiday and lip synced her songs. The show also took time to tell the audience an abridged life story of Holiday between each musical and dancer performance. This show was quite unique because it utilized hologram technology to show someone who portrayed Billie Holiday. It also used live dancers to accompany the hologram performance. It showed the growth from Holiday’s time to the present and her influence on how singers sang and what they sang.
To begin the novel she tells us the story of Robert Smith's first and last flight. He had "promised to fly from Mercy to other side of Lake Superior..."(1); although we later learned when "he leaped into the air"(9) he leaped to his death. Smith's flight was a way for him to escape a life he could no longer handle. Milkman discovered later in the novel that his great grandfather, Solomon, was a “flying African," (321). Susan Byrd, a distant relative Milkman had just met, told him why people around the town thought Solomon was a flying African. Solomon was a slave and had about twenty-one kids. One day he just "flew off"(323) and left his family behind. He escaped his slave and fatherly duties to supposedly fly back to Africa. To end her novel, Morrison describes Milkman's own flight. He finally discovered the key to flying was “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it,"(337) and he did.
Aladdin, a Disney Classic Movie, in my opinion, teaches kids and adults alike some of life’s most important lessons. First, Aladdin teaches that sometimes what we seem to want the most is not as we expect it to be. Next, the story of Aladdin also teaches that there are always people who think just to gain for themselves even if they seem to be our most trusted friends. Most importantly, Aladdin teaches us that one must not lie about or pretend being someone that they’re not just to impress. I have found that every Disney movie has something to teach and Aladdin, in between humor, action, and love, teaches these lessons in such a memorable way.
Leonardo provided innovative thought in the study of flight. He focused on aviation for over 23 years. Credited for using the scientific method for the first time to study flight, he observed how birds fly and then applied that knowledge to try to achieve human flight (Cooper 53). Leonardo devoted much energy into making a flying machine utilizing manually powered wings attached to a person (Kallen 55-57). Over the years, he added more and more devices to help control the plane, such as landing gear, wing slots, and a tail for steering (Cooper 53). However, he never got the flying machine to work because it weighed too much and humans could not provide enough power (53). He also made sketches for an “aerial screw” that were the basis for the design of the modern day helicopter (Hart 328). Leonardo derived the sketches from a Chinese toy that whirled rapidly (Byrd 28). The lack of a powerful enough engine to rotat...
...wed this particular component to make differences to such challenges from one dance to the next. This was possible due to Fagan’s approach to choreography that are different compared to another choreography that was designed to other Disney films turned musicals i.e. Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid. These two notable musicals have taken the stages of Broadway by storm. However, there is an ingredient missing to those shows that Taymor was able to capture from beginning to end with the Lion King. The Lion King musical gave the critics an idea how actors are moving across the stage, embodying the human and animal aspects of all characters from an animated element. It was a risky challenge that Fagan took by radically going from the negative into the positive using dance and movement vocabulary to balance structure and pacing of the highly successful musical.
The performance sets up the scene with the female dancers dressed as prominent women throughout history such as Rosie the Riveter, Nillie Bly, Mother Teresa, Amelia Earhart, and Florence Nightingale. The women take turns in the spotlight, using their movements to tell their story and significance in history. The story of Amelia Earhart was told symbolically through the performer’s actions. The audience are introduced to Earhart’s love of flying and her aspirations to be a renown female pilot through the performer’s imitation as a graceful plane flying across the stage with glee. However, her story takes a dark turn when she embarks on a quest to prove herself as a capable pilot in spite of being a woman. We see her downfall when her character, as a plane, struggles to stay in flight and eventually tumbles and falls, exiting the stage soon after to show her mysterious disappearance during her quest. The performer playing as Earhart succeeded in portraying her story and her downfall. The dancer’s performance as Earhart was followed by another significant performance which was the dance of Mother Teresa, who took the spotlight with her reserved yet expressive dances. During her dance, Mother Teresa made a notable move where she wanders the stage and places a hand on each of the women in a caring way, like a mother would do to her child. This action she performed in her dance
Canadian Air Force Office of Public Affairs. (1996). The Flying Career of William Avery Bishop. [WWW Document] Retrieved May 2nd, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/comment/bishop.html
Rafiki, who takes on the wise old baboon of the play and acts as the
Tom Wolfe explains that a career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinary high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move hig...
American musicals just weren’t proving successful- as they were focusing on the previous century’s trend of “substance over spectacle”. However, ‘Brit Hits’ became overwhelmingly successful by breaking away from the previous ideal and creating a theme of ‘bigger and better!’, focusing primarily on creating sights over substance. With casts and creative teams of the shows being larger than ever, as well as the aid of technology advancements- it proved to be the way to go! Larger sets and bigger special effects were introduced, including helicopters flying onto stage and chandeliers crashing on stage. Due to higher budgets and musical theatre reaching its peak, shows like Cats changed the way theatre published and promoted. In the past, shows had only souvenir programs or shirts, but Cats’ signature pair of yellow eyes, plastered the show’s logo, across coffee cups, jackets, ornaments, key chains, pins etc.- anything that could be thought of, changing the course of advertising. These “Brit Hits” showed a promising future for musical theatre, bringing in tens of thousands of new fans and showcasing a real ‘WOW’ factor through the ideal of big budgets, big effects, big orchestration, big casts and overall, big
There are many great musicals that the world has ever seen in the past years. Some have often brought us to tears while some may have brought to us to a world far beyond our imagination’s reach. In a world where television and the internet have often given us too many options to choose from as a form of entertainment, the soul and level of perfection still brought about by the broad way musicals are still one of the best for some of us.
The idea of flight can be traced back thousands of years ago. Even in the most widely distributed book, the Bible, can found discussing the idea of air travel. Revelation describes the sighting of an angel: “Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on earth- to every nation, tribe, language and people.”[1] The angel in this Bible verse used its ability of flight to communicate with those all across the world, similarly to how society today uses aviation as a means of transportation of people, information and goods. For years people had been trying to find way to get up into the air. The quest of air travel was in full force and “At the turn of the twentieth century, many people believed that the bicycle would lead the way to human flight” [2] People would strap homemade wings onto their bicycles in hopes of getting up off of the ground. Many died trying to find new ways to get into the air. These deaths weren’t pointless though, they all contributed to the pool of knowledge which benefited the Wright Brothers on their quest for