I know the whole indie-alt-classical vibe makes perfect sense to some people and makes other people’s gag reflex kick in. Regardless of your artistic opinion on the intersection of Xenakis with fauxhawks and fixies, however, wasn’t it a pretty easy scene merge? What if one of the new music super groups reached for a style that was a little further afield from what was already in the closet, something a bit more…goth rock perhaps?
I was thinking about this and the future of the performing arts in America while watching the interpretive dance portion of the video below. If these are not the most intense, eyeliner wearing, hair swirling cellists you have ever seen, well, then you probably move in more theatrical circles than I do.
Okay, okay, I’m not seriously suggesting concert music imitate the stylistic choices made above by Apocalyptica. I don’t think it, or any music really, benefits from that much licking. But what about the art of personal style and what it communicates about a performer? I feel like we’re not paying enough attention after so much practicing (coordinating shades of button down dress shirts doesn’t count!). Costuming is a powerful tool that it seems a shame to waste. I mean, for better and worse you probably know what The Pretty Reckless is all about before anyone makes a move. And even when you don’t know exactly what a dress says, it says something.
One of the more memorable new music shows I saw last year looked like it was outfitted by a team of Project Runway hopefuls. This was performance with visible cues that more concerts might benefit from. No need to steal a style, mind you, but don’t be afraid to invent your own. This is art, people. It’s supposed to be attractive.
A new study shows that when women classical musicians dress according to professional norms their performances are judged more positively. Casual attire fell in the middle. “Nightclubbing†attire the lowest. Dress for the role and you are seen as fitting it. All very predictable. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/03/classicalmusicandopera
This also often affects women once they are in the work place, and especially in orchestras. In the professional orchestral world, a certain formality gains more respect – which for groups like women brass players is often not easy to come by.
When my wife joined the Munich Phil in 1980 there were only a handful of women in the orchestra. One of the older men would stand at the stage entrance before concerts and inspect their gowns to make sure they weren’t showing too much flesh – or at least that is what he claimed. Orchestras can be bit backward.
Orchestra musicians wear tails because that is the clothing of the domestic servants (butlers) with whom they were once categorized in European courts. Is there any point in updating our attire if we continue to play the same old orchestral music and the quasi feudalistic social structures it still embodies? Without the patrician rituals of the concert hall, even Joshua Bell is a nobody. See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
Will dressing differently change the music we create and want to play? Or will we begin to dress differently when we have a new repertoire that suggests new forms of attire?
All that said, I’m not sure the women in the video are a useful model. Most good classical musicians are middle-aged and often a bit pasty and plump. I’m not sure anyone wants to see them in the underwear and fishnet stockings licking their colleague on the next stand. On the other hand, it would probably bring a new public to the New York Phil.