Category: Student Life Blog

This is a student life blog.  I am going to introduce my experience for watch the theater show. This play is call Arden/Everywhere.

Arden/Everywhere, the “As You Like It”, directed by Jessica Bauman. It is a contemporary dramatic rendition of Shakespearean play that tackles the controversial issue of refugee of immigrant. Also, it is a powerful and profound story reading refugees’ life.

However, it only runs on October 8^th to 28^th. If you interesting, you can search the play in the YouTube or let me introduce it.

Arden/Everything was set in a country which there has been a coup. The old Duck moved into the Forest of Arden, where they have become refugees. The good Duck’s daughter, Rosalind, embarks upon a mission to find her father with her cousin Celia, after falling for Orlando. Rosalind disguised as a man for protection. In the other line, Orland runs away to Arden to save his life from his evil brother Oliver. However, Orland’s brother comes to Arden to find Orlando and kill him but he attacked by a dangerous gang of man in Arden. Orlando saves him immediately and they reconcile, but Orlando is hurt. The daughter of Duke Francis Celia approached Orlando and fall in love with him. In the end of the play, Rosalind takes off the disguise and be a woman, she is reunited with her father and gets marry Orlando. They leave Arden, leaving the rest of the refugees to continue their life.

Each character has vivid body movement and expression which the audience can easier to understand the story. For example, the fight is exciting and fierce when the Orlando fight with a dangerous man. It attracts the audience to focus on the stage when the fight in slow-motion. The light and background music make the action stronger. Also, this scene is a turning point which they change the relationship between Orlando and Oliver. Orlando gets hurt and lies down on his brother and they reconcile. According to their verbal language and action, the audience realizes family love can overcome everything.

Arden/Everywhere is a success story. It conveys the main theme of love and overcoming reality situation. The character came from different country and own experience but they into the Forest of Arden and live together. People will understand refugees’ experience and life. The audience has a different perspective to analysis this play. Love, family, and friendship. I strongly recommend you watch the play and enjoy it.

 

On October 19, 2017, I went to see a play called Arden/Everywhere at the Baruch Performing Arts Center with my friend Hillary. It was my first time seeing a play at Baruch. The show runs from October 8th to the 28th at the Rose Nagelberg Theatre. Arden/Everywhere demonstrate a story about the different culture of refugees. The play begins a with a wrestling match between Orlando, the main lead and his brother Oliver. Rosalind, the main lead fell in love with Orlando at first sight. Rosalind was forced to leave by her uncle, Duke Frederick, so she disguised as a man and ran into the Forest of Arden with Celia and Touchstone. Orlando escape to Arden when he heard that Oliver is trying to kill him from his servant, Adam. They came upon many refugees in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind approaches Orlando dressed like a man and they fell in love. The hatred between Orlando and Oliver turned into forgiveness. The play ended with Rosalind reunited with her father and four couples are married. All of them left the Arden Forest leaving with the refugees. The play was great. I like the music they put and the song the casts sung. Many different languages were also spoke during the play. Since the play is an adaption of Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, the Shakespearean English is hard to understand without the synopsis. There are a few characters so some actors something has to play multiple roles in the play. It’s also a little chilly in the basement even though I was wearing two long sleeves shirts.

In October, Tony, Murphy and I went to the Baruch Act Performing Center to watch the play for our class assignment, “Arden/Everywhere”. The play is based on “As You Like It” written by William Shakespeare. The story talks about the complicated love between the characters. The play revolve around the conflict between Rosalind(Helen Cespedes) and Orlando(Anthony Cason Jr.) As Rosalind fell in love with Orlando at first sight after a wresting match planned by his brother Oliver(Kambi Gathesha), to kill Orlando, each of them had to flee to the forest of Arden to escape their death. Ultimately, Orlando and Rosalind overcome numerous hardships and married.

This is not just a simple romance, it is filled with the love of family, sympathy, and the pursuit of dreams. The interactions between characters made the play more enjoyable.  The director used breaking the fourth wall by the characters to increase interactions between the actors and the audiences. There is a fighting scene that amazed me the most during the entire play. They used slow-motion and lighting to capture the motions of the characters.

Over the play is meaningful and has a happy ending. This is a rare comedy play from William Shakespeare, and it’s a great production of theater. I like the play because of the production of this play is phenomenal, my favorite part of the play is at the end of the play, Orlando married Rosalind, and Duke took back his throne, and last but not least, everyone has a happy ending.

Me and my friend Ji Na went to Baruch Performing Arts Center’s play called “Arden/ Everywhere the “As You like It “Project” directed and produced by Jessica Bauman on October 19. The main concept of this play is to connect people with refugees.  What I like about this show is that before entering the theater, there is someone who will be handing out playbills with a synopsis inside. “Arden Everywhere” is adapted with Shakespeare language so it might be hard to understand, but if you follow along with the synopsis you will have a better understanding of what is going on in front of you. I also really enjoyed the music. Sometimes when I lose focus on the play, the music rivets my attention. When the song and music is soft, I felt calm and relaxed. When the music and song is upbeat, I felt my heart pounding, feet tapping, or mentally clapping with the song.  I have a few favorites cast members. Actress Helen Cespedes who plays Rosalind and Liba Vaynberg who plays Rosalind’s cousin Celia did amazing in the show. The audiences can feel the deep connection between the two characters. They were close and touchy, we can felt the intimacy. On the side note, I was really cold in the theater. Not sure if that’s the intention of the play because the story is happening in the winter or was it just because of the ac of the building on high.

A while ago, my friend and I went to Baruch Performing Arts Center to watch a play called  Arden/Everywhere. The director of the play is Jessica Bauman and she gave us a glance into refugees’ life. The story was set in a Modern time and located in a country where a coup happened. After the coup, the old duke moved into the Forest of Arden which symbolized the refugee communities. I would say the play is successful. I had watched some Broadway show before but hadn’t seen a small production until this play. The show did better than my exception; its visual effects and actors performances are extraordinary.

The theater.

The theater was small and seatings were not assigned. Thus we just found a spot and sat. To be honest, the play is hard to understand. The style of English, Shakespeare, is hard to understand. I did keep track with the story with the help of synopsis, but I can’t understand many dialogues between characters. Though some fun were missed, actors performances did make some compensation for it. Actors acted vividly, and they present the story well. Moreover, fighting elements and lighting effects incorporated perfectly. There was a fight scene in slow-motion. The fight is very intensive and exciting. The change of lighting showed transaction between fighters and created a breath-taking environment. Before I thought small productions with have little visual effects and a lot of dialogue; I guess I was wrong.

Beside from the acting, the play gives an insightful story. The ending is striking and thoughtful on the issues of refugee and made people think. In conclusion, this is a good play. For those who didn’t see it, I am sorry that you missed it.

On Friday, the 6th i went to the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) game night at 6 pm. While i was waiting until 6 i was hanging around the school and discovering new buildings in the school, because there were many places that i didn’t visit because usually after my classes ended i go straight back home. Only for this reason, the game night i stayed in the school and found out many new and cool buildings in our school, such as the building where we can use computers which is located in 6th floor of the library and i finished some of my homework while waiting for the time to pass. And finally at last, when i went to the game night, i first sign in and sat there for a while until a guy approach to me and started talking to me because i was alone and had no one with me. We talked many different things like our school and majors that he is in, and i learned that he has the same major as me which is accounting, and the people in the club were very friendly they were nice and offered me some drinks. Even though i didn’t went through the whole game night because of some reason but i still enjoyed the time while i was in there. I had a really good experience in that game night because that was the first club events that i went to because i was so lazy to attend the other clubs events that were on Thursday, and this is really good experience for me to have because it introduces a new life for me since i have never went to any other club events and i was afraid that these club events will be scary and such. But overall it was a great experience and I’m looking forward to other club events that will be happening in Baruch.

For my student life blog, on Monday October 9th, I went to watch the play:“Arden/Everywhere: The As You Like It Project”. I decided to watch this play because I need to write the assignment on this show to my Theatre course. I knew this show runs October 8th to 28th in the Baruch Performing Arts Center and it only cost me 16 dollars as a student. The director Jessica Baumann finds the darker shades, as well as topical resonance, in another of shakespeare’s comedies,”As You Like It.” And this story of exiles in love and in conflict  becomes a meditation on immigrants and refugees today, and it is i multilingual cast that mixes amateurs with professionals. In fact, I watched one play call:”A streetcar Named Desire” by Anderson Deeann in St. Ann’s Warehouse before. I was not really like watching plays because i think it is very hard to get their meaning and boring. Compare to the movie, it is lack of battles scenes or romantic scenes. Thus, when I watched the play, i almost fall asleep, but in the performance, I could feel they all radiated confidence and energy as they told their stories in English, it movement sequences, in song.  At last, I serious finished watch this show. they all performed very well, it is full of non-verbal storytelling and music, it a great introduction to me who is unfamiliar with Shakespeare.

My first try to attend health and wellness event was not successful since the Yoga class was cancelled. However, I had one more event in my schedule as a plan B – Karate/Martial Arts/Self Defense.

I was hesitating whether to go there or not, because I knew absolutely no one there and had no clue what the event will be like. But my feet just kept going and led me to the room with a few people in it. When I first peaked inside the room I found sensei, Peter Flores, and his assistants among other students, and I liked that so much. This was not kind of class where teachers would just stand in front of the room and just explaining the material. They were involved in the process deeply and had a desire to teach us their knowledge.

The first thing we did was we split up in pairs and slowly practiced the moves sensei was showing us. While we were doing these steps, he explained the purpose behind them and insisted on mindfulness. Fun fact: sensei was counting in Japanese, what confused me first, but then it was okay.

Repetition, repetition, repetition… That’s what we did when we encountered new maneuvers. Peter would fight with his assistant for a bit, showing the ways we can implement our new knowledge and different combinations of the moves. It was interesting to imagine that someday I can be also fighting like that!

During this class we learned how to escape from someone’s hand, how to escape from someone’s attempts to choke you and we also learned basic karate moves. We learned that the amount of moves we make should be minimal, but with maximum purpose.

After the class I went home with the idea of learning more about Karate and Martial Arts.