The Performer
Jul. 19th, 2012 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotThe performer speaks easily, giving interviews in English, but careful, too. Not spilling her guts, or spilling the beans, either, should she have any in her big backpocket. She watches a dance rehearsal clip, along with the interviewer, confesses that she hates that it shows her without makeup. She continues speaking, a level tone, describes the effect of YouTube, "Even though music has no language and has the power to break any walls," she says, "YouTube and the Internet have definitely made it easier for people to check our music out and look at our videos." You notice that she's speaking not only in complete sentences, but that she's forming them fully, subordinate clauses and all. "More than I can do, on my feet," you say to yourself. The interview continues, the thoughts steady, though rarely rising above platitudes. She explains that for the fans these days it's not just about listening to and feeling the songs, but about expressing themselves just as the performers do. So the group makes sure that among the dance moves, there are some that are easy enough for the fans to copy.
You yourself track her on YouTube, see her on the reality show, in her own language talking faster but more pensively, posing and answering questions in soliloquy, you watching the subtitles, she wondering if in five years, when the contract is up, would she re-sign. What if the energy isn't there? Her words are fast but the thought comes slow. She doesn't know. Would she have the spirit to start over?
Then the music clips, the real thing, onstage, 100 quantums of greater life, her hips nonstop and her face lit beyond joy into total incandescence, the exuberance of a four-year-old's first day at the seashore, feelings on the surface, hurts and happiness. In an older music video, a boyfriend lacing into her, she with pure incomprehending pain, obsessional, unbelieving, then murderous frenzy on the roadway. Then, back further still, an early showcase, 2009, at 18 the second-youngest member of the group but nonetheless the leader, hopping around, yelping and yo'ing to direct the audience's attention, wearing all her personas at once, running breathlessly through Lauryn Hill's difficult "Doo Wop (That Thing)," a bit of struggle but vastly more touching than the original, Hill's preachiness absent, just a young woman taking it to heart, "How you gon' win when you ain't right within, how you gon' win when you ain't right within?" Then, an impish grin, "Girls, you better watch out/Some guys are only a-bout, that thing," and then, rather than singing "that thing" again, she indicates the thing by caressing the mic head in her underarm. Second time through, "that thing, that thing, that..." and she places the mic on her tit, nods knowingly, gleefully. Then, counting off for her bandmates, each on a solo turn while she punctuates and gesticulates in the interstices, directing traffic, and then once more it's her turn: "I go by the name of CL of Twennyone, it's been a long time comin', but we 'bout to set the roof on fire, baby, you betta get yours, 'cause I'm gettin' mine," hands in the air, career and fame to come.
[I wrote this for a writers group, thinking I'd like it to be comprehensible to people who didn't know the music and didn't have links to direct them there or embeds to watch. Sorta a rewrite of my Artist Of The Year blurb, but I wanted to start from scratch.]
You yourself track her on YouTube, see her on the reality show, in her own language talking faster but more pensively, posing and answering questions in soliloquy, you watching the subtitles, she wondering if in five years, when the contract is up, would she re-sign. What if the energy isn't there? Her words are fast but the thought comes slow. She doesn't know. Would she have the spirit to start over?
Then the music clips, the real thing, onstage, 100 quantums of greater life, her hips nonstop and her face lit beyond joy into total incandescence, the exuberance of a four-year-old's first day at the seashore, feelings on the surface, hurts and happiness. In an older music video, a boyfriend lacing into her, she with pure incomprehending pain, obsessional, unbelieving, then murderous frenzy on the roadway. Then, back further still, an early showcase, 2009, at 18 the second-youngest member of the group but nonetheless the leader, hopping around, yelping and yo'ing to direct the audience's attention, wearing all her personas at once, running breathlessly through Lauryn Hill's difficult "Doo Wop (That Thing)," a bit of struggle but vastly more touching than the original, Hill's preachiness absent, just a young woman taking it to heart, "How you gon' win when you ain't right within, how you gon' win when you ain't right within?" Then, an impish grin, "Girls, you better watch out/Some guys are only a-bout, that thing," and then, rather than singing "that thing" again, she indicates the thing by caressing the mic head in her underarm. Second time through, "that thing, that thing, that..." and she places the mic on her tit, nods knowingly, gleefully. Then, counting off for her bandmates, each on a solo turn while she punctuates and gesticulates in the interstices, directing traffic, and then once more it's her turn: "I go by the name of CL of Twennyone, it's been a long time comin', but we 'bout to set the roof on fire, baby, you betta get yours, 'cause I'm gettin' mine," hands in the air, career and fame to come.
[I wrote this for a writers group, thinking I'd like it to be comprehensible to people who didn't know the music and didn't have links to direct them there or embeds to watch. Sorta a rewrite of my Artist Of The Year blurb, but I wanted to start from scratch.]
Links
Date: 2012-07-19 07:12 am (UTC)http://youtu.be/hsLUhp9AWpo?t=3m29s
Soliloquy (2NE1 TV Season 3 Ep. 10):
http://youtu.be/9jE3wFlMXDo?t=20m17s
Beyond joy into total incandescence ("I Am The Best" live in Singapore):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T395Nuoi7rM
Pure incomprehending pain ("Go Away" MV):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yW13T2sfKg
2NE1 Showcase mid 2009 ("That Thing" etc.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDjqQkLwUo0
Re: Links
Date: 2013-08-27 05:41 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5C0SKA_sHU