http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5tz0h_mint-royale-singin-in-the-rain_music
There is a tunnel with trash on the ground, and a man can be heard humming a tune. A black man appears and stretches as brass instruments begin to accompany the tune the man in the background that is humming. Percussion instruments join in the tune that can now easily identified as Singing in the Rain. The black man, now looking slightly more athletic in appearance begins to dance along to the music, limbs swaying gracefully along to the hymn with no abrupt stops in his movement. He bends over to tie his shoe as the music begins to slow. Suddenly the music speeds up and harsher, artificially created sounds replace the harmonized uniformity of the instruments and the mans voice. A personified being made of boxes, paper towel rolls, fast food cups, and broken kitchen appliances appears and challenges the black man to a dance off with jerky movements of limb that seem to be restricted to short quick motions lacking a fluid range of motion. The black man joins in, his movements at first graceful, uniform and seeming to blend with the background melodies; however, they eventually evolve to harsher movements like those of the being of trash. Both slow to a stand still as the music quiets and loses its upbeat tempo once again. The tune returns, this time much more upbeat like modern techno and Singing in the Rain can be picked out of the beat only with straining of the ear. Another trash being is created from the abandoned boxes and fast food lifestyle forgotten in the tunnel and joins the other two dancers as move like a 1990's boy band in an MTV music video. The song evolves rapidly and the beat quickens; more trash beings are being created exponentially, joining the dance now stripped of its choreography and symmetry, a nightlife atmosphere is created as the dancing has evolved to acrobatic break dancing characteristic of urban dance clubs; chaos and disorder run rampant though both the musical tune and the movements of the dance, yet is lost, the seen is now similar to a club, yet together they seem to unify the disorder into an image of elegance and meaning. The music slows one last type to a smooth polite tempo and the trash beings slow their movements to a standstill until their limbs of garbage return to the heaps in the tunnel. The man is left alone swaying easily along with instrumental music until it ends. The black man walks away.
My observatory piece combines content and form by mimicking the chronological order and complexity of the video. The music video begins simply without any elegant detail, likewise, my piece begins simple and devoid of adjectives. As the pace of the music quickens, adjectives and descriptions become longer and more vivid, accurately depicting the motion and complexity of the video. The number of people and their actions influence the way I present my observations. The dancers are described as a whole when they move together as one unit, but they are talked about individually while they are alone or doing their own unique thing. As the tune slows once again in the end, my piece concludes simply and without descriptive adjectives just as it began.
