1. Experiencing the Tate Modern with Alex Ahuja (who is outwardly spoken about how much he dislikes modern art). 
2. Experiencing one of the best food experiences and one of the worst (Wagamama’s catered directly to gluten allergies and Five Guys just completely forgot to make my food). 
3. Going to St. Paul’s Cathedral (I stayed for their Eucharist and they had a female priest!) 
4. Found an Ice Lolly (think an icee pop or just a popsicle, that’s the closest you’re going to get to a snow cone around these parts because they don’t exist from what research I’ve gathered). 
5. I ate a Five Guys meal, cold at Midsummer. 
6. I accidentally bumped into the person behind me at Midsummer and they scoffed at me.
7. The cast of Midsummer was predominantly female, and they doubled A TON! Even Eugueus was a woman!
8. I found the best Caesar Salad that I have had so far and it was just in the downstairs hotel restaurant…score!
9. We had a board game night. 
10. Candace, Emily, and I found the Republic of Texas Plaque (the last remaining piece of the independent envoy because they forgot to pay rent in London). 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tate Modern Museum (at  least the two pieces of art I’m going to be focusing on) had an underlying theme of feminism and female empowerment for me. Both of these activities reminded me that even though it can suck to be a female in the arts (because oh boy can it really suck) we have got to stake our ground and let our voices be heard. 

Guerrilla Girls is an exhibit at Tate Modern that focused on the inclusion of artwork created by female’s and how there is not only a lack of this art in museums but also a lack overall and also how many artists try to conceal or change their identity to have their artwork even seen. Guerrilla Girls, is an activist group that remains anonymous but brings this message to light through rallies, producing feminism center work in all forms, and an overall support of under represented artists. These activist groups remain anonymous by wearing Gorilla masks, hence the name Guerrilla Girls. The piece of work that really got me that was in their exhibition was the advantages of being a woman artist. It listed a few reasons why it could be better, my favorites were, “Working without the pressure of success. Being reassured that whatever kind of art you create will be labeled feminine. Seeing your ideas live on in the works of others.” This gave me a sense of hope and internal fire that as a female artist and creator that the baby steps that I am making will make a difference one day, hopefully in the near future. Another great point that Guerrilla Girls make is that “Less than 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female.” That really made me think about all of the artwork that we do see, that is just simply naked women captured by the male gaze. There was one other piece of art at Tate, called Valentine. It is a representation of the female silhouette, it is naked, but it has a zipper of clothing (which is an astronaut suit) to reveal her naked body). This is to tell the story of Valentine Tereshka, the first woman in space during the US vs. Soviet Union space race. And this artwork was created by a female. I initially loved this piece of art because the nudity was simple and in my mind throughout. But after seeing the Guerrilla Girls exhibit it made me think “Was this somewhat feminist piece of art only accepted into this museum because it showed female nudity?” It truly made me rethink what I consider to be praising and destroying the idea of the feminine presence in art. 

Midsummer and Guerilla Girls go hand in hand in my opinion as females dominated that stage. It gave a new fresh light to Midsummer as even the masculine characters had more feminine attributes or initially you were sure if the actor was male identifying or not. The doubling of the characters, allowed for the females to male the “male” roles that Shakespeare had originally written, allowing for this production to be such a fun feminist, queer, gender bending, rule-breaking experience. It made me want to make more art just like this and have as many women on stage as possible because it is so important in my opinion, for female artists to see people they can identify with doing what they want to do. And each and every one of us on this trip, who identify as female, could feel a pull to not only just an actor but also characters because there were more opportunities for us to. The female representation is just touching on the amount of representation that the Globe was able to have present on their stage, they covered many minority groups and it was moving and emotional to see. This is the art I want to be creating and to be apart of. 

Our first Monday was a nice restful day. On May 29^th, I went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art, finally had fish and chips, got a new book, and read (and napped) in the park.

To describe the most exciting, London exclusive part of the day, the Tate Museum, I will be focusing on two pieces I found in the museum.

The first, Los Moscos (2004), created by US artist Mark Bradford, left me intrigued for almost ten minutes. Looking at this mixed media piece, I had the urge to just study. It definitely helped that I overall had the urge to have my “museum-stare-at-art” moment and there was a conveniently placed bench in front of the large canvas that many were walking past without a second look. However, I was also drawn in by the idea by which the Tate had grouped the following pieces together: media. These pieces were inspired by how the world has become more connected in the last twenty-five years and how that affects us on a human level. The colored paper in the sea of black looked to me very much how the inside of social media must look. It has the classic mass picture filtering effect that has become something we’ve all seen. At the same time, it felt like it could be an abstract cityscape. It speaks to how the internet is itself a city which connects the world. The piece itself is composed of paper and fragments, some of which were found on the street near the artist’s Inglewood studio in LA. The title, Los Moscos, is Spanish that translates to “the flies”. One of my favorite details is that one of the fragments of black paper has two New Balance sneakers; I think it is noteworthy that it is not a pair of sneakers, but a black sneaker and a white sneaker of the same brand.

Another piece I really loved was Interior (1949) by Alberto Giacometti. Giacometti was a Swiss artist who lived in the first half of the twentieth century; he worked both in his native country and in France. The painting is a simple scene of his studio depicted un-simply. The plaque by the painting had this quote from the artist: “Figures were never for me a compact mass but like a transparent construction.” This sums up this piece of art nicely as the lines which make up each object both solidly establish said item while also making it seem as if you can just keep looking into the studio. My eyes are drawn to the stool to the left, slightly cata-cornered from the center. There is something about the transparentness that Giacometti talked about which draws me to this detail of the piece. I love the white lines which shade and accent the work and give great dimension to it. Despite the simplicity of the inanimate figures depicted, it truly feels like you are peeking into this artist’s workshop. I believe the work was enhanced because it hung next to another one of Giacometti’s pieces, a portrait, which I did not like as much. Painted in the same style, I personally think the lines wonderfully show a set but do not attract for a portrait.

After the Tate, I went to a pub near the closed on Mondays, Borough Market. The Anchor had a sign saying it had been open since the 1700s! I had fish and chips which I had been craving since the plane touched down in Heathrow. The fish was large but deliciously covered with crispy batter. I let a bit of vinegar and lemon soak into the crisp outside and was delighted with the taste. The chips, few (although I could not have eaten more) as there were, were short and stout and a nice compliment.

To Finish the day, I popped into Daunt Books near St. Paul’s. Immediately upon walking in, I spotted Once Upon A Prime and knew I had to get it. The book is subtitled: the wondrous connections between mathematics and literature. I have only read the introduction thus far, but I already love it. Written by Professor Sarah Hart, the book explores the fundamental link between these two fields we’ve come to see as polar opposites.

After going to the bookstore, a few of us headed to the park across from our accommodations. I enjoyed relaxing in the mid-60 degree (Fahrenheit of course) weather even if it was slightly chilly.

All in all a superb blend of intellectual activity and relaxation for my first Monday in London which also brought my first week here to a splendid close.

Bonus piece which looks at geometry:

Yesterday we went to the Tate Modern Art Museum! I enjoyed looking at all of the art that was being displayed and reading about the different artists that took photographs or made paintings, and sculptures that were apart of the museum.

We spent an hour and a half in the museum and I think that was just the right amount of time for me, because while I enjoyed looking at everything I have a shorter attention span and so I just got to look around and move from room to room at my own pace.

The first piece of art that caught my attention is by Andrea Bowers and was created in 1965. It was a bunch of pieces of cardboard stuck together and there was a picture drawn on it with sharpie. I liked it because it wasn’t a huge, expensive, flashy painting / design, it was a well thought out cheap and very well made design. I could tell that the artist put in a lot of time and thought into making it.

The second piece of art that I really liked was a 3 piece painting of what looked to be just red splatter paint by Cy Twombly, and the reason that I chose this is because it reminded me of my trip to NYC over spring break when I saw Sweeney Todd with my mom and aunt. One of the Sweeney Todd posters has the name of the musical with blood dripping down and I thought that they resembled each other quite a bit, I also think this one was so impactful for me was because it reminded me of a great time with family seeing a show that I love with the people I love!

We also went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe Theatre! Originally, I really did not like reading it because the language is very hard to understand and I am just not a huge Shakespeare fan. But I have to say, I really enjoyed watching the play. I enjoyed seeing everything play out and watching it happen rather than reading it and trying to guess what is happening. I liked the costumes and I liked the audience interaction, and I really liked the music, however I did not like the seats they were pretty uncomfortable. But I would say thats the only part of the experience I didn’t like.

Overall, I really enjoyed A Midsummer Might’s Dream, I would probably see it again, and I am very excited to see Comedy of Errors at the Globe theatre!

I absolutely loved A Midsummers Night’s Dream at The Globe! It was the best Shakespeare production I’ve ever seen and kept me enthralled throughout the entire thing. The actors did a great job connecting to each other and the audience simultaneously. It was beautiful how they reacted to everything happening around them in time and acted in the moment. One of my favorite choices was scary Puck. I’ve never viewed Puck in that light, but it makes so much sense. It contrasted with the other characters in the play and created new dynamics more impactful than a playful Puck. I also really enjoyed the music, it kept me glued to the show. Another experience I had was sitting for Act 1 and standing for Act 2. I loved standing and recommended it to everyone for our next show. Being right up on the stage, I got to interact with the characters and also see every little detail of the show. It helped me stay more engaged. Also, I got to mosh! Yay!

          I also had a wonderful time at the Tate Modern Museum. I enjoy spending time walking around museums alone so I can find my own interpretations of art and be introspective. One of my favorite pieces was the Thamesmead Codex by Bob and Roberta Smith. The Smiths interviewed people living in Thamesmead, a large-scale housing project, in 2019-20. They put together the story’s these people told them and put them on painted placards. These stories were thought-provoking to me, seeing so many different perspectives of people living in the same place. Lives can be so different yet so similar. It made me remember to be grateful for everything I have and always be mindful of the moment I’m living in because it could change in a second.

Another piece I loved was an installation by Sammy Baloji. It was centered around colonialism and the mining of Copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The installation included plants indigenous to central Africa’s copper belt planted in copper mortar shells that were made from the copper taken from them. I think it was a beautiful way to reclaim the history stolen from them during colonialism.  

The two major topics that I want to discuss in this blog are A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Tate Modern Art Museum, so let’s get into it.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was entertaining and colorful. I started off sitting in our assigned seats for the first act and then I moved to the “groundling” area for the second. It was a completely different experience from both places, and I would love to stand for another one of Shakespeare’s plays because it was entertaining leaning up against the stage and interacting with the actors (we were so close we could even smell them. It was kind of weird). I thought the costuming was colorful and fun, and the bright colors meshed well with the slightly techno music playing in the background. The music was a whole other thing. It created this cool ominous feeling, but it also had a touch of club music to it. Puck even started a mosh pit at one point in the play. The acting was playful and entertaining. The only thing I didn’t like was the choice of footwear for some of the characters because it looked like they were wearing tennis shoes with paint splatter on it.

Overall Score: 9.5/10

               Set: there wasn’t really a set, but I thought the actors interacted with the stage well. I’m not going to include a score for this this time.

               Costumes: 9/10 (minus a point for the shoes)

               Acting/blocking: 10/10

Now on to the Tate Modern Art Museum. We were asked to find at least two paintings that made us feel something or that we were attracted to, and my two paintings were Interior by Alberto Giacometti and The Invisibles by Yves Tanguy. I liked the first painting because it felt very alive. The brushstrokes conveyed movement through the space, and the colors that were used made the scene feel calm like the moment just before everyone starts to wake up and the house is quiet. I felt peaceful and at rest while viewing this painting.

The second painting makes less sense than the first, and the surrealist type of art reminded me of Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. I liked this one because of the depth it conveyed. The blotchy background looks like mountains if you squint hard enough, and then the objects in the foreground are interacting with each other in a way that makes the painting feel alive. I don’t exactly know what it was about this painting that drew me to it, but I stopped and watched it for awhile.

               After we finished at the museum, we got lunch at a pub called The Anchor, and we went to Daunt Bookshop. I found a new book, and we made our way back to Russel Square for a relaxing evening. Overall, it was a pretty chill day, and I think my body definitely needed the rest.

Today we went to Bath where we explored the Roman Baths, and I got to go inside the Jane Austen museum. I only got to go through the giftshop though because after a fantastic lunch at a tiny Italian restaurant, there wasn’t enough time to go through the museum before our time to go through the Roman Baths. I definitely want to go back and explore more because I didn’t feel like I had enough time for the city. While we were there, I got hit by another pigeon, so I have now been hit by two pigeons and almost “attacked” by a monkey. I’ve started a running tally of animal incidents that I will update as they occur.

After Bath, a group of us literally sprinted to go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It’s about a man who ages backwards, and the music reminded me of sailor shanties. It was by far my favorite play we’ve seen so far, and all of the actors were insanely talented. They each played instruments in the play (some played two or three) and they had lovely voices. The acting was also some of the best I have seen thus far, and the lighting designer of this play deserves a raise because it was beautiful. I give this play a 10/10, and it doesn’t need a breakdown of scores because it was tens across the board.

One exciting moment at the theater happened during intermission. I was going to the restroom when I saw someone who looked awfully familiar. The longer I looked the more I finally realized that Rebel Wilson was at the theater. I was about five feet away from her, and we made eye contact. I might have freaked her out because I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open when I realized it was her, but it was still pretty cool to be in the same room as her. We didn’t get a picture though because the look she gave me back seemed to say “please don’t say anything just keep going on with your day” so we left her alone.

It was a pretty cool day even though this “hay fever” is slowly killing us all. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time ❤

Yesterday we embarked on one of my favorite activities, art museuming! We walked through all the pigeons and across the Millennium Bridge to get to Tate Modern Art Museum. This museum was huge with over four floors full of free art and cheap exhibits. We were set free to wander around and view all the beautiful paintings, sculptures, and movements that were encapsulated within the walls. I was able to see Picasso’s paintings, which felt insanely surreal. I saw my first Matisse painting in person, in which I audibly gasped when I turned the corner given that I was able to see my favorite artist’s work in real life. Seeing the Guerilla Girls exhibit was also so colorfully emotional. I even saw the famous Dadaism Fountain! Well, a replica of it of course. My freshmen year art history professor would be proud of me for vaguely recognizing so many iconic pieces and the movements that they attract. I only made it through half of the museum, but I feel like could spend forever in that place.

However, after exploring the gift shop and grabbing an overpriced burger, we met up at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. We saw Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was very exciting given that it was a script that we discussed in class prior to the trip. It was a great experience to see our questions and discussions come to life on stage in such a beautiful theater. Though the seats were uncomfortable, the stage was amazingly detailed, and the play was just as rewarding. It is always hit or miss seeing how directors and theaters choose to portray such a classic script, but this adaptation made a Shakespearean script fly by in no time. With a beautifully diverse cast, flamboyantly entertaining costumes, and great comedy, this show was probably my favorite Shakespeare performance yet! I would’ve never guessed the Globe would transform this script into a performance that felt so new and fresh.

For our first Saturday in London, we had two items on the agenda: St. Paul’s Cathedral and A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream in the rebuilt Globe Theatre.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is a beautiful looming building just off of the River Thames. Walking to the church from the Tube stop, we passed Paternoster Row. I was excited to find this street as 13 Paternoster Row is a location the Doctor visits in Victorian London in the show Doctor Who.

At St. Paul’s we were shown around by our London certified tour guide, Molly. She told us about the history of the site of the church, the building of the church, and the monuments throughout. At 11, a priest came and led a prayer. In the back of the church, there is a room called the American Chapel which honors Americans who fought in WWII and has symbols for all the states in the stained glass. The ceilings are arched and ornately decorated throughout. Underneath the main floor is the crypt with graves ranging from simple stone inscriptions on the floor to an entire sarcophagus.

 A group of us hiked to the tippy top of the cathedral (an almost 600 step trek). There is Whispering Gallery where your whisper bounces back to you and which overlooks the main sanctuary area, but it was sadly closed so I did not get to actually test it out. The first set of stairs is the same for going up and going down and are quite wide. Once you get past these stairs, the rest of the staircases are so narrow you cannot turn around with a set of stairs for the upward journey and a set for the downward journey. There was a deck that was surrounded with tall stone pillars and overlooked the city which reminded me of looking out at Dallas from Reunion Tower. Here you could decided if you truly wished to go to the top. I accepted the challenge. Although, I did not know what I was getting into with the last set of stairs. I had to make my way up a very narrow black spiral metal staircase; then, I made my way up a short stone staircase that I could not stand up in. While these last stairs (especially the spiral staircases) had me doubting the last of my quest, I was rewarded with an amazing eagle eye view of London. I was awed to look out from what much be one of the highest points in the city. I am so glad that I braved the many stairs for that view!

From St. Paul’s, we went across the Millennium Bridge and arrived at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The theatre was rebuilt using old plans in the 1990s by an American and is the only building in London approved for a thatched roof. A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream was a very enjoyable performance. After watching it, I gained a greater understanding for the play itself.

We sat off to stage right but had a great view as the play was stage to take advantage of the globe. The actors frequently would turn their backs on the audience directly in front of them and I was able to see their entire face. The play opened with an exciting prologue dance full of pomp. Throughout the play, music was a character enhancing the actors’ performances and subtly changing the scenes. Sometimes the actors would come onto the stage through the audience making it an immersive experience. When Demetrius was in the forest with Helena, he was looking intently for Hermia; at one point, it felt like he was looking right at me.

All of the actors, except the six playing the four lovers, Robin/Puck, and Bottom, played an Athenian and a fairy which gave a more fanciful dream-like quality to the reading of the play. The production felt like a wonderful blend of Elizabethan and modern. One of my favorite aspects was when Titania falls asleep, a rope net was hung from the Heavens (the balcony on the stage) to Hell (the trapdoors of the stage) for her to lie in. This was a clever way to keep her very present onstage but out of the way as the drama between the four Athenian youths plays out.

The play concluded with a choreographed dance between all of the actors. It was a fun experience to sit and clap along with the audience while the actors swung around on stage. We don’t always think of it this way, but productions during Shakespeare’s day were full of music and dance. I really loved getting to see a play, especially a comedy, full realized with the music and dance elements. At one point even, music that felt like it should be at a club came on when only Puck was on stage. The actress completely broke the fourth wall and encouraged the groundlings to mosh around, “up, down, up, down” like they were under her control. The production leaned into the magic of fairy-land with amazing planning to have the actors seem like they were truly being controlled by Puck.

This was really an incredible day full of amazing experiences! 🙂

p.s. I did have the urge to get up on stage at the globe and yell, “Expelliarmus!” in the vain of David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the series 3 episode The Shakespeare Code of Doctor Who which did film some scenes at the rebuilt Globe Theatre.