Poem Adaptation

          To revitalize the poem, people adapted them into more modern, popular forms, such as music, dancing, and drama.  Yesterday, we adapted a poem, Seize the Day, written by Judith Ortiz Cofer.  Generally, we all did a good job.  Especially when the time is not too abundant to prepare for the performance, all the idea we brought, and the style the performance we had are wonderful and amazing.  To be honest, for our group, we did not think too much.  We organized the poem and revised it.  Compare to the original version, we want to emphasize more about appreciation.  An appreciation of yourself, and appreciation of nature.  From the original piece, we could tell that the poem is written in a time sequence, but we blurred this sequence.  Even though it is clearer for the readers to read and to understand the context, I want to change the feelings more impressionistic.  Therefore words of the poem are more free and slower, and then, with the relaxing music that it was provided from Yun, we could slow down our living speed, taking rest and enjoying a poem.  This is a strength of our performance.  The only one weakness I found out is that during the person change, we waited too long to let the people walk down the bridge and then walk up.  Now I prefer that when the person almost finished reading, the person that he or she is going to read should step out early when the last person did not finish his or her part.  

          For other groups, they also did really well, some of them surprised me because of the ideas, the props, and courage.  Firstly, I would like to appreciate the other two groups in A periods.  For Aaron's group, they emphasized the time by circling on the stage.  Their reading and action are both quick, and it makes people feel like the time is running quick in a day, so they should precious each moment and seize the day.  It is totally different theme with us, but it is so great!  I like it so much because it is so amazing that we can feel the opposite emotion in same words and same poem.  One weakness is that sometimes one person should keep up other teammates' speed, so he started running, and then once the person ran, he could not make his voice steady and clear.  Therefore, I suggested for the people who are really tall and have a pair of beautiful long legs, please slow down and wait for others.  If I were in this group, I was definitely going to panic because of the speed.  Stella, Cassidy, and Danny's group had a knowledgeable performance.  The reason is that at the end of the performance, I heard different words in another language which surprised me.  I speculated the language is French, right? One weakness is that they should add more actions.  

          For the groups in B period, the most excellent job they did is that they added the props into the performance, which is what we did not do in A period.  Nan's group is fantastic.  She edited lyrics and put them into the music, and the song is unbelievably beautiful.  I think Nan's pretty voice add more extra points on it.  Ivan rapped well.  He was exactly on the rhythm, and he also got the feeling of swaying just like other rappers do.  He is cool, but I think it is better for him to stand up to rap.  I saw great rappers always rapping while walking or jumping.  For Helen's group, I appreciated their courage because they chose a difficult perform style.  In fact, I was also thinking about whether we should dance or perform along with the reading.  Since the reader cannot interact with the dancers, they usually seem disconnected.  On the other hand, they cannot get an equal attention.  Sometimes, readers are fully passionate, so that few audiences notice the dancers; sometimes, maybe because of dancers'  delicate dancing skill and their pretty faces, no one wants to listen to the readers.  Therefore, whatever the reason is, they somehow perform exaggeratedly, and that is so awkward.  Even the audiences feel embarrassed for the performers.  As a result, if audiences could not see the performance more than once, they probably do not appreciate the performance.  However, it does not mean this performance is not good.  On the contrary, I love their performance.  In addition, maybe some people will think they should prevent some awkward dancing movement, but my suggestion is that it is better for them to exaggerate the dancing movement even more.  Especially for the stepping flower part, I highly recommend stepping on the follower more arrogantly, brutally, so that audiences could get the visual impact and then understand why the poet write those words.