Yuga Wang is a brilliant young pianist and artist, also a beautiful Asian woman. Why does she insist on taking to the concert stage dressed, very often, skimpily and thus distractingly and in ways that draw as much attention to her dresses as to her most flawlessly executed playing of the world’s most beautiful music? (How much do I feel like a puritanical, hopelessly square nudnick for even asking the question? And at this stage, I acknowledge that experienced music-lovers and concert-goers are probably quite inured to –and dismissive of –Yuga’s wardrobe and might even rush for tickets to see just how sexily and colorfully clad Yuga will emerge from back stage on her way to the piano bench, then forget all about it as she crashes down on the first chords of Beethovan.)
She has lovely legs, which I appreciate. Her short, revealing dresses often let us see a good deal of them well up on the thigh. But I, for one, want nothing to distract me from the appreciation of the beautiful music. Okay, the average cabaret chanteuse might be dressed provocatively while singing Cole Porter. And what female rock star doesn’t give us pounds of fleshly eye candy? But…can’t there be a sedate,”classical” distinction made for the concert hall?
Who cares anymore?I shouldn’t, I suppose. Perhaps it’s that I’m chagrined see the norms-smashing spirit of the age invading one of the last sanctuaries of classical culture, i.e., that same concert hall.
And in an age in which we all vye for attention and boldly shout our body image and in which people asking questions such as I just asked are shamed for “body shaming,” I guess I’d better take the hint and go back into my 17th Century cloister.
And who of us, male or female, is fortunate enough to know we could fall back on being a model if the piano thing doesn’t work out?
And I guess this is the Age of Marketing. Talent isn’t enough. You need to Stand Out.
Our age might also come to be known as an age of E.I. (Expressive Individualism) and (SEPS) Sartorially Excentric Public Statements , and most especially, TSOEIOFOA (The Sexualization Of Everything In One Form Or Another).
I don’t question Yuga’s artistry. I’m no prude, puritan or saint but rather see sanctity in the work –or artistry –of modest people (in every dictionary definition of that word) who go about their diurnal tasks conscientiously , calling attention, not to themselves, but to that artistry or other products — abstract or concrete — of their hands, be it an exquisitely well-made cake or a brilliantly played concerto.
If it’s not a ballet, opera or broadway show, why is a “costume” required?
But maybe I’m risking being cast into the outer darkness with all the other cultural rubes and cranks by failing to note the eternal tendency of artists to shatter norms. Perhaps the stodgy atmospherics of high culture were doomed to be dispersed by gusts of supposedly fresh air.
Maybe the banner over Yuga’s Steinway should read, T.E. (That’s Entertainment).
The banner over all our lives should read V.V.A.T.A.V(“Vanity, vanity, all things are vanity.”)
And let’s not forgot the words of the poet (T.S. Eliot, being that poet who never lived to see his Cats in costume under the bright lights): “With pungent sauces multiply variety/ In a wilderness of mirrors.”
Yuga herself just says with a thoroughly ingenuous shrug that she simply likes to wear certain kinds of stuff. She actually seems oblivious to the norm-shattering. And while they can mandate dress code at places like a golf course, who ever said venues of public performance should impose such a code? I guess someday someone will go out there naked. Expressive Individualism probably knows no limits. So be it — I guess.
And I guess I should go see what further things Yuga herself has had to say about those signature non-musical elements of performance and about her insistence on making bold fashion statements.
This is from her after a September, 2018 performance in Houston when asked about her choice of outfit:
“I don’t have anything to say, really. I like looking good. I love heels. I love a concert dress that matches the piece I’m playing.” ( I wish I knew what piece she was playing and how she dressed for it). “I thought in Houston,” she went on,” I just wanted to be sparkly.”
I bet Houston, hub of oil and aerospace, has never been more sparkly.
When she played the Hollywood Bowl in 2012, she said,
“I can wear long and black too. I like being versatile … I wanted to do the shock value.”
Ah, so she does like having shock value in her repertoire. (Did I seriously doubt it?) As she ages, her legs might begin to lose the taut shapely tone that she now believes compliments her Steinway’s tone but is far more likely to excite the likes of ZZTop who do a whole song about legs.
She was a prodigy and I’m told there’s video of her at the piano at age seven in pigtails and a sweet little white dress.
Ah! Perhaps that’s the purity for which I long.
Shock us with radical innocence, Yuga. Wrap yourself in flowing whiteness and modesty and let us concentrate on Mozart, not your yams.
19 Cent Notebook 