Today, watching Kazu Ohno’s “Admiring La Argentina” I have come back to an old thought of what is indeed art? I have really started to compare the popular art and the more “niche” type of art such as contemporary dancing, classical music, contemporary music, abstract paintings and, today particularly, Butoh. When I discovered the true beauty of classical music and then jazz (something that some people find it hard to understand and it might look boring to them) I have started to analyze more the way I perceive pop-music and try to understand why it is more easy to me to relate to it, why is it catchier, why a lot of people can immediately enjoy a Beyonce song but not a piece by Brahms. To me it was more of a inertial experience since I have been studying classical music for a while through playing the violin, I have discovered and understood first how it is/feels to make the music rather than just be a passive spectator and then, after a few years I have started to consciously try to make myself more cultured within the classical music context as I thought I am indeed obliged to know more since I am declaring myself to be a classical violinist (and having spent 8 years in a music school). That is how I have started to understand and to enjoy classical music. The more I had listened to it, the more I have played, the more I would forcefully and consciously try out different composers and interpreters I started to grasp the musicality and sensitivity within it, but it indeed took me a few years of personal research and even nowadays, sometimes some pop songs get me obsessed with them after listening to them for the first time.

Now, after a few years of brain break I have again came across the same question. Would it be the same? In order to truly  understand and appreciate and be really engaged with a Kazu Ohno piece, would I have to have years of research? That to just be able to enjoy an hour performance of his without getting bored?

In one of his interviews, Kazu Ohno said that art is not something you can teach. Art is something that comes naturally out of one’s body and mind and that he is not looking for people to understand what he is doing in his piece. He had several people tell him that they started crying during his performance. He said something along the lines:” That is all I want from them, they don’t need to understand what I wanted to do. I am very glad that my performance made them have all those emotions.”

That is indeed art to me as well, when I can feel something just by looking/listening to a certain performance, but is art also educative? Do we need to educate our selves in order to enjoy certain types of art or should the appreciation be just a subjective response?