Since IU takes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, Sara and I decided to take a nice weekend trip to Indianapolis to hear the symphony and to spend some time with my grandparents. Sara hadn't met the Kerns yet, so we headed over there after the symphony and were talked into staying two nights instead of our intended one and a meal at Uncle Chris and Aunt Lisa's. It was really nice to spend a lot of time with my relatives and Sara, even if Grandpa and Chris and Adam were mostly into the football games.

The most interesting part of the trip for me was the symphony. They started with Beethoven's 6th. We were surprised when an award winning actor came out and read a monologue as Beethoven. It was maybe a bit long, but certainly different. However, the intro to the second half, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, was really great. It's a piece famous for its initial reception. To quote Wikipedia:

"The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd. At the start with the opening bassoon solo, the audience began to boo loudly due to the slight dischord in the background notes behind the bassoon's opening melody. There were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky himself was so upset on account of its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, reportedly crying... Stravinsky ran backstage, where Diaghilev was turning the lights on and off in an attempt to try to calm the audience. Nijinsky stood on a chair, leaned out (far enough that Stravinsky had to grab his coat-tail), and shouted counts to the dancers, who were unable to hear the orchestra (this was challenging because Russian numbers are polysyllabic above ten, such as eighteen: vosemnadsat)."

Before their performance, the ISO simulated this initial performance. It was really cool. First the actor, as Stravinsky, talked about the piece's conception and his collaboration with Nijinsky, and then, while the orchestra played about 10 minutes' worth of highlights from the piece, a dance troupe came out and danced what Sara told me was a recreation of some of the original choreography. Meanwhile, people stationed throughout the audience started yelling and booing. Soon a fistfight erupted backstage and a police whistle started blowing. They even had a character playing Nijinsky leaning out on the stage and yelling numbers.

The whole thing was really fun, but it was also really interesting. Sara and I discussed it afterwards; we'd both been able to imagine the scene somewhat on our own, but to actually be in the midst of it, with people shouting, being unable to hear much besides wild, exciting rhythms over the crowd, to feel the annoyance at hecklers, was really a new experience and made the riot much more real to us.