Red-handed (rehearsal)

Choreography by yours truly.
Dancers Ali Burkhardt and Mercedes Johnson.
Music: Tibetan Singing Bowls

Trey McIntyre Project

Jiri Kylian's Sweet Dreams

I'm researching Jiri Kylian for a paper for my ballet teacher Eve Walstrum, who danced for Jiri in his Nederlans Dans Theater.

One of my current favorites - 'Sweet Dreams' from the Black and White Ballets. There are dozens of green apples used throughout the piece as props, and the choreography itself is creatively architectural, sometimes sexual and oftentimes surreal. Basically every moment makes an amazing image...

Balanchine's Jewels

Some reactions to one of Balanchine's classics.

Emeralds: looked like a dance recital, showing off technique with a stiff smile and no apparent motivation, very symmetrical and didn't hold my attention

Rubies: hoppy feet, sassy hips, and flinging high kicks looked like an attempt at spunk but came across as awkward and unnatural. dancers looked very stiff and worried about messing up

Diamonds: pretty in white, unexpectedly tame after rubies, elegant moments but not enough sparkle

Did Balanchine tell his dancers to push through their ankles so they're off their pointe shoes? I saw a lot of dangerous looking ankle positions.

Mad Circus

First Friday show at Ong King, dancing with Mercedes Johnson in costumes by Heather Cooper.

The show was packed! First Friday, a night of firsts: being in a circus themed show along with aerial dancers and storytellers, magicians and yes, a pole dancer. Also first time I improvised a solo in front of an audience.

Baryshnikov

My PT likes to show me this picture of Baryshnikov's feet to prove how much muscle strength I need in my feet for dancing...

He never ceases to amaze.

Vestris:

the solo from White Nights:

Missing Bounce

Where did all my hip hop go?

Diggin that tight relationship with the music here...

Anna Halprin

Postmodern choreographer, dance therapist, life-long dancer.

Pina Bausch

Read/skimmed through Pina Bausch and the Wuppertal Dance Theater: The Aesthetics of Repetition and Transformation by Ciane Fernandes this afternoon. Pretty academic but there are some interesting theories/interpretations, and the descriptions of Pina's dances are fascinating. Reading even a dry, precise description, I can clearly imagine the intensity of the performance. Some of the set-ups are so fruitful and dramatic. For instance, two male-female couples: One couple - the man tries to touch and dance with the woman and the woman wants to dance by herself, the other - the roles are reversed. To me, just that situation has so much spark to it.

Instructing couples to describe how they laugh while dancing together...

"But you must remain perfectly serious. I want to hear not how you laugh but how you laughed, how you used to laugh in the past. There is not very much to laugh nowadays... You don't have to tell us the reason, only how."

-Pina Bausch (pg 28)

Pina Bausch asks her dancers to describe how they cry...

"When I cry, I feel it in my throat; it gets big, and my breath sticks there. Later my head gets big, and if I try to speak, my voice is lower than usual. If someone is there, I try to laugh a bit. And when I see people I try to keep my face quite still and my throat too. Everything is closed, and the tears come down."

- Nazareth Panadero (pg 27)

"What I do - watch....Perhaps that's it. The only thing I did all the time was watching people. I have only seen human relations or I have tried to see them and talk about them. That's what I am interested in. I don't know anything more important."

- Pina Bausch (pg 50)

Isamu Noguchi

Going through the UH library's dance section, I found this striking image in Designing For the Dancer by Roy Strong et al.

Tallchief and Magallanes in Orpheus. Design by Isamu Noguchi.

Photo by George Platt Lynes.

Beautiful image. Doesn't show Noguchi's sculpture though, and I'll have to look for a video of the dance to see what these props are.

Noguchi had a long-standing collaboration with Martha Graham, and also made sets for several other dance stars including George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham. This information got me interested so I did a little research. Next to read - Spaces of the Mind: Isamu Noguchi's Dance Designs by Robert Tracy. For now, a quote.

There is joy in seeing sculpture come to life on the stage in its own world of timeless time. Then the air becomes charged with meaning and emotion, and form plays its integral part in the re-enactment of a ritual. Theater is a ceremonial; the performance is a rite. Sculpture in daily life should or could be like this. In the meantime, the theater gives me its poetic, exalted equivalent.

- Isamu Noguchi (quote found here)

Late Night Open Mic

Last night I danced at an open mic in China Town, a tiny place you'd only know of by word of mouth. Mercedes Johnson had choreographed a duet for us to dance together (think full-body skeleton costume and makeup, to Zoe Keating) and last night was a preview for the big circus-themed show that will be this First Friday. The costumes still haven't been made yet, but I'm really looking forward to them. Last night was great because we were performing for strangers and we were well-recieved - I don't think I've ever performed without some family or friends watching before. Also we went on at 12:30 am! A bit surreal, doing that and then going to class this morning.

5, 6, 7, 8... Notes to Self

Tonight was a really great rehearsal! I was directing Malia, Lexi, Lauren and Kalei through some new choreography for 'A Single Drop, The Oceans Swell' (my piece for UH Manoa's Fall Footholds) and I think something that really helped was using the old "5, 6, 7, 8" prep. So simple! I've sometimes refrained from using it because it makes me feel like a drill coach. But nothing says "start ... now" more efficiently! Four seconds to get your act together: it's helpful.

Other things I think help:

- Running as part of warm-up: gets your heart pumping

- Running in relation to space and each other ("rebound off of walls and people's personal bubbles"): makes you aware of the group in space, encourages interpersonal connection

- Admitting when I don't have an answer to a question ("that's a good question, I'll keep it in mind and get back to you")

They Get You Young

I was just thinking about how I used to have a placemat with all the ballet positions on it when I was little. I'd study it while eating cereal. Googled it and low and behold, here it is!

Like it's straight out of my memory.

Planet B-Boy

On Netflix streaming, Planet B-Boy. A look into a world-wide breakdance competition. I especially enjoyed the battles between teams - the conversation that takes place between two teams is aggressive but also very musical and responsive.

This was a popular team move....

Some of it looked a lot like Modern dance.

And the hard work certainly makes an impression....

Contact Improv, Surprise Exhaustion

Today we did contact improv in modern class. I didn't notice it in the moment, but it was exhausting! I had ballet right afterwards, and my legs were completely shaky all through barre. My mind was also in a totally different place and it was difficult to focus on the combinations at first. Maybe it was because I hadn't done full-on contact improv for a while, maybe I was gripping my muscles too much instead of relaxing like you're supposed to, anyway it was an interesting surprise.

Misty Copeland

I enjoyed seeing Misty Copeland's episode of "A Day in the Life"on Hulu the other day. I love seeing dancers hard at work, and the rigor of ballet and the dedication it demands can be truly inspiring.

And then I watched her performance with Prince...

Why does she have to play the submissive pretty thing? Ballerinas are power houses and from A Day In the Life it's clear this woman has some real creative depth. Here, she's obviously encumbered by that skirt and I suppose her contract with the uber-popstar. So frustrating to watch. I know I put this up, but go watch the tv show instead.

David Smith's Photos of Lean On Me, Summer 2011

I am so amazed at the way David captures these moments as if they were living Renaissance paintings.

Honest Bodies

Today I saw the UH student production of Bug, and I learned something interesting about the way I perceive bodies. For me, the play was lacking - the acting was too self conscious and I found the characters' physical crutches especially frustrating. Then there was the scene where both actors were completely naked - suddenly the acting seemed to improve. They seemed more earnest and I felt more sympathetic with their stories... until I realized the acting hadn't actually changed at all.

I see nude bodies as more honest.

Sisterly Dancing

Elizabeth Ann Bowie is a staff writer for The Liberator, the award winning newspaper for LASA, which is where I went to high school and where my sister Willa goes now. She interviewed me about making and performing Lean On Me with Willa, who originally had the idea to make a dance performance for charity. It was a nice opportunity for some reflection...

EB: How did you feel performing in general?

AB: The chance to perform as a dancer and choreographer is always thrilling. You have the audience's attention and you have to keep it, taking them into your world and telling them exactly what you want with a totally different type of specificity from words.

EB: And when working with your sister?

AB: This year Willa and I performed a duet together and that was pretty cool. It was a sort of "evil twins" dance and it was fun to play with the characters. The competitiveness and scheming were fun to play up as sisters, and afterwards I got a lot of comments about how similarly we dance, which is a total compliment for me because Willa has so much more ballet training. Choreographing with Willa can sometimes be difficult because of my personal need to impress my little sister. It can be weird telling your sibling what to do. At the same time I always want to work with her because she is an amazing dancer and I admire her so much.

EB: How did it feel to know you were going to donate the money to Doctors Without Borders, and help someone? And why do you think it is important for students to volunteer or participate in fundraisers?

AB: Giving is important. We need to feel that connection to the world, knowing that we can make a difference. It's a totally different experience putting on your own charity, and I think everyone should try their hand at it because it really is rewarding.

Giving Thanks

Made these Thank You cards at the end of the summer, all collage and sharpie over printed cards of my talented grandmother's watercolors. They are all beautiful paintings on their own, but it was definitely fun to transform them into a pop art-ish series.

Composition II Final Dances

Rehearsal videos...

When Our Two Paths Meet
Choreography: Antonia Brown
Dancers: Luciana Fortes, Chris Flores, Antonia Brown
Music: Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars



We Could Have Had It All
Choreography: Luciana Fortes
Dancers: Luciana Fortes, Chris Flores, Antonia Brown
Music: Rolling in the Deep by Adele

My favorite thing to watch over and over again right now... incredible partnering

Created at James House

Celebrity Performances of Traditional Dance Forms

The topic of my next Sociology paper!

How authentic are these performances? (Be careful, it's a loaded question.)

Beyonce and African dance

Jennifer Lopez and flamenco.

Shakira is known for bellydance, and here there's maybe some flamenco also?

Taking Over Privatization in Public Spaces

Saturday there was a Street Art Symposium at Haverford. Exhilarating, generative debate and conversation by street artists Gaia from Baltimore and Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign, and authors/bloggers Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective.

Here's a bit of Seiler's passion for you...

This video brings up the question of artist self promotion. An interesting point for discussion, but for Seiler's case it's a question that has little to do with the point of his work, which is a type of civil disobedience where individuals and groups "takeover" monopolized outdoor advertising.

The point - Outdoor advertising makes us shut down to our public environments. When we tune out the ads we are bombarded with, we end up tuning each other out as well.

The goal - To eliminate outdoor advertisement and instead allow and encourage individuals to claim and interact with public spaces by creating art. (Debate ensued.)

Gaia also stressed (in quite intellectual/philosophical language) the way that illegal street art can spark energy and interest in spaces that have been abandoned or otherwise turned stagnant, and .

A few highlights from the Schillers' powerpoint sampler of relevant and exciting street art:

Alexandre Orion works with pollution to make his art. This piece he made using "reverse graffiti," cleaning the grime off of subway walls to make the skull images. In this case, the city cleaned over the skulls Alexandre drew each night, but didn't clean the rest of the subway. It ended up causing a huge uproar that got the people of Sao Paulo more aware of city pollution and insistent on better city cleaning.

Also...

Peter Gibson's comment on transportation

and Pixelator's DIY way to deal with video advertising. Here's a How To.

Looking forward to the Bounce show!

It took some time and asking the internet for tips but I managed to make a silhouette of every Bounce member! I can't wait for the tshirts, posters, program, etc...

Bounce Sneak Peek

Choreographing with Cee, Julia, Kate, Kirsten and Hilary...
(With Lykke Li's 'I'm Good, I'm Gone')

This semester I've been trying a new way of choreographing - I give movement prompts, we make movement as duets, film the material, I watch the clips on my own and rearrange / adjust the movement to the music and my ideas and goals for the piece. It seems to be working well, definitely a good way to get a lot of material quickly (and hold on to it) and get people to show their individual styles. These clips are some of the raw material. The full dance will be to Drake's remixed version of Lykki Li's 'Little Bit,' a song you can find on datpiff.com or youtube.

Still Body

Figure Drawing 03/16/11

This model held her pose for a full 40 mins, took a 10 min break and then went back to it for another 20. That's amazing. Being still and having people look at you for that long takes skill, and I admire and am thankful for people that are able and willing to take on the challenge.

Swan Lake

On Saturday I caught the last night of Pennsylvania Ballet's Swan Lake. Nobody died! That's not true - the sorcerer was killed by the corps of swans fluttering their fingertips at him. I was surprised, but somehow it worked to have a happy ending (at least a bittersweet one). Lauren Fadeley made a gorgeous bewitched swan princess with her otherworldly arching back and hypnotizing fingertips, and the corps of swans danced beautifully, a precise shapeshifting collection of fluttering skirts and graceful bird port du bras. As the black swan, Fadeley was not entirely convincing (such a shame she fell out of the infamous fouettes) and there were some unfortunate character dances (ballet versions of can-can and flamenco are odd, to say the least), but those parts were confined to middle of the dance, which was almost three hours altogether. Definitely worth it to see Fadeley's tragically beautiful and mysterious white swan self.

A little research gives two facts worth noting. 1. Lauren Fadeley danced in Black Swan. 2. PA Ballet's Swan Lake had a million dollar budget. Interesting...

Alvin Ailey

A few weeks ago I got to go to see Alvin Ailey for free (Haverford rocks!) at the Academy of Music. I saw...

Anointed from AlvinAileyAmericanDanceTheater on Vimeo.

The Evolution Of A Secured Feminine from AlvinAileyAmericanDanceTheater on Vimeo.

The Hunt from AlvinAileyAmericanDanceTheater on Vimeo.

and of course the Ailey classic...

Revelations from AlvinAileyAmericanDanceTheater on Vimeo.

The dancers as you can see have a tremendous amount of strength, charisma and vitality, and the choreography gave such a rush in watching them. It was the kind of performance where you just sit back and enjoy the thrill of the moment. Each of the pieces were distinct, as you can tell from these snippets, but as a series they were also complementary.

The Hunt by Robert Battle was particularly moving in an unexpected way. The program and Alvin Ailey website say this piece is about "the primitive thrill of the hunt," but for me the ferocity took on a greater, more universal meaning, speaking to the ways the people perpetuate cycles of violence. Sometimes the six men danced in a circle as if thrilling in an aggression fed by mob mentality, in others they separated into duets where the partners took turns at being the aggressor, all the while seemingly unaware of the hypocrisy of meeting violence with more violence.

The Ballerina Project

Speaking of gritty (city) vs highbrow (ballerina)....

http://www.facebook.com/pages/ballerina-project/22455674948

http://ballerinaproject.blogspot.com/

Ballet Advertising

These are the images from Pennsylvania Ballet's website www.paballet.org. The posters and programs for individual shows follow the same design.

Opinions? Is advertising ballet as sexual, gritty and tough good or bad? The images definitely pose themselves against the image of ballet as posh and uptight, which could be positive. On the other hand, these are totally commercially sexualized advertisements! Note that the dancers' faces are all turned away or cropped out of the picture, so that they are a bare bodies as opposed to individuals.

Art Blog

Simple layout, minimalist artist interviews, inspirational picture essays, classic Sesame Street videos... definitely worth a look.

http://www.ilikethisblog.net/

Akram Khan

Video of the day... making of, talking about, dramatic performance, the people who make it, social contexts. It's also an artsy little advertisement that someone put some work into.

Tips from Eun Jung

Saving your knees: Imagine your knees are sponges.

You can plie all you like, but if you grip your knees as you bend them they won't last. Good, soft plies can be difficult to learn, and this sponge idea is just one of many useful images. Some others are... imagine yourself growing upwards as you plie down and visualize plies as circular

Balancing: Think of the fluid in your inner ear that tells you which way is up.

In my reading for Bio Psych I learned the three tools we use to tell ourselves where our bodies are in space: 1. information from the nerves in our muscles 2. sight 3. inner ear fluid. Often we are taught stationary balances through lengthening muscles and staring at one spot in front of us. Catching a balance immediately after a disorienting movement can be more difficult. It is hard to tell exactly how we relate to information from the inner ear, but the knowledge that this physical device is already at work can be surprisingly helpful.

Carlos Acosta

Finished reading Carlos Acosta's memoir No Way Home for my Dance and Migration class. It was an enjoyable read, but sad to hear about the competition, injuries and job insecurity even the most famous and respected ballet dancers face.

Carlos Acosta is known a world-class performer, born in Cuba and the son of a truck driver. At one point, he says...

"Sometimes obstacles can become the very things that motivate us. When food is accessible and abundant, when options are endless, then art becomes a hobby. I believed that if I had had everything, I would have lost interest in dance in a few years, abandoning it to pursue a university degree, or to open a business. But when art is the only way out, the only way of supporting loved ones, when the practice of your art is the only way to make yourself seen, heard, distinguished, then art is never just a hobby. Art is a means of survival; passion is more intense, the nails and the broken floorboards nothing more than an excuse to work harder and become even better...."

Doris Humphrey says

Symmetry is lifeless.

Two-dimensional design is lifeless.

The eye is faster than the ear.

Movement looks slower and weaker on the stage.

All dances dances are too long.

A good ending is forty percent of the dance.

Monotony is fatal; look for contrasts.

Don't be a slave to, or a mutilator of, the music.

Listen to qualified advice; don't be arrogant.

Don't intellectualize; motivate movement.

Don't leave the ending to the end.

... from the Art of Making Dances.

Tabloid danseur

Benjamin Millepied's getting a lot of attention...

Without diverging in to celebrity gossip, here is a clip of the man at work. There are some gorgeous partnering moves that I'd love to figure out.

Secretly dancing to impressive vocalizations

Last night Meredith Monk spoke about her work and sang. Some of the autobiographical stuff was review from the last time I saw her speak, on Wednesday. I was a bit bored and restless at the start, but Meredith's attention to fine-tuning movement inside the mouth and Eun Jung's suggestion to "move the small muscles" were on my mind. So I started some small slow movements while seated... breathe in expanding the rib cage, softly press the shoulder blades and elbows downward, lengthen and curving the lower spine. It was a challenge to make continuous movement that was so small and slow, but I felt connected relaxed as well. Basically an energizing meditation.

Then of course Meredith brought my attention more away from myself and on to her, particularly once she started singing. The whole presentation gained momentum and ended, climactically, with a duet that uses a technique I can't figure out how to spell the name of... hawking or hocking maybe. Meredith and her partner took turns singing one short note each, passing the sound back and forth. I had heard this type of singing in Meredith's work before, and it is a beautiful style to hear, but seeing the electric connection between the two singers added so much more to it. It looked like both play and competition between the two, who held an intense eye contact the entire time.

During the Q&A section Meredith spoke of her creative process, a topic that always fascinates me. She phrased a popular sentiment well when she said (something along the lines of) "Sometimes you have to get yourself out of the way of your art." She was talking about how sometimes the work "doesn't want" a part that she, the artist, wants to hold on to. She also said, several times, that while making a piece she tries to "hang out in the unknown" and that the unknown terrifies her. And then something like... "Then you get more curious than you are scared and then you know you're getting somewhere." I enjoyed that.

It does seem important to me to be able to "hang out in the unknown" in order to make original artwork. But shouldn't that be fun as well as a little scary? Artists shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves for their work. That fits way too easily into the "crazy but glorified

Artist" stereotype.

Street Art, Pop Art

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a pretty awesome documentary. It's cool, funny, sad, and it brings up some interesting questions about the art world and how art functions as consumer product. You get to glimpse lots of not-so-legal street art being made, and take a good look at the mysterious Banksy's hands.

There are a couple quotes that are really great, but I don't want to give it away....

Banksy has been very successful at creating his punk-celebrity aura. His website.... www.banksy.co.uk