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.