new beginning

that’s slightly redundant, but it’s helpful to think of this as a chance for new things — especially among so many old familiar ones. Same place. Many of the same people. But hopefully a lot of the new and unfamiliar.

#1 in the new category is my first independent choreographic endeavor outside of Emory:

We begin rehearsals this weekend, so I’m busily brainstorming and getting the images out of my head and onto paper so I don’t forget. The space gets me more and more excited each time I walk into it. It’s so complex and beautiful. There are millions of possibilities

#2 in the new category is new jobs. I’ve started teaching dance for three schools/organizations in Atlanta. Classes have already begun at the Lawrenceville School of Ballet. The people who work there are great, especially the woman who now runs the Southern Ballet Theater (a pre-professional company housed at LSOB). The kids are full of energy and not badly behaved at all. My first year of teaching (with the kids program at Spelman) involved a lot of work on discipline and attention. My second year was at a “dolly dinkle” type of studio, which challenged me to try to give something more than they might normally receive while keeping the “dance is funfunfun” atmosphere that they prefer. But at LSOB I’m seeing a balance that I like. The kids respect their teachers are excited to be there, and I’m getting to do a nice balance of technique and fun with them. I’m teaching a group of 4/5 year olds, a group of 5/6 year olds and a Ballet I class. I’m most excited about Ballet I because I get to be the base to their ballet technique. When I say excited, I mean nervous as all hell…that’s a big task, creating a foundation for them (while keeping it fun!). But it’s a challenge I’m ready for. I know their future training will be solid, so I want to match this class up with that. I’m hoping to develop their vocabulary, give them the outside tools they need (worksheets w/pictures and terms, etc), and balance this knowledge with the physical knowledge of ballet as well.
I’m also teaching at a new studio in Eastpoint called the Phoenix Performing Arts Center. I am their main ballet/jazz instructor and am teaching Beg/Int and Int/Adv Ballet and Lyrical/Jazz classes. Totally pumped about that. It seems that a number of high schools (grady high school included) are having to cut their dance programs from the school curriculum, so the director expects to receive many of the schools’ dance team students.
And the last place I’m teaching has me doing Adult ballet and jazz classes up in Sandy Springs. Another new challenge. What a variety of classes!

#3 in the new category is new kittens!!!

Their names are Cletus and Sir Paul McCatney (we call him Paul). Cletus has no tail and is our little down home country bumpkin. He is famous for his squeal of death. Paul is a friendly attention hog and likes to give kisses. Both purr like there’s no tomorrow and wreck our computer cords.

And the rest of the “new” has yet to come. We’ll see…

C’est Fini

I would have an in-depth gushy wrap-up post here, but seeing as I have no break in between the ADF and my search for monetary sustainment (i.e. please someone give me a job), this will probably happen in little snip-its.

Multiple choice time. The end of the festival was:
a) off-putting
b) a blast
c) spent internally
d) overwhelming
e) all of the above

As with many high school teachers, the answer is, of course, e. For now, I will remark upon answer b.

Tiffany, Caitlin and I finished our summer as SWS students with a bang. As part of the American Dance Festival’s first hip-hop class, we presented the choreography we had learned over the six weeks in a showing to ADF students, faculty, etc. Allison was kind enough to videotape:

Lashawn Jones’ choreography:

HeJin Jang’s choreography:

Over the six weeks, Lashawn and HeJin taught 3 weeks a piece, alternating. They had very different styles — Lashawn’s was usually more “thug” and HeJin’s more modern-inspired, though, as the video shows, they both work with a mix of styles. I lovedddd their classes (though they exhausted me many times…). I honestly didn’t think at the beginning of the six weeks that I could perform hip-hop with any real confidence (in the past I’ve just tried to fake it as best I could). But the class definitely helped with my goal of picking up material quicker and catching details (my memory is still a little weak, but such is life). And I definitely learned a thing or two about confidence (and how you often just have to pretend to be confident enough to think past that issue and focus on the movement). Once I got past the self-consciousness, the choreography fit into my body much more easily.

And the showing was fantastic. Such great energy and such a fab ending to the six weeks. Definitely the way to go out.

Watch out NappyTabs… (or maybe not.)

Tired mind

Too tired to write much now, a good night’s sleep should be very helpful. We had a lovely weekend however, and I just wanted to share a few photos before heading to sleep.
Looking forward to many things this week: Beginning Miguel Gutierrez’s Composition class tomorrow, David Dorfman’s classes this weekend, Single Ladies with Mark Haim (leotard and heels required), working on choreography for the Student Concert next week, and a little tribute to MJ in hiphop later this week!

 

Vintage dress shopping~

Site-specific improv

Awesome Hat Guy

More site-specific

woo!

Fireworks!

ups and downs of people in places

 

A sad email:

This morning, the dance community lost one of its legends. Pina Bausch passed away at the age of 68 in Wuppertal, Germany. A pioneer of the neo-expressionist form Tanztheater, Bausch created

 over 40 full-length pieces for her company Tanztheater Wuppertal

 Pina Bausch. Janice Steinberg wrote in the November, 2008 Dance Magazine, “Her passionate fans applauded the work’s courage, visual genius, and life force.”

Today in hiphop we paid homage to MJ by warming up to a mix of his musical genius. He is one man that will surely not be forgotten.

This week seems filled with deaths and births. I must remind myself that for every death there is a world of memories, joyful images and conversations to recollect. For every death there was a birth, and a life spent in celebration and honor of the ones who made that birth possible. I celebrate the ones who made my birth possible.

I’ve found myself in a place where the reality of a lifespan has come into view. The importance of family has become crushingly vivid to me. I reside in this tenuous garden where there is always growth and decay. –Lisa Race

 

Prayers for the families of those who have made the transition from life to that which come after. Prayers of strength, comfort, love, hope and understanding. and Peace.

Beauty and Virtuosity

This week’s theme for my composition class is beauty and virtuosity. We’re not finitely defining these by any means — that attempt would be both naive and in vain. Instead we discuss the different possibilities of what can be seen as beauty, what can make something virtuosic. We discussed the beauty of dance as revealing human capacity and, as Jesse said, thus showing hope for our potential. I could not agree more. We can make dances about healing the sick, providing for the poor — they may or may not have an effect on people. These are worthy endeavors. But we don’t have to save the world in one fell swoop. Virtuosity in dance can prove that the potential in our bodies is endless, that the potential of our minds is endless, that we just need to keep exploring. It can light a fire under us as viewers, or it can merely expand our minds a bit, an expansion which builds and motivates in itself.

 

A few beautiful things from the past week:

The view from my daily lunch spot outside Baldwin. Tiff and I tend to fall asleep sprawled underneath this beautiful sky

A birthday surprise from Caitlin Very lovely artwork, I must say.

 

Hiphop combo from Lashaun’s class

 

Celebratory bowling dance. We like dance in all forms.

the world in which we undressed together

yesterday was my turn at what some consider the yearly celebration of the day they were born. for me, it is a day that triggers a million different thoughts and emotions — all of which overwhelm me and none of which I can sort out or recognize. This day has never been so heavy for me. It brings up memories of my mother. It reminds me that somewhere out there in the woman from whose womb I arrived, that somewhere out there are 5 other people half like me…3 others who know her and have her constant love and care…2 others who wonder, like me, who she is. how she thinks. what she does. it confuses me why I react so strongly when I’m not consciously lining out these thoughts on paper as some sort of list of reasons to be sad or contemplative. but I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. whether they are conscious thoughts or not, they are there and I can’t escape the truths of my existence. These are the things that make me who I am, and the things they cause me to feel distant from everyone I know and love. It’s noone’s fault, it just is.

And so I enter into my next choreographic exploration. A duet. Two distant characters. I challenged myself at the beginning of this festival to begin with a title, then to create movement. I did not think a theme or narrative would intrude so strongly into the two, but it did. We began working in my composition class on a project to address an “urgent theme.” This was suppose to be “the dance that would speak to and change the world.” Of course, we laughed while saying that, knowing how ambitious and naive an attempt that would be. Jesse asked us to bring in images of such a theme which we felt drawn to address. My image was of an adorable little girl with dark brown bouncing ringlets and oversized glasses. Her father held her over the produce scale at the grocery store, bananas in her hands. Her smile was bigger than her face. I thought of how many children there are in the world who don’t have the opportunity to smile at bananas. Who don’t have the support of two arms.
I then began a debate with myself — of how I can be so concerned with the children in the world who have no stable family, be so concerned with the need for parents to adopt, when I myself was a neglect of those children. It scares me, but I don’t deny that sometimes I think surrogacy is selfish. I don’t want to criticize my parents’ choice to go this route, because I know their wishes were genuine and loving. To have such a strong maternal and paternal calling is admirable and a blessing. I can’t resolve my debate, but I can dig deeper into that which brought me into the world. Sorry Jesse, I’m avoiding the assignment. This may not be an urgent theme for the world, but it’s a step for me towards getting to that urgent theme.

The images of surrogacy for me are pressing, and they are the pictures from which I can now shape the movement. I’m not very far along in the process, but I’m already fully immersed. For the moment I’m exploring one character, one dancer. I’m curious to see her as a soloist before the duet comes into play, as that is only fitting for this process and situation. I don’t know this other character. She is only assumptions, and she can only be viewed for me from the perspective of the first dancer.

Listen to: Loscil – Cotom

A dance of flavors…

My sad attempt to relate this posting to dance… though the mussels we consumed this fair night were dancing in their shells prior to being boiled in those same shells. Ah, there’s that Biblical connection between dancing and death again (see: Psalm 30).
Just wanted to post a few photos of a necessary aspect of the American Dance Festival: rest, that is. We made a lovely feast of mussels in a red sauce with italian bread and a good ol’ corona (or two).

Photos to prove:

The Finished Product, Picnic-style

the eating process

when the little buggers were still alive and biting (literally, my fingernails)

the plate