I first must apologize to Michael for not writing this much sooner and to say that my lack of response is in no way associated with the performance.
Michaels performance was absolutely amazing, and went way beyond what I could have imagined. The thought that went in to the dance captured me and my thoughts in so many ways and was so well done and obvious that my girlfriend could tell it portrayed me, and she really had little knowledge about how the performance came about.
The location was super and very fitting with my answer to a question, one that I can't recall, but do remember saying that I was going to try carving a totem pole. He placed us smack dab in front of one of the nicest totem poles Seattle has to offer. It was a bit chilly, but what a venue to have this done at, a view of the water and the ferries, (also another answer to a question), one regarding one of my favorite places. Michaels dress was perfectly fitting in regards to my whole view on religion and just so happened we ended up deciding to do this on Sunday, Easter Sunday no less.
My performance started with two books and 3 miniature trucks (perfectly as a driver of a large FedEx truck). The books were laid end to end and the 3 trucks were placed next to them. I was instructed to arrange the trucks any time during the performance at which point he would take cues from them and perform the mood relayed by my arrangement. The other thing I could do was choose a book during the dance and read a passage from it, only I was asked to read it in reverse. I wasn't really sure how this would work, but wow, I actually found his dance fitting the mood I had at the time of the truck movements. An example would be when I place the 3 trucks on one another in something of a comical way, one that made me chuckle and immediately the dance took on a quirky light hearted feel, that was only changed once I rearranged the trucks.
An additonal treat was how his friends joined in the performance and the fact it was all improvised, very cool.
These folks are truly gifted in what they do and I feel extremely honored that I was chosen and that Michael was the one who did my dance. It made my Easter (which isn't much of a holiday to me) one that I will remember for many years. Again I can't say enough about how cool this was and how much fun myself and my friends had.
Oh and not to forget, my performance was ended with a great cookie.
Thanks Michael, Lingo and all those involved with these performances, I look forward to seeing more of you in the performance scene.
Thanks
Les
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Stranger Reviews Glimmer. . . And KT Responds
One Week, Four Dances
Sex, Death, Party, and Forgery
by Brendan Kiley
(Published in The Stranger's April 28 issue)
I don't understand why dance companies don't coordinate their schedules better—for months, next to nothing will happen, then BAM! Everything's happening all at once: Amelia Reeber's new show, this is a forgery; Lingo dancetheater's new show A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light; a night of Butoh improvisation by Danse Perdue; the final week of rehearsals before Cabaret de Curiosités at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival; and even West by "Awesome" at On the Boards. (The latter isn't dance, strictly speaking—despite a long Butoh-style walk by a hooded figure between undulating packing crates—but On the Boards is the city's dance-centric theater, and its shows are required viewing for dance geeks. Click here for David Schmader's full review of West.)
Reeber's solo show begins with the facts of life: a video projection of a gray planet spinning in the dark, then a mass of animated spermatozoa rushing down a tube, each hoping to be the first to bang its head against the great, gray orb. As one of them succeeds, a subtitle says "damn it!" and the lights come up on Reeber, lying placidly on her back, her legs in the air. Whose accidental conception are we watching? Reeber's? A child of Reeber's? The dance itself? Maybe looking for allegories isn't the way to go—forgery is relentlessly abstract.
Reeber says she's only fixed five minutes of this hour-long dance, but the stage pictures are coherent: video of a giant cat coming and going, or just sitting; video of Reeber in a Cub Scout uniform, looking happier than she does onstage; an anchor on the floor, surrounded by rocks; small golden pyramids and step-pyramids upstage; some lower halves of mannequins suspended by chains. Reeber gently twirls and spins in a small black dress, frolicking like a Greek nymph (or Isadora Duncan). Even at her harshest, when she lurches around pigeon-toed and angular with frozen joints, she still seems pliant and rounded—a creature made of Tinkertoys, not an Erector Set. The whole of forgery is soft and pleasant to watch, but few shards of it lodge themselves in the memory.
A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light makes better on its promise for skin and light than for hope. A modern-dance masque in ACT's subterranean purple cabaret room, Glimmer follows the arc of a party of the Eyes Wide Shut sort: some drunkenness, some nudity, and some moody rock 'n' roll. Choreographer KT Niehoff sings during the proceedings with the band Ivory in Ice World, kicking her bare legs (and strappy, expensive-looking shoes) to the drumbeat. The audience sits at tables or leans against the pillars and walls, watching the dance happen around them: writhing, sexual duets from principals wearing white gutter-glam costumes while a dozen extras in frilly blue watch, wander, and preen.
Niehoff has spent years exploring and aestheticizing social situations for dance performances: a dinner party (at which she served actual dinner), a regular party (in which it was sometimes difficult to tell the performers from the audience), and now a sort of glam-rock ball where some dancers walk around flirting with the audience while others undulate up and down the stairs. But unlike her earlier efforts, Glimmer has a chilliness—maybe because of the formalism of ACT Theatre, or maybe because the line between participant and spectator was sharper (the costumes more obvious, the audience doing nothing but watching) and therefore more forbidding. Principals Bianca Cabrera and Michael Rioux gave notably strong performances, with heat in their movement and fire in their limbs. But for all of Glimmer's pageantry, it felt like something stuck behind glass.
While Glimmer pretended to be a rock 'n' roll party, Hipster Death was one. The musicians and dancers would've loved the audience to tear the joint apart—if only they'd had the audience. Four goth-rock and noise bands played at the Mix in Georgetown (a medium-sized concrete room dolled up with a little wood for the bar and balcony), and performers from Danse Perdue improvised during a few sets. Dancers Alex Ruhe and Vanessa Skantze coated themselves in white makeup, donned white robes, and laced the stage and concrete floor with strings and bundles of white fabric, a mess of snowy intestines. Joy Von Spain of the 100 Pieces shrieked out her She Slicing She: A Fury Opera (sounds like: a Diamanda Galás impersonator accompanied by an electrical storm), while Ruhe and Skantze staggered and curled around each other, rolling their eyes back in their heads and grimacing. The audience—mostly made up of the other bands (Dark Matter, Stabbings, Caligula Cartel)—leaned against the walls and watched reverently. They were a church in search of a congregation.
This weekend, at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, director Roger Benington, Stranger Genius Award–winning designer Jennifer Zeyl, and a pack of burlesque dancers (Waxie Moon, Inga Ingénue, Indigo Blue, Pantera, et al.) will present Cabaret de Curiosités. Paula the Swedish Housewife plays the hostess of a Parisian cabaret who mails a cabinet full of sexy persons to her nephew. (Isn't that illegal?)
A prediction: The burlesque will be more narrative than forgery, more saucy than Glimmer, and better attended than Hipster Death—but not necessarily better than any of them.
KT Niehoff's Response By Email
(Sent April 28 Directly To Brendan Kiley)
Dance companies don't coordinate their schedules better because they don't have the luxury of choice.
They take what they can. They save ridiculously small pennies and book themselves into whatever space/weekend they can find. They are sad when they can't see each others shows to support one another and be inspired by each others work. We are not idiots that just forget to call each other and ask when we are putting on our little shows.
And aside from the logistics of it all, I wonder why the implied negative in the fact there is enough dance in this city to actually support multiple artists and their work in the same weekend? Music venues produce a plethora of artists every weekend in Seattle, as do theater venues. We thrive on the artistic energy happening all around us and revel in the fact that our little corner of the world continually gathers to experience the riches these artists have to offer instead of sitting home and watching CSI re-runs. Why not be proud of a grown up city that has a thriving local/national/international appetite for contemporary dance/performance? Why not applaud it?
Amelia Reeber does not "twirl and spin, frolicking like a Greek nymph (or Isadora Duncan)". My five-year old God Son twirls and spins. And why is it a uniquely, ground-breaking contemporary dance artists is equated to a century old physical vocabulary? I have stopped telling people I am a contemporary dancer because the earliest point of reference our culture has for the art form is Martha Graham, circa 1926. Reviewers can educate. They can connect the time we live in and the people who are making work in relationship to that time to their actual forbearers - in Amelia's case, Deborah Hay, Lisa Nelson, Nina Martin and Jeanine Durning - say nothing of the Seattle dancers who have helped shape and define her acutely 21st century work. If you are going to review dance, please learn more.
"Some drunkenness, some nudity, some moody rock 'n' roll". Check. Yup, these obsessively hard working and ridiculously talented artists got together and checked a bunch of gratuitous, two dimensional boxes and had a party. Really? "Gutter-glam costumes and frilly blue extras"? When I had the audition for those "extras" I asked them if they all wanted to wear the recital costumes of their youth and the rhinestone heels their mothers wouldn't let them wear to prom and they all wanted to play dress up so bad they put in 100+ hours of absolutely NAILING the synchronized intricacy of the physical vocabulary for free. And I myself wanted to put on a little dance show so I could "kick around my bare legs" and have an excuse to buy some expensive shoes with all the copious amounts of cash I have laying around. Oh boy. Here I am indulging in my own sarcasm and anger. Damn it.
Help us to go deeper as a society. Help us to think more about our actions, ask more from our primary relationships as well as our daily interactions. Learn more about an art form that has the ability to free our minds to think non-linearly, non-narratively and push into raw emotion, involuntary kinetic kick-back and dream states. They "teach" this kind of thinking out of us in school so completely we are actually afraid of it ("I don't know anything about dance." "I don't know what it means." - i.e. " I am scared shitless of being wrong and if their isn't an actual plot line with dialogue I could get it "wrong" and look like an ass-hole.")
Everything I read of yours is quip and pat and imbued with sarcasm and cynicism and has a mind-made-up-before-I-even-showed-up kind of quality to it. Come in with an open mind. Allow yourself to actually have an experience. There are incredible artists in this city. Thinking, grappling, practicing, risking, asking and hoping they can penetrate just the tiniest amount into the exoskeleton that keeps us all from the kind of raw, vulnerability that could open up our capacity to reveal the better (or worse) parts of ourselves to each other. And in that revealing, hook into what I believe most of us want from life and each other - more.
I want so much more from you than I ever get. It makes me sad.
Sex, Death, Party, and Forgery
by Brendan Kiley
(Published in The Stranger's April 28 issue)
I don't understand why dance companies don't coordinate their schedules better—for months, next to nothing will happen, then BAM! Everything's happening all at once: Amelia Reeber's new show, this is a forgery; Lingo dancetheater's new show A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light; a night of Butoh improvisation by Danse Perdue; the final week of rehearsals before Cabaret de Curiosités at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival; and even West by "Awesome" at On the Boards. (The latter isn't dance, strictly speaking—despite a long Butoh-style walk by a hooded figure between undulating packing crates—but On the Boards is the city's dance-centric theater, and its shows are required viewing for dance geeks. Click here for David Schmader's full review of West.)
Reeber's solo show begins with the facts of life: a video projection of a gray planet spinning in the dark, then a mass of animated spermatozoa rushing down a tube, each hoping to be the first to bang its head against the great, gray orb. As one of them succeeds, a subtitle says "damn it!" and the lights come up on Reeber, lying placidly on her back, her legs in the air. Whose accidental conception are we watching? Reeber's? A child of Reeber's? The dance itself? Maybe looking for allegories isn't the way to go—forgery is relentlessly abstract.
Reeber says she's only fixed five minutes of this hour-long dance, but the stage pictures are coherent: video of a giant cat coming and going, or just sitting; video of Reeber in a Cub Scout uniform, looking happier than she does onstage; an anchor on the floor, surrounded by rocks; small golden pyramids and step-pyramids upstage; some lower halves of mannequins suspended by chains. Reeber gently twirls and spins in a small black dress, frolicking like a Greek nymph (or Isadora Duncan). Even at her harshest, when she lurches around pigeon-toed and angular with frozen joints, she still seems pliant and rounded—a creature made of Tinkertoys, not an Erector Set. The whole of forgery is soft and pleasant to watch, but few shards of it lodge themselves in the memory.
A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light makes better on its promise for skin and light than for hope. A modern-dance masque in ACT's subterranean purple cabaret room, Glimmer follows the arc of a party of the Eyes Wide Shut sort: some drunkenness, some nudity, and some moody rock 'n' roll. Choreographer KT Niehoff sings during the proceedings with the band Ivory in Ice World, kicking her bare legs (and strappy, expensive-looking shoes) to the drumbeat. The audience sits at tables or leans against the pillars and walls, watching the dance happen around them: writhing, sexual duets from principals wearing white gutter-glam costumes while a dozen extras in frilly blue watch, wander, and preen.
Niehoff has spent years exploring and aestheticizing social situations for dance performances: a dinner party (at which she served actual dinner), a regular party (in which it was sometimes difficult to tell the performers from the audience), and now a sort of glam-rock ball where some dancers walk around flirting with the audience while others undulate up and down the stairs. But unlike her earlier efforts, Glimmer has a chilliness—maybe because of the formalism of ACT Theatre, or maybe because the line between participant and spectator was sharper (the costumes more obvious, the audience doing nothing but watching) and therefore more forbidding. Principals Bianca Cabrera and Michael Rioux gave notably strong performances, with heat in their movement and fire in their limbs. But for all of Glimmer's pageantry, it felt like something stuck behind glass.
While Glimmer pretended to be a rock 'n' roll party, Hipster Death was one. The musicians and dancers would've loved the audience to tear the joint apart—if only they'd had the audience. Four goth-rock and noise bands played at the Mix in Georgetown (a medium-sized concrete room dolled up with a little wood for the bar and balcony), and performers from Danse Perdue improvised during a few sets. Dancers Alex Ruhe and Vanessa Skantze coated themselves in white makeup, donned white robes, and laced the stage and concrete floor with strings and bundles of white fabric, a mess of snowy intestines. Joy Von Spain of the 100 Pieces shrieked out her She Slicing She: A Fury Opera (sounds like: a Diamanda Galás impersonator accompanied by an electrical storm), while Ruhe and Skantze staggered and curled around each other, rolling their eyes back in their heads and grimacing. The audience—mostly made up of the other bands (Dark Matter, Stabbings, Caligula Cartel)—leaned against the walls and watched reverently. They were a church in search of a congregation.
This weekend, at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival, director Roger Benington, Stranger Genius Award–winning designer Jennifer Zeyl, and a pack of burlesque dancers (Waxie Moon, Inga Ingénue, Indigo Blue, Pantera, et al.) will present Cabaret de Curiosités. Paula the Swedish Housewife plays the hostess of a Parisian cabaret who mails a cabinet full of sexy persons to her nephew. (Isn't that illegal?)
A prediction: The burlesque will be more narrative than forgery, more saucy than Glimmer, and better attended than Hipster Death—but not necessarily better than any of them.
KT Niehoff's Response By Email
(Sent April 28 Directly To Brendan Kiley)
Dance companies don't coordinate their schedules better because they don't have the luxury of choice.
They take what they can. They save ridiculously small pennies and book themselves into whatever space/weekend they can find. They are sad when they can't see each others shows to support one another and be inspired by each others work. We are not idiots that just forget to call each other and ask when we are putting on our little shows.
And aside from the logistics of it all, I wonder why the implied negative in the fact there is enough dance in this city to actually support multiple artists and their work in the same weekend? Music venues produce a plethora of artists every weekend in Seattle, as do theater venues. We thrive on the artistic energy happening all around us and revel in the fact that our little corner of the world continually gathers to experience the riches these artists have to offer instead of sitting home and watching CSI re-runs. Why not be proud of a grown up city that has a thriving local/national/international appetite for contemporary dance/performance? Why not applaud it?
Amelia Reeber does not "twirl and spin, frolicking like a Greek nymph (or Isadora Duncan)". My five-year old God Son twirls and spins. And why is it a uniquely, ground-breaking contemporary dance artists is equated to a century old physical vocabulary? I have stopped telling people I am a contemporary dancer because the earliest point of reference our culture has for the art form is Martha Graham, circa 1926. Reviewers can educate. They can connect the time we live in and the people who are making work in relationship to that time to their actual forbearers - in Amelia's case, Deborah Hay, Lisa Nelson, Nina Martin and Jeanine Durning - say nothing of the Seattle dancers who have helped shape and define her acutely 21st century work. If you are going to review dance, please learn more.
"Some drunkenness, some nudity, some moody rock 'n' roll". Check. Yup, these obsessively hard working and ridiculously talented artists got together and checked a bunch of gratuitous, two dimensional boxes and had a party. Really? "Gutter-glam costumes and frilly blue extras"? When I had the audition for those "extras" I asked them if they all wanted to wear the recital costumes of their youth and the rhinestone heels their mothers wouldn't let them wear to prom and they all wanted to play dress up so bad they put in 100+ hours of absolutely NAILING the synchronized intricacy of the physical vocabulary for free. And I myself wanted to put on a little dance show so I could "kick around my bare legs" and have an excuse to buy some expensive shoes with all the copious amounts of cash I have laying around. Oh boy. Here I am indulging in my own sarcasm and anger. Damn it.
Help us to go deeper as a society. Help us to think more about our actions, ask more from our primary relationships as well as our daily interactions. Learn more about an art form that has the ability to free our minds to think non-linearly, non-narratively and push into raw emotion, involuntary kinetic kick-back and dream states. They "teach" this kind of thinking out of us in school so completely we are actually afraid of it ("I don't know anything about dance." "I don't know what it means." - i.e. " I am scared shitless of being wrong and if their isn't an actual plot line with dialogue I could get it "wrong" and look like an ass-hole.")
Everything I read of yours is quip and pat and imbued with sarcasm and cynicism and has a mind-made-up-before-I-even-showed-up kind of quality to it. Come in with an open mind. Allow yourself to actually have an experience. There are incredible artists in this city. Thinking, grappling, practicing, risking, asking and hoping they can penetrate just the tiniest amount into the exoskeleton that keeps us all from the kind of raw, vulnerability that could open up our capacity to reveal the better (or worse) parts of ourselves to each other. And in that revealing, hook into what I believe most of us want from life and each other - more.
I want so much more from you than I ever get. It makes me sad.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Ricki and Justin
Dear Ricki and KT Niehoff Dance Company,
Thank you so much for creating such a glorious personal spectacle for me. During your performance, I felt like I normally do at the library, but you were the muse alive, like my imaginary friend. I knew others could see you but I had the impression that you were a piece of my subconscious that is always there. It was touchstone to my everyday experience. The experience has given me a cornerstone to continue to explore my own body as a medium to create art everyday. I am successfully integrated and incorporated into the contemporary work that you and the KT Niehoff dance group are creating now. I hope I can come and see the show. Personal time warp and transformative effect was achieved in the process and the solo for me by my account. Thank you again, KT Niehoff, all the company, and you Ricki, for being such explorers of modern dance.
Cheers,
Justin
Dear Justin,
When the solo ended, you said "that was imaginary!" I loved that response so much -- not only did it make me feel like the experience was magical, but also that it was the right kind of magical for YOU, I love the idea that you felt like it could have come from YOUR imagination. Performing for (and with!) you was delightful. I felt seen, and safe, and part of a greater experience you were having. I was aware that you were drinking in not only my dancing, but also the architecture, the light, the art, the music and sounds, the other library patrons, your own rhythms and tempos and instincts. Thank you for sharing with me.
Truly,
Ricki Mason
Thank you so much for creating such a glorious personal spectacle for me. During your performance, I felt like I normally do at the library, but you were the muse alive, like my imaginary friend. I knew others could see you but I had the impression that you were a piece of my subconscious that is always there. It was touchstone to my everyday experience. The experience has given me a cornerstone to continue to explore my own body as a medium to create art everyday. I am successfully integrated and incorporated into the contemporary work that you and the KT Niehoff dance group are creating now. I hope I can come and see the show. Personal time warp and transformative effect was achieved in the process and the solo for me by my account. Thank you again, KT Niehoff, all the company, and you Ricki, for being such explorers of modern dance.
Cheers,
Justin
Dear Justin,
When the solo ended, you said "that was imaginary!" I loved that response so much -- not only did it make me feel like the experience was magical, but also that it was the right kind of magical for YOU, I love the idea that you felt like it could have come from YOUR imagination. Performing for (and with!) you was delightful. I felt seen, and safe, and part of a greater experience you were having. I was aware that you were drinking in not only my dancing, but also the architecture, the light, the art, the music and sounds, the other library patrons, your own rhythms and tempos and instincts. Thank you for sharing with me.
Truly,
Ricki Mason
Friday, April 23, 2010
Criss by Aaron (and Criss)
I chose 12th & Jackson as the site of my final solo, because pigeons love that corner and often circle and wheel in flocking glory, and Criss had written in her initial responses that she loved flocking birds. I also chose that corner because it is public, truly public, multicultural, funky, sketchy, bustling, a nexus point for characters and oddity. It was a space both radically different from the other, more sculptural places that I chose, and aligned with the spirit of marginal, edgy spaces that I gravitated towards in these 1 to 1 solos.
This final solo, taking place in the morning of opening night, had a reflective quality to it, an awareness of the patterns and habits running the course of these solos suffused me. Criss is also a friend, a fellow practitioner of Capoiera Angola, someone I know quite well and respect, someone with whom I want deepen my friendship.
I certainly saw some characters while I was waiting for Criss, including an altercation where a knife almost got pulled. Sitting there next to the dumpster, slightly uncertain about what solo was about to unfold, feeling the nerves.
Beautiful things happened upon her arrival, she made rosemary lemonade, I read sweet words and spoke with my eyes closed, I balanced and danced beside a dumpster, there were the requisite run ins with authority concerning my using crates that were about to be broken down into trash, the pigeons flew, though not when I wanted them to, not as a flock of spells above my dancing, we made a circle of two, and the sun came out gloriously, forcing me into movement before its time. All in all, I feel slightly discontent with my solo for Criss. I felt slomewhat reserved, either due to the location, or the fact that I know Criss well and had an agenda for what I wanted from the solo. Much of Criss’s writing was inspiring, and spoke to me of changing our lives, living our dreams, and becoming radical members of the earth community, with strong roots and dynamic branches. Though I addressed those things in the solo, I don’t feel like I manifested the awakened being I was hoping would show up and inspire us both. Wearing flamboyant pink and red, my movement was nonetheless contained, bound, overly concerned with boxes and props, and never exploding into the raucous movement of the shaman being I had imagined might make an appearance.
When asked if there was anything else she would like to say to me in our writings, she responded “wake up”. That resonated deeply with me, and set the bar high somehow Since I see Criss a lot, I am considering finishing the solo another time, exploding out into movement unexpected, pouring out the passions and desires that her last two words had inspired in me.
Seeing Criss's response of course, helped me realize the complexity of these 1 to 1 solos, the rich interpretation and intimacy that is inherent in their sturcture.
Reflection. Connection. Inspiration.
When I met Aaron on the corner of 12th and Jackson, where dismal energies swirl and emulsify, he greeted me with lemons. Being of a kinesthetic nature, I was right away comforted to receive the simple yet symbolic task of making lemonade.
Once I was settled in, Aaron began with a reading from my greatest literary inspiration, Alice Walker. I remembered the piece right away, and to hear it verbalized evoked the spirit of freedom, and of justice. It tells of a South African tribe that chooses praise over punishment. Villagers gather in a circle around the accused and recall that person’s good deeds, strengths, kindnesses, and positive attributes. I’m passing for a time in which a loved one is incarcerated in a conventional “correctional facility”. So at these words, a heavy but hopeful mourning rushed through me. A few tears made their escape, perhaps plopping into the lemonade. Then Aaron rose and began to move.
He hoisted himself up on a handrail, swinging, swaying, exploring the boundaries of balance and strength, never touching feet to the ground. I saw myself as child. I felt the great freedom and joy of exploring the body’s endless possible configurations. I recalled that sweet serenity that only comes from a place of unsupervised play. I reveled in the memories rolling in, playground scenes, jumping in leaves, and barrel rolling down hills. I recalled my youthful imagination, and the connection it brought.
Aaron then settled into a position surprisingly very familiar to me, head back, legs stretched out, and stomach to the sky. I saw his body as an antenna, roving and fine tuning to receive the most vital signals from the universe. I often feel this way, challenging myself to listen, to observe, and to receive life forces all around me. A few years ago, when I experienced (what I see as) my first major “awakening”, I drew a picture of body in the same position. I had needed to express the pain in letting go, the fear in leaving behind the familiar and comfortable, and the feeling of being moved by unknown and mysterious forces.
Seeing Aaron’s body in this same position brought to mind the endless cycle of birth and death, that for me, is the essence of life. By letting go and cleansing, we are preparing to receive new energies, to use resources at hand to rebuild, and that’s just what Aaron did next.
Using old produce crates and his feet, Aaron gracefully and playfully began to explore what was possible to build. Crate by crate, he constructed a tower, or perhaps a house. When he had only one crate left, he could no longer reach the top of the structure. He then turned to examine the crate; he took it for a slow saunter down the street and studied it. The sun came out and Aaron held the crate over his head, still seemingly perplexed by it’s existence. He returned to his handiwork (or fooitwork) and found a fitting place for the crate, not on the top, but within it’s already stable structure. I felt a great sense of self acceptance and was reminded to examine and love all parts of myself, as well as others.
Aaron then took a seat beside me. We shared rosemary lemonade and salted chocolates as he read from one of his favorite books, Nature and the Human Soul. I was uplifted by the idea that the world IS WAKING UP. Each day, we challenge ourselves to become more and more awake, connected to self, nature, and others. We are creating an ECOcentric world, a world where humans understand their nature and create true communities.
As I walked away, more of Alice Walker’s words rolled in the wind of my consciousness. “What is the point of being artists if we cannot save ourselves?”
The simplicity of this task, like that of the lemonade, filled me with a great sense of empowerment, and hope for the future of humanity.
Thank you for your kind gift, Aaron. You called to the wild playful child within, and brought me one step closer to waking her up, to letting her lead the way.
This final solo, taking place in the morning of opening night, had a reflective quality to it, an awareness of the patterns and habits running the course of these solos suffused me. Criss is also a friend, a fellow practitioner of Capoiera Angola, someone I know quite well and respect, someone with whom I want deepen my friendship.
I certainly saw some characters while I was waiting for Criss, including an altercation where a knife almost got pulled. Sitting there next to the dumpster, slightly uncertain about what solo was about to unfold, feeling the nerves.
Beautiful things happened upon her arrival, she made rosemary lemonade, I read sweet words and spoke with my eyes closed, I balanced and danced beside a dumpster, there were the requisite run ins with authority concerning my using crates that were about to be broken down into trash, the pigeons flew, though not when I wanted them to, not as a flock of spells above my dancing, we made a circle of two, and the sun came out gloriously, forcing me into movement before its time. All in all, I feel slightly discontent with my solo for Criss. I felt slomewhat reserved, either due to the location, or the fact that I know Criss well and had an agenda for what I wanted from the solo. Much of Criss’s writing was inspiring, and spoke to me of changing our lives, living our dreams, and becoming radical members of the earth community, with strong roots and dynamic branches. Though I addressed those things in the solo, I don’t feel like I manifested the awakened being I was hoping would show up and inspire us both. Wearing flamboyant pink and red, my movement was nonetheless contained, bound, overly concerned with boxes and props, and never exploding into the raucous movement of the shaman being I had imagined might make an appearance.
When asked if there was anything else she would like to say to me in our writings, she responded “wake up”. That resonated deeply with me, and set the bar high somehow Since I see Criss a lot, I am considering finishing the solo another time, exploding out into movement unexpected, pouring out the passions and desires that her last two words had inspired in me.
Seeing Criss's response of course, helped me realize the complexity of these 1 to 1 solos, the rich interpretation and intimacy that is inherent in their sturcture.
Reflection. Connection. Inspiration.
When I met Aaron on the corner of 12th and Jackson, where dismal energies swirl and emulsify, he greeted me with lemons. Being of a kinesthetic nature, I was right away comforted to receive the simple yet symbolic task of making lemonade.
Once I was settled in, Aaron began with a reading from my greatest literary inspiration, Alice Walker. I remembered the piece right away, and to hear it verbalized evoked the spirit of freedom, and of justice. It tells of a South African tribe that chooses praise over punishment. Villagers gather in a circle around the accused and recall that person’s good deeds, strengths, kindnesses, and positive attributes. I’m passing for a time in which a loved one is incarcerated in a conventional “correctional facility”. So at these words, a heavy but hopeful mourning rushed through me. A few tears made their escape, perhaps plopping into the lemonade. Then Aaron rose and began to move.
He hoisted himself up on a handrail, swinging, swaying, exploring the boundaries of balance and strength, never touching feet to the ground. I saw myself as child. I felt the great freedom and joy of exploring the body’s endless possible configurations. I recalled that sweet serenity that only comes from a place of unsupervised play. I reveled in the memories rolling in, playground scenes, jumping in leaves, and barrel rolling down hills. I recalled my youthful imagination, and the connection it brought.
Aaron then settled into a position surprisingly very familiar to me, head back, legs stretched out, and stomach to the sky. I saw his body as an antenna, roving and fine tuning to receive the most vital signals from the universe. I often feel this way, challenging myself to listen, to observe, and to receive life forces all around me. A few years ago, when I experienced (what I see as) my first major “awakening”, I drew a picture of body in the same position. I had needed to express the pain in letting go, the fear in leaving behind the familiar and comfortable, and the feeling of being moved by unknown and mysterious forces.
Seeing Aaron’s body in this same position brought to mind the endless cycle of birth and death, that for me, is the essence of life. By letting go and cleansing, we are preparing to receive new energies, to use resources at hand to rebuild, and that’s just what Aaron did next.
Using old produce crates and his feet, Aaron gracefully and playfully began to explore what was possible to build. Crate by crate, he constructed a tower, or perhaps a house. When he had only one crate left, he could no longer reach the top of the structure. He then turned to examine the crate; he took it for a slow saunter down the street and studied it. The sun came out and Aaron held the crate over his head, still seemingly perplexed by it’s existence. He returned to his handiwork (or fooitwork) and found a fitting place for the crate, not on the top, but within it’s already stable structure. I felt a great sense of self acceptance and was reminded to examine and love all parts of myself, as well as others.
Aaron then took a seat beside me. We shared rosemary lemonade and salted chocolates as he read from one of his favorite books, Nature and the Human Soul. I was uplifted by the idea that the world IS WAKING UP. Each day, we challenge ourselves to become more and more awake, connected to self, nature, and others. We are creating an ECOcentric world, a world where humans understand their nature and create true communities.
As I walked away, more of Alice Walker’s words rolled in the wind of my consciousness. “What is the point of being artists if we cannot save ourselves?”
The simplicity of this task, like that of the lemonade, filled me with a great sense of empowerment, and hope for the future of humanity.
Thank you for your kind gift, Aaron. You called to the wild playful child within, and brought me one step closer to waking her up, to letting her lead the way.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Anne and Ricki
A Dance in the Red Zone: Ricki's Solo for Anne
Ricki asked me to meet her at the Frye Art Museum at 10:30, to begin the private, unpublicized part of my solo. She explained that we would be going for a walk and that I should close my eyes for this. With her arm around my waist and mine on her shoulder, she guided our steps as we walked side-by-side down the city sidewalks for about 15 minutes. I knew that our destination was the Central Library downtown, but, as we walked, I became pleasantly disoriented. I was content to listen to the noise of the traffic and feel the wind on my face as Ricki led the way.
I had written to Ricki, in response to the question "Driver or passenger?," that I loved being a passenger when I had a reliable driver. I assumed that my answer had inspired the exercise. This was not the first time, however, that Ricki had guided my movements: She had been my modern dance and ballet teacher for about a year, and I had spent more than a hundred hours moving under her guidance. Ricki knew a lot about me from watching me in the studio. I had also written to her at length about the important role dance played in my life. She had written back, observing that we both loved dance for its beauty and discipline. She expressed the wish to make a dance for me that was about dance itself and about something more.
When we arrived at the library, I opened my eyes. We entered and climbed the stairs to the Red Hall, where the official, publicized part of my solo would take place. Jody and Sacha were waiting for us there. The Red Hall, a small area of intersecting corridors with red walls, ceiling, and floor, feels womblike, despite its smooth, unadorned surfaces. Ricki slipped off her jacket and stood in the center of the space, beneath a down-light. She closed her eyes and performed an improvised solo for about 15 minutes, keeping her eyes closed the entire time. She moved gracefully, with ripples and rotations through her spine, exploratory foldings and unfoldings of her arms and legs, and simple balances and turns. At times, she turned her face toward the light overhead and seemed to bask in its radiance. Her performance was lovely and was especially impressive for being accomplished without the aid of sight. I kept thinking: How can she
dance so elegantly and so fearlessly with her eyes closed? Eventually, Ricki opened her eyes and bowed to me, and we embraced. Then we walked together back up the hill to the Frye.
Using the simplest of means, with no costumes, props, or music, Ricki created an experience that spoke to our relationship to each other and to what she knew about my relationship to the practice of dance. I can't say for certain what her intentions were, but here is part of what I took away from the experience.
Ricki knows that, despite a lack of natural ability, I am never happier than when I'm dancing. She also knows that I can be terribly self-critical when I feel I have not danced well in class, especially when I have made mistakes with my teachers watching. In our walk together, Ricki seemed to be saying, "It is my privilege to guide you in your movement, and it is safe to make yourself vulnerable in my presence."
That Ricki would dance for 15 minutes with her eyes closed, immediately after I had walked for 15 minutes with my eyes closed, could not have been a coincidence. I felt that she was saying to me, "One thing I am doing in this dance, Anne, is enacting you, or the kind of dancer you could be. No one else in the audience will make this connection, however, because no one else knows about our walk together earlier." For me, then, Ricki's dance became more than a public performance: It also became a kind of private demonstration or tutorial. One thing Ricki demonstrated was that suspending judgment and accepting risk is sometimes the right choice. I imagined her to be saying, "I don't know what my dance looks like, and I've chosen not to see whether you like it or not. I'm also willing to risk falling on my face here, because this is how I have decided to dance today." I interpreted this as Ricki's invitation to me to "dance like no one is watching": to tolerate more risk and be more accepting of my limitations and inevitable mistakes.
Ricki also demonstrated that beautiful movement is grounded more in integrity than in extreme virtuosity. I imagined her to be saying, "By dancing with my eyes closed, I'm putting limits on my technique. I can't do anything big or fancy today: I have to keep things smaller and simpler than usual. I'm confident, however, that if I move with presence and conviction, the results will be satisfying." In fact, the results were exquisite. As a dancer with modest abilities, I was glad to be reminded that a simple dance, performed without elaborate technique, can be quite beautiful.
Ricki performed my solo in the Central Library because I had written to her that it was one of my favorite places in Seattle. But the decision to perform in the Red Hall specifically was Ricki's. Why that particular space? My interpretation: The Red Hall is an intimate space, and Ricki's solo for me was based on intimate knowledge. Red is the color of passion, and Ricki and I are both passionate about dance. Red is also the color of danger, and Ricki understands that, for me, dancing involves emotional danger: specifically, the danger that elation will give way to despair when the discrepancy between my aspirations and my abilities feels too great. The space that Ricki chose seemed to symbolically acknowledge these emotional truths.
I am grateful to Ricki for the lovely, thoughtful solo she created for me and for her continuing guidance and companionship as I attempt to dance with presence, courage, and passion.
Anne
Dear Anne,
It has been such a pleasure to get to know you better through this process. I am thrilled with your response to the solo. You certainly understood my intentions, and also found meaning in the choices I made through instinct not logic, which feels like an especially successful artistic exchange.
Yes, driver and passenger. Trust. Feeling like we built trust in each other through our written exchanges before the solo. Wanting to continue that trajectory. A dear friend of mine once took me on a surprise walk with my eyes closed that I found to be ridiculously magical, and I was hoping that it might be for you as well. I appreciated feeling you start out nervous, growing more confident as we found our rhythm of leading and following. We had both moments of silence that felt extremely present, and conversation that felt deepened by the physical connection of the exercise.
Dancing with my eyes closed -- the other side of that trust. Risky for me because I am without a major technical and compositional tool, because I could not see your reaction, because I could not caretake the space or the bizarre social situation being created by dancing in a public space.
I chose the library because it was one of the favorite locations that you listed, and because it is a favorite spot of mine as well. The Red Hall is strange and delightful to me, and I picked it on instinct. I loved hearing what it meant to you.
I love that you observed the pureness of the dance, both parts. No costumes, props, or music. It is really important to me that an audience sees that I have chosen every element of my performance, from the big stuff like music and movement vocabulary, to little details of costuming like the appropriate undergarments to make the look exactly right. Because you are familiar with my work, and because of the conversations we have had about art and the world, I knew that you would know that not having these elements was also an intentional choice. I spent a long time figuring out how to be costume-less. I am so in love with the idea of using artifice to get to truth that I see everything I own as a sort of costume. Every time I get dressed I think about how my clothing evokes gender and decade and class and age. Those choices feel simultaneously revealing and like armor. I wanted this solo to be outside of that mode of art making. I wanted to be as "come as you are" as possible. It was very funny to me to be trying to construct a costume-less costume when I view the world as costumed! Leaving my chipped nail polish on and putting a hat over my wet hair were two decisions I made about my non-costume, that I trusted you to perceive as vulnerable and not lazy. It was a kind of performing that I don't usually do, intimate in a different way, and I was able to make that choice because of what you know about me and my work. I also chose not to use music because I wanted to have a certain kind of immediate intimacy. I ordinarily choose music for my work that manipulates the viewer into feeling a certain way, to set the emotional landscape for the dance to take place in. It felt right in this instance to perform without that support, to let the experience unfold without a pre-conceived soundtrack.
Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for dancing with me.
Truly,
Ricki
Ricki asked me to meet her at the Frye Art Museum at 10:30, to begin the private, unpublicized part of my solo. She explained that we would be going for a walk and that I should close my eyes for this. With her arm around my waist and mine on her shoulder, she guided our steps as we walked side-by-side down the city sidewalks for about 15 minutes. I knew that our destination was the Central Library downtown, but, as we walked, I became pleasantly disoriented. I was content to listen to the noise of the traffic and feel the wind on my face as Ricki led the way.
I had written to Ricki, in response to the question "Driver or passenger?," that I loved being a passenger when I had a reliable driver. I assumed that my answer had inspired the exercise. This was not the first time, however, that Ricki had guided my movements: She had been my modern dance and ballet teacher for about a year, and I had spent more than a hundred hours moving under her guidance. Ricki knew a lot about me from watching me in the studio. I had also written to her at length about the important role dance played in my life. She had written back, observing that we both loved dance for its beauty and discipline. She expressed the wish to make a dance for me that was about dance itself and about something more.
When we arrived at the library, I opened my eyes. We entered and climbed the stairs to the Red Hall, where the official, publicized part of my solo would take place. Jody and Sacha were waiting for us there. The Red Hall, a small area of intersecting corridors with red walls, ceiling, and floor, feels womblike, despite its smooth, unadorned surfaces. Ricki slipped off her jacket and stood in the center of the space, beneath a down-light. She closed her eyes and performed an improvised solo for about 15 minutes, keeping her eyes closed the entire time. She moved gracefully, with ripples and rotations through her spine, exploratory foldings and unfoldings of her arms and legs, and simple balances and turns. At times, she turned her face toward the light overhead and seemed to bask in its radiance. Her performance was lovely and was especially impressive for being accomplished without the aid of sight. I kept thinking: How can she
dance so elegantly and so fearlessly with her eyes closed? Eventually, Ricki opened her eyes and bowed to me, and we embraced. Then we walked together back up the hill to the Frye.
Using the simplest of means, with no costumes, props, or music, Ricki created an experience that spoke to our relationship to each other and to what she knew about my relationship to the practice of dance. I can't say for certain what her intentions were, but here is part of what I took away from the experience.
Ricki knows that, despite a lack of natural ability, I am never happier than when I'm dancing. She also knows that I can be terribly self-critical when I feel I have not danced well in class, especially when I have made mistakes with my teachers watching. In our walk together, Ricki seemed to be saying, "It is my privilege to guide you in your movement, and it is safe to make yourself vulnerable in my presence."
That Ricki would dance for 15 minutes with her eyes closed, immediately after I had walked for 15 minutes with my eyes closed, could not have been a coincidence. I felt that she was saying to me, "One thing I am doing in this dance, Anne, is enacting you, or the kind of dancer you could be. No one else in the audience will make this connection, however, because no one else knows about our walk together earlier." For me, then, Ricki's dance became more than a public performance: It also became a kind of private demonstration or tutorial. One thing Ricki demonstrated was that suspending judgment and accepting risk is sometimes the right choice. I imagined her to be saying, "I don't know what my dance looks like, and I've chosen not to see whether you like it or not. I'm also willing to risk falling on my face here, because this is how I have decided to dance today." I interpreted this as Ricki's invitation to me to "dance like no one is watching": to tolerate more risk and be more accepting of my limitations and inevitable mistakes.
Ricki also demonstrated that beautiful movement is grounded more in integrity than in extreme virtuosity. I imagined her to be saying, "By dancing with my eyes closed, I'm putting limits on my technique. I can't do anything big or fancy today: I have to keep things smaller and simpler than usual. I'm confident, however, that if I move with presence and conviction, the results will be satisfying." In fact, the results were exquisite. As a dancer with modest abilities, I was glad to be reminded that a simple dance, performed without elaborate technique, can be quite beautiful.
Ricki performed my solo in the Central Library because I had written to her that it was one of my favorite places in Seattle. But the decision to perform in the Red Hall specifically was Ricki's. Why that particular space? My interpretation: The Red Hall is an intimate space, and Ricki's solo for me was based on intimate knowledge. Red is the color of passion, and Ricki and I are both passionate about dance. Red is also the color of danger, and Ricki understands that, for me, dancing involves emotional danger: specifically, the danger that elation will give way to despair when the discrepancy between my aspirations and my abilities feels too great. The space that Ricki chose seemed to symbolically acknowledge these emotional truths.
I am grateful to Ricki for the lovely, thoughtful solo she created for me and for her continuing guidance and companionship as I attempt to dance with presence, courage, and passion.
Anne
Dear Anne,
It has been such a pleasure to get to know you better through this process. I am thrilled with your response to the solo. You certainly understood my intentions, and also found meaning in the choices I made through instinct not logic, which feels like an especially successful artistic exchange.
Yes, driver and passenger. Trust. Feeling like we built trust in each other through our written exchanges before the solo. Wanting to continue that trajectory. A dear friend of mine once took me on a surprise walk with my eyes closed that I found to be ridiculously magical, and I was hoping that it might be for you as well. I appreciated feeling you start out nervous, growing more confident as we found our rhythm of leading and following. We had both moments of silence that felt extremely present, and conversation that felt deepened by the physical connection of the exercise.
Dancing with my eyes closed -- the other side of that trust. Risky for me because I am without a major technical and compositional tool, because I could not see your reaction, because I could not caretake the space or the bizarre social situation being created by dancing in a public space.
I chose the library because it was one of the favorite locations that you listed, and because it is a favorite spot of mine as well. The Red Hall is strange and delightful to me, and I picked it on instinct. I loved hearing what it meant to you.
I love that you observed the pureness of the dance, both parts. No costumes, props, or music. It is really important to me that an audience sees that I have chosen every element of my performance, from the big stuff like music and movement vocabulary, to little details of costuming like the appropriate undergarments to make the look exactly right. Because you are familiar with my work, and because of the conversations we have had about art and the world, I knew that you would know that not having these elements was also an intentional choice. I spent a long time figuring out how to be costume-less. I am so in love with the idea of using artifice to get to truth that I see everything I own as a sort of costume. Every time I get dressed I think about how my clothing evokes gender and decade and class and age. Those choices feel simultaneously revealing and like armor. I wanted this solo to be outside of that mode of art making. I wanted to be as "come as you are" as possible. It was very funny to me to be trying to construct a costume-less costume when I view the world as costumed! Leaving my chipped nail polish on and putting a hat over my wet hair were two decisions I made about my non-costume, that I trusted you to perceive as vulnerable and not lazy. It was a kind of performing that I don't usually do, intimate in a different way, and I was able to make that choice because of what you know about me and my work. I also chose not to use music because I wanted to have a certain kind of immediate intimacy. I ordinarily choose music for my work that manipulates the viewer into feeling a certain way, to set the emotional landscape for the dance to take place in. It felt right in this instance to perform without that support, to let the experience unfold without a pre-conceived soundtrack.
Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for dancing with me.
Truly,
Ricki
Monday, April 19, 2010
Mr E and Miss Direction
7:30, my parents arrive
Here is The Journey, the poem which celebrates Mr E’s birth
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild knight,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheet of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
So no, you don't know what happened, neither do I, but it was momentous and of great consequence, and if you ever meet Mr E, you will have something to start conversations with, and may it serve you well in the challenging days to come.
An A and E juxtoposition
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Mr. Dr. Scott Carnz's post about his solo from Michael
I showed up at the house right at 7. A beautiful woman opened the door, and I asked if Michael was there. I had, of course, Googled him to find out what I could. Pictures on Facebook were what I tapped into early.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Post from Josh P about his solo from Bianca
I arrived, a little late as usual, to find Bianca (I could only assume), buried under a blanket, crouched in the wet center of the sundial atop Gasworks' Kite Hill. The early, pre-sunrise light is familiar as Gasworks at
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Guest Artist Mimi Allen on Solo For Jing
Wind storm in Seattle. Arrived early at the Rose Garden by the Woodland Park Zoo in Fremont. It was cold, but thankfully not raining. I placed some special things in their special places, then wrapped my
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
From Satya, in regards to her solo given by Bianca
Bianca Cabrera’s solo for me was performed at Denny Blaine beach on March 24th. It is exciting and honoring to have someone take a bit of me and transform that into movement/art. The piece took place at
Monday, April 5, 2010
Michael and Scott / SingerSongrapper
Video of the dance solo disguised as a rock quintet to come soon.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Impressions after Annie's Solo
Offerings of flowers, a cairn, and the melding of something once broken. The sound of rocks clanking and clapping in the pockets of an indigo blue pea coat. The Fremont Troll, existing in all his complex states of
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