thoughts on light hits the glitz

So "Light hits the glitz" was my fringe piece. I am reworking it for Zornitsa's Current Show which will be free at Mascher space on Saturday, Nov. 14th. I am so excited. Annie is in the piece now, and I can't wait to see the whole thing re-imagined. In rehearsal on Monday I tried to figure out and explain to Kate, Ash, and Annie what the intent of the piece is. But explanations are always lacking and I circled around and around blabbering productively, but not coherently.

So I tried again in email and here is what I came up with:

• images of icing, marhmallow fluff, layers of delicious but extra sugary stuff added. Image of marshmallow fluff or icing smeared onto a person's arms or legs picking up shiny beads or sequins or glitter off the floor.
  
• images of kids named Esme and Sophie and Kaylin and Emma walking around disney world with their parents all bright eyed...They spend 5 days there going to each theme park...it rains each afternoon. They get soaked waiting in line for the rides and attractions. Their parents buy them yellow slickers and glittery princess water bottles and wheely backpacks.
• some kind of idea of "What is a fair Give and Take in art/dance?" How much do I want to glitter and glitz? Do I want people to wait in rainy lines for my art? Do I want people to expect it to be layered with thick sweet icing. Do I want people to run to Sam's club to buy it? Is Disney World a land of IMAGINATION? What is the nature of Imagination? Why do we associate it with children or things that awe us? Shouldn't "make believe" or "pretend" be taken seriously (as adults) not necessarily as fantasy or Lord of the rings or some elaborate sex porno fantasy, but make believe...like the brain/sensory process that fuels what we do every single day. I know a woman who "made believe" that she did not have a tumor the size of a basketball growing inside of her. When we rehearse at fidget, we make believe that we are in mascher space to figure out spacing....
• so I guess a piece that comments on the glitz and fluff and requires the audience to invest in actual imaginative tasks by Kate annie and Ashley and then use their own imaginations to deal with what they see. deal with...not understand, or be awed by...
• oh...and I am getting closer to what I actually mean. I think it is stupid that imagination is always supposed to make us feel good. It is the sole thing that is responsible for making us feel good, outrageous, awkward, ridiculous. I guess my point is that imagination is not marketable...we can't make an infomercial about it...but let us try to anyway. shall we?
  
• oh as for merce, and least common denominator, and such...I want to ask: can we be imaginative and not embellish? We don't have to tell a story with our eyes or expression or gestures or spinal undulations. we don't have to show whimsy or emotion in the face. I we just show really simply "annie ashley and kate thinking and imagining", that is enough.
• as for the Hole karaoke. there is something still really valid about that 7th-grade-alone-in-my-room-self that was all about over emoting andwhat I want to consider being way corny. Hole is so glitzy but so cornily harsh and abrasive. It tries to be irreverent . I just feel like it is a nice layer. The kind of complex feeling of not wanting to make the audience feel turned off or awkward, but genuinely wanting to make eye contact and express and over-emote.
  

Ha. Annie said at rehearsal, "So could you put what you are trying to say in one sentence?" Well, this is my attempt. (NOT) ...one bullet pointed, long ass sentence.

Come see the show. The piece will take half as long as it took me to think of those bullet points. I promise.

chaos has no kickstand

I love how I always start out my blogs talking about how I haven't blogged. It is kind of like when I used to go to confession at C.C.D. "Father forgive me, for it has been ______ since I have last blogged." I kinda stare through that weird shade/screen thing - my eyes level with the shadowy potbelly of the priest on the other side. I think of how he probably just gorged himself with meatballs and spaghetti but mostly meatballs. And I wonder if he has ever had the urge to fart or belch in that tiny dark booth and how bad it must smell, and I wonder if I should confess to him the these comic book-type images. But before I can get that out, he gives me my penance. "Say three Hail Mary's, two Our Father, and for Christ's sake, I check your blog daily and it's really been a let-down. The writing...when you actually do write, it all tries to hard...it kind of hears itself, comments on itself...and for Christ's sake if you use one more ellipsis, I think I'll scream."

I am not sure whether to say "Amen" or "Thank you Father", so I just leave the confessional quietly hoping to leave him wondering if his comment caused me to: faint, disintegrate, or will myself dead and straight to Hell.

So this blog was supposed to be about a performance art piece with a bike that I am thinking about, BUT I guess I got off on a tangent. So the next blog will be about the bike piece.

yearning to bitch/remembering to blog

I haven't blogged for a while. I'd love to get my ideas and ramblings on my fringe piece up in some kind of cohesive manner, but for right now, the ideal place for them is in a notebook, on a napkin, and other lovely places. I just picture myself, at some point in my life, at some European airport. Hey, if dreaming big is allowed, perhaps I'd be coming back from some kind of choreography residency in Berlin. And then, because I always attract crunchy hippies (not that there is anything wrong with crunchy hippies (I've eaten my share of granola and gone braless more than once)), I'd be at customs chatting with a few Bob Marley look-alikes about rebirth and Art. The person at customs would be suspicious of us all and before I'd know it, I'd be in some shady backroom being strip-searched by some large German woman and feeling her awkwardly strong German fingers searching in wrong places for a ziplock baggie of weed or two. She'd be shit out of luck, but out of my cavities she would retrieve pieces of crumpled paper with lots of choreography notes scribbled on them. She would be the one feeling "high" as she stood there like some surreal version of a magician pulling programs, blank pieces of printer paper, tissues, napkins, and receipts all graffiti-ed with my sloppily jotted thoughts on dance, life, and art out of my body.

That is a nasty exaggeration of my disorganization and abstract means of brainstorming, so please know that I do not actually stash dance notes up my ass!!!!

Well, Philly, as much as I love you...as much as I can't think of any other city I'd rather live in... here are some things that I'd like to bitch about:

1. As of August 16th, you drained the public pool on 18th and Catharine of its water and closed it down for Fall. Last time I checked, the rest of August/hottest part of the Summer was still yet to come.
   
2. Washington Ave. (my main means of biking to and from work every day) and Delaware Ave (my main means of biking to and from Mascher Space Co-op.) both have bike lanes the whole way!!! That would be lovely...except bike lane does not = place to sweep all of the road's and sidewalk's glass, trash, and other dangerous objects! You know those red bins at hospitals and doctors offices for sharp objects' disposal? I feel like city workers or fairies or trolls of Brotherly Love must go out at night and sprinkle the contents of those bins in the bike lanes.
   
3. Speaking of bikes, my friend Christine's beautiful new custom bike got stolen. They literally sawed the pole to steal it. That's something to bitch about!
   
4. The guidelines for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund Grant (the grant that PHA applied for and recieved last year) are not even posted on the website because the whole thing is in limbo due to the city's decisions about Budget cuts and funding. The deadline is Sept. 25th (probably), and I just got off the phone with the secretary at Senator Dominick Pillegi's (spelling???) office. The well trained voice of complacency softly told me that she would pass along my message of concern to the senator. I mean what else could she say? BUT STILL...its frustrating.
   

Well good, I've successfully set up a climax of negativity. The weird thing is...I am in a great mood today. No honestly I have an awesome rehearsal, free snacks (maybe?) at a grant meeting, a night off,and a homemade dinner with Paul and friends to look forward to on this sunny day. More thoughts on TENSE MAG to come...in case you thought I forgot about it/gave up!

"TENSE MAG.: not stiff but Present"

I recently had a conversation about starting a "dance" review or zine...Something like Contact Quarterly in that it would have articles, interviews and innovative free flowing discourse that critically thinks about issues in contemporary dance. Nice...right?

But what an administrative nightmare...finding grants, shuffling and filing paperwork, promoting it, creating a buzz around it, seeking help, recruiting advertisements and sponsors...

I'd probably need a board of directors...I'd definitely need contributors, oh and editing and images, oh and printing and wow...that sure sound like a hell of a lot of work.

I'd probably have to hire some eager college-age interns, maybe a few naive carrier pigeons, an in-house hipster bike messenger, a blonde bombshell personal assistant...a new psychologist to help me cope with the extra load of stress, a massage therapist who could help further relieve my stress and advertise in my zine all in one shot.

I'd probably need to hire a ninja or two to scale the freshly power-washed walls of city hall...scale all the way up to good old Billy Penn, and secure in his hand a larger-than-life neon light-up billboard advertising my brand spanking new dance zine....BUT the sign wouldn't say "dance zine".

No. It would be more mysterious by revealing just the title which would be (drum roll please...) "TENSE MAG.: not stiff but Present". There would be a buzz around Philly, and people would not put 2 and 2 together until they started seeing copies all over the place...It could be like in Las Vegas where you can't walk anywhere without a few pages of the "slutty naked lady zines" getting skewered by the skinny heels of your stilletos. "TENSE MAG." articles would be strewn across Philly. You'd go for a walk, step in some gum, and before you'd know it, you'd have an article entitled "Finding the Sits Bones: Philly's Prime Movers Discuss Pelvic Halving and the Head Tail Connection" stuck to your new Puma's.

So...stay posted...more to come on "TENSE MAG.". If you are a dancer who likes to hear herself talk, a talker who likes to imagine himself dancing, a dreamer who likes to dance herself to sleep, or a talker that likes to force others to the point of sleeping and dreaming , then "TENSE MAG." is for you!!!!!!!! If you are none of these things...go read the Wall St. Journal.

Here are some pics. of rehearsal for SomeAnyOverItch.  (courtesy of Bill H.)  

We have a week until our show at Mascher (Friday, May 29th @8).  I can't wait!

I still haven't ironed out the talking stuff, but I just got back from rehearsal with Ashley, and movement-wise, it feels really chill and exciting.  Tonight we rehearse again and will have some people there to watch and act as audience members that we can be terrified by when we attempt to talk.  I keep thinking of the talking in Miguel Guitierez's work which most definitely is in some way previously written down.  It isn't usually improvised (from what I've seen), but there is something about the way stuff is said or read that seems so real and vulnerable.  Or even in John Jasperse's Misliable to Use of Persecution... the talking is very imaginative and his sensibility and gentle intelligence are so clear.

That is my ultimate goal for the talking, but I am okay with it being awkward, theatrically horrible, corny, blah blah...etc.  I would rather try something, commit to it, and have it not work, than to bull shit and cop out of doing anything that feels less than comfortable.  I also liked the writing on stage and reading stuff that Jen Nugent and Paul Matteson did at the Mascher show last month.  That was weird, but good- weird cause I could appreciate the fact that they were trying to get at something, and they almost seemed to acknowledge that they hadn't completely found an effective way to get at it.  I feel like a lot of choreographers are wanna-be poets (I totally am) but they realize that poetry is hard.  really freakin hard.  It feels nice to string words together and make images and linguistic choices, but when it comes to editing and honing in on making an actual poem, I am always like, "Uh...that was nice while it lasted, but lets just dance. k?". (well, not "jUST dance", but you get my point) 

So with all that said, I think it will be interesting trying the stuff I have in mind at tonight's rehearsal.  Some talking inspirations/images that come up are: awfully awkward artist talk-back sessions, the language used by a yoga teacher or meditation leader, gumbley-gook artsy bullshit talk over wine on first friday, a professor to his freshman seminar class, Becket's Waiting for Godot, Albee's The Goat, The Sasha Baron Cohen Bruno interview of the fashion show people and of the psychic.  

Well, its gorgeous out!  I am going out to play.  

Idea for duet

The duet I have been working on since September is really a huge huge work in progress. It kind of reminds me of a tumbleweed...in that it has been rolling/blowing along since September. It started as a poem...a concept for a site-specific duet that takes place nowhere...and along the way it has picked up so much stuff. Maybe its less like a tumbleweed and more like a swiffer in a really dirty apartment of a crack addict. The work and the process have accumulated so much stuff. I turn the swiffer over to look at what is there and woah...(lots of hair, dust particles, grass, bits of tiny glass and plastic, those paper things you pull off of bandaids, advil tablets, candy wrappers, gum wrappers, shards of a stick of gum, cat hair, toe nails, mouse droppings, tissues, cigarette butts, dried up gummi bears, chip crumbs, sugar crystals, soft pretzel salt granules, confetti, ashes, notebook paper ragged edges, pencil lead, receipts, dried bugers, dried bloody bugers, scabs, flakey skin, and more.) Well, the swiffer is just a metaphor but here is a list of the somethings Ashley and I have played around with. It seems like each rehearsal we try some stuff out. some stuff sticks, some doesn't, but I truly believe it is in the act of trying it and doing it/forgetting it that informs us and our beings as artists and then hopefully, informs the piece:

• moving across the space with isolated initiations (just head or just extremities or just pelvis) to Crystal Castles
• push, pull, give into momentum
• manipulate your partner's pelvis...close your eyes and do it
• Doug Varone-like spatial pattern. finding dimension/opportunities/space connections
• false starts
• energy modes established randomly from improving freely. Maintaining energy mode. Distill it/make a phrase with it (Jennifer Monson style)
• learn this set phrase and do it...now don't do it on the counts of the music
• trust games, lead each other eyes closed...initiations
• Surreal initiations...free association sensations. jumping from one absurd image to the next without overthinking it.
• try to contact improv adding and subtracting new rules. fuck the rules. just contact improv without stopping or talking. Do it for 10 minutes straight to the Fugees cd.
• Improvise together and apart..be real, be fake...just don't be precocious.
• Do Curt's warm-up. Add qualities...do it like caramel or a slug or a cracked out jazz dancer.
• Manipulate each other through curt's warm up phrase, almost treating it like bodywork for the other person. Even the masseuse is dancing. Take this and improvise it across the floor.
• Be gay...gayer. Basically take time to listen to the other each other's body before responding...the same amount of time we'd take to listen to our boyfriend's body. Or a significant other that we'd be interested in getting schnazzy with. have this sensitivity when dancing with each other without actually being gay or maybe really do be gay for a moment or a while. get the homophobes up in arms...cause they deserve to be shaken.
• do a ballet barre or yoga warm up facing away from each other but imagining the other person there with you the whole time. Imagine balancing on their upside down body's toe. Imagine them there.
• Make a film for yourself while improvising. zooming in and out and pausing and finding what in the space interests you and how you can change the look of the space by changing your movement and thus changing your vision.
• write down surreal skits that will guide the audience to ideas of nothingness, nowhereness, no oneness, notimeness. Also throw in something, everything, anything; somewhere,anywhere, everywhere; someone, anyone, everyone; sometime, anytime, everytime. Write about specific, fantastical, ridiculous things and imagine a dialougue of us saying them.

Thats all the stuff we have done! Here's all the places we have been developing the work:

• UArts
• my apartment...her apartment
• Last Drop
• Rittenhouse gym
• Studio 34
• Mascher Space
• the streets of philly
• the in/out box for text messaging on my phone/her phone
• emails...facebook

Anyway...lists of stuff! Please know that if you are reading this still, that it is not meant for reading enjoyment, BUT more for my own narcissism and artistic process. I apologize if you are reading this still. Your eyes are probably glazed over.

I envision incorporating tape recorders, with our audience surreal talk on them

I envision the audience sitting very close to us on the floor and on risers

I envision a black backdrop

I envision a new end to the piece. An end in which the two of us do a set minimal rhythmic unison and canon and chopped up phrase. we repeat and repeat and then go back to our side-by-side gimmick recognizable photo-op shot. the music changes. we slowly walk backwards together toward the audience. slowly take off our shirts. we have lots...probably like 50 or more little white people taped to our backs. We reveal this and stand there and slowly rip or pick or brush some of them off. they go flying through the air or falling or whatever. the song ends as this is all happening.

NYC can be cheap if you let it be!

Wow yesterday was a crazy day! I mean not crazy, like wild-crazy. I mean as much as I could envision myself in just a white t-shirt and white boy shorts underwear backing my ass up to Fity Cent or some shit all "girls gone wild"- style while standing in the pouring rain on top of the Chinatown bus before if pulls off...my day wasn't crazy like that. But it was nonstop and intense!
I got the 11:30 am bus out of Philly after work. I tried to stick to my ritual of getting a coffee and some unknown Chinatown bakery, delicious-looking bun. They were all out of the buns that look good but not so good that I will gain 5 lbs. and simultaneously have a heart attack before even making it to NYC, so I got this pineapple one. It was super sweet and really awful, but I finished it anyway cause the rain was stressing me out and I like to have something to munch on when I am stressed out. It takes my mind off of it. The ride up wasn't terrible.

Even though I knew I was pushing it time-wise, I forced myself to rush around and get the L Train to Brooklyn to go to the 2 o'clock Anna Sperber Class in her studio. The space is really nice. She is really nice. There were two of us in class. The class was $10. The dancing came from an "anatomical and physiological sensitivity through imagery" type approach. I really appreciated her sincerity, and lots of the images she gave made so much sense or some didn't make sense at all but I still liked how they kind of tickled my imagination. The floor in her space is also sweet. She said she did a good amount of research and found that this processed "purgam?" over the plywood that was there and then covered with foam (I think she said), seemed to be the best option. Her space is way smaller than mascher, but for Meghan Breidge's space, it seems like it would be perfect, but possibly expensive.? Anyway...GO NYC and the classclassclass program for having cheap classes that are not about spending your last paycheck to be seen in a fierce leotard or to not be seen in a fierce leotard but to see lots of other annoying skinny chicks twirling around in spandex (although I do still highly enjoy spandex).

I continued to find little slivers of NYC awesomeness that I had always assumed ceased to exist. Although the full out "hipster" boy is usually is not my type ( I like a milder or nerdier or less trendy version)...I had time to kill and I figured I'd rather chill in Williamsburg in their company than go right to Wall St. (where my audition was) and be surrounded by corporate assholes that make me lose faith in the world. I went shopping at Salvation Army and found lots of sweet stuff for really cheap. I actually ended up making no purchases simply because none of the stuff was neccessary...just fun. I also browsed in an awesome record shop. Finally I decided it was dinner time and I sprung for a $3 falafel sandwich at the place right across from the Bedford stop. Holy crap...it was delicious and cheap and I ate it with a perma-smile on my face.

I then went to the Tiffany Mills Scholarship Audition and I have rambled on for way too long, so I will discuss dancey-stuff and the audition in my next post or something of the sort! Speaking of dancey stuff though...I had a horrible trip back from NYC at 1 in the morning cause the Chinatown Bus was sucking. I felt like Mark Morris cause I resorted in drinking a big huge can of Saporro on the ride home. It was yummy and I judge Mark less now for using the dancers' emergency ice bucket to keep his reserve of Sapporo perfectly chilled when his company toured to ADF the year I worked on their stage crew. I judge him less for walking around shamelessly and pompously with that silver can in his hand at all times as if it were a bottle of Evian.

the sky was active blue today

I have been cherishing these longer days. Daylight trails on till about 7PM now, and for the first time this year (That I can recall) the morning sky at 5:40 am was active-blue this morning. There is only a window of a few weeks, I think, that the sky is active blue at that time in the morning. I could be making this whole bit of bullshit up, but I swear I saw and felt it today. There is something about the shade of blue that has momentum, wild depth, and clarity. I've never seen an ocean besides the Atlantic, but I swear, this blue of the sky is the straight up copyrighted blue hue that the marketers of resorts in The Bahamas and the Caribbean use to represent the Pacific on their brochures and commercials. Whether its true or not...I don't know. But this sky is incredible. There are no clouds and the blue is like something you could send up your open hand surging into and pull out your hand with a fistful of diamonds and treasure. This sky is still by faith because there is not a cloud in it that can act as a true indicator of whether the sky is actually moving, creeping along at its usual pace, or not. The sky is in endless motion by faith as well. The fact that it is clear with no clouds or blemishes, again makes it impossible to reference its movement against anything else, but the color of the sky alone assures you that it is moving...surrounding you, stretching out, coiling back, exponentially expanding.

The ant on the sidewalk stops looking in front of him for one second and lifts the "head" part of his segmented body to peer up at you. He sees you: the bottoms of your earlobes, the black caverns of your nostrils, the feathery jutting out of your eyelashes...BUT all these shapes and forms are in counterpoint with the background...the active blue sky. For one second the ant wishes his body alignment were so that he could always peer upwards seeing figures in relief, enveloped by the blue sky. Just kidding...the ant doesn't wish that at all cause ant's can't wish things. Plus, the ant went to Art School and has a bookshelf full of the works of Romantic Poets: Blake, Shelley, Thoreau and can get his fill of lovely images whenever he wants to. The ant knows rivers, trees, leaves, nature...The ant looks forward to Spring. The coming of Spring and the active blue sky cause him to scurry across the sidewalk a bit more quickly than normal. He dodges crumbs and shards of glass and wads of chewing gum. He's not sure where he is going, but he moves with a quickness.

Headlong/ Tere O'Connor Workshop

Tere O'Connor has been working with Headlong Dance Theater for the past year or so. Tere is a choreographer in NYC. I have taken a week workshop a few summers ago with him, but have sadly not seen any of his works. He has very thought-out views/theories/ideas about what dancing is and what choreography is. Headlong shared some of these working theories with us in this weekend's workshop. This is my attempt to make some sense of it all for myself as I reiterate what I think I may have learned/become interested in on Saturday.


Choreography is like science in that we use something/anything as a starting point. Then we do research on it. We ask questions that have yet to be asked, or that we think have yet to be asked, or that have been asked already but we hope that they will manifest new truths or untruths or truth-looking things that as a culture and as a generation we can put some faith into and believe in.

Choreographers, like scientists, should be honest in their researching process. Tere seems to be saying that maybe we don't need preconcieved notions of dances or concepts for dances or themes for dances...that all of these things are better left unknown and un-worried about at the begining of a dance making process. We shouldn't worry about what is good, or what people will get or not get, or what is strong or what works. We should simply worry about asking questions to delve deeper into what interests us. Our explorations of those questions doesn't have to be good or interesting or ground-breaking either; it just has to be curious and real. Through this we can figure out what the "it-ness" of what we are making is and ask more questions to explore that It-ness. He calls these repeated bouts of research "it-erations".

With all this said: this is not the be all and end all of the choreographic process. It is one tool that can be used very strictly or could work to simply get a choreographer on a certain track with the creation of movement and to help him/her resist imposing qualitative judgment on his/her process and to resist his/her urge to "make a dance" instead of simply being curious enough to let the dance "make itself".

I want to use these ideas to keep going with Ashley and my duet, SomeAnyOverItch. It actually relates quite nicely to my original concept of adding layers to Nothing. There again though, notice that I actually did go into the dance with a "concept" that ended up censoring/influencing/pressuring the movement that emerged as the duet. There was always the question of "How does this movement or this section relate to my concept???" But why am I so precious about my concept anyway? I am not in sales or marketing or advertising...I am not selling chocolate ice cream cones to lactose intolerant kids! I am not selling anything because believe me...if I was, I wouldn't be sitting at the gym at work right now, I'd be home counting my millions of dollars (all in 20's) (packed neatly into 3 black briefcases). So why do I cling onto a concept? Probably because I don't trust that at the "end" of the process, I will know what the heck is going on if I don't have some kind of starting point. Ash and I have many starting points though. We have been playing since september with contact and giving and taking impulses, and improvising, and being sincere in a performance, and creating imagined space, and charging fictitious imaginations.

I'd like to think of an assignment for rehearsal tonight...something to slow us down and make us take the time to do some research. Maybe do a strict it-eration thing individually like we did in the workshop but then add something. We have so much duet/contact stuff to play with. Maybe we start with that and one person does research on a sliver of some aspect that interests them. The other person's score is simply to react. The researcher can give the reactor some physical or verbal cues. If they use verbal it must be loud, resolute, and brief. something like "Press into me harder" "Keep pressing" "STOP" "DO THAT AGAIN".

Or maybe we should do the strict iteration thing and see ..."hey what is leading us into contact anyway? Maybe there is nothing there...maybe that is forced. Hmm...I guess we will have to wait and see!

OH BALLS

If you wikipedia "Ball Pit" this is what they tell you...
A ball pit, also known as a ball pond or ball pool, is a pit, usually rectangular and padded, filled with small hollow plastic, multi-colored balls. It is typically employed as a recreation or exercise for small children. Some ball pits are shallow and only suitable for "wading", while others are deeper and may be used for "swimming".

Ballpits are often found in nurseries, carnivals, fun centers, amusement parks, fast food restaurants, and large video arcades. Chuck E. Cheese removed their ballpits due to safety concerns and becuase the pits were a drain on resources, since children would often steal individual balls till the pits were far below capacity, and thus, unuseable.

While ballpits are commonly thought of as a child's play-thing, there are some that can accommodate adults. Many ball pits have been removed because they are thought of as unsanitary because it is hard to clean each individual ball and because unsafe objects can collect at the bottom of the pit. Beginning in the late 1990's, many urban legends have surfaced saying that kids have died or been critically injured due to poisonous snakes and hypodermic needles at the bottom of the ballpit. China Meiville's short story, The Ball Room, is a horror story centered around a ballpit in an Ikea-like furniture store.

Wow! I love it. I think it was at the last Mascher meeting I attended, when someone mentioned having a room full of balls for a fundraiser party event and the whole thing got me remembering the loveliness of ballpits. I used to love swimming around in those sweaty awesome balls. It was extra fun in those swishy jogging suits I used to wear when I was 5. I'd have a tummy full of Chicken McNuggets, milk, and Animal Crakers. I loved those moments where your feet clearly touched the bottom and then you would try to walk and do one of those trip-steps and sink shoulder or neck deep in that crazy pit of goodness. I can remember ignoring my mom as she stood at the netting surrounding the pit telling me it was time to leave. I remember thinking that the likeliness of her coming in to get me was slim to none so...whatever. Then I thought about how awful the car ride home would be so I waded/swam on out.

The hypodermic needle thing cracks me up because just last night, PHA was rehearsing at Mascher and we heard the icecream truck outside at 9PM. We were all like, "who buys ice cream this late at night?...until we were enlightened by Laura that the truck sells both ice cream and drugs...woa! And the fact that someone wrote a horror story about a ballpit is pretty great too. It makes me think, How great would it be to do a Fringe piece in a moon bounce? and the moon bounce would maybe deflate as the piece went on. Or in inflatable swimming pools and the pools deflate as the piece goes on. The audience sits in baby swimming pools. Or inflatable rafts or innertubes that deflate as the piece goes on. You'd hear that"pssssttttttttt" of the air coming out the whole time. It'd be like one long infinitely lasting, yet controlled, fart that is made collectively by the whole audience. And I, for one, could perform much better if I knew that the whole audience was farting throughout the whole performance. (You know how they say, to cure stage fright you should picture the audience naked or taking a dump??? well this is a new and better twist on it).

So balls and farting...Happy Monday kids!

my mind is completely ADHD right now

Well I worked at the gym for 9.5 hours today...plus I worked out for an extra hour.  10.5 hours in the same place (other than places such as: my bed, a hot tub full of floating candles and rose petals, an all-you-can-eat free brunch buffet with free endless Bloody Mary's and Mimosas, or a tropical beach or oasis) is WAY too long to spend in one place.  My brain feels a bit rotted from sitting in that office doing...um...nothing.  Pure nothing!  I love how I justify it to myself by thinking, "In this economy, you know you really need to work every single job opportunity that comes your way!!! Make that money Christina".

I don't always think like this, but lately I've had a lot of unpredictable expenses: my AFFA Group Fitness certification (yes... come take my Jane Fonda tribute spandex aerobics class when I start teaching classes..kidding), the money to pay the 1st and last month rent and security deposit of the new place that Vince and I will find and move into as of August, and the price of any Summer travels, dance workshops, or time off work that I look forward to taking.  ( I may do a dance workshop in NYC and in nowheresville New England at EarthDance.)  But anyway, I don't know if this is an economic phenomenon that I am discovering ( i'm sure its not) but I find myself thinking about penny-pinching way more lately and pretending to take measures to be cheaper and more frugal than I already was, but I think in reality I am just squandering my money at the same rate that I did before.  I am putting more of my paychecks in the bank...way more, but then by the end of the week, I find myself going to an ATM, getting some money out, drinking PBR out or wine at home, satisfying my cravings with Taco Riendo (which is not super cheap...its just in a neighborhood that makes it seem like it should be super cheap).  This could also be due to the fact that in the past weekend I have been trying to get my mind off certain amounts of shit...and by shit I mean thoughts about where my life is going and what my future holds and why all men should be shot (k...that is me exaggerating and being overdramatic).  But I don't understand men at all: the one's that aren't awkward are either taken, platonically interested and nothing more, or fall under one of the nine-million types of guys that cause me to run in the other direction.  Or they aren't any of these things, but they treat my like crap at times and are flaky.  Anyway...that was my complaining for the day, and now I am going to bed! 

 

thank you sun!

Well today is gorgeous.  I can feel Spring.  

Waking up and getting my lazy ass to the gym at 5:45 every morning just got exponentially easier (if the weather stays like this).  

This weather makes me want to sit outside and drink coffee.  It makes me want to skip down the street west side story-style.  It makes me want to play my music REALLY LOUD.  It makes me want to go in the park and pretend to read a book while actually people-watching and trying not to judge the other folks that are out enjoying this fine day.  Like the hipster bike messenger kids all lined up on the cement barriers in Rittenhouse...they always have their big shoulder bags.  I assume they are just big enough to hold a vegan sandwich, two 40 oz.'s, and a kidnapped toddler.  That is why they carry them around I truly believe.  But it is a beautiful day, and I should not judge them.  I should only feel slightly sorry for the kidnapped toddler who is crammed inside their bag and can't see the sunshine and is inhaling the moist sweaty and plasticy smelling air of the interior.  He/she couldn't scream if he/she wanted to because the chilled 40oz.'s are crammed on either side of the child's face so his/her jaw is frozen shut.  This ensures that the child won't be tempted to nibble on the vegan sandwich as well (ah...dual purpose...lovely).

     Where are these children's parents?  Why aren't they storming the Oprah show...tissues in hands and tears on cheeks...why?  Why aren't they calling the cops and screaming into the receiver..."But its URGENT!!!!!! My Little Johnny/Sally went missing on his/her way to school this morning.  He/she is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!  HE/SHE NEVER CAME HOME!  PLEASE. OH GOD PLEASE HELP!"  

No.

The moms are at their daily yoga.  They focus on their inhales that tickle the small hair follicles in their nasal passages.  They say things like "ummmmm" and "shivasanasana".  They twist themselves in positions named after pooping and screwing animals.  They work hard to twist into these positions.  They notice stretch marks on their stomachs when their lycra-cotton blend yoga tops ride up as they twist into "squatting tarantula".  Towards the end of their class they do poses called "Child's Pose" and "Happy Baby".  They think to themselves..."inhale ah how profound to be like a posing child exhale ah and how satisfying to lay supine like a very very happy baby."  They think back to when they were babies and when they were children.  They remember suckling on bottles and being cradled in their housekeepers' arms.  They remember posing for family photos, but never quite posing long enough for the photographer to actually snap the picture or even for their mothers and fathers to find their rightful places in the family portrait tableau.  Yes, the moms think of all these lovely things during their daily yoga practice, and the whole thing culminates in them nodding prayerfully and saying, "Namamaste".  They say it and think, "oh how clever...we spend time stretching like babies and then say Na-MAMA-ste" at the end of class...We thank our earth mother...Mother Nature!  Yes...thank you mother nature on this beauteous day.  Thank you mother nature for the sunshine.  Thank you mother nature for your blessings!"

The moms jet out of their yoga studio.  They flag a cab to Trader Joes.  The exit the cab upon arrival, tip the cabby 10 dollars, and shut the cab door while simultaneously taking a full wiff of the sweet smelling Spring city air.  They rush into Trader Joes, maneuver their high heels down the aisles, and throw all of their Johnny's/Sally's favorite snacks into their cart.  Like on autopilot they grab for peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, tortilla chips, baby carrots, and chocolate soy milk.  They think about food pyramids and recipes that they plan to steal from Rachel Ray and her 30 minute meals.  These moms are thinking about so many things all at once.  They hear their cellphones beep, fresh with new text messages, but they don't have time to check them.  The 20 year old nannies who watch their children after school are always texting them nervously saying things like, "Is Johnny allowed to have three Oreos for snack today?  He says you always let him do that. lol." or "Sally has a really runny nose today.  Can I use toilet paper to wipe it cause I think you guys are out of tissues. lol".  The moms roll their eyes when they hear their phones beep and continue shopping.  They think about what a calming effect their yoga practice has had on them.  They think about the fact that there is no emergency that can't wait until they get home around 7:30 PM.  It will be just like every other day.  Little Johnny and Sally will be just fine.  

Holy crap...I have no idea why this beautiful day inspired this super dark bit of fiction, but it did.  Woa...sorry for the spontaneous and morbid story that I just pulled out of my ass.  

 

Sue me...I'm on a poem kick.

Last night, 3/2/09, Pink Hair Affair did a few improv score thingys at National Mechanics for a fundraiser cabaret for Mascher Space. Clear packaging tape came to my artistic rescue for probably about the 20th time. We handed out bar napkins with haikus taped on them. The haikus were amazingly fun to write, and I think that some dreary day in winter should be made National Haiku Day. Everyone would have to wear clothing with his/her own personalized haikus, they would also have to change their facebook status to a haiku...and write haikus on napkins, they would even have to speak in haikus (within reason...we wouldn't want anyone geeking out too much!) But it wouldn't hurt anyone to pass the Mcdonalds worker a post-it saying:
I'd like a burger
with pickles, ketchup, onions
and that special sauce!

We handed out some blank napkins and pens and egged people in the bar on to write their own haikus. We took three home. I kind of like them. They are all semi-related to the events of the cabaret and the night in general!

Lazy transvestite
Wearing a blond wig poorly
Maybe dress like Cher?

Why the pink hair, babes?
Do the curtains match the drapes?
No worry, I'm gay.

I escape through you
Like open French breeze-way doors.
Its drafty in here.

Here is my final haiku response to the ones that we got:

The drag queen was bad.
Like watching a trainwreck. No?
But who is to judge?

Pink wigs make us fun.
Its a gimmick we can comb,
exploit, then remove.

Don't catch pneumonia.
And don't catch an S.T.D!
Asshole, it just snowed!

SomeAnyOverItch

"SomeAnyOverItch" is a duet for Ashley Wood and myself that we are showing for the first time at Studio 34 on Saturday, Feb. 28th @ Current Series.  The show starts at 8 and is $5.  There are lots of great dance shows that night, so be sure to make it to at least one of them...otherwise the dance fairy of bad karma will be out to get you.  

Here is a poem/text that I like to think of as holding hands with the duet.  They go together, but are hopefully not dependent on each other.  Any feedback on the text or the piece would be amazing.  (gesualdic@gmail.com)

This stage is nothing.

Imagine this stage as nothing.

Something is just Nothing playing dress up:

glitzy baubles dangling from Nothing's earlobes

a gaudy shawl draped round Nothing's neck.

Nothing.

So bare, so rare, so very hard to come by.

The words "so" and "very" for example

are two shiny beads on the necklace in Nothing's dress up bin.

We have tendencies to dress up the page, dress up the stage, the space

We dress up the space: so pure, so empty.

(ah see how I use two adjectives when one would do)

We tend to make somethings, add layers.

We use repetition over over over over over over over over over over over over over over over over over writing it so many times over and over till the word "over" looks like it is spelled wrong: so foreign, so queer.

And then there are those layers we add: those layers of controversy, of political incorrectness

Those layers we construct and have no chance of backing away from,

no chance of them not itching like an Irish wool sweater up against a bare breast.

Even in the icy winter,

even then you'd itch and itch and itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch itch and itch and itch your bare breast so many times that you'd lose confidence in the English language and the way it spells its four letter, queer little words and the way the violent actions they denote leave your breast red and raw.

So Nothing plays dress up quite often

tries desperately in hopes of becoming something, anything, overthing, itchthing.

It layers itself, plays at being so absurd, so bizarre.

Nothing squeezes its feet into paten leather, 6 inch pumps, walks over a sewer grate, gets its heel stuck...

The heel breaks.

Nothing falls, exposing, OH GOD, exposing its somethings, anythings, overthings, itchthings.

No one sees Nothing fall.

No one is around.

No one hears it.

No one cares. 

I should read more

There are lots of things we all should do! If we let the wealth of undone things on our should-do lists get us down, we'd all be miserable blubbering messes. That said:
the fact that I should lose a couple pounds, should take more dance class, should get more sleep, should drink more wine and less beer, should save more money, should get a haircut, should ignore things on the periphery more often, and should spend less time on facebook...all these un-done things don't really get my panties all up in a bunch. They will happen in their own sweet time, and if they don't happen...well whatever...nobody is perfect!

However, it makes me sad that there is so much great literature out there - such a prolific amount of quality writing. When I read a book that I like, the process is simple, genuine, and so completely gratifying. But I am so uninspired to actually open the book and begin reading. Aside from the Sunday Times and a few articles, periodicals and short stories, its been a while since I have read a book (more than half a year). What the hell?

I will get reading. I swear. I just remembered that the last thing I did read was Edward Albee's "The Play About the Baby".

Thats it for today's episode of let me make a pretentious post that says..."oh look at me. I don't read, but i should because I am just that witty and sharp. and oh...let me know what books you recommend. and oh blah blah blah" The whole post is like a bad Q and A with a choreographer...where both the audience and the choreographer are trying to subtly or not-so-subtly say oh...look how smart and worldly I am...look...look at me.

But no seriously...I should read more
and you should look at me. ha

this is old, but whatever

I wrote this right after I watched one of the presidential debates in October. Here it is!

a debate-inspired free write...ripped off of Ivana Muller's show

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 9:44am

I saw Ivana Muller's show "While We were Holding It Together". It is this amazing performance piece in which she creates this "still" tableau with 5 performers and then uses text to bring you on this insanely surreal and pluralistic journey. For a sample, check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbPBoq_A5vg
I got so excited about this "I imagine" concept, that I couldn't help myself. I think watch the clip first so that you don't think I am mental.

Performers: Senator McCain (stage right) and Senator Obama (stage left)


McCain: Well Tom, I imagine this whole auditorium is spinning – like an amusement park ride. We are all being sucked to the walls by centrifugal force.

Obama: I imagine my brain is sloshed toward the back of my skull. All the front brain – the hippocampus, I believe its called, is pulled by this force. It squeezes toward, toward uh… the back brain – the base, the root, the…I’ve heard it called the um- animal brain. Yes. I imagine both my brains are squeezed together…the gray matter looking like – looking like the um – the um – the, well this sounds silly, but like my wife’s thighs squeezing into a pair of jeans. And with this fair amount of “brain squishing”, caused of course by this ride that Sen. McCain speaks of, comes a real, a real…an effect.
I imagine I can “FEEL” the rhetoric. It is lodged or something, the rhetoric, I mean, it is quite literally lodged in my gut. I imagine

McCain: I imagine the floor drops out. I imagine you Tom, you are the carnie man outside the ride. You have a bright red carnie t-shirt on. You press a bright red button and wahhhhh…. The floor…..g o n e!

Obama: I imagine it quite differently Tom. I imagine you are inside the ride with us. We have all been stuck to these spinning walls for quite some time now, years perhaps.

McCain: I imagine we have been spinning for far too long as well, Sen. Obama. What do you say, when the floor comes back up and the ride stops, I’ll buy us both chili dogs?

Obama: I imagine despite the brain sloshing, I would be very hungry. Thank you, Senator.


Obama: I imagine we are competitors in a pie-eating contest. We each have an unlimited amount of cream pies stacked beside our podiums, and we must eat as many as possible be…

McCain: Yes. I imagine before that damn little red light flashes…of course signaling that time is up.

Obama: I imagine that the damn little red light is unfair and unreasonable.

McCain: I imagine you, Senator Obama, just have too much to say.

Obama: I imagine you, Senator McCain, have some cream in the crevice of your mouth and oh some, some more is on the lapel of your jacket.

McCain: I imagine us doing the whole debate facing away from each other, I imagine I’d feel more comfortable…standing back to back maybe?

Obama: Yes, I imagine the possibilities of our spatial relationship to be very interesting – something to be played with, within reason of course.

McCain: Or I imagine it like a duel, a Western. We walk a certain amount of paces, and on the green light, we turn, AND

Obama: Yes or like a, um an, um.. a karaoke duel or something. You first, Senator McCain. Then me. On and on. All night long.

McCain: I imagine you would sing, what’s the name again? …Earth, Wind, and Fire or something like that.

Obama: Yes Senator McCain, I imagine the audience here and in front of their televisions at home would love us both.

McCain: I imagine, you Tom would be that Simon Cowl british bastard.

Obama: I imagine you Tom, would buy everyone here a round of shots at last call…maybe make a toast to Absurdity.

McCain: I imagine if my mother were here, in this room today, she would not understand any of this

When is the dance over? hand over the money...

Let us pretend:
I have a dance collective.
We dance. We move. We talk and do artsy things together.
We pose questions about movement and stillness.
We pose questions about space.
We pose questions about the human race, and what makes people turn to dance, and what makes people annoyed with dance, and what makes people have a relationship to dance in the first place.
We pose questions about our bodies. Some of us want to get more buff/more toned. Some of us want to feel out sitsbones. Some of us want to understand where the depth of our inhale begins.
We are curious. NOT for the pure sake of being curious...or are we?
Anyone can be curious...being curious, asking questions, asking Why? and Why? and Why? Its a very 2 year old thing to do. Then the sensory and conceptual explorations of these "Why's?" is pretty (to use a word that artists like to throw around for semi-shock value) it is all quite masturbatory.
We want to play and play and play. Foster our creative/curious selves.
This is our job. This is our work.
The final performance is the aftermath of the process.
Even then, in what sense is it final? Is it over: when the last dancer ceases to move, or when the music shuts off, or at a blackout, or when the audience's applaud dies down, or when everyone is out of the venue, or when the last dancer gets paid?
Does the performance not still continue in the pulled hamstring muscle of one of the dancers, or in the mind of an audience member, or the smell of sweat in the pit stain area of the dancers' costumes, or in the fizz of the post-show beer that is bought with the dancers' performance stipend?

If Bob Marley met Sigur Ros...?

I tutor out in Chesterfield, N.J.  It is a good almost hour outside of the city, but I must admit that although I normally hate driving and commuting, the extra 4 hours of cruising there and back on Saturdays and Sundays is a nice, forced chill time.  

There is no traffic on the weekends.  With the exception of coming down 10th street through Philly Chinatown, it is smooth sailing.  I've had great recent karma with traffic lights, probably to make up for all the shitty luck I've had with them before.  As I pass swiftly through them, they shine down at me looking all green and generous.  Each green light reminds me of a bouncer at a gay club.  It is as if I am underage and have a horrible fake id, and the bouncer looks all scary and intimidating, but upon entry and i.d. inspection, he smiles like a big teddy bear, taps me on the back, and says, "go right ahead in doll".  Sweet!  Weird analogy, I know!  But if you know me, you know that I lived my not-quite-21-yet years in the gayborhood.  And you can't blame a girl for wanting to get funky and dance without getting awkwardly grinded upon by the creepy club guys that society apparently breeds at straight dance clubs.

ANYWAY...I enjoy the drive to jersey.  Once I get past the eyesores of strip malls, real malls, shopping centers, and liquor stores, I sail onto 295.  Today I was listening to a Sigur Ros cd (that I semi-stole but plan on returning once I burn it, cause someone left it in the cd player at my rehearsal last night).  I forgot how lovely Sigur Ros is: the soothing piano, and the melodies, and the breath, and the patience and subtle persistence.  They could be so corny, but they are not...especially when you are listening while driving on a highway.  They take you away to a simple place and you don't have the urge to hear a funky beat or electric guitars squealing.  I like that.

Tutoring went surprisingly well.  I am realizing that all the headaches and disorganized Princeton Review scrambling, and all the attempts I've made to wrap my head around this Princeton Review job are paying off.  It really wasn't easy at first...or literally for the first year that I was teaching and tutoring.  I am not passionate about the SAT, but I wanted to still be genuine in my attempts to help kids out.  The job felt very unnatural/inorganic.  I felt like I should be more organized, more serious, and less idealistic and dreamy.  I was semi-right, but lately I've been starting to settle into the job more.  I love that its flexible schedule-wise, I love that it is a challenge, and I love that it has made me a bit more of a grammar nazi than I already was before.  I like the two kids that I am tutoring right now too...which helps.  

So driving home from tutoring, I was super inspired by the country-feel of Chesterfield.  There are vast, snow-covered fields, and barns, and open spaces, and curving roads.  The whole landscape felt nice.  By that point the Sigur Ros cd was on the last couple tracks and was making a lovely soundtrack for the ride.  The whole trip was seeming oddly cinematic and yes I hate to say this because I cringe at moments like this, but it seemed "sympathetic" or "romantic" or some kind of sappy shit.  Hmm...are these the type feelings that start creeping into one's mind at age 23?  Before I know it I'll be hanging up Norman Rockwell paintings ..and making scrapbooks...and saving locks of hair and ticket stubs.  

So as I got closer to Philly, I thought "Enough of this. Maybe there will be some real loud crazy music playing on WKDU."  I switched to FM.  First I got stuck listening to a few amazing oldies tunes.  Then when I switched to WKDU, they were playing LOTS of Bob Marley.  The first song I heard was "redemption song".  It had me thinking about artist's and lack of health insurance (from this meeting I attended earlier this week), problems that people have in their lives, blah blah.  Thanks Bob Marley, you've got me right back to sappy.  Faith in my own semi-coolness was redeemed when I heard and enjoyed, "Buffalo Soldier" and many other lovely hits. I appreciate this chill day, and I wonder what would happen if in heaven or something, Bob Marley met the Sigur Ros crew.  Maybe in the next century, when we are all up there together with nothing to do, I'll arrange a potluck.  Let me know now if you want to be on the guestlist and what you plan on bringing.  Jerk chicken anyone?  And who knows any Icelandic dishes? Not I.   

I guess you've never seen an old lady cry before

The gym where I work is full of old ladies.  I've worked there for almost 4 years, so not only do I personally know each and every one of them, but I have seen them actually grow older.  Its a weird thing...watching people you don't really give much of a shit about grow older.  I mean, I am not a callous, horrible person who crosses my fingers hoping one of the old bags will land her low impact jumping jack on the side of her orthopedic shoe and break her ankle.  Not that.  But my point is, you watch the 4 year development of a boy or girl from age 6-10 or 21-25 and you see so many noticeable changes that you are forced to say hmm... those four years are really something. You say this whether you know the kid or not.  You don't have to be a relative or friend to be inevitably forced to genuinely appreciate the concepts of time and patience.  You are forced to appreciate nature's gradual pace.  But these old ladies and their aging...it is hard to watch.  Most days I don't notice anything, but some days I find myself thinking geez, after 4 years Cecilia is still bragging about her visits to MOMA, Betty is still on her "Grannies for Peace" political kick, Dot is still doing the same damn half-ass sit ups that don't work, Marge is still grumbling and complaining from inside of her pashmina and fur coat...etc.  Their aging seems terribly stagnant, terribly clingy to the past and what was.  I'm not sure what I want to happen...I'm not sure what I want them to do...radically change, become new women, jump ship at age 75, take up motorcycling, divorce their husbands, quit the gym...I don't know.  I guess it is beautiful that time has molded them into the quirky, unbudging, often-crochety old ladies that I have know for 4 years, but it just seems odd.

     I have a favorite though; there is only one, and I have secretly wanted her to be my pretend grandma since I met her: Rhoda.  She is wicked cute, brilliant, and honest.  She is just a class act.  I love that she always brags about her purple Walmart gloves and her daughter who is an artist in New York.  I love how she thinks the world of her children without ever being pretentious, or sentimental, or gushy.  I love how you can tell that she has been through a lot of shit, but knows that although it probably made her stronger, that life is still very uncertain and she is not even close to having all the answers.  I love how she loves Obama and is so excited for our country, but hates how the other ladies squeak and squalk and chirp their political opinions just to hear the echo.  Basically, she is the coolest lady I know.  Every day she rides the stationary bike for 10 minutes, grabs half a styrofoam cup of coffee, and leaves.  We often talk, not for too long, for just long enough.

     Today Rhoda came into the office asking if I could get her coat zipper un-stuck.  It was a bitch of a zipper, as the teeth of it were pretty much shot.  She said she was having trouble with her thumbs, arthritis I guess.  I got it un-stuck, but then when she tried to zip it again, it became re-stuck.  She tried to get it un-stuck a second time, and I was looking at the zipper not at her face when she said, "I guess you've never seen a grown woman cry."  I thought, "sure I have" and remembered when I used to make my great grandmom (Butch) cry when I was a kid and she was baby sitting me.  I would get her all riled up until actual tears would drip down her cheeks, and in retrospect, I can't believe I used to do that!  I think maybe I did it because I actually got some absurd fascination out of seeing a lady of her age, who I was sure had been through soooo much, be brought to tears like an ity bity baby.  But back to Rhoda, I looked up and she was in fact almost crying (I guess because her thumbs were in that much pain and she was also just plain frustrated with the zipper).  I don't know what is profound or special about this, but the whole event has been spinning around my head all day.      

5 screwed up things about "Dancing with the Stars"

I would love to ramble, but this is an exercise in to-the-pointness. Anyone who knows me, knows I usually fail miserably and take 4 hours to talk about something that lasted 1 hour. Yikes! Here we go:

1. If you are dancing "with the stars", then clearly, the dancers and dance as an art-form are not the "star" of the show. I realize the genre of the show is reality tv-ballroom dance competition. I realize that it gives people like my grandma, aunt, mom, and dad a bi-weekly exposure to ballroom dance. I hear them use "dance words" like: grace, finesse, rhythm, coordination, footwork, and partnering to describe the duets they see on T.V. But...what kind of message does the title send??? "Dancing WITH the stars" Who are the heroes here? The stars are the heroes. And more than that, the focus of the show is STARDOM NOT DANCE. There are celebrity (sort of) judges, there is competition, there is the idea of popularity (winners are chosen American Idol-style...by call-ins), and there are pop singer appearances and performances becuase I guess,clearly, the producers don't have faith that glitzy dance will be enough to hold the viewer's attention.
   
2. I'm not saying the show has to be didactic and teach us all about ballroom dance, but AT LEAST teach us something real about work ethics and dance! The ideas of discipline, competition, and hard work are bff's with the artform of dance. Freakin Martha Graham says...hey it takes 10 years to make a dancer! What does that even mean? The conflicting belief system that some hold is that: even if I have never "danced" before, if I put my mind and body to dancing and I begin to dance, well then, shit...I am a dancer. Both ideas are lovely and there are infinite shades of gray that lie between the two ideas. What complex and great concepts to really honestly communicate to viewers, but "Dancing with the Stars" sells us short yet again! If you've seen the short clips that they show of the stars and their professional ballroom dancer-partners in rehearsal, they usually just show the bloopers (ex. someone tripping over her partner's feet). We usually hear the critical, yet sometimes hopeful advice as the professional coaches the amateur star, but that is all we get. Morals learned: "Practice makes perfect" and "Never Give Up!" Any Kindergatener can spit out these basic principles. These are morals for children's books and kids shows, not for adults! Sesame Street teaches more complex values than this.
3. Censorship, SEX, bleh! Why do people do ballroom dance in the first place? Well...I should do my research, but from what I know, Tango is very much about sex, love, and dealing with pain or loss. Then I think of jive, swing, etc. 1920's type dances...jitterbug...and I think woah...they are about liberation, celebration, athleticism, real vigor and energy. No ballroom dance style I've named has been about Fake sex or Fake fun, yet this is all I see on Dancing with The Stars. I see grinding...almost (but then it is diluted with a cutsey smile to the camera or a twirling spin) I see skimpy outfits on the women...almost everyone has cleavage and exposed legs (but it is watered down just enough so nothing is actually erotic). I see pelvises almost touching, but not quite touching. I see men grabbing women's thighs, but the sexual content is kept luke-warm. This bothers me cause sex is something real...It is something that you, me, and the next guy can relate to. As a dancer, who is always interested in sensation, muscle memory, and imagination...I think that sex deals with these ideas in an even more real way than dance.(compare the last time you got some to the last dance class you took...which do you remember more? okay then!). Maybe part of the reason why my grandma, aunt, mom, and dad watch DWTS is because "sex sells", but what's being marketed is some"respectable" censored version of sex that reminds me more of JonBenet Ramsey than a porno. Isn't it hypocritical for someone to watch Dancing With the Stars and enjoy the wealth of boobs, and shaking, and spread eagle lifts and jumps...and then to harshly criticize the bikini-clad girls in Jay Z.'s new video who are backing their asses up toward the camera? What makes us draw lines between what is "respectably sexy" and what is lude. Is it race? Is it fame? Is it socio economic standing? Is it age? I think they all have something to do with it.
4. What is it we can realte to? My dad was making the argument that the popularity of DWTS is great and has even caused some inner city schools to expose the students to ballroom dancing during their physical education classes. I still can't see the good. How is that fair for hypothetical inner city school 3rd grader "A" ? Granted the learning of a dance form is always a positive thing, but do you realize how much money goes into ballroom dancing...how much it costs to actually compete or even continue taking lessons in the real world? If a kid actually wanted to pursue it, do you realize that the cost of the shoes alone would probably buy her text books for one whole year? I'm not saying its impossible, but to me it seems as if the wrong people are deciding what kind of dance to expose these kids to. I don't know much about the ballroom dance world, but I'd like to see the socio-economic standing of most of the dancers in the ballroom community. I am sure it is VERY high. It doesn't seem right that the corporate funders, the companies who advertise on commercial breaks of DWTS, can decide what inner city school children should be exposed to. It doesn't seem right to say, "Here learn this highly competitive dance form that in the real world requires money, prestige, body image, and talent to succeed in. Then go home, flip on the television, and watch celebrities look like heroes on DWTS. You can relate to that??? Right guys???" I wish I could articulate this thought better, but it just doesn't seem right. It feels like these rich people are mainly doing these outreach programs to give themselves another pat on the back.
5. Thats all...I rambled enough on 1-4...so who needs a 5th reason? These are my opinions...they are still morphing and changing, but at least they are some food for thought! Later.

Dancing with the stars

My family loves Dancing With the Stars...
to the point that when I call home when an episode (or even a rerun)is on, they ask me to call back when its over.

My grandma sits on her couch, her heating pad cranked up to soothe her arthritic back. She eats popcorn and drinks some root beer and has a night of pure enjoyment.

My aunt calls her friend in New York after each episode to chat about who got kicked off and how lovely XYZ performed and how ungraceful and cocky ABC was.

My dad dotes over DEF's foxtrot and my mom criticizes the judges for being too harsh on GHI. My dad grabs the remote and cranks up the volume when a good ballad with jazz chords is chosen as a couple's accompaniment. My mom reaches for the remote to bring the volume back down to normal at commercial breaks.

Basically they all really and genuinely dig this shit, and my guess is that they are just a microcosm of a Dancing With the Stars-loving-society.
This leaves me thinking and then mumbling under my breath, "What is this world coming too?"
hmmm...this line sounds all too familiar. Why have I heard that before?

My Pop pop used to say it "What is this world coming to?" about the Beatles and their long hair. A barber,Pop pop was as straight edge as the razors he used. He was pretty sure that long hair would lead to the downfall of the country. But even my Pop pop, I think, if he were still alive, wouldn't like Dancing with the Stars. He'd shuffle past the cable box and flip on horse racing instead, my grandma, all the while, hopelessly pouting and pleading with him to go back to the dance show.

My dad used to say, "what is this world coming to?" to me. I'd be watching MTV Real World, and it never failed. As soon as Dad would walk into the living room the parts where Ruthie was sobbing and squealing out "I just can't do this fucking shit anymore. Its just too much" and then guzzling liquor or the parts where Lindsay and Cara were grinding in the club, or the parts where Jay was revealing that he was Bi-sexual in the hot tub... Dad would always walk in at these moments and would shake his head, roll his eyes, and say "What is this world coming to?" Sometimes he would follow it by saying, "These people are all unstable, and they all have emotional problems. Don't they?"
But Dad, Don't we all?...have emotional problems? Don't we all just want to feel good?

So Dancing With the Stars is a FEEL GOOD show. It is entertainment. It exposes the world...the football loving, un-artsy world that may never experience dance in their day to day life, to ballroom dance. It makes people smile. It makes my grandma forget about her aching back, my Aunt forget that she lives alone, and my parents forget that they are almost senior citizens. So I pose the question to myself:
What is wrong with a show that does this? AND What is wrong with the world that appreciates it? Maybe I am the pretentious bitch for being completely opposed to the show.

I have lots of reasons why I oppose to the show and enjoy thinking of myself as a fairly unpretentious and unbitchy person. I will post them soon.