Okay, so I don't like to fail. I also don't like to procrastinate, although according to Facebook I do.
But I am doing BOTH of those things by lazily linking you to the following: read about the dance year according to New York, buy tickets to one of the best Nutcracker performances EVER (I'll tell you why later, possibly from LAX and/or Dulles [if it's resurfaced]), and listen to Hootie and the Blowfish singing The Christmas Song (I'm obsessed).
By the time you're done with those things I might have finished my holler about public funding for the arts... which, as if it surprises anyone, was something I meant to finish days ago.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Woof.
Well, that'll learn ya: don't eat really old bell peppers tossed in curry sauce before going out to swing dance. I'm sorry, Third Street Dance! I hope your party was a success. I'm glad you're helping critters out.
In a non-gastronomical update, congratulations are due to Show Box. After a good life at Metabolic Studio, the new home for DANCEbank classes is even more downtown! (I think the Colburn School owns the building? Not sure...) Also, the next Anatomy Riot is coming! And it's coming to that MiMoDa space I find so compelling. Perhaps I shall finally attend? The 2010 schedule is up somewhere for all of these things - I'll post it in a big ol' preview, which I keep telling myself I'll write before I go back east for a week.
Okay, so this was basically one long shout-out to Meg Wolfe. But ya gotta hand it to the woman. She gets things done.
Happy Wednesday!
In a non-gastronomical update, congratulations are due to Show Box. After a good life at Metabolic Studio, the new home for DANCEbank classes is even more downtown! (I think the Colburn School owns the building? Not sure...) Also, the next Anatomy Riot is coming! And it's coming to that MiMoDa space I find so compelling. Perhaps I shall finally attend? The 2010 schedule is up somewhere for all of these things - I'll post it in a big ol' preview, which I keep telling myself I'll write before I go back east for a week.
Okay, so this was basically one long shout-out to Meg Wolfe. But ya gotta hand it to the woman. She gets things done.
Happy Wednesday!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
LA Contemporary Dance Company Indeed
I can be a real procrastinator. Thank you, chock-full Internet. You devour my time! I am therefore a day and a half behind writing on the LA Contemporary Dance Company performance in the totally awesome Mimoda space on the west side. Called "Fight or Flight," the eye-level concert featured - features, since it's a two-weekender - work by Scott Hislop, Kate Hutter, and Adam Parson. Hey-o! Apparently Mr. Hislop is part of the finest moment of dance in at least somewhat recent high-schoolers-with-impossibly-cool-lives movie history. And I'm sold!, right?
Well, no. You see, I moved to Los Angeles for some pretty kooky reasons. High among them sits the fact that many a dance history textbook will follow a New York career in dancemaking until the human subject a. dies, b. goes off the deep end, or c. moves to the West Coast. The three seem equally fateful. I assure you they are not, but the most common response from my friends and co-dancers is "huh?" They moved to that other part of California to do wonderful things. I moved to La-La LAnd, and I can't even ironically link Perez Hilton.
I promise this is going somewhere.
I vacillate between denying the detached superficiality of this town and intellectualizing it. (I especially love car culture theories.) But superficiality is always there, and what drives me batty about "Fight or Flight" is not the lyrical alt-pop music. It is not the choreographed virtuosity for virtuosity's sake! And it's not even the thorough absence of any "Fight or Flight" themes at all in the products under the title. Nope, what maddeningly balances "Fight or Flight" between "hit" and "miss" is its absolute, and absolutely "LA," obliviousness.
Parson's "Initiator" projects photos of women around the globe, doing whatever it is those women do, onto a promisingly suggestive back drop of white sheets on a clothesline. The graceful and totally versatile women in the company enter the space. Baskets are shaken, hips are shaken, shapes are formed and dispersed. Potential becomes predictable: women spoon, women smile, women suffer, women bind together, women are women and isn't that nice and simple and pretty? If you're going for broke with cliches, go for broke. It can be done! But I tend to think (and really, why else would I write in public-ish?) that in another red-letter Year. of. Women's. Issues., it is nothing short of ignorant to make a non-committal piece of dance that openly suggests simplicity.
Maybe I'm being harsh. But whether Parson knew what he was doing is an unanswerable question! This is not to undermine his abilities as a dancer. "Initiator" constructs many beautiful, innovative, and moving (no more puns, I swear) moments out of very capable bodies. But deliberate portrayals of quote "womanhood" are very, very loaded, and should not be casual unless they're pointedly so. (If you're 18 or older and not in my family, Google coffee table book of my dreams "4 Inches".)
Parson is as indecisive as Los Angeles, and neither here nor there.
For every possibility of stealing my breath (like the shuffling feet of women from behind the clothesline set piece - they've become the bedsheets!) there is a moment to suggest that he had no idea he was stealing it. For example, the agony of social rejection is reduced to the aforementioned SYTYCD aesthetic. Hey. I love Imogen Heap as much as the next Manic Pixie Dream Girl. But more than that, I value my unique intelligence, my willingness to look past the television for dance, and the endlessly prismatic nuances of the too-often generalized sex to which my body committed itself. This first third of "Fight or Flight" (huh?) bared the internal conflict of non-street Los Angeles art to its scariest blind-spot potential. I'll probably be panicking in the blind spot for a while.
Hislop's "rEVOLUTION" annoyed me considerably less, and its costumes were some of the best I've seen in Los Angeles. Reverse corsetry gives the women massive hips and thighs, the men Hulk's bicep action. And I won't even wax redundant on casual heteronormative partnering, frontal performance, gesturing, or musical dependence. (To all I say, "plegh.") The dancers interact in ways formal and suggestive. It is a reflection, remnant of Petite Mort. Societal mores skew and dramatize the very basic elements (read: sex) of being a species.
The dancers are incredibly versatile and capable, carrying out even the most gasp-inducing leaps and poses with a sweaty, almost-casual elegance that I rarely, if ever, encounter in concert dance. But when the costumes are shed, the choreographic composure is, too. An informal hand-clasping line dance loses sight of the ballroom, and the basic black clothes (read: dance pants) hardly give Hislop's and Hutter's costuming expertise any credit. But I am curious about where Hislop can go if he tightens his focus, lets go of concert conventions, and pushes the envelope further on a few, or even just one, of the social structures he so obviously understands. "rEVOLUTION" side-steps, at least for its first half, the stereotypes of LA.
"I Ran" is Ms. Hutter's concert finale creation. It doesn't succumb to the blinders of "Initiator," but it doesn't observe like "rEVOLUTION." It has a resounding topical ADD: Televisions. Uniforms. Gender roles. Pantomime. Quaint, sweet gestures. Counting out loud. Pop music - ironic? frank?. I'm back in college! Help! Worse than that, I don't know what the flinging, sprawling style set on the dancers (who are great) is supposed to convey or accomplish.
I do know that it reflects the hyperactive, unaware, puppeteered, music-flung status of all the dances that anyone from the outside seems to see coming out of Los Angeles.
Tickets, if you want to debate with me.
Well, no. You see, I moved to Los Angeles for some pretty kooky reasons. High among them sits the fact that many a dance history textbook will follow a New York career in dancemaking until the human subject a. dies, b. goes off the deep end, or c. moves to the West Coast. The three seem equally fateful. I assure you they are not, but the most common response from my friends and co-dancers is "huh?" They moved to that other part of California to do wonderful things. I moved to La-La LAnd, and I can't even ironically link Perez Hilton.
I promise this is going somewhere.
I vacillate between denying the detached superficiality of this town and intellectualizing it. (I especially love car culture theories.) But superficiality is always there, and what drives me batty about "Fight or Flight" is not the lyrical alt-pop music. It is not the choreographed virtuosity for virtuosity's sake! And it's not even the thorough absence of any "Fight or Flight" themes at all in the products under the title. Nope, what maddeningly balances "Fight or Flight" between "hit" and "miss" is its absolute, and absolutely "LA," obliviousness.
Parson's "Initiator" projects photos of women around the globe, doing whatever it is those women do, onto a promisingly suggestive back drop of white sheets on a clothesline. The graceful and totally versatile women in the company enter the space. Baskets are shaken, hips are shaken, shapes are formed and dispersed. Potential becomes predictable: women spoon, women smile, women suffer, women bind together, women are women and isn't that nice and simple and pretty? If you're going for broke with cliches, go for broke. It can be done! But I tend to think (and really, why else would I write in public-ish?) that in another red-letter Year. of. Women's. Issues., it is nothing short of ignorant to make a non-committal piece of dance that openly suggests simplicity.
Maybe I'm being harsh. But whether Parson knew what he was doing is an unanswerable question! This is not to undermine his abilities as a dancer. "Initiator" constructs many beautiful, innovative, and moving (no more puns, I swear) moments out of very capable bodies. But deliberate portrayals of quote "womanhood" are very, very loaded, and should not be casual unless they're pointedly so. (If you're 18 or older and not in my family, Google coffee table book of my dreams "4 Inches".)
Parson is as indecisive as Los Angeles, and neither here nor there.
For every possibility of stealing my breath (like the shuffling feet of women from behind the clothesline set piece - they've become the bedsheets!) there is a moment to suggest that he had no idea he was stealing it. For example, the agony of social rejection is reduced to the aforementioned SYTYCD aesthetic. Hey. I love Imogen Heap as much as the next Manic Pixie Dream Girl. But more than that, I value my unique intelligence, my willingness to look past the television for dance, and the endlessly prismatic nuances of the too-often generalized sex to which my body committed itself. This first third of "Fight or Flight" (huh?) bared the internal conflict of non-street Los Angeles art to its scariest blind-spot potential. I'll probably be panicking in the blind spot for a while.
Hislop's "rEVOLUTION" annoyed me considerably less, and its costumes were some of the best I've seen in Los Angeles. Reverse corsetry gives the women massive hips and thighs, the men Hulk's bicep action. And I won't even wax redundant on casual heteronormative partnering, frontal performance, gesturing, or musical dependence. (To all I say, "plegh.") The dancers interact in ways formal and suggestive. It is a reflection, remnant of Petite Mort. Societal mores skew and dramatize the very basic elements (read: sex) of being a species.
The dancers are incredibly versatile and capable, carrying out even the most gasp-inducing leaps and poses with a sweaty, almost-casual elegance that I rarely, if ever, encounter in concert dance. But when the costumes are shed, the choreographic composure is, too. An informal hand-clasping line dance loses sight of the ballroom, and the basic black clothes (read: dance pants) hardly give Hislop's and Hutter's costuming expertise any credit. But I am curious about where Hislop can go if he tightens his focus, lets go of concert conventions, and pushes the envelope further on a few, or even just one, of the social structures he so obviously understands. "rEVOLUTION" side-steps, at least for its first half, the stereotypes of LA.
"I Ran" is Ms. Hutter's concert finale creation. It doesn't succumb to the blinders of "Initiator," but it doesn't observe like "rEVOLUTION." It has a resounding topical ADD: Televisions. Uniforms. Gender roles. Pantomime. Quaint, sweet gestures. Counting out loud. Pop music - ironic? frank?. I'm back in college! Help! Worse than that, I don't know what the flinging, sprawling style set on the dancers (who are great) is supposed to convey or accomplish.
I do know that it reflects the hyperactive, unaware, puppeteered, music-flung status of all the dances that anyone from the outside seems to see coming out of Los Angeles.
Tickets, if you want to debate with me.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Lucky Stumble
I am not a popper. I can pop!, but I don't quite make a narrative of it yet, going from Point A to Point B with an apparent plan. These people have an apparent plan.
At an anniversary party for a neighborhood boutique (without a website - but with that Cube t-shirt for sale!), a battle brought out pros and amateurs making tiny, rapidfire movements into a 21st-century meaning of Cool. I may have missed the local modern dance fare at Diavolo space yesterday, buuuuut... maybe this was better?
At an anniversary party for a neighborhood boutique (without a website - but with that Cube t-shirt for sale!), a battle brought out pros and amateurs making tiny, rapidfire movements into a 21st-century meaning of Cool. I may have missed the local modern dance fare at Diavolo space yesterday, buuuuut... maybe this was better?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
What's Happening
There is so much to relay about dance. Where on earth have I been, besides eating my weight in Thanksgiving goodies? Better late than never, I suppose. There are the usual suspects: upcoming events (including a visitor on the 7th), a human interest story, a great cause, a piece of music that makes me wish I had a company to boss around. Less common, and more local, a happy belated birthday to Rudy Perez! And congratulations to Heidi Duckler and dear Leslie Seiters for their appearances in a new publication about site-specific dance. I'm looking forward to the next edition of Itch Dance Journal (and the one after that, when I'll actually mind the deadlines). Best of luck to the upcoming improv festival in LA, can't wait to swing dance at the Third Street Dance Holiday Party (scroll down one poster), and you'd better believe I'm getting my tickets to the LA Ballet Nutcracker.
Anybody else?
Anybody else?
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