Edgy?

After weeks of meaning to, I finally got around to a class at The Edge Performing Arts Center! The West Hollywood studio is crammed a la Being John Malkovich into an old TV studio (I think?) on Cole Street, next to the gleaming Gold's Gym of the area.

I felt like a rock star.

Level 2 jazz classes are my calling: in the brick-walled pipe-ceilinged Studio E (or D, or G, or E again? Get it?) I felt the music was pushing me around, the Death Cab for Cutie bassist making each Graham contraction a little deeper. I've taken, what, two jazz classes? Three, tops, in about four and something years, so it felt good to do some hair-flickingly expressive 5-6-7-8 reaches. I'm inclined to send Mia Michaels my thin performance resume and ask for a spot on primetime Reality TV.

Of course by "it felt good" I also mean that it felt excruciating. Arabesques and Baryshnikov jumps, going through the motions of a deep plie in second... Who knew how many gluteal muscles I'd forgotten about in four years? At one point I think I actually fell over from sheer inability to hold a passe in releve. Oof.

My usual take on "edge," those fringy smarty pants dancemakers and their work, will be back. But for now my inner FAME wannabe feels good!

And sore. Very, very sore.

New Project

I don't know if anyone in LA reads this, but on the off chance anyone DOES: want to get in on a big venue project to make a home base for LA dance? Send me a message...

...or encouragement...

...or checks...

...In the meantime, I'll be blasting away on the great spaceship Arts Proposals. Wish me luck.

Motion, Music, Family

I've never so enjoyed watching hands as I did tonight. At a concert she conducted in a college recital hall in the city, my dear cousin gently, firmly guided her musicians from the Tchaikovsky on the page to the Tchaikovsky I could hear. The baton in her right hand, she closed off passages and egged on the swells with the most articulate motions of her left. Secondary though it may have been to sound, there was a dance to it.

I'm a-gonna be a teacher!

If you can control even ONE of your limbs, come to...

SUNDAY BOOGIE!

It will be glorious.

11 AM - 12 PM

900 E. 1st St.

(Los Angeles)

Studio 100

Be there or be square,

pay by donation.

(Hooray!)

Faith and Art

A whopper: in typical 20-something fashion I've forgotten or abandoned ecstatic faith. My former Christian enthusiasm could be ignored but for this: I can still see, perhaps more vividly than lifelong non-believers, the reverent joy of religion. It makes people wave their arms in church and play their guitars (or, on the Red Line last week, the kazoo) for Christ. Tonight's Streetlamp Studio performance, the annual "When Justice and Peace Kiss" at Marlton School, brought together a slew of adults and the lucky kids they mentor to demonstrate that ecstasy through crude but endearing krumping, rapping, guitar-strumming art. I didn't come prepared for a religious event--maybe I missed something in the Facebook ad. But how peaceful and good to see kids from south LA, the risk-laden hub for the city's infamous gang culture, praising something that feels at least as empowering as the communal violence being side-stepped.

I spent most of this weekend in a eating chocolate and brie and catching up on Mad Men. (Where has it been all my life? But I digress...) After so much time in the narrow parameters of fiction, I feel refreshed by the vibrant energy of Streetlamp, by the live arts. In what but the nervous vulnerability of a teen-aged boy's song could the fear of unquestioning faith get across to a person? I feel grateful to glimpse the world the way these amazing kids see it. There's no goose egg on my forehead; I don't feel Bible-thumped, even Bible-tapped. I just feel grateful for arts and the people who help it to happen.

To get to know Streetlamp, visit their homepage. To give money, click here. For updates on my favorite culturally alternative arts organization, click here.

For a new addiction, find the pilot o' Mad Men and a few hours (days) to catch up for Season Three. Enjoy your week.


LADB

Song Discrepancy

The title's Dixie Chicks. My morning jam was Martina. Never fear for my knowledge of country artists' repertoire.

Wide Open Spaceeeeeeeeeees!!!

Fact: I listen to country music in Los Angeles. But in praise of local heterogeny I'll say that, depending on the street and the time of day, I can feel totally local with Martina McBride oozing out the windows of the White Shark. I don't push it. But there's that.

Once you're done judging me, read on.

...


.

{I don't know if anyone in LA proper is reading this blog (pass it along to my neighbors?), but I've got three venues I'm trying to fill with dancers and movers and performance artists and yoga teachers and dance-for-camera types and pretty much anyone who needs an affordable space at a time when affordablility is high on the proverbial list.}--single sentence.

One: BOXeight. It's an art gallery situated in the fashion district of south downtown. It's of the poured-cement-floors-and-brick-walls persuasion, but the space is big (and inspiring) enough for major movers. The people are incredibly supportive artists who are interested in widening the scope of their events and collaborations. It's ideal for site-specific work (and, for me, maintaining my sanity outside of a totally anti-social day job). I love it. End of story.

Two: The 16th Street Dance Space. It's just around the corner from BOXeight, owned by the same benevolent property manager. There are two sprung marley floors of 2,000 and 5,000 square feet, respectively, state of the art sound equipment and lights, conference rooms, showers--the whole nine yards. This is more of a residency space for a company or studio (or companies or studios). It retains the flavor of south downtown but provides for all the basic needs of a traditional dance company. Also gorgeous.

Three: my home!! The glorious zoning of arts buildings in downtown LA permits the stage in my apartment and its rental. Carnegie Hall it is not, but we've got sound and mirrors and an elevated stage, two (soon another!) glorious roommates in management, and majorly open minds. Call me.

No, seriously.




Please.


LADB