the slush of it

The slushy new york snow decided to fall once again today. I had thought that spring would be shining upon us in no time but alas we must wait.

So, in dance related news-- I just read an article from the New York Times, stating that Christopher Wheeldon is leaving the company that he founded.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/christopher-wheeldon-leaves-dance-company-he-created/?hp
Give it a read. I am not particularly a fan of Mr. Wheeldon, simply because I think too much emphasis was placed on him as a choreographer in a short span of time--- not necessarily a bad thing, however I think a lot of hype was/is attached to his name. But, read nonetheless... it'll give us something to do on a rather dreary day.

There is also this article that the Trisha Brown Dance Company facebook group posted earlier today.
http://bombsite.com/issues/45/articles/1720 Yvonne Rainer is one of my dance mothers and is a very brilliant writer. It's an intimately written interview between the two women from way back-- 1993 discussing Trisha's process and some of her works. Enjoy!!

I have exciting news, dear reader! I will be attending tomorrow night's performance of the Paul Taylor Dance Company's NY season at City Center!! On the bill will be Esplanade (one of my favorites,) and Scudorama. I have seen Esplanade three times now and each time, it gives me chills. I have never seen Scud so I am very excited... Also on the program is Changes, a dance I am not particularly fond of. The first time I saw it I found it a bit thin and lacking choreographically. I will revisit tomorrow evening and see how I feel and write my first review here at the independent movershaker!! :P

In other non-eventful news, I am fairly certain that my laptop short circuited this morning as I was getting ready for a job interview. The interview, despite snow and nerves, I think went alright though the interviewer kept mentioning how young I looked... I am not sure if that's a disadvantage, though-- if it is, then it makes me question the ideals this country is built upon.... There's a blog in the works on that.

Also, I have ordered some copies of my dance performances over the past two years. As soon as I get them, I will post them here for you to see. This is very exciting because I'd love to share these dances with the world.

I need a glass of pinot. Tonight, I will be checking out the Dirtbombs with Josh. Cannot wait, because we need a night out. A snow date! :) Last night he made the most delicious tasting shrimp and broccoli stir-fry... ugh, I wish I had a picture to show.

(Btw, I have noticed that my blogging topics shift from dance to personal, but I don't seem to mind--
hope you don't, either ;)

-melisza.

(pps: i like the way my name looks when spelled this way... it is a bit more exotic than the Greco-Anglo Melissa). Heheh.

ketchup

I have been hard at work, doing many a things to keep my life afloat.

Today was the unofficial first day of my internship with Movement Research. I will be doing class registrations for various classes over the next few months. I took an early morning technique class with Gwen Wulliver, whose movement is both cerebral and fluid. I know these words get thrown around a lot but I felt the movement was unstrained and called for a lot of attention to detail. I wish I had more of a chance to take her class, as I admire her work, but today was her last day (I think).

After, I took a class in Alexander technique. At first admittedly weary due to my minimal understanding of Alexander's work, this class ended up being really useful to me and has made my neck and head feel less tense all day. I really am looking forward to studying it over the next few months. I have a lot of habits, those I am conscious of and those not, so this class will give me the chance to tap into my understanding/changing of certain non-useful habits so that hopefully I can make useful habits out of them. :)

Inspired by the work at hand, I decided to take a walk after class. Around the corner from the studio is Crosby Street. I wanted to see the building where Trisha Brown first premiered Opal Loop/Cloud Installation in 1980. Last night I went to the lecture series at DTW and this was the piece being discussed. It will be performed at the Baryshnikov Center in April. The footage was absolutely gorgeous. Exactly what I imagined it to be from the photos.




Isn't this beautiful? Fujiko Nakaya designed the fog installation that gave the impressions of clouds that enveloped the dancers. The piece, which I hope to see, is a quartet and draws upon the unstable molecular structure dance-work Trisha was developing and exploring in the 70's and 80's. Last night, when asked about the imagery behind the piece and her inspiration, Trisha mentioned that she grew up in Washington and would often go to the beach and feel the mist/fog roll in from the Pacific. This impression stayed with her and informed the mood of the piece somehow. Nakaya was said to have also have grown up with fog and mist rolling in from her home in Japan. Also, her father was a scientist who designed the first artificial snowflakes-- an aside I found quite interesting.


So, I went for a walk. Crosby Street is charming with its old warehouse buildings and cobblestone streets. I had images of her dancing on the rooftop in red and hoped that I could climb up to the roof and do my own dances but, duh, it was near impossible. Plus, I did not have on the right shoes for that sort of endeavor. But it was a nice way to end a morning of dancing in SoHo.

Later I came to Hunter to do some things (i.e., write this blog). During brief detour to the dance department, Olsi and Mary Ellen (two of my friends and colleagues) got into an interesting discourse on the perception of reality. Mary Ellen feels that it doesn't make sense that we believe that we are the makers of sense when what doesn't make sense is that us and our consciousness. I am not sure if I am getting at her point and I'd like to talk further about it with her, but I was finding myself thinking about my reality... that choose my reaction to things that happen to me. That I can choose to be positive about my current job (Staples), lack of money and direction, feelings of overwhelming insecurity since moving out of my parents house and attempting to dance in a city where everyone is a dancer... I think listening to her and trying to really understand what she was saying is totally going to help me as I try to understand my own self and how I react to things...

Perfect segway... Mary Ellen has a blog: www.modern-dancer.com it's new and she has some really great things coming our way. Also, this is a link to the dance she choreographed back in December. It was shown at Hunter College as part of her independent study presentation. It's called, Breakfast, and it is important to note that we baked muffins for the audience and ourselves :)... enjoy!


http://drop.io/4100iy7


Some other happenings/ideas:

• I begin choreographing a piece I will present in April. It will involve apples, a wig, some shadows and bruce springsteen... that's all I will tell you for now but when I have footage I will post. It's a movement study on enjambment.

• Josh submitted a proposal of an art piece he is going to create to the Public Art Fund. The project idea is for a site specific sculpture. Good luck to him :)
  
• We also attempted to win tickets this past weekend for the Eric Clapton/Jeff Beck concert. We listened to Q104.3 and during one contest, the phone rang for me and wasn't busy but ultimately they did not pick up my call. I was super freaked out. However, "The Core", a song he wrote and played, was featured during the contest and I will say, it's very good.
  
• 46 years ago this month the Beatles came to America to play the Ed Sullivan show. We honored them these past two weekends, watching the Anthology, listening to their songs, watching all of their movies and (coincidentally,) seeing some John Lennon and Yoko Ono photos on display at PS 1. While at PS 1, we watched "Cut Piece," a video of Yoko from the early 60's. She performed it at Carnagie Hall-- she sat on stage and had various people (audience members, I think) cut pieces of her clothes until she was nearly topless. It was pretty interesting. Nice to see her doing a piece from pre-john lennon. Happy American Birthday Beatles!!
   
• PS 1, by the way, is awesome and has a giant fake swimming pool that you can pretend you are swimming in from down below. From above, there is a thin layer of water so from above, it gives the appearance that you are under water.
  
• We had a giant snow storm in NYC and they even closed the public schools (and colleges)... gasp!
  
• I, myself, cannot wait for spring so we can frolic in parks once more.
  
• Stay tuned for poetry soon... I promise.

On that note, I would like to leave you with a mantra that Isadora Duncan closed her classes with (Raquel Cavalcanti closed her class with this today and I found it really inspiring). We placed our palms to our chests, our arms to the sky, arms out to the walls, and palms to the ground, and our open arms to each other as we said it (that'll make sense in a minute...):

we are connected to ourselves

we are connected to the universe

we are connected to the horizon

we are connected to the earth

we are connected to each other

we are connected to ourselves.

i found this beautiful and want to worship the universe, earth, horizon, the people around me, and myself each day. :)

those winter wednesdays

this morning we awoke to snowy rooftops across brooklyn. in the distance, the church with the two tall towers peaks in white. i remember passing through dreams and thinking of the snow and my father. in the early morning, i went for some water and looked outside to see dusty trees. birds sleeping.

i am reminded of Hayden's poem, Those Winter Sundays. this poem brings a lot on me, constantly reminding me of my father and his absense during most mornings. he usually worked the night shift and would arrive home as we were eating breakfast. usually, he'd join us, making his black tea and eating toast with eggs. those foggy mornings, sketched quietly in the backs of my brain, are always there.

my father is not dead, though he lingers on the edge.

Those Winter Sundays


Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

-Robert Hayden

***
snow haiku
pale dusty lines the old blue
teeth shed some luz homes
i once went on back to you

-m.

PS 1 and the Queenz Bound Adventure

yoko ono performing "Cut Piece"
josh and i eating pancakes out of a bag
walking from metropolitan ave. to queenz.
taking pictures of the empire state building
the late winter frost
the long walk home.

La Miranda de Espejo

This is a video created and developed by a friend of mine, Katherine Rojas-- a dancer and artist from Columbia. We studied dance together at Hunter.

Anyways, this is a dance for video that she created last spring and it has finally been posted on youtube. I think it has been captured quite nicely and the cinematography is really well done... the colors are vibrant and the soundscore gives an old, timeless feeling to it.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLUlLAEo0g

A Day In the Life

It started long ago.

I was eight years old. It was dusk. It was twilight, the time just between the hours when the darkness and light create a purple haze over us. The fireflies were out. Daddy was working the night shift-- we loved when he did because it meant we were free-- no worries, no yelling, no early bedtime.

Mommy cooked dinner early. We went outside to play. During the summer months, we became experts at catching fireflies with empty coke bottles, cups, jars, our bare hands,  anything cuppy enough to catch them. We'd squeeze their bottoms, the crevice where the light came from. The smell of crushed flies lingered in our fingers, which we washed as soon as night fell and we were beckoned inside.

On this night, my mother called us in and we went, like good children. Inside, I turned on the television, navigated the old bunny ears to get okay reception. On the tube was  a purple shirted man with a guitar and a group of colored people singing by a piano. Na na na na na na naaa. At once, my mother-- yelling at me to turn the television off and to clean up my mess of barbie dolls scattered across the living room. The warm summer night breeze fell through the window screens. My eyes transfixed on the television, did not pay much attention.

Blmp.

She turned the television off, waving a hairbrush at me.
     "Clean up your mess!" She yelled, but it was no use. My fingers turned the television on and I watched them sing Hey Jude for me, for the first time in my history, and I wanted more.

***

This was the night I found the Beatles. My romantic account is fairly accurate in my memory. I have always felt it was meant to happen. ABC aired the Anthology that summer and I happened to stumble across it. The stars aligned at just the right moment for the air, the song, the girl at the foot of the television... My creative muse had been founded.

This weekend, we celebrate the Bealtes in their entirety-- watching the Anthology dvd's, the movies, reading the books... to celebrate their importance to us (Josh and I, as well as some friends) and how they've influenced our existence.

As I type this, the record of Sgt. Pepper plays in the background streaming sounds of sitars and organs into my ears. A Day in the Life is at the height of its climax and I see flashes of memories-- fireflies, my fathers hands, the summer grass, the purple shirt in my mind and it reminds me how resonant my childhood has been.

cheerio--
melissa