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. :)
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