DCDanceBlog

check out this article in the int’l herald tribune (and the ny times) about big (very big) dancers in a cuban ballet group. i think it’s very cool.

first, because dance is for everyone, not just the skinnies.

second, because i still believe that more flesh and muscle, an alternate sense of groundedness and weight, can demonstrate a different and possibly richer way of moving and relating to the earth.

it’s friday night, the fringe festival, and i’m out on the street with the wild miss L. we’ve left the rest of our gang at the warehouse theatre and bar and have skipped out, looking for a cigarette. no luck so far. the ladies in front of the bar are smoking but they got their cigarette from a “leather biker bar” somewhere in the vicinity, so we’re hunting it down. en route, we pass two black women doing a performance surely in tandem with the fringe fest. one is all in blue–i mean all in blue, including skin and hair–and is fixed like a statue, while the other one is moving slowly and sinuously, while singing simultaneously. “terrible,” dismisses miss L, but i disagree and want to watch. it seems interesting and different, but the act hasn’t yet attracted any passersby except a homeless guy. who doesn’t have another cigarette.

so it’s onward and upward. we turn the corner to a club where a line of black folks are waiting to get in. i start to cringe. i’ve seen miss L after she’s had a couple of beers chatting pretty freely–to say the least–with crowds like this, including crowds of black people, so i’m shying away to the side. it’s not always pretty, but tonight she’s not too bad. “can i pay you for a cigarette?” she asks some of the women in line, but no one’s smoking. finally the security guards shoo us away, to my relief.

we never find the biker bar, and eventually we give up and go back to the warehouse theater, sans cigarette. it’s about time for the show we’re there to see, wendell and nicholette in “our love is empty,” so we and our crew head on back and sit in the front row. nicholette is already onstage, singing karoake to an old wings song possibly called “i love you.” miss L enjoys it immediately. “brilliant,” she whispers loudly.

soon–too soon–it’s over and we’re out on the streets again, talking about how great the performance was, how fresh and full of energy and honest. we pass a frat boy sitting on a windowsill, smoking. “mister,” asks miss L, still jonesing for that nicotene, “do you have a cigarette?” he does, and we’re off.

i saw this article in the washington post while looking at reviews for the fringe: “The Art of Gratuitous Praise: Compliment Machine Gives Passersby Pats on the Back”. it’s about a machine on 14th street that gives out automatic compliments as people pass by. somehow it interested me, and i explored further. turns out it’s part of SiteProjects DC, a project curated by the corcoran that’s been going on for the past month and a half on different parts of 14th street. i wish i’d known about it earlier! and i wonder if the amazing huge heads that were in a 14th street storefront window some months ago (and which i wrote about here) were also somehow part of that project, or inspired it.

the compliment machine got me excited about public art. i came across that article shortly after reading about the most recent antics of improv everywhere. please click on the link: they are amazing and i’d love to see something like that going on in dc. (we need it!) their most recent stunt, staging a demonstration of redheads protesting the logo of wendy’s (the fast food restaurant) isn’t so exciting to me, but i love their bottom line: adding some absurdity to the average new yorker’s day.

on some level, i think that’s what i’ve had in mind all along for the improv fest, though i haven’t been able to fully communicate the idea. improv everywhere isn’t necessarily art, and much of it is based on comedy, so the comparison is limited. but i feel that their “work,” so to speak, is grounded in the fact that people will be around and are a key part of the performance. i love site-specific dance performances, but i think too many of them occur on the assumption that it’ll be just like performing in a theatre, only outdoors. and yet there must be, somehow, a fundamental difference. dancing among people (rather than separated from them by lights and a stage) has to somehow take their presence into account, in order to be fully successful, i feel. it doesn’t mean that people have to be included in the piece, but ignoring them means the dance will always be limited somehow.

perhaps i’m being overly theoretical. but i bet there is tons of theory written about public visual art, such as sculpture and painting. what about public performance art?

i’m actually very excited about all the acts we have signed up for the improv fest, and some of them are very unorthodox, to say the least. my last complaint, however, is that i wish there was some better way of contacting experimental, fresh artists all over the district (and md and va) so that we could get more cross-cutting genres working together.

i’m jealous of the fringe festival…it’s only in its second year, and the festival’s already gotten massive press coverage and huge kudos from the dc arts community. and of course amazing participation from artists. and they’ve got money. and organization. and volunteers. when i compare it to our little dc improvisation festival and my struggles to keep us moving forward, it exhausts me.

but i really should be glad. the fringe is great. it highlights art in dc, brings people downtown, gets them talking, and generally makes for a more experimental atmosphere…all important things that i’ve been wanting to see in dc.

so far, i’ve only seen one performance, that of nancy havlik’s dance performance group over at the atlas theatre. first of all, what a beautiful and swanky space! i could make a room out of those bathrooms alone.

and i really enjoyed the performance. it was a group of strong performers, and i especially liked the first piece, which featured three dancers moving very sinuously around the stage. interesting movement, interesting dynamics.

amazingly, the post covered the piece and has been pretty good at hitting the main dance performances at the fringe–”death before dying,” with jane franklin’s choreography, “69 ways to fall in love” and the weerd sisters, as well as nancy’s piece. be prepared, though–they’re all pretty negative reviews. still, it’s simply nice to read about dance in the post and see that someone’s watching. i confess that i’d hoped the choreographers’ showcase at dance place that i was in a few weeks ago would be reviewed, but it wasn’t. i’m relieved to see that at least some things are getting coverage.

i always wonder whether dance in this town isn’t getting covered simply because reviewers are tired of being disappointed with what they see. we can’t just whine about it–sometimes disappointing results (like the paucity of dance reviews) can be traced back to our own missteps. in this case, though, maybe it’s simply that there’s little patience in this town for less ‘finished’ art.

what does it mean? a friend recently told me that my body seemed “more integrated than it used to be.” it was a compliment, and i had a pretty good sense of what she meant. i think it was that my various components, arms and hips and shoulders, etc, all worked together like one unit, rather than separate entities. what’s interesting to me, though, is why that usually is not the case. why do so many people have shoulders that rise or hunch, hands that grasp, butts that do funny things? is it because most of us do not live our daily lives with strong centers–and is a strong center the thing that makes the difference?

do our various components act like creatures unto themselves because of something psychological going on inside? i know for me, my shoulders often rise up and my hands curl inwards, and i’m positive it’s some sort of emotional message–one that can take a hell of a long time to decipher and dissolve. so does that mean that people who are perfectly emotionally healthy have great centers and would be great movers, if they actually tried to move? maybe it’s about being in your body, rather than your head, that makes all the difference in how things work together.
i find it quite fascinating.

I just had the pleasure of performing at the 7th annual goose route dance festival in Shepherdstown West Virginia. On the bill was Next Reflex Dance Collective (Fairfax), Laura Peterson (New York) and Meghan Durham/Merge Dance (Philadelphia). They are all artists who are on to something. Check them out.

What I wanted to mention, was the perception of the DC dance community from the outside. When dancers are thinking about moving here, they look at the dance metro dc website - which looks quite impressive - lots going on, must be a supportive - closely knit community - etc. That was intense to hear. From looking at the Dance Metro DC website, people may feel compelled to move here to pursue dance. What an honor, and dare I say, responsibility. It also makes me wonder about how local companies view the idea of auditioning. It seems to be mostly who you know and guessing who might show up at an audition, but - maybe the net can be casted wider.

I sat in on a conversation between leaders in the dc dance community last year, and they were discussing a joint marketing campaign to get people moving to dc to take dance class - anyone to take dance class, dance to loose weight - marketing to the beginner dancers. But why aren’t we aware of our appeal to the advanced, professional dancers?

Merge Dance on the top

Laura Peterson on the bottom

well, i’m relaxing at home in north carolina and trying to figure out what i have to say today about dance. there isn’t much. the american dance festival is taking place about 20 mins away from here and there was a photo of a german dancer in the paper this morning (unfortunately i can’t find it online–had hoped to post it), moving to an ipod in the green of the duke campus. i was jealous. i participated in adf one summer and it was amazing. so much dance, 24/7–workshops and performances and discussions and classes and chances to share work and ideas…ahh, the best, a chance to dive in and completely indulge my interest.

but right now i’m not dancing much–mostly am recovering from the performances last weekend. i’m glad to be done! but also sad that it’s over, in a way. theatre runs last weeks or even months, but dancers get only a couple days onstage, at best. it’s a real shame, because it takes a performance or two to get used to the lights, the audience, the new stage, everything. and therefore dancers are frequently not at the their best when we see them performing, because they’re still in the process of adjusting.

what i loved the most about performing that piece was the crazy, thrilling realization that it was just me there onstage being watched by everyone–without the distraction of music or anything else. it stimulated my sense of presence, whatever ability i might have to hold the space and be completely there, only there. i love that challenge and the way everything is heightened in that 10 mins, more than at almost any other time.