Fame or Famine

Thanks to a tip from Sculplady, I got to read this very interesting article about a New York Dance group “proving that dance might just be the ideal medium for intercultural dialogue and positive social change.”:
“Dance For Tolerance began as a gesture in the mind and heart of Marco Stoffel, the visionary founder and president of the Third Millennium Foundation, and it has exploded into a dance symphony. While in Cali, Colombia, in April 2006, he visited the remarkable Francisco Esperanza Dance Troupe, a community-based company that reaches out to disadvantaged youth through dance. Amazed, he challenged them to create …read more

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I don’t know if this was the performance John mentioned in the comments, but there’s a great pic of Meshiya Lake at Washington Square Park on Flickr. Here’s the review:

“Caught Loose Marble with Meshiya Lake at Washington Square Park on July 7th. I’m listening and watching, being blown away by their combined talents, and thinking these guys may be having fun and making a few bucks, BUT do they actually realize how good they are? I mean they are GOOD.
The musicians play together like a well oiled machine and are equally entertaining on their riffs.
The dancers, whether dancing together or …read more

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At long last, after talking about her incessantly in this blog, I get to share with you the talented dancer Shan, in her performance at Tribally Yours:

I confess to a bit of a blog-crush on Shan – mainly because she is so open and genuine in her development as an adult dancer, continually pushing herself in new directions and truly turning her passion from simple craft or hobby into an art and avocation. She is truly an inspiration, and you should all subscribe to her blog…and tell her so!

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Wow. The opening is certainly intense…Mia Michaels, I think? (later: YES!!! I WAS RIGHT! WOOHOO!) This is in fact one of the reasons I like this show. I think that most of America would not watch this kind of dance, ever, if they were not exposed to it here…as it is, you could invite your boyfriend to a dance concert and say "It’ll be like that thing we saw last week.
(note: I was also offended, as a former Marine, by the outfit Mia wore, and some people that I talked to at the party where I watched this didn’t understand …read more

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And it came to pass that day the couples were split asunder, and new couples were formed, and for some (Danny & Lacey, Lauren & Pasha) ,it was good.
For others, (Dominic & Jaimie, Kameron & Sabra), it was not so good. Yea, the wrath of the great Seer & Revelator Mia did come down upon Kameron, and smite him with the snap of "You danced immaturely!" And the inability of Dominic to waltz in the Spanish Viennese waltz did sorely vex Jaimie, insomuch that she smote the floor with her body at the end of their piece, causing the reputation …read more

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Over at Infinite Body there is a poll about the benefits/drawbacks of So You Think You Can Dance…though the poll is heavily weighted towards the pro side, there’s also a follow through to a story on NPR about the new attention to dance the show is inspiring.
Me, I think if we’re watching people dance instead of shoot each other, it’s all good (unless it’s a John Woo film, in which case we’re watching people dance as they shoot each other). “Misrepresents dance”? How could you do that? Dance is not a monolith; infinite variety, and SYTYCD is just a …read more

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…is like writing about music: of course it can be done!
And done amazingly well, if you’re Frédéric Flamand, a Belgian choreographer, who collaborated with Zaha Hadid, an architect who incorporates movement into her structures.

"… Mr. Flamand, 60, approached Ms. Hadid, 56, in 1999 after admiring her kinetic designs. “Zaha’s architecture is based on movement,” he said in a recent phone interview from London. “She creates a very fluid space and continuous transformation. We wanted to make the dancers dance, of course, but to make the space dance too.”""

Whole article here. I’ve been a part of site-specific dances before, and they’re …read more

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Yeah, yeah. Hok is gone – which is sad, but the guy has more talent oozing out of him than any seven artists I know – and so is Anya, which does make me sad, but I understand the idea that it’s hard for a partnered dancer to work out solo.

Now that we’ve gotten this out of our systems for the week, let me point you to Alec Kinnear and his danceblog from Vienna, Uncoy.com: la vie Viennoise. That particular link will take you to a piercingly thorough review of Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker’s new work, and also show you …read more

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Due to a weird confluence of events, I can’t watch SYTYCD tonight, but I am getting updates from a friend via the web. And the bottom three are:

Hok & Jamie: No surprise there. Too slow. Beautiful dance, but didn’t really play to their talents, and no connection
Danny & Anya: WHA??? This was a surprise. Just goes to show you that talent doesn’t always outweigh popularity.
Lauren & Neil: I’m really sorry about this one, but again, the piece was androgynous, weird, and if that wasn’t enough, they weren’t really together in much of it. I’m not surprised the country didn’t like …read more

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..are up at Mickeymac’s. Thanks to Blogging SYTYCD for the link.

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