Fame or Famine

I have a professional background in video, and I learned my skills at the cusp of the digital video revolution. This meant that while I started learning linear analog editing – basically three VCRs and a device that let two of them fade between to record on the third – I also learned digital non-linear editing at about the same time. The first is a skill that’s no longer really needed; anybody with a camera and a MacBook can make a video better than what I had available back then, and I don’t think they bother to teach it anywhere.
But …read more

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NOTE:  the following blog entry is a review of the stage show “Fashionistas” which is based on the adult film of the same name. While not explicit, it deals with adult themes of sexuality and alternative lifestyles. If this offends you, please skip this blog entry.
Fact is, it was a ballet.
Really. Complete with the libretto being projected pre-show, describing the time-honored tale of the mousy young fashion designer who falls for the gorgeous male fashion mogul that her boss, Cruella de Lapdance, has her eye on, and how she snares him with the oldest trick in the book – that …read more

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One of the sorrowful parts of my whirlwind trip to Milwaukee last weekend was not getting to stay long enough to see my friend Li Chiao-Ping dance with her company at Danceworks. She has been first a teacher, then a colleague, and now a friend, and I also have done work with her partner Doug Rosenberg (who has been something of a mentor in my own dance work).
She did a fine job, apparently. If you get a chance to see her on tour, here’s what you can expect:
“Her unique vocabulary, tinged with Asian martial arts, fits her compact body like …read more

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My degree is in Dance. Specifically, I was in the Interarts Technology Program at the University of WI- Madison, and studied with people such as Li Chiao-Ping, Jin-Wen Yu, Peggy Choy, Phil Zarrilli, and my primary mentor, Douglas Rosenberg. This was in the heady Dot-Com Boom, and I was loving my work integrating dance and technology, not the least because there were so many opportunities to bend the medium of the nascent web and digital video to traditional forms such as dance.
So I was excited when my browser opened up to an article by Nathaniel Stern on “Implicit Art” …read more

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In college, my partner in crime AJ Niehaus and I once drove the 5 hours to Minneapolis to hear Bill T. Jones speak at the Walker. I remember him having a loose energy, relaxed, his deep basso profundo voice and his eyes transfixing the audience.
And if you’ve never seen Still/Here, or any of the many documentaries on his life with Arnie Zane, well…you’re missing one of the most beautiful love stories of our time.
Meanwhile, enjoy this clip from “Blind Date”, a great example of technology and dance integrated incredibly well. And read the interview at Broadway World, too.

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I missed recording it, but yesterday Pilobolus performed on the Oprah Winfrey show. I missed it, unfortunately, but if anyone has video available of it, I’d love to not only see what they performed but also what Oprah said about it.
Meanwhile, I’m not sure if I’ve posted this link before, but this is absolutely my favorite TED talk of all. Even if I posted it before, enjoy it again:

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starting rehearsals for UW’s 80th anniversary gala (as stage mgr) . I’ll be setting up flickr tonight so that we can fotoblog it with my treo. Should be funj

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