Fame or Famine

I had the distinct pleasure recently of dining at the Med Hookah lounge in Madison, WI, which aside from having great Mediterranean food also feature middle eastern dancers (aka bellydancers, though some don’t like that term).
Those Who Can, Teach
One of the performers there is Arielle, a teacher at the Madison Multicultural Dance Center with Mona N’wal and others. Though very young, Arielle’s been dancing since she was fourteen, and that leads to quite a bit of experience as well as talent.
That evening she did a three-part set, starting with two traditional songs and then a blended hip-hop/bellydance routine of her …read more

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For the past month I’ve been working as a ballroom dance instructor for the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Madison, WI. One of the pleasures of working there was the opportunity to work with Ms. Rita for a couple of hours while she was in town visiting. Here is her account of the experience:
Marlee Matlin is gone from Dancing with the Stars, but that didn’t stop me from signing up for a ballroom dance lesson with Gray during a recent trip to Madison, WI. Before we started, we talked about my particular needs, since there are a variety …read more

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We’re rarely surprised when a musical goes overseas to the U.K. or Australia, or vice versa. Even shows like “Dancing With the Stars” have versions down under that are even more popular, in their countries, than they are here in the states.
But I had to blink when I found out that a theatre group in Beirut, Lebanon is putting on a version of Disney’s “High School Musical“. Why would they do that? Says one actress, “since this is Lebanon, lots of foreigners have this image of war. They don’t realize we have arts and theater. We’re giving a good message …read more

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“Embrace what frightens you. Get some new experiences.”
– Adam Carolla, Dancing with the Stars
Over the weekend I’ve been in Fort Lauderdale as part of a performing arts  seminar. Part of it was myself and others doing some Japanese-based performance art, something like a cross between butoh and kabuki and a post-modern aesthetic. There were other groups there, but if can say so, ours was the most planned of the events.
It  was an interesting experience, because my friends and I came to this conference from several different states, and spent a few hours in a hotel room Thursday night planning out …read more

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It worked for the Medicis & Michelangelo. It even worked for Laurie Anderson and Larry Ellison, I believe. It’s a system of supporting the arts that is not public-funded, and therefore not subject to the vagaries and whims of the hoi-polloi.
It’s the literal term “patron of the arts,” meaning not so much someone who just frequently visits them, but actually takes steps to actively support them. Instead of the whim of the public eye and politicians screaming “save the children!” it’s the whim of the benefactor with the deep pockets.
Selling out? Maybe, but I should be so lucky as to …read more

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How to Do Something Right
Let me beam with pride at being a citizen of the fine city of Madison.
Last night there was a disturbance – worried neighbors called the police to say that they could see people with guns silhouetted through a window. The police responded as they would to any hostage situation, with multiple officers and ready to take action – until they learned that it was actually a local theatre group rehearsing a play about Irish terrorism called the “Lieutenant of Inishmore.”
The police issued no tickets, no warnings, not even a “hey, maybe you should use …read more

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Yes, that’s right…she didn’t come to the Roller Derby after all. That does NOT mean that I didn’t find it an amazingly amusing and wonderful experience. I have talked with Hell Kat, one of the founding members of the Vaudeville Vixens, and she has told me that the derby has been making the change from spectacle to sport more and more.
Now in its fourth year, the Madison group could not be called anything but athletes. I can’t claim to completely understand the rules, but basically the “Jammer” (a solo skater) is supposed to try and get up past the pack …read more

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Last night was the Madfest, and we pulled it off again – all it took was 9 hours straight of scrambling to pull together music, light cues, props, stage directions, and then the house was open and then it was full and then we were off and then it was done.
Except for one performer, whose bio simply read “NYC”. His light cues were a fraction of a second late, as he’d given some ambiguous directions (“this one goes after the scissor catch when I balance the pink ring on my head”). Well, he did the scissor catch, but I was …read more

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This just in! Chris Elam of Misnomer writes, “Tension no more – We won! Check out the OFFICIAL announcement here – http://www.ideablob.com/posts/131. Thanks for all the support! Read about it on our blog, and see what we’re building with this award.”

“Elam garnered the support of the ideablob community for his idea to establish an interactive web site for performing artists. His plans for the web site include innovative online features such as live rehearsal streaming, instant messaging, virtual theaters where viewers can watch performances from multiple perspectives, and tools to measure online audiences so production companies can geographically target upcoming …read more

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Last night as I watched Dancewar, I began to be bothered by the term. Maybe I’d feel better if we weren’t actually at war right now, but somehow using the term to talk about a dance competition feels disrespectful to the people who are, as I write this, fighting a war. Whether you agree with it or disagree, it’s happening, and those are our people – our friends, our family – who are dying, and killing, and coming back maimed in body and spirit.
This is a minor point; I’m not saying that we shouldn’t watch the show, or that they …read more

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