Author: Tonya

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New School, Cheese, Juilliard, Twyla Tharp, Alastair Macaulay, Paulina Porizkova, and Blackpool Tickets!!

 

Could this post have a longer title?? I just had a crazy weekend… Friday night, my friend Alyssa’s roommate, who is getting her MFA in drama at the New School, appeared in a series of one act plays as part of the school’s student showcase. So we went for support. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of my college days when we would go to downtown Tucson to watch small, but brilliant, theater. My favorite one-act of the night was the one Alyssa’s roommate was in, called “Desire Desire Desire,” by Christopher Durang. It was a riff on Tennessee Williams’s “Streetcar” and made me burst out in laughter several times, which I needed since I’ve been kind of stressed lately about dance showcases and other stuff… That also reminded me of Tucson because I remember being introduced to Durang (as I was to so many other playwrights) by some miniscule hole in the wall’s terrific production of “Beyond Therapy” which a friend of a friend was in as well. Fun memories.

Anyway, perhaps the funniest part of the night happened after the performance, during the post-production party. They brought out this lovely display of food, which everyone got a little over-excited about. Apparently no one, including me, had eaten dinner, so the table became a bit overcrowded — particularly the cheese platter (cheese being more filing to an empty stomach than fruit and sweets perhaps…) Well, there was only one cheese tray and a bit of a non-verbal fight actually erupted over it, mainly between two little old ladies, but others, including me I have to confess, got a bit into it as well. This one lady just could not figure out how to work the tongs, which, being made of cheap plastic, ended up breaking, so she stood there frowning trying to figure out how to politely take some cheese. People tried to wait patiently in line while she just stood looking around helplessly, and I for one was getting hungry. Then this other little old lady came from nowhere and basically pushed first lady out of the way, I guess assuming she was done (?), then picked up the broken tongs and looked sadly at them. She tried to slice into the brie with one half of the tong but was taking forever and making a real mess. While we were all trying to be patient, out of nowhere came this guy who, apparently not realizing there was a long cheese line, walked right up behind the lady with the half tong, reached with his fork out right over her head, and began jabbing around at the gouda cubes. When the lady turned around to give him a dirty look, thereby taking more time out of her brie-slicing mission, first lady came pushing her way back through the crowd with another pair of tongs, which she promptly broke on her first attempt to get at a mozzarella ball. That’s when it got ugly. After much harrumphing, people just began reaching over heads, in front of faces, grabbing with their bare hands whatever they could get. Wine cups went flying. First lady, practically in tears over the tongs, picked up an entire goat cheese ball and plopped it onto her plate. “She’s going to get constipated,” Alyssa said shaking her head. Anyway, next time I’ll have to remember to eat before the play, especially if there is an after-party. Above pic is of Alyssa, who is smiling brightly because she ended up with a bit of cheese after all!

Last night I went to another student performance, this one by dancers in the MFA program at Juilliard. The first was a new modern piece by Susan Marshall, the second (and my favorite of the evening) was Twyla Tharp’s Deuce Coupe — a combination of swingy jazz and traditional ballet set to Beach Boys music, and the third a beautifully haunting piece called Soldiers’ Mass by Jiri Kylian. It was my first time seeing the Tharp, which makes sense since this is the first time it’s been performed in NY since 1992 and I haven’t been here that long. I love her work the more I see of it, even with non-professional students performing, and I’d love to see Alvin Ailey do this one. She’s so fun, so funny, and I love how she is able to combine different dance styles to sometimes humorous, sometimes thought-provoking, but always entertaining effect. I know some see her as ‘poppy’ and roll their eyes at the mention of her name, but I stand by my thoughts that if anyone’s work can be used to take off from the current (and hopefully long-lasting!) ballroom craze to revive popular interest in ballet, it is hers.

At the end of Saturday night, I realized that, although I miss seeing all the theater I used to, as I get older I prefer dance. I guess I feel like I can relax and just let my senses take over — listen to the beautiful music and watch the beautiful movement and let it take me wherever it does; I don’t have to listen really intently for each spoken word fearing I may miss something crucial to understanding something else later on.

 

This is a picture of Lincoln Center, which is currently under construction. Normally, they have a walkway lined with benches passing over 66th Street and connecting Lincoln Center to Juilliard, which is on the side of the street where I’m standing to take the picture. Stupidly, I forgot they were doing construction until I was in the plaza at Lincoln Center, wondering where in the world that bridge went and how I was going to get over the Juilliard! I hate construction — especially since I really liked that bridge! I mean, I like the idea of revitalization, I just wish they could do it, like, overnight!

 

Today’s New York Times’ Arts and Leisure section contains the first real article I’ve seen by the new chief dance critic, Alastair Macauley. There was a bit of controversy caused by his appointment because of his sex and the fact that he’s from London, not New York (thus arguably bypassing several female critics far more familiar with the New York dance scene). So, since there will probably be a lot of scrutiny of his first few writings, let’s join in and make him feel REALLY welcome, ha ha! Just kidding 🙂 Anyway, this article is on the current Romeo and Juliet trend: the ballet is being performed by both ABT and the New York City Ballet this upcoming season; ABT is doing the 1965 version by Sir Kenneth MacMillan (my favorite!!!), and NYCB will be doing a new version choreographed by their artistic director Peter Martins. Kristin Sloan of the Winger (and a NYCB dancer of course!) has helped put together a behind-the-scenes video of the upcoming production, which can be viewed on the NYCB website, here. I also linked to it in my blogroll, on the right, under Dance: Ballet, etc. It’s a lot of fun to watch and see how the dancers learn to sword-fight and all that great stuff, so do check it out! Click here to read her post where she talks about it.

So, I guess that’s my biggest complaint about the Macaulay piece — he neglected to mention Sloan’s new exciting project, but then I am partial to her 🙂 The piece centered on placing the ballet within it’s historical context and comparing the different versions over the years both to each other and to some theatrical, non-dance, versions. He says it’s appropriate for him to write about this ballet as his first piece for the paper because this was the ballet that originally made him fall in love with the art form. I definitely hear him on that! Same with me 🙂

He starts off saying he thinks the ballet has been so oft re-choreographed because of the “popular idea . . . that in any case dance is all about sex.” I didn’t know that was a popular idea, and I’d thought of that ballet as being more about romance and doomed love and all that, but maybe that’s just me… But overall, a good article and I learned several new things — one being that the Nureyev version had Mercutio come back to life as a ghost to haunt Juliet and talk her into her final actions! He also talks about different dancers’ interpretations of the roles: Lynn Seymour, MacMillan’s original Juliet from the sixties, for example, danced a rather ‘naughty’ balcony scene fraught with sexual tension. When he’d asked the ballerina why she’d made that artistic choice, she said that she was emulating Judy Densch in the Zefferelli film version! The thing that most struck me though was, when describing Margot Fonteyn’s take on the part, he mentioned she was 56 when he saw her perform. I know she danced all the way up until she was in her mid-sixties, and I wonder why ballet dancers today retire SO young? If she could dance for so long, why not everyone?

I also saw in the Times a full-page ad for ABT!

 

Under each principal photo, they put a little blurb by a critic praising the dancer 🙂 Awesome advertising!

Finally in the Times, Style section this time, was a little story on Paulina Porizkova going to get a pedicure in a SoHo salon.

 

I thought it was funny because I’m pretty sure it was written before she got booted off DWTS (there was only a small parenthetical blurb mentioning it and most of the piece dealt with her new status as dancer and novelist — she has her first novel due out soon, apparently). It was cute, and I’m really glad they still decided to run it after she, unfairly dammit!!! 🙂 got kicked off.

Finally (and then I’m almost done for the night, I swear), I booked my plane ticket for Blackpool! I’m so excited! But it was a little too stressful, I hate to admit. Ever since 9/11 I have this crazy stupid nervousness of flying, and I say crazy and stupid both because it has been so long since everything happened and I just feel like I should be so over it by now, and because I really do love to travel and this obviously hinders that. For the first couple of years afterward, I wouldn’t even fly — I just kept taking trains and going on cruises — the latter of which can get ridiculously expensive, especially if you’re just using the ship as a mode of transportation and not appreciating all of the amenities like the entertainment and food and all. I started flying a few years ago when, believe it or not, I had to go to a dance competition in Florida and couldn’t take off all the time from work needed to take the 30-hour-each-way Amtrak. So, I guess dance got me flying again 🙂 I’ve since taken many flights, and I guess I’m okay once we’re in the air, but it’s just sitting on that runway thinking… ugh! It actually has been good for me to read the Winger and Matt’s blog and see all the fearless ABT people flying all over creation — makes me feel like if they can do it, everyone can do it, I can do it, ‘there’s nothing to fear but fear itself’…

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GAGA and Joan Acocella

 

Last night, my friends, Alyssa and Angie, and I went to the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet studios in west Chelsea to take a GAGA dance / movement class from an assistant of Ohad Naharin, the artistic director of the Israeli dance company, Batsheva. From now through April 27th, the company is in town performing their most recent piece, Decadance, at Cedar Lake’s studios, and during that time, they are teaching daily weekday classes in Naharin’s unique dance methodology, in which his dancers train daily. The cool thing is that they have classes for both professional dancers (during the day), and for non-pros like me in the evenings!

Okay, I have to say, this is one of the best dance classes I’ve ever taken. There was no technique taught at all; rather it was all about utilizing your senses, letting all movement be ultimately about pleasure, and really letting yourself go. First, we began simply by feeling our weight shift, one leg to the other. Then we felt our hands kneeding dough, then the sensation of making circles with our hands, then our feet, then our legs, then our whole body, including internal organs. We melted into the ground, turned our bodies into water, rubbed imaginary oil over ourselves soothingly, used our bodies as drums and our palms as drumsticks, fell to the floor, jumped up quickly, fell again, jumped up again, again and again till we should have been out of breath but somehow weren’t, lay down, pulled ourselves up again and again till our abdominals (or at least mine) should have ached but somehow didn’t, bounced around the floor, bouncing and bouncing as much and as quickly as possible, feeling like complete idiots and laughing madly at ourselves and each other. “Yes, laugh at yourself, feel silly,” the instructor said.

At one point — my favorite — she had us balance on one leg and kick out, back, and all around with the other. Of course, I have some balance problems from an earlier inner ear problem, so had to concentrate on holding my center properly while balanced solidly over the middle of my standing leg, feeling my full foot spread out to grab the the floor, then concentrated on doing the perfect developee with my other leg. Well, she could read my mind, I swear. “No!” she yelled at me, lose your balance, don’t be afraid, lose it, LOSE IT!” So, I stopped concentrating, and let my standing leg wobble all about, kicked the other out randomly, haphazardly in every direction paying no mind to control or line. And, amazingly, AMAZINGLY, I didn’t lose balance at all! My balance was even BETTER than in ballet class where I’m often holding onto the barre for dear life! I don’t know if it was a fluke, but something, something worked! She smiled at me at the end because I think I really made progress in letting myself go and not giving a crap about what I looked like.

Oh, and the other thing — NO MIRRORS!!! It made ALL the difference, I swear! For the first time ever in a dance class I was not hystericizing about how awful I looked — about how I was the skinny spaghetti girl who could not move her hips or whose … everything … looked too big and oversized in the leotard (does ANYONE over the age of 12 actually look good in one?). Matt once blogged about some choreographer issuing the directive, “Banish All Mirrors,” and I don’t know if it was Naharin (Matt has no search function set up on his blog, grrrrr…), but all I can say is the no mirrors thing here really helped me to feel the movement coming from within my body, to sense the space around me, and really help me to keep my balance and to move without over-analyzing and obsessing how I looked doing something. Anyway, if it’s not clear, I highly recommend this class to anyone in NYC! Classes are $12 and are ongoing through April 27th. Look them up here.

Then tonight, I went to hear one of my favorite dance writers, New Yorker dance critic Joan Acocella read from her new book, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, a wonderful-looking collection of essays on artists of all kinds from Baryshnikov and choreographer Jerome Robbins, to food writer M.F.K. Fisher, to authors Dorothy Parker (a favorite of mine), Susan Sontag (another fave), and Philip Roth, to visual artist Louise Bourgeois (whom I LOVE). I feel like I have all the same favorites as she. I’d never met her before or heard her read in person, and I didn’t know what to expect since she can be a pretty severe critic in her writing. But like most writers, she was a completely different person in real life from her writing voice. She was immensely personable and down to earth, funny, downright encyclopedic in her range of knowledge, very grateful for her fans, and very humble and embarrassed when one praised her, calling her Mark Morris book “Blakeian” and comparing her to film critic Pauline Kael. She read from her Baryshnikov essay because that one, she said, was the most popular. Of course this made me happy, since he is the one dancer profiled in the book. I wanted to ask her two questions: 1) if she felt there was anyone who was a contemporary Baryshnikov and if not, why; and 2) if she had any advice for an aspiring critic. But there was such a plethora of questions, and she was so generous in answering them all, we ran clear out of time before getting to me.

When I approached her to have her sign my book, I did ask her the second one though. Unfortunately her answer was one I didn’t really want to hear. “Oooh,” she moaned. “Oooh, dear, there are just no jobs, it’s just bad…” “Dance?” she asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Ooooh,” she moaned louder shaking her head. Apparently all arts criticism is bad off, but dance is particularly a no go. “I had to take non-writing jobs to support myself all the way up until eight years ago when I got the New Yorker job,” she confessed. “It’s just so hard to make a living.” Ugh. If there are no jobs for writers, who is there to promote dance?…

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W H O A

I am a little weirded out right now on a few different levels. Okay, for one thing, I loved Paulina and am very disappointed she’s off (Dancing With the Stars of course — I’ll get to the relevance of the above pic in a minute). I was too busy to blog last night but if I would have I would have said how much I enjoy watching her dance because, ridiculous as it sounds since she is (or was anyway) a huge supermodel, I totally identified with her. Latin is so unbelievably hard if you weren’t raised with it. It’s so hard to get the Cuban motion just right, and, in order to make up for initially being unable to connect your back muscles to your abdominals and those to your hips, you tend to just bounce about, in Paulina’s case, or wiggle your butt and shake your shoulders, in Heather’s. And cute as it is, it’s just that — cute, which Latin shouldn’t be! But it’s still a lot of fun! And cute is … cute! It’s also nice, as a student anyway, to be able to identify with someone else’s limitations and their struggle to overcome them. And now she won’t have a chance. And I’m not sure why she was booted since she definitely was far from the worst and her personality was so sweet. She was so warm and funny and entertaining, and even humorously self-deprecating, which, as Jolene I think it was, pointed out in her comment in my post from last week, is such an unexpected surprise in a supermodel! She certainly had a better personality than some of the others. Oh well, at least Heather’s still in. Some of my co-workers today were expressing their dislike of her. I heard the word “golddigger” a couple times. I have to confess I don’t keep up with the gossip mags, so I know she was once married to Paul McCartney but don’t know much else. Anyway, I like her personality as revealed on the show. I think my favorite overall right now is Laila. I also like Joey.

Anyway, reason number two that I’m disappointed is that, with six hours now under its belt, we can see where the show’s going to go this season. They pumped tonight as showcasing great professional talent, and, I’m sorry, but who was that? It was just all the pros already on the show. Where are Joanna Leunis and Michael Malitowski? Where are Bryan Watson and Carmen? Even bring Van Amstel back and let him dance with Smirnoff for cry eye, but don’t limit it to the pros on the show — they’re not top class (excepting the aforesaid Karina, but, since ballroom takes two, you can’t see what she’s made of unless you see her dance with a great pro partner). (How much do I LOVE, by the way, that there’s a Wikipedia entry on Louis?!) For Standard, we have a top world couple right here in the U.S. Is it that hard to fly Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova from NY to LA for one night? The pros on the show are fine for dancing with the celebs but if you’re going to tout the first results / all pro show as showcasing great professional talent, bring in the best.

But what really weirded me out the most about tonight was, after being upset that Paulina was voted off (the first time, I must confess, that I’ve ever been annoyed about anyone on the show getting the boot), I visited the DWTS message board to see if anyone perhaps had a chance to say anything yet. I figured I’d be WAY too early. Wow, was I ever wrong. I logged on at 10:02 — 2 minutes after the show ended and maybe 5 or 6 after Paulina was announced first off. In that time, there were nine threads. The top one, posted less than 60 seconds before I logged on, had already received 1,113 views. THAT’S 1,113 VIEWS IN LESS THAN 60 SECONDS. I’m sorry but when I post a message on the Winger message board I’m lucky if it gets 10 views in a whole day — and that’s the most popular website in existence on ballet. Doug Fox of Great Dance, an extremely popular dance website centered around using internet technology to promote concert dance, recently revealed his stats on his page views and I think he got that many in an entire day on the whole site. I feel like I’m beginning to understand where Terry Teachout’s annoyance is coming from. I had no idea there was this degree of difference between a popular TV show and ballet. I no longer think that the internet is the be-all and end-all right now, the best way to reach out to people and gain new audiences. If the internet is the future I don’t think it’s the present. The present is still the good old fashioned TV. Obviously the internet is a good aid for promoting dance, through the blogs and message boards, but there needs to be more ballet on TV. I don’t know how — commercials maybe? A full-length ballet once in a while like the Met Opera is doing. Except it needs to be on a basic network and during prime time. When I was watching Leeza and Tony do their foxtrot to “Strangers in the Night,” I of course thought of Marcelo 🙂 (okay, AND Baryshnikov!) Tharp’s ballets are so modern, so fun, and so relatable. Certainly the same audience who gets so into ballroom would be into her, right?! Or, Alvin Ailey’s The River or Pas de Duke, or Revelations even — they all contain some elements of Samba and Jive, etc. Anyone who takes any interest in DWTS would simply be blown away by those dancers and choreographies.

Also, reading the show’s message boards made me a bit nauseated. This was hardly Ballet Talk. People were talking on such a low level. Though many were, happily for me, disagreeing with Paulina’s being booted, most were saying things like ‘so and so sucks,’ ‘so and so is horrible,’ ‘no, that’s idiotic, it’s so and so who needs to be put out of his misery’… etc. etc. with nothing more, no specifics about their technique. But maybe viewing the greatest dancers in the world do Tharp’s version of “ballroom” would start to elevate the level of popular discussion of dance, and, hence, better promote it? I dunno, I’m tired and annoyed and just a bit disappointed in ‘my peeps’ right now!!!

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Kinda Worried…

EVIL PEOPLE FORCING PEOPLE TO SPEND moneyEnded up pending another $339, which, in addition to what I’ve already spent on my subscription plus Alessandra’s farewell performance, brings my total ABT spending this MET season to nearly $800. I said Met, by the way; ABT spending total was over $1,000 including City Center. Am I crazy? Are other ABT fans this insane?

Eh. In addition to my dwindling bank account due to ABT addiction, I am worried about this:

We only have a matter of weeks now until the performance and I only have half the choreography semi-memorized. I feel like I really should be tripling and quadrupling up on lessons from now until then, but at $95 per lesson, that’s several thousand dollars. Plus, I still owe hundreds more on the actual showcase cost. Not to mention the several-hundred-dollar costume. The hard thing about ballroom expenses are that you don’t really think about how much you’re spending until you look at your credit card statement and have a near nervous breakdown. It’s not like going to Woodbury Commons and spending several thousand dollars on clothes in a few hours. You’d realize how much you were racking up and would be incredibly reckless not to be able to control yourself. With ballroom, you have a definite and serious goal in mind, you have to be good, very good, performance-quality good by a certain date, and when it means you have to practice practice practice, which, since ballroom depends on two and one of you is your private lesson teacher, means spend spend spend. You don’t realize how much you’re spending because your focus is on your goal. And once you’ve already committed and put down a deposit, it’s too late, there’s no turning back.

Ugh. I guess from now on, I should set aside several thousand — seriously, probably no less than $6,000 — before committing to a showcase or competition. Or maybe committing to a competition far far far in the future and then just taking one lesson every other week. But, no, actually; I’ve done that before, and, just because of the student / female ‘I’ll never be good enough’ mentality, when it gets close to the show / comp you can’t take enough lessons. I blogged yesterday about ways to save on costumes, and now I’m thinking I may even go to Capezio and see what they have in stock that I can dress up myself. Mirella sometimes makes fancy leotards and I can buy some matching chiffon and go to the Garment District and find some rhinestones to glue on myself…? Maybe…

And then I have Blackpool coming up. I’ve already paid my fee for the festival, and fortunately B&Bs and food there are very cheap, but I still have the plane ticket…

What can I say? It’HARD having a dance addiction! No one understands… Is there a way to get paid for this???

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Feeling Better Now…

After hearing from very sweet Kristin Sloan and some others, and having the day to think stuff over, I feel much better about things regarding my last post. Still dismayed that it happened (and it definitely was not in any way, shape or form Kristin’s fault!!), but I guess the lesson I’ve learned is that you have to not let people instigate crap and get a rise out of you, both in blogs and in life. So, I’m over it!

Anyway, it was an okay day… but would’ve been better if the weather forecaster was more correct about the weather! It was definitely nowhere near the upper 50s / low 60s, but I went to the park anyway:

Both pics are of Strawberry Fields — -people hot-blooded enough to hang out on the benches, and in some cases, sing and play guitar to each other!

Still too chilly for me to hang out outside for more than about 45 minutes, so came home and immersed myself in brain candy 🙂 Slightly embarrassed to admit I’m reading this, but what better way to try to get over being bummed, right! I bought this book for $1 at my local library’s sale — can’t get a better price on such candy 🙂

And then got the mail and was delighted to see an offer from Theater Development Fund of discount tickets to see the Eifman Ballet at City Center in April! Very excited — I’d wanted to see them, and, with all the money I spend on ballroom leaving me little for any outside leisure spending money, I’m always thrilled about getting a deal 🙂 Thanks TDF!!

Anyway, my friend from the studio, Elaine, and I are planning to go out to costume-maker Valentina’s shop next weekend, so I have to figure out what kind of costume I want for the showcase. Jacob had suggested something strapless and backless (how’s it gonna stay on???) with long gloves. Sounds beautiful but he also said it wouldn’t look completely right without being covered with rhinestones, which I don’t know if I can afford this time around. Ballroom’s getting REALLY expensive — just spent nearly $1000 for 10 lessons!! He said I could always buy them and put them on myself which would be considerably cheaper, but I don’t know if I trust myself to do a good job with such a thing! Anyway, thinking about Rita Hayworth as my role-model, since it’s foxtrot and all, I came up with some ideas:

If there’s mesh covering at the top, it’d stay on… Or:

This kind of top is pretty… As is this:

How cute is she!! I so wanna be her!!

Hmmmm.

Aww….!

Another possibility, although that one may be too expensive. Longer = more money…especially if rhinestones are involved…

Oh, but aren’t they cute!

Something like this is what I really really love — the flowing, layered chiffon skirt, part of which can be gathered and held up with the hand at certain points. Which is really similar to the basic black that Elaine Kudo wore in the original Sinatra Suites:

Dunno if you can really see it, but it’s a basic black leotard with a black chiffon skirt, about knee length, and only a few rhinestones right on the top on the bust. May be perfect for my routine, and perfectly affordable 🙂

By the way, all of the above pictures of Rita Hayworth are taken from this website.

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The Internet Can Be a Very Unsafe Place — Update

I’m really upset about something that happened yesterday on The Winger, a big dance website for anyone who might not know, and just have to talk about it since no one there is. Basically, I got caught up in cross-fire between two contributors, both of whom I like very much. One of them, a young dancer, used a term that I’ve never heard of before and the other told him some of his fans, such as I, would be offended because it was a sexist and racist term and he shouldn’t use it. Since I’d been drawn into the argument, I searched the internet to try to figure out what the term meant. When I realized it was being used, at least these days, to refer to just about anyone, I wrote in saying I wasn’t offended by it but thanking the other contributor for his sensitivity. Another person, who I’ve never seen on The Winger before then got involved attacking the young dancer for being racist and sexist, and eventually, after I defended him, hurling nasty personal insults at me for not being offended and being stupid enough to not know about this term. I can’t believe I actually spent time on this and I’m kind of embarrassed to admit I took time out of my day to even engage in this battle, but I asked some of my youngish co-workers if they’d ever heard the term and no one had. We are public defenders in NYC after all; we have heard a lot. Anyway, the whole thing escalated completely out of control, and in the end, I felt very vulnerable, upset, and even threatened.

I did receive a personal apology from one of the contributors, who brought me into the debate, and I’m very thankful for that. I also received some personal messages of support from one very nice commenter. But I feel like now it is being brushed under the rug and I don’t know exactly what I want, but I feel like more should be said. I realize that dancers, and anyone really — definitely me– can become emotional over something and can be fragile, and get easily upset over something that to no one else may seem to be a big deal. And I know I didn’t have to get involved and definitely felt like there was something more going on between these two contributors than I knew about or could control, but I liked them both a lot and felt the need to say something, especially given that my name was mentioned. In the end I felt like I was somewhat taken advantage of and now the two contributors seem to be trying to make amends with each other, but I am left feeling vulnerable and weakened. I felt like The Winger was a safe place, and now it is not.

I’ve also received some emails through the blog that have upset me, and am trying to deal with it all. Some of my friends have told me they think blogging and commenting on blogs is dangerous, which used to make me laugh. Now I’m seeing their point. I don’t know why I’m writing this exactly, I don’t know exactly what I want other than an assurance that people are sorry and will be more careful not to let things get so out of control. I am still really upset while I’m writing this, but writing it does make me feel a little bit better, and hopefully by the end of the weekend I’ll be a little less bummed. It’s nice weather out (at least in NYC); everyone should enjoy their weekend.

Update: Just wanted to say, as per my post following this one, everything is good now! Thanks, people, for being so nice 🙂 I was going to take this post down, but decided to leave it up and just say, in one commenter’s words, “don’t let other people make their anger your own.” Sometimes if someone who’s not a friend and whom you’ve never met before is attacking you unfairly, it’s best not to respond at all, and if you feel like you need to, you can just say that it wasn’t meant the way they are taking it. Period. It’s just not worth having so many unnecessary battles! Anyway, thanks 🙂

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Calling Forth My Own Dancer Alter Ego, and Other Thoughts on Women and Dancers and Bodies and Men…

Last night I went to the monthly Writers’ Room member readings at Cornelia Street Cafe in the Village (in which I’ll be reading at some point in the not-too-distant-future). Reading were Susan Buttenwieser, a Pushcart Prize finalist, Lara Tupper, a lounge singer-turned novelist whose debut novel, “A Thousand and One Nights” has just been published (how jealous am I?!?!), and last but not least, Signe Hammer, who, because of her bio, I was very interested in hearing. The funny host, playwright Stan Richardson, whom I personally like (though I’m not sure that sentiment is universal amongst the WR crew) always asks the readers what, from the bio they provide him, they are most proud of (still have no damn clue what I am going to say when it comes my turn…) Susan said hers was being nominated for the prize, Lara said hers was being a member of the Barry Manilow fan club (hehehe), and Signe said her short-lived career as a dance / performance artist with Meredith Monk‘s original dance group, The House, was her proudest moment! Immediately everyone clapped loudly; all the writers and their friends knew already of Monk with no further explanation. So, Yay For Dance!! She gave some brief little humorous tidbits about her work with Monk, saying they founded site-specific “Dance Theater” (performing at the Guggenheim and Judson Playhouse before obtaining their own space), as opposed to “Dance Dance” which is what she termed Twyla Tharp’s main enterprize, after trying and failing at Dance Theater. Tharp, she said with humor, realized the genre wasn’t for her after her first effort, which Monk remembered as being a piece where bodies hurled through the air as if propelled by a canon, one after the other, and … that was it. After labeling her and Monk as “Downtown,” Stan asked her if she considered herself “downtown” in terms of her writing, and she snapped, “no, downtown is dead!” Because there is no derriere-garde anymore, she proclaimed, there is no avant-garde either. Hmmmm.

Anyway, the readings were interesting, but maybe it’s just that I’ve seen so much dance lately (and, I guess contemporary Dance Theater), that, I kinda think, uh, the art of simply reading from some pieces of paper requires somewhat of a performance artist. I mean, lying down on your futon with your legs hanging over the back of the frame with a book open in your face — how I read anyway — that’s just the way words were meant to be taken in– by visualizing them on the page. Hearing them spoken just doesn’t allow them to penetrate my brain the same way. Usually. Except when spoken by Ann Liv Young and Laurel Dugan and Forsythe’s dancers. Hmmm, maybe I should ask Laurel to help me, to be my dancer alter ego! Ha ha. No, stage is far too small, and Stan would freak. I’ll have to call forth my own dancer alter ego 🙂

Anyway, in the audience, I met this lady:

Her name is Alice Denham and she was all excited about her new book, whose full title is “Sleeping With Bad Boys: Literary New York in the 1950s and 1960s,” being reviewed in the New York Times. I looked her up and she’s been reviewed all over the place! She gave me a little flyer showing the front and back covers of the book. Back cover reads “Denham’s lusty memoir is a juicy tell-all about a time when male writers were gods and an aspiring and gorgeous female novelist tries to win respect… Caught between the sheets are James Dean, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth… The steam rises page by page as Denham — the only Playboy Playmate to have her fiction published in the same issue as her centerfold — chases her dream of writing as a young, oversexed beauty in the literary swirl of 1950s Greenwich Village…” The Denham I met seemed interesting, intelligent, quirky, and opinionated, as she rolled her eyes at some of our host’s jokes and wasn’t shy about yelling out, “that’s the ONLY funny one of the night” at the one that actually made her laugh (and she’s of course a lot older now than in her picture as shown above)… but she didn’t seem so ‘oversexed’ to me. I guess she read my thoughts because she said, “Oh, they sexed it up, you know,” rolling her eyes. “It’s really a feminist account of a woman in the 50s trying to be taken seriously as a writer.” Looks good, and I do think I’ll check it out. And Susan Brownmiller of “Our Bodies Our Selves” gave it a thumbs up!

One thing though: feminism and the whole (false) mind / body binarism has captured my interest of late, and Denham’s back cover made me think of it again. As dancers, our bodies are all important, and in a way, I guess we are our bodies. But we are also obviously intellectual beings. It’s just upsetting when someone — a man, doesn’t want to accept that, who thinks that because you’re a dancer he can treat you a certain way, disrespect you, say certain things, look at you a certain way — all things that can even be a bit threatening. I’m a lawyer, I’m not used to this. And it’s definitely not all men — definitely not even most; most men are totally cool; it’s just some who ruin it. Do a lot of female dancers get this treatment? What about “sexy” female writers like Denham? Or Candace Bushnell? Ann Liv Young said she got some suggestions about ways she could make her piece “sexier” by men who didn’t understand her work; she just rolled her eyes inwardly and thanked them. Very Dorothy Parker. I love her. Someone asked for Santoro’s phone number, I think she said as well. I wonder how Santoro reacted.

Anyway, on a more positive thought, regarding feminism: there are some really cool things going on in the city this weekend. There’s a “Global Feminisms” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum on feminist art, and “Indwelling” — a combination of photography exhibits on women’s bodies by female artists, screenings of shorts films such as the movie “A Girl Like Me” which I saw at TriBeCa film festival and blogged about earlier — awesome awesome AWESOME short film by a high-schooler about young African-American girls’ self-perceptions — and some play readings such as The Vagina Monologues. The theme is women’s body images, and it celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Women’s Therapy Centre Institute and takes place at Cooper Union’s Great Hall. Sounds excellent.

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Help!

 

Yikes, it’s coming up so soon! I’m so not ready!!

I started up again with Luis last night 🙂 His hair is so long now — it’s funny because I feel like I just saw him, but I guess it’s been about five months — time really does fly! I remember him saying he was going to grow it out, but I’d forgotten — almost didn’t recognize him!

Anyway, he learned the first half of the choreography already – -Jacob was really nice and helped teach him. So, in about forty-five minutes, he now knows it better than I do, and I have been learning it for over two months! I am so not a professional dancer!!!

Another thing that defines me as so not a pro — my dinner; dinner of pigs! They had these in the coffee shop near my work and I just had to try one. So yummy. But so blasted big!

So, my lesson ended at 7:50 p.m., and I then rushed home to catch Dancing With the Stars. I know, “cheesetastic” show (in Terry Teachout’s words), but it promotes ballroom dancing and increases attendance at ballroom studios, which in turn promotes ballet and concert dance and hence increases attendance at those events, so we support cheese here!!!

Anyway, it was interesting to see Paulina again — she must be in her forties by now and of course looks all of 24. I used to not like her because I remember her saying things like “I wish women would just be women” — ugh, like why can’t we just all be whatever we want for cry-eye, but that’s when she was younger and she seems to have a very cute, fun, humorously self-deprecating personality, so I definitely hope she stays. I have to say though, as gorgeous as she is, her dancing really drives home the point that beautiful skinny girl with long limbs does SO NOT a dancer make! I mean, aside from her gorgeous face, body-wise she really reminded me of myself: hunched over because you’re taller than your partner, spidery arms flailing about everywhere, spaghetti center, etc.! But because of that I am so very glad she’s on the show — I’ll love to see her improvement in the coming weeks, and it’s so fantastic to see someone who looks like you (body-wise of course — I WISH I had that face 🙂 ) dancing and dancing well and to everyone’s liking. And I am also so glad Heather is on the show — how awesome!!! She looked beautiful.

On one last note, ABT is on tour right now — they’re in Chicago today, but were in Detroit recently, and I saw this on Matt’s blog. How horribly upsetting. Living in NY for such a long time now, I forget that such people still exist…

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"The Virgin is a Lovely Number"

 

On Thursday night, I went to see Ann Liv Young‘s “Snow White” after seeing it posted on The Winger, by Gia Kourlas, who also has a good interview with the young iconoclastic choreographer in TONY. Very in-your-face, very rawly unabashedly unerotically naked, very hilariously WTF??, very post-post-post-feminist, and I LOVED it! This was my first time seeing anything by her, and I had to do some research, both on her work and the classic fairytale, to make a bit of sense (but I love that sort of thing — and I had no idea reinvention of the fairytale was so popular — in addition to Anne Sexton and Gregory Maguire, Angela Carter and A.S. Byatt have had their take). Young said it was based on the Grimm Brothers version and not Disney, which was pretty obvious, but I don’t think she needed to say that anyway: it’s really just her own thing entirely.

I’m not sure if I got what I was supposed to get out of it, or if there’s even some specific thing that she wanted me to get, but some themes I saw were pretense or illusion versus the real, tearing apart sex and gender stereotypes– rather lewdly too, subverting the (male, I guess) gaze, questioning the meaning of eroticism and nakedness versus nudity, etc.. It was kind of like a play within a play, but in a way that questioned what was performance and what was real. When the audience walked into the theater, the three performers were already standing onstage looking out at us waiting for us to take our seats. Young herself kind of glared out at us, a challenging look in her eye: she was not up there to please us, to show us prettiness and gratification. Similarly, at the end of the performance (which was rather abrupt), they just got up, took their things and walked off the stage, not waiting for or needing our applause, no bows, no “curtain calls.” And throughout the show, things would go wrong — sound devices that wouldn’t work, costume malfunctions, problematic props, etc. — and would be fixed onstage. It’s as if she’s questioning what a performance is, what are its confines, and at points, I wasn’t even completely sure if what was happening was supposed to be happening or if it was part of the show.

But back to the beginning. The three performers — one man (Michael Guerrero), two women (Liz Santoro and Young herself) — all wearing simple white ballet leotards and heavy black sneakers (the last of which is the only item of clothing that remains part of the costume throughout), play a rock song — Guerrero on drums, Santoro keyboards and Young singing. Each person, by the way, plays two characters — Guerrero the sound technician and The Queen, Santoro The Woodsman and The Prince, and Young the play’s director and Ms. White. After the song finished, all three stripped naked and changed into their next costume — all onstage. No strip-tease, nothing artful or sexy about it, just a clothing change done onstage — and therefore — really somewhat shocking. Certainly not Kenneth Clarke’s definition of “the nude.” Plus, none of the bodies are “idealized” — no makeup, no starving oneself for months on end or working out like a madperson for the idealized physique — these are real bodies.

For the next song, Young sings naked (except for the heavy black sneakers), while Guerrero works the sound and Santoro changes into her Prince costume — underwear with a giant strap-on dildo. The sound goes wrong, not enough is coming out of the mikes, and Young stops the performance mid-song to yell and scream at everyone for it. One male European blogger I read likened her to Eve Ensler, but to me, this ranting naked woman reminded me more of Karen Finley. Except, where Finley would often rant about overtly political issues, Young’s fist-pounding naked woman is political in another way: if traditional onstage female nudity (ie: for male gratification) must render (at least in fantasy) the woman vulnerable, humiliated, and subjugated to men in order for it to be titillating, Young’s dictating everyone around, forcing even the rather muscular man to run frantically about, his penis dangling between his legs, is nothing but amusing. She is hardly the vulnerable, submissive one, and is humiliating everyone else. Maybe the image is a bit shocking as well; I found it funny.

The Disney version has oft been criticized for reifying the virgin / whore dichotomy. As Sexton’s poem notes, the Queen is the sexed-up slut well deserving of her eventual demise, Snow the glorious good girl who is, for all intents and purposes a virgin — of course every woman must at some point perform those horrid ‘wifely duties’ but Snow’s “china-blue doll eyes … open to say Good Day Mama” but are “shut for the thrust of the unicorn…” Since she denies her sexuality, the fantasy of her virginity remains intact. Here, Young screws all such fantasies: the “Prince,” topless and with her giant strap-on dildo, climbs aboard Young, balancing his body over hers in a push-up, as if looking into the glass-box where the poor dead beautiful Snow lies. But instead of being a beautiful dead girl, Young is alive and active. She jumps up, pushes the Prince over, climbs atop him and straddles the dildo. Young told Kourlas part of what she wished to do was play with skepticism, so she wants the audience to see it penetrate her. The spectacle is rather outlandish and the audience kind of didn’t know how to react. Personally I don’t see how anyone could possibly find this ‘girl-on-girl action’ to be intended for male titilation — it seems way too vulgar — but Young told Kourlas that a European male viewer wrote to her that he thought the performance was quite sexy, but if she wanted to make it yet sexier she should lose the tennis shoes. In an earlier piece, entitled “Michael,” which I only read about and now wished I would have seen, apparently part of the action takes place in a trailer bearing three naked women dancing, and a male outside peering through the window, naked as well, and masturbating. He later comes inside the trailer, only to have his penis tied to the couch by the women, who pour soda over him while screaming, “I don’t love you anymore.” Is she saying that this is the fate that befalls the poor man who assumes women’s bodies exist solely for his gratification? Anyway, at one point during Snow White, Young reads to the audience some letters of criticism from former viewers, but she didn’t include this tennis shoe one and I wish she would have.

In the last section, the three performers pretend to be part of a radio talk show. One discussion revolves around how each character’s Valentine’s Day was spent. Young tells a story in which she was driving down the freeway topless, rocking out to cranked-up music and having herself a great time. A trucker sees her and begins following her. Of course, right then her tire goes flat. She throws a shirt on, jumps out of the car, and goes to the trunk to retrieve her spare, when the trucker stops and approaches her. He shoves her up against her trunk and pulls down his pants. Just then his black lab jumps out of the truck and attacks him, allowing her to run away. She flees into some bushes and hides, only to hear a shotgun go off. After the trucker pulls away, she goes back out to the street and holds the dog in her arms as he dies. A caller phones in and tells her if she’d just keep her clothes on her life would be much easier. Very disturbing, and Finley-esque.

Anyway, “Snow White” is playing at The Kitchen this Wednesday through Saturday. There’s tons of good stuff I left out. My friend, unfortunately, was disturbed by it, so I guess it may not be for everyone, but if you want to see a real spectacle that will likely challenge your notions of things and make you think, then just go and check it out for yourself.

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Return of the Teabagger!!!

I was informed tonight during my lesson that Luis, my former fab teacher, is returning to the studio!!! Because I’d worked with him for quite a while and did my prior showcase with him, we decided that I should try to do my Sinatra routine with him. So work with him on that will begin next week!! Hehehe, Luis got a bit freaked when I posted previously about our joke appellation for the problematic snake that continuously occurred during our Mambo, but EVERYONE thought it was hilarious, so the name of this post is in honor of his return 🙂 It’s my fault because of my long legs, ha ha ha! Anyway, Yay Luis!

In other ecstatic news,

Delirium pointed out to me ABT’s announcement that Marcelo, along with Veronika Part, will lead the cast in the world premiere of Kevin McKenzie’s Sleeping Beauty, on June 1st!!! Unfortunately, I’m going to be in Blackpool that evening watching the World Standard Ballroom competition, but will be back by Monday, the 4th, when those two dance again. So excited!!!

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My Prize From Root Magazine!

So, I just received in the mail my prize from Root Magazine for being a winner in their essay contest for my piece on making an ass of myself in Samba class! I love “Rough Guide,” and it’s perfect for me — covers dance festivals worldwide, and has a whole section, OF COURSE, devoted to Rio’s Carnival! Lists inexpensive hotels, how to get tickets to the parade and what times to go to see the best schools, and how and when to sign up with a Samba school if you wish to dance in the parade (it listed Mangueira as the best, which Cathy had first told me about!) So, now I have NO EXCUSE for not going next year 🙂

The book also lists a bunch of other fabulous world festivals (both dance-related and non-dance), including, New Year’s Hogmanay in Scotland, PETA’s “Running with the Nudes” — as opposed “Running with the Bulls” — in Spain, NY’s very own Halloween parade, and one in particular that caught my eye — the Gay and Lesbian Festival in Sydney — supposedly the largest of its kind in the world and in which participants really know how to “lose their inhibitions,” clothing-wise. Sounds like the perfectly SAFE place for that — and probably ideal for someone like me who freaks over her costume showing a milimeter of cleavage (more about that in a later post…) Hmmm, ideas for more stuff to spend my non-existant monetary funds on…

Here’s a picture from the inside flap — I’m not sure if this is that Sydney festival or something else, but it looks intriguing 🙂

Anyway, it was the perfect prize for me! Thanks again so much, Root!

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Two Months Til Met Season!!!

Marcelo Gomes

Yay, opening night is in two months exactly! Oh but two months is soooo long…

And DH looks here like he is gaining just a bit of weight (in a good way!) (for non-obsessed ABT fanatics, he’s the guy in the grey sweater, then white shirt) I’m sorry! It’s just that he’s so mesmerizing; every square milimeter of him, in both movement and in pictures, is just fascinating 🙂 And Matt has a knack for bringing out the goof in everyone 🙂

Above pic is of Marcelo, of course of course!