Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.
My first ever reading from my novel! Thank you sooo much writers room for awesome opportunity! And thanks to great great friend evangelina for support!
Playwright Stan Richardson Introducing Writers Room Readings at Cornelia Street Cafe
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.
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.
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!
Can You Say WIMP!!!
Ah, how beautiful is that! I tried to do something like it so we could put it into my routine, except I wasn’t arching back, just kept a straight body, but I was too @#$^%$# scared! Now I’m so mad at myself!
So, I turned my pretty ending lift into a boring fish (again):
I mean, when I did my first fish, it was great fun, and it is pretty and all, but now that it’s the only thing I’m not scared out of my mind to do, it’s just frustrating… Ugh. Maybe I’ll get up my nerve to try the over-the-shoulder one again, but I was really wobbly and I feel like if we do that one, half of the next two months is going to be spent trying to overcome my fears instead of learning foxtrot. (Above pic by the way is of me and Luis during last showcase; top one, which is actually hanging on my wall, is of the fearless and beautiful Carmen Corella with HIM, in a photo by Roy Round in the book “Roundabout the Ballet.”
Anyway, we finally finished the choreography, so I just transferred what I shot on the camcorder in the studio onto tape so I can watch it over and over and over again on my TV and hopefully someday memorize it (the only way I know how to memorize my choreography).
The routine is pretty … a lot of foxtrot and not a lot of lifty / tricky things, but I guess it will give me a chance to focus on … dancing, which is what I’m supposed to be doing after all. Maybe if I do well in the next couple of weeks, he’ll put more hard things in 🙂 In looking over it, I realized we forgot to put in the trick where my butt kept getting stuck on his shoulder — which may be for the best after what happened last time…
One more pic of Tony and Jacob finishing up the choreography. Jacob’s about to sit on Tony’s back and do air kicks … it’s pretty cool. I got in trouble for taking this pic though — too flashy, and almost blinded everyone! Ooops!
Lawyers … And Everyone Else
This Wednesday night, the New York City Bar Association is holding a panel discussion on how to promote your law firm through a blog. Bill Gates, the e-flyer notes, says the value of websites and email distribution is declining, and blogs, with their unique RSS technology, are the future of internet business. To be discussed are such topics as how to implement and market a blog, the ethics of blogging, how lawyers have bettered their reputations through blogging, and the value of RSS feeds and other blogging functions.
I’m uninterested in learning how to promote a law firm through a blog, but am intrigued by the discussion because of my general interest in Long Tail trends, and of course my personal interest in blogging.
This panel discussion happens to be given for CLE (Continuing Legal Education) credits as well. New York attorneys need to earn a total of 24 CLE credit hours every two years, so the Bar Association offers several CLE programs throughout the year and gives its members a discount on them. Being a public interest lawyer, discounted though they may be, I still can’t afford the Assocation’s fee for the credits, so I earn mine either through my job (which gives the classes to its attorneys for free) or a criminal defense organization in NYC that makes them available to government and non-profit lawyers either for free or for a nominal fee.
Anyway, I’ve already earned all of my credits for my upcoming registration, so I’m not interested in attending the program for credit. So I called the Bar Association to make sure it was okay if I attended either for free or for a nominal fee since I did NOT want the CLE credits, and was told that I couldn’t attend unless I paid the full amount for the panel discussion — $195 for members, $305 for non-members. This is a 3-hour-long program. I re-emphasized to the person I spoke to that I did not want any credits, I merely wanted to sit in, and she repeated that I still had to pay the entire fee.
Media Bistro, a professional media arts guild here, and the Women’s National Book Association, an organization promoting women and publishing, have both held similar panel discussions. For theirs, Media Bistro charged $25 for members, $30 for non-members, WNBA’s cost was $0 for members, $10 for nonmembers. I understand charging a slight bit more if you’re going to have panelists who will give you workbooks and very specific step-by-step how-to’s, but the panels I’ve attended there have been just as general as the ones I’ve attended elsewhere (ie: people talking about their own personal experiences and successes). Plus, if you’re actually going to buy the Association’s “materials” there’s a separate charge of at least $100 more. And, they haven’t even mentioned who the panelists are going to be. I don’t understand. Does anything really justify this difference in cost?
Crazy Dance-Less Week…
It’s Saturday morning and my dance studio just called me to make sure I was okay, since I haven’t been around in the past week and a half. How sweet to be missed 🙂 And I’ve missed them too — I HATE being away from dance for so long… Just had a couple of crazy busy weeks.
Tuesday night I went to the monthly Writers Room member reading series at Cornelia Street Cafe. Readers that night were the sweetly funny Jill Dearman, Douglas Light, reading from his (published — how jealous am I!) novel, East Fifth Bliss, and Julia Lichtblau, who read her charming short story about a Guatemalan girl adopted by U.S. parents making the difficult decision to search out her roots. Just a few months until I read, for the first time, and I’m honestly getting nervous. How I can be anxious about reading in a cozy cafe in front of about 50 people from a manuscript read by practically everyone I know, as well as several agents and editors, and too numerous to contemplate writing classmates, when I have shown off my not so brilliant, two-year-old dancing skills on two real stages to a total of about 1,000 audience members, I’ll never know… but somehow I am. Well, the dance performances have been practice, I guess.
The host, Stan Richardson, was a bit punchier with the readers this time than last, asking them questions like, what is your most prized writing accomplishment (what am I going to say, my blog???), and what hours do you keep at WR so people know when to mob you, and, do you have anything else in your life that you’re proud of. The only question he asked that I would have any kind of interesting answer to was, when did you join WR. I joined right after Brooke Shields (who I assume was using the Room to write her memoir about her post-partum depression). They take everyone’s picture when you join and then post photos of the new members right above the entranceway for about six months. So, my lovely mug shot, in which my eyes were half closed, was right beside Brooke’s superstar photo gracing the doorway for six long months. I never did see Brooke in the Room, although I’m an evening and weekends member; she was probably there during the day. Or maybe she just joined thinking it a prestigious organization, and really has her own fancy loft somewhere in Manhattan in which to write? In any event, even having a crappy picture next to Brooke’s gorgeous face, I have to admit I felt very cool belonging to the same organization 🙂
Wednesday, I attended a panel discussion organized by the Women’s National Book Association, on alternative publishing methods, entitled “Entrepreneurial Publishing: Print-on-Demand, E-books, Back-into-Print, and Other Alternatives to ‘Publishing-as-Usual'”. Ever since reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail (which I actually discovered through dance, when Kristin Sloan posted on the Winger about attending his book-signing party), I’ve been interested in how the internet is affecting the publishing industry. I was particularly interested in POD (print-on demand — basically self-publishing wherein a small number of books are printed and sold by the author directly on Amazon, for example), but knowing very little about publishing, I still don’t entirely understand it. I oftentimes feel, when I am attending a publishing panel discussion, that I’m eavesdropping on a conversation already underway since most of the audience members are in the industry. But I do glean small bits of information, which is why I go.
Anyway, one of the most interesting parts of the discussion was a last-minute addition to the panel — Adam Bellow, who is pictured above with the mike. Bellow (who I just found out by doing an internet search so I could link to him, is the son of Saul Bellow — wow!!!), is an editor at Random House who just started a new pamphleteering press. He said that pamphleteering has in the past been very important to intellectual life — think John Stuart Mill‘s On Liberty, On the Subjection of Women, John Locke, Adam Smith, etc. etc. etc. — and that creating such a press was not possible until the emergence of the internet and the lively intellectual culture it created. Hmmm. Sounds very cool!
Here are some books they had for the taking at the discussion — two romance novels published by Lori James’ Linden Bay Romance, which specializes in electronic formats and trade paperback, and one from Bellow’s company, which is titled, “Everything Could Explode at any Moment: Dispatches from the Lebanese-Israeli Front,” by Michael J. Totten. How very fascinating that the internet has made possible the return of lively 18th and 19th Century intellectual-political discourse!
Then, Thursday night I pulled practically an all-nighter at the office finishing up and filing a brief. And last night I tried to go to a birthday party for a fellow dance blogger — happy birthday, S.J.! — but only made it about ten percent of the way through before having to go home and crash, ridiculously early, on a Friday night 🙁 (and, to boot, was so tired I forgot to take pictures — bad bad blogger!!!) Anyway, I’m pooped and looking forward to a relaxing weekend…
Arty Farty Meme
I’m stealing this from Konagod. Because it’s a fun one, and I like how some of the questions are phrased:
1) Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:
I can’t afford to buy copies to give away, but I’ve lent out my copy of Dreams of My Russian Summers by Andrei Makine so many times that pages are now falling out.
2) Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:
I’m not a big music person, but I’ll never forget the first ballroom Samba class I took at DanceSport, my first studio, with this extremely fun, but somewhat crazed 🙂 Greek woman named Roula Giannopoulou. I’d never heard Samba music before, nor had I ever taken a Samba dance class, and I have no idea now exactly what piece of music she played, but with the wildly intense percussion produced by several kinds of drums, intriguing sounds of other musical instruments I didn’t recognize, the different timing, the beautiful, poetic flow of the Portuguese (which of course I didn’t understand), and just the overall mad-fun atmosphere the music created, I knew I was going to love the class before Roula even made her way back from the stereo to the front of the mirror to show us the basic. As I learned the dance (and the other Latin dances as well), I had to concentrate really hard to hear the beats, so I wouldn’t be off-time. It also made me interested in the culture which produced it, which I knew from from the foreignness of the music alone, must be quite different from my own. So I guess it is in these ways that I learned to listen to and think about music differently: not just to get lost in it, but really to hear the drum beats, the rhythm, the way it was all put together, and view it as a window into another place…
3) Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:
In the Name of the Father — for the music, the story, Daniel Day Lewis, the setting, everything…
4) Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief:
On screen, Sean Penn; on stage, Jose Manuel Carreno.
5) Name a work of art you’d like to live with:
Pot Head, by Paul McCarthy. People accuse him of being lewd, bawdy, and prone to sensationalism, but I think the man tells it like it is 🙂
6) Name a work of fiction that has penetrated your real life:
Just one? — impossible. Middlesex, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Native Son, The Grapes of Wrath, Howard’s End, Crime and Punishment…
7) Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:
This one’s hard for me. I don’t know if I know any punch lines, but I’ve always been humored by the movie line: “Dear Diary, my teenage angst bullshit has a body count.” From Heathers.
Crap Friday, Sobering Saturday…
Ugh, horrible night last night at the studio. First, the second I exited the subway and saw what I saw, I had to ask myself why, why, why do I have to go to a studio located in the Times Square area??? And, if I must go to a studio located in this madhouse, why did I not remember to cancel my two-days-before-the-ball-drops lesson???
Needless to say, it took me twenty minutes to get from 42nd Street all the way up to 44th, two whole blocks… Why do tourists want to visit at this time of year??? Maybe I should listen to myself and go to Rio some time other than Carnival… Hmmm..
Anyway, then the lesson. I just couldn’t understand anything Jacob was saying, and he was being really rather impatient. We practiced my kick splits in the air — where he gives me his arm and I push down and propel myself up about three feet, do the splits as quickly as I can, pointing my toes of course, then come down about 1/10th of a second later. So much harder than it seems to split, straighten legs and make the perfect line, point toes, then come down right away, and remember to do so on bent knees, bent ever so slightly — not so much so that the audience can actually TELL they’re bent, but bent enough so that you don’t kill your knees coming down on straight ones, and in HEELS… Ugh. We did it about twenty-five times. I was finally getting the hang of it, when he wanted to start on these crazy stretches, where I lean away from him as far as I can but while holding his hand. Apparently, I’m supposed to kind of give him my body weight, but kind of hold my own weight — which I don’t get AT ALL. Pasha always used to tell me, “you have to hold yourself; you’re responsible for your own weight, not me,” and sometimes he would even let go ever so quickly to see if I’d begin to fall. Of course I always would, scaring the crap out of me, and making me hold myself completely up giving the man NONE of my weight now. Now Jacob is telling me, “you’ve got to trust me and give me your weight; you’re not trusting me, and it’s not going to look right if you don’t lean completely away me so much so that you’ll fall if I let go.” What? I swear it’s the antithesis of what Pasha said, but he said it was not, and tried to explain how to both hold myself AND trust the guy and give him my full weight, but I didn’t really get it. I guess as time goes on, I will. Hopefully.
And then apparently I am doing too many ballet-like things because he kept telling me, “no releve, this isn’t ballet,” “no ballet hands,” ” no ballet develope; in ballroom we bend the standing leg,” no ballet this, and no ballet that, and so on. Funny thing is, it’s not like I’m a former ballet dancer. I only have childhood lessons taken long long ago, and as an adult, I’m only in basic ballet classes. So, I couldn’t understand most of the terms he was saying, and therefore couldn’t really understand what exactly I was doing that was too ballet. I mean, I go to bizillions of ballet performances, obviously, but can that really rub off in terms of your own dancing? I want to push myself as far as I possibly can, and learn as much as I can as quickly as I am able to, but I just wish so much I had more background so that I would know terms and different dance techniques and be able to differentiate between different styles of dance…
Then, bright and early this morning (sorry, this is total whiner blog today…), my mom called telling me my dad was all upset because apparently he watched the DVD of my most recent studio showcase that I sent him as a Christmas present and couldn’t find either of my routines on it. “Are they on your copy?” she asked. And, if so, can you point to him exactly where? Blech! Of course, I hadn’t yet watched the copy of the tape I kept for myself, because I just hadn’t yet worked up the courage to do so (there’s nothing I HATE more than watching myself dance!). I told her to hold on, popped the blasted thing into the machine, confirmed they were both there while nearly throwing up in digust over my hideous lines, total lack of rhythm, missed steps, horrible gorilla arms, enormous, elephantine hands, etc. etc. etc. I nearly forgot she was still on the damn line. When she later called me back after reporting back to my dad, I found that he actually saw the whole tape and just didn’t recognize me. Lovely feeling when your own parent doesn’t recognize you!!!!!
Anyway, in an attempt to overcome my self-disgust, I marched straight out to my local bakery, and got this perfect early morning meal — chocolate fudge cake and Hazelnut coffee with about four scoops of sugar; a.k.a. the breakfast of pigs:
And, as soon as the liquor store opened,
Spent the afternoon by turns in front of the TV hysterically watching my hideous performances, then in front of the mirror, trying to do the lines Jacob was trying to teach me. Ugh. It just wasn’t going anywhere. Finally decided to just give it a break, and plopped down in front of the computer to read blogs. Serendipitously found these lovely little words of wisdom from Matt — thanks Matt!
When I got bored of blogs, I decided to go visit my local Barnes & Noble, to use the gift card my mom sent me as part of her Christmas present. Came away with these wonderful finds:
Thomas Pynchon‘s new book “Against the Day” is so damn huge (nearly 1100 pages), I don’t even think it’s going to fit in my dance bag (with all the other stuff I have to put in there, I mean), which means I’m gonna have a hard time carting it to and from work on the subway… Well, maybe it’s a better read for home anyway; looks pretty dense. I’m very excited though! This is a first edition by a future Nobel Prize winner after all 🙂 It’s a real investment — both in terms of the material my brain will absorb, and the item itself; am kind of surprised more people aren’t buying them all up…
Also, upon noticing it in the new paperbacks section, I couldn’t help picking up Julie Powell’s chick lit book that evolved from her blog (this is the woman I’d met a couple of weeks ago at the “Bloggers into Authors” panel discussion held by Media Bistro). And, couldn’t resist Dance Magazine which advertised on its cover this article inside entitled “Talking Back to the Ballet Bashers” presumably on the recent Lewis Segal criticism everyone was talking about for a while, which I couldn’t miss…
And then, came home and am blogging while watching
the Gerald Ford funeral. So sad; I feel so badly for his wife… And then, the Hussein execution is of course all over the news. And I have such conflicted feelings. I just don’t think anyone should be put to death for anything…
So, a sobering but less stressful end to a crazy, self-absorbed day… I do think I’m going to leave dance alone for the rest of the weekend. I’ll go back to hystericizing after the holiday! I need a break :/
Happy New Year everyone!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone!
This is a Christmas card I received from one of my clients in prison. He obviously spent a good portion of his inmate funds on this, and I found it so sweet when I received it Friday, I burst into tears. Anyway, I will share it with you all, to wish everyone a wonderful holiday. I have to say, Christmas sometimes really depresses me. I start thinking of everyone who is alone — my clients in prison, the homeless, the elderly, the mentally ill who have no one, orphans, etc. etc. etc. It’s just heart-breaking. Since I’m spending the holiday alone myself (though not ALONE alone; I expect to be receiving umpteenth phone calls from relatives 🙂 ), I contacted a local volunteer organization that sends people to soup kitchens and shelters, but they told me that, ironically, Christmas-time is just about the only time they are NOT lacking in help — just about any other time of the year they’d love me. I made a mental note to try to volunteer at some other point, if and when I’m ever not dancing or working!
Anyway, trying to keep sadness at bay and keep an upbeat attitude… this weekend I had another dance / theater marathon. Yesterday, I went to my last Alvin Ailey performance of the season, sadly. I saw some brilliant dancing and choreography, of course! The matinee’s ballets included The River, a gorgeously dreamy ballet choreographed by Ailey himself to Duke Ellington music, with all dancers dressed in light blue, which kind of reminded me of Clear or Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes — beauty for beauty’s sake. And, I saw Pas De Duke for the first time, which was originally choreographed for Judith Jamison and Baryshnikov. I liked, but didn’t love it. Ailey called it a modern pas de deux (dance for two people), but there was hardly any partnering; it was mostly side by sides, with the dancers interacting a lot with each other emotionally, but not physically. I loved Dwana Adiaha Smallwood (probably the most famous current dancer in the company) in the female role — she was a badass! I can only imagine how Jamison must have performed the part! Then, Solo, by Hans van Manen, was next, a beautiful piece designed, despite its title, for three men, alternating between a pas de trois and each man dancing alone onstage. And the last was Love Stories, a very fun ballet choreographed in honor of Ailey by Jamison, Robert Battle and hip hop choreorapher Rennie Harris. It alternated between hip hop, disco-y jazz, and ballet, and had some absolutely spectacular lifts — man carrying woman over his head while circling the stage multiple times — and jumps — twice a woman jumped up on the chest of a man arching his back — crazy!
I sat in the orchestra pit for this one! I don’t know why these seats are so cheap ($25) — they’re so close to the stage, you feel like you’re practically one with the dancers (a feeling that of course I savor!), and, unlike at the Met when you’re so near to the stage, at City Center you can still see the dances’ feet perfectly. Afterward, they held another post-performance panel discussion with some of the dancers, like last time.
This time we had two Frenchmen, Malik Le Nost and Willy Laury (in the glasses — one of my favorites, whom I always seem to see in the Sinner Man part of Revelations which is odd because they always say they alternate between all the roles; I recognize him partly by this cool tattoo that he has on his hip snaking down to his groin area, which is always peeking out from the top of his cinnamon red Sinner man pants 🙂 ), and I think the woman was Khilea Douglass (she was sitting on the far side from me, so I didn’t hear her name clearly or see her face). I really enjoy these discussions — I appreciate hearing the dancers talk about the work from their perspective.
Today, I went to see Spring Awakening, the new big thing on Broadway.
There were a lot of people out in NY for it being Christmas Eve day…! This Rent-like musical was recommended to me by my friend, Mark, who knew I liked Bill T. Jones, the show’s choreographer (hi Mark!) and I also saw a fellow Winger post about it on her website. I liked it, but I have to say it didn’t move me hugely on my first viewing. It’s something I may have to see again (when it comes down a bit in price!), but I did like the music, the singing was great, and the staging (which I assume was what Jones was responsible for, since there really wasn’t any dancing) was a lot of fun. I guess what I didn’t like was the basic story — it’s based on a German play from the 1890s — and wasn’t something I haven’t heard a zillion times before, so it definitely told me nothing new. And, it seemed a bit melodramatic and I couldn’t understand the motivations of some of the characters. I also wanted some real dancers for Jones to work with! Maybe I’ve just seen so much dance lately I expect everyone to go soaring through the air like an ABT or Alvin Ailey member. I’ve got so used to seeing abstract expressions of thought revealed through the sublime vehice of a near miraculous human body that I just didn’t want to hear any dialog! — which is VERY odd for me since I used to be so into dramas. But I guess I’ve never been a huge fan of musicals in the first place — the only one I think I’ve ever liked is the Cabaret of the Mendes / Cumming variety. But, everyone seems to love this musical, so I’m sure that whatever I didn’t see in it on first viewing is just me 🙂
So, this will be my single-girl-in-the-city Christmas dinner for tomorrow: an artisanal chicken pot pie made by Just Rugelach and bought at my local Sunday farmers’ market, fresh spinach with Olde Cape Cod honey mustard viniagarette currently on sale at my local Food Emporium, and Barefoot Sauvingon Blanc from Nancy’s Wines, preceded by my favorite appetizer of Greek taramosalata (red caviar mixed with pureed potatoes and other lovely ingredients) on Russian black bread, and for dessert, thick delicious (and immensely fatty) Southern Comfort Egg Nog, and some Haddington Farms chocolate-covered peanut caramel clusters sent by Mom 🙂 Yum!
And, finally, here’s some of my Christmas reading! Two novels I’ve been hoping for time to sink my gums into — Home Land by Sam Lipsyte, which is a dark comedy in the style of Augusten Burroughs and consists of letters an alum writes to his alma mater on the eve of his high school reunion basically telling them how life DIDN’T pan out so hunky dory (just my type of thing 🙂 ), and the other, The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter, was recommended by Nick Hornby to his fans a long time ago, which I never got around to buying, but some nice person in my apartment building left this copy for me on top of the recycle bin! And these two lovely works of fiction sit here atop my stacks of trial transcripts for the next case I’ll be working on. I promised friends and family I WOULDN’T do any work work, but if I get antsy enough….
Anyway, happy holidays everyone!
Who Is YOUR Dancer Alter Ego?
Last night I went to see this very interesting play / modern dance performance called Her Kind, about the life and poetry of Anne Sexton, recommended by Winger contributor Tony Schultz. The actress and playwright was Hannah Wolfe, who alternated fluidly between three different characters: the poet herself; Sexton’s sad but sweet daughter, Linda; and a rather comically nervous young professor trying to teach Sexton to a college class. I was more familiar with Sexton’s poetry than her life, other than the fact that she killed herself, like her friend, Sylvia Plath. Through a combination of recitations of Sexton’s poetry, video projections of interviews with her friends, monologues by Linda recounting anecdotes of life with her mother, and one of those fourth-wall-breaking ‘dialogues’ where Wolfe’s college teacher lectured us, her students, on the import of Sexton’s work, the performance taught me a great deal about Sexton in only a little over one hour. But what I found most fascinatingly unique about the show was modern dancer Laurel Dugan’s role. She ‘played’ the part of Sexton’s alter ego, Elizabeth, who was both a multiple personality of Sexton’s (she was arguably mentally ill) and served as a muse, figuring strongly in her poems. But instead of speaking, Dugan mainly interpreted Sexton’s words through dance. I’d never really seen dance as a direct expression of literature before, and, in a way, I felt like I got more out of watching a dancer interpret the poetry, read by Sexton herself via a tape-recording, through her body, than by listening to the actress use her voice to do the same. The whole conception was really brilliant, and Dugan was stunning.
Anyway, I had kind of a weirdly funny experience afterward. I suffered a bit of “professional identity confusion” when I got into a little disagreement with the woman sitting next to me, who was, it turned out, a former English teacher of Wolfe’s, and a writer herself. The woman immediately expressed dissatisfaction with the piece overall, saying it didn’t really work for her, and she thought she’d give suggestions to Hannah for improving it, since she was a former teacher of hers and all. “Oh really?” I said. “Well what I really loved about it was the dancer; I’ve never seen that kind of thing before and I was surprised that it brought so much more to the play than words could.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “No, that was exactly what I didn’t like!”
We both laughed at our disagreement, the way friendly, unantagonistic women do, then she asked me if I knew Hannah. It was a very small theater, and it seemed everyone who was there knew someone involved in the production. “No,” I said, “I’m here because it was recommended on the Winger, a dance website.”
“Oh, you’re a dancer,” she said, sounding somewhat embarrassed. “I should have known. Well, no no, don’t let my interpretation sway you at all. I’m sure I just feel the way I do because I’m a writer. I take Sexton very personally,” she laughed again.
“Oh, I’m a writer too,” I exclaimed. “I was an English major and I like Anne Sexton too.”
“Really?” she said sounding a little confused. “What do you write?”
“Oh well, I mean, I, I have a novel, but it’s not published. I mean, I don’t have anything published. Yet. I mean besides law review articles.” With this, her eyebrows shot straight up. “I mean, I’m a lawyer, but I’m also trying to start a writing career. And, um, I dance too. I mean I try.” Her eyes widened. Clearly I had multiple personalities just like Anne. “I mean, I just meant I understand what you mean about taking a writer you love personally, and um, I guess because I like dance too, I um…” I sounded like the biggest bumbling fool in the world. She just stared at me, while I tried, in vain, to figure myself out.
We talked a bit more and found that we both agreed that Wolfe had played the role too Sylvia Plath, and not Sexton enough: she was too much of a sweet schoolgirl (faux sweet schoolgirl of course, turned faux happy housewife) instead of sexy and deriving power partly from her attraction, and attractiveness, to men. What I didn’t think of to say to the English professor, what I didn’t think of until I was walking back to the subway, was that, while Wolfe didn’t really play the role Sexton-y enough, Dugan did just that with her more sensuous dance interpretation. Perhaps that was what the play was trying to say anyway: Anne the writer and woman held back, but her alter ego responsible for her creative spirit was completely unconstrained. And what better means to express this unrestrained spirit than through dance?
So maybe all writers, maybe all people, need dancer alter egos. Luis always used to tell me he thought I couldn’t let loose and do that crazy-ass mambo combo he choreographed for me because I was an upright (read: uptight) lawyer. So, he wanted me to think of myself as someone else while I was dancing. He suggested I even invent another name. Of course he came up with … Lolita. Luis!! Anyway, I have decided that I will take his advice. I just need a good name for her. Hmmm…