How cool is this?! Kristin Sloan of the Winger recently made a commercial for Apple’s iphone, promoting the device, which she now uses for mobile blogging for the website. It’s like cross-advertising: she’s promotes Apple and they in turn promote the Winger (and, by extension, dance!) Everyone wins. Very cool. According to the comments, people have already seen the commercial; I haven’t because I hardly ever watch TV, save for my two favorite shows. Hopefully they will air it at those times, because, hello, it would make sense! There are four real-life, non-actors promoting the phone on the commercials; another is the “My First Time” guy, who has started this new theater networking site. Kristin’s new site, offering the same for the dance community, cleverly titled “The Intermission,” is here.
Auspicious Kickoff for Writers Room Reading Series
Last night marked the start of the new season of Writers Room member readings downstairs at the Cornelia Street Cafe in the Village. Turnout was amazing — the best I’ve ever seen! Hey man, it had better be the same for my reading, in January… Last time I read was in late June, when everyone had apparently already taken off for the summer… This was an interesting audience: I’d say about two-thirds were men, yet three of the four readers were women. That’s the way it should be of course: a bunch of men listening to women 😀
It seriously made me very happy to see so many people supporting the written word. Readings are every third Tuesday of the month; cover charge is $7 and includes a glass of wine. What better way to spend a Tuesday evening than drinking wine and hanging out with a bunch of writers, right!
Got home just in time to see Dancing With the Stars. Aw, I was sad boxer guy got eliminated; he was one of the ones whose attempts at the Paso tour jete I was so enjoying Monday night. And I’ll definitely miss my favorite, Karina, although it seem like the pros are returning often to perform on the elimination shows. It was kind of nice that when Gloria Estefan didn’t show, they bumped the backup band to center stage for once. They were pretty good. As for Wade Robson: I’m sorry, I just don’t get him. I’d say his dance was like a circus, but, well… I think he is a great mover himself though. My favorite part was at the beginning when he danced. He kind of reminded me of Walter Dundervill. To be honest, I think I’d like to see more of him, less of his choreography, though it seems everyone else loves the latter, so I must just be weird.
Anyway, a couple of other miscellaneous things: here’s a good article on Christopher Wheeldon in New York magazine; the same issue also has an interesting cover story on huge media blog Gawker and what the writers’ increasing snarkiness says about the have and have-nots in today’s media hierarchy. (Should there be a Gawker for dance? Perhaps that’s part of our friend CC‘s purpose?) And here is a website I just found devoted to Pacific Northwest Ballet company. It’s mostly website as opposed to blog: you can write in and ask your favorite dancers questions, and there’s a little portrait of one dancer at a time (current one is of Carla Korbes), and some photos, but it would be very cool if they could host several of their dancers’ blogs as well. And I can’t seem to find anything on my former favorite NYCB man, Seth Orza yet. Hmmm….
Times Joins SYTYCD Debate, Ignoring Some But Not All Blogs
Claudia LaRocco writes briefly in today’s NYTimes about TV show So You Think You Can Dance and whether it’s of any value in bringing concert dance to a larger audience. She didn’t mention the lively debate taking place on Apollinaire’s blog, in which I nominated the wonderful Rasta Thomas as “Ambassador of Dance.” Apollinaire sweetly made me feel good about the Times’ mention of him as well in that role, since when all the other nominations came in and people began talking, I felt really stupid, as if I’d nominated Playgirl’s Playmate of the Year (if they even have such a thing 🙂 ) So, I’m glad the powers that be were on a similar wavelength 🙂
I’m also glad that Ms. LaRocco interviewed Kristin Sloan of the Winger to weigh in on the question, and so didn’t completely leave out the blogosphere. Unfortunately, SYTYCD was mentioned not once on the Winger. I don’t mean to be critical at all, it’s still my favorite dance blog and I dearly love many of the contributors, but I think with so many of them now, no one’s really in charge and everyone’s expecting someone else to take on the important issues, so the debates have been had elsewhere. I just wish the dance community was a bit more cohesive. I just feel sometimes like everyone’s writing, blogging, talking in a vacuum, and that’s unfortunate for dance because it cuts down the level of discussion…
Update: Kristin just published a really interesting post on a Chinese TV show on cable that she compared to our SYTYCD. I like the sound of this one! Okay, I take back what I said above 🙂 🙂
I officially HATE Flickr!
Last night I posted via mobile that Max and Yulia won National Latin but apparently it didn’t go through. Anyway, we have new national Latin champs — Max and Yulia!!!! Yay! Delyan and Boriana came in third — which was awesome for them; obviously Andrei and Elena (now former champs) came in second, and I correctly predicted that Vaidotis Skimelis and his partner took Pasha and Anya’s old spot — they came in fifth. Anna Trebunskaya from Dancing With the Stars and her partner Pavlo placed sixth. Certainly if Pasha and Anya were still competing, they’d have moved up in the ranks. But they are on to bigger and better things 🙂
Yay Max and Yulia!
Flickr SUCKS BIG TIME FOR SCREWING UP MY POST. I hate you Flickr! I’ll repost my Max and Yulia post though now.
Day of Merce and Frustration!
Yesterday I went to the Merce Cunningham exhibit at the New York Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. At noon there was a short, live, four-person performance of solos and duets right in the lobby. All dancers — two male, two female — wore blue unitards and the music sounded somewhat like the ocean. At times the dancers looked a bit like they were swimming. Of course it was abstract, but that’s what I got out of it.
I then headed into the exhibit, which was really pretty cool. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but this was my first experience with Cunningham (aside from the time Winger Tony Schultz and I saw him in the audience, wheelchair-bound, at another modern dance performance). Embarrassing to admit since he’s only one of the founding fathers of dance in this country! The exhibit was pretty comprehensive and very entertaining. They had videos of several of his works, all performed in the last ten years, but some choreographed far earlier. Cunningham himself danced mainly in the 40s and 50s. He is still choreographing, but of course no longer dancing.
The videos were my favorite part of the exhibit. They had several screens mounted on the wall, you took a chair hooked up to earphones and selected the music from whichever screen you wished to concentrate on. I actually found all screens mesmerizing and it was hard to focus on only one at a time. Funny thing, though, you really didn’t need to. The music (oftentimes sounds — of waterfalls, birds, people talking, etc.) seemed not to matter at all; you could have selected any soundtrack and watched any one of the screens. This, to me, marked Cunningham the complete opposite of Mark Morris, whose choreography is his rendition of that particular musical piece in motion. Also in contrast to how I personally felt watching Morris’s Mozart Pieces on PBS, Cunningham’s choreography was so engaging, I actually didn’t care what the sound was like.
My favorite video was called “How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run” which was accompanied not by music but by Cunningham and another man, named David Vaughn, reading bits of text to the audience. At times their voices would overlap so you couldn’t even really make out the words, at times you could and the text was very humorous, and at times you just couldn’t pay attention to the text because the moving bodies were just so mesmerizing, even though they weren’t doing anything tremendously virtuostic. One passage, read by Vaughn, told of a man who gave a lecture on how to attend a lecture. He instructed attendees to listen, which they couldn’t do if they were taking notes. One woman was taking notes. The man next to her told her she was not supposed to take notes. She quickly read over her notes and said to the man, “that’s right. I’m not supposed to take notes; I’ve got that written right here.” The audience laughed like crazy. Throughout the reading of the text, the dancers, wearing colorful sweaters over plain black leotards, would jump, hold each other and bounce, kick playfully, scamper across the stage, then do slower prettier arabesques, sometimes with an awkwardly bent standing leg. The movements kind of did and didn’t correspond to the text. If you watched it a couple of times, it did, in a way. For example, at one point Vaughn began a brief vignette in which two women went to a women’s business meeting, and at that point two female dancers would wrap arms around each other and hop on one leg around in a circle, then let go of each other and both hopped toward the front of the stage. Kind of goofy-looking, but then a man emerged and they began a complicated, serious, lift sequence with him. Is a business meeting silly, serious, or both at times? I don’t know. But I found the process of watching the piece a few times and arriving at different conclusions each time rather fun and invigorating. It was also cool to recognize one of the dancers, Holley Farmer, who was in the David Michalek films.
Then, they had tons of pictures of the company performing, from 1945 up through the present, another film showing an interview with Cunningham, numerous costumes some of which were quite colorful and interesting-looking to put it mildly (one was a leotard with aluminum cans taped to the legs! — wish I would have seen that piece!), a bunch of musical scores and choreographer’s notes (the latter of which looked like heiroglyphics to me and made me wonder how in the world choreographers notate a work to preserve it), and some posters by such great artists as Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol promoting the company on tour and at home.
Top pic is of Carolyn Brown dancing with Cunningham himself in the company’s early days, which was interesting to me since I’d recently seen her speak about her new memoir about dancing with Merce, at Jacob’s Pillow (in that picture that I linked to above, from the previous blog entry, she is the woman in the white dress). It was quite a long time ago that she had danced with him and, wow, was she was a striking beauty back then.
Anyway, for people in NYC, I urge you to check it out. It’s a real history lesson, a fun informative trip through time, since Cunningham is such a foundational figure in dance in this country. It closes on October 13th, so you still have some time.
I recently bought a new camera with more pixels, a more powerful zoom, and motion control (so as to take better photos of all the lovely ballroom dancing I will soon be viewing, like tomorrow!) Hopefully, the pics will be better than before (the picture in this entry is better than previous ones, right!). But I’m having trouble uploading from my new software to my Plogger. Spent a good deal of the day trying to figure it out to no avail. It has no problem uploading the pics from my former camera software (which it seems is incompatible with the new camera). Argh, I HATE technology — just can’t figure things out! So, for the time being anyway, I’m using my Flickr account to upload new pictures. I created a link down at the bottom of the blogroll to my Flickr page, which is likely where I’ll end up putting the pictures from the dance competition I’m about to head off to… Have to go pack!
Oh, and my TAC headache seems to be officially over, for now anyway. Yay! Thank you so much, you guys for your concern 🙂 I really appreciate it 🙂
Que Si, Que No, Que Si Que No QueSi QueNo QueSiQueNoQueSiQueNoWAAAAA
Hehe. I’m having fun trying to set up my Swan Lake Samba Girl MySpace page. Fun, but not without a little frustration music-wise… I want to add some songs to my profile, but I’m one of those extremely elderly pathetic people born way back, and still living helplessly, in the Dark Ages who still buys cds (mainly at Ballroom dancing competitions), and none of these Latin Ballroom cds list the names of the bands anywhere on their back covers or insides flaps. Grrrrr….
I did manage to find one of the songs I greatly enjoy — or rather, can’t stop laughing myself silly every time I hear (in a good way –it’s slightly corny, but if you’re a bit down you absolutely cannot remain depressed upon hearing this song!) It’s called Nunca Te Decides on my cd but Que Si Que No on the band’s (El Simbolo) profile page. And I found this one as well by a band from Singapore called Wicked Aura Batucada. It sounds a lot like Quenia Ribeiro‘s band who plays for my samba classes at Ailey. Very street, and very what I imagine Carnival samba to sound like. So, I added those to my profile, which I assume MySpace will automatically alternate? I also found this song whose name is listed on one of my cds, by Ara Ketu, but cannot seem to get the blasted thing to play. If anyone can, is it good? I thought of adding this ever-fun one by Bellini, which I nearly seriously hurt myself once trying to dance to at full speed 🙂 Can’t figure out if it’s too cheesy 🙂 I do so love it though!
Anyway, here is my page thus far. Please feel free to add me as a friend if you have one too!
OMG: In the Pages of the Wall Street Journal!!!!!
I received an email today from a man, Doug, telling me he found my blog from “the Wall Street Journal article a couple of days ago.” I was like, Wall Street Journal article??? I (and my office) am too poor to afford a WSJ subscription 🙂 , so I ran next door to a trading firm and sure enough they had a copy from the magic date: 7/30/07. Indeed, editor Beckey Bright gave my little blog a little shout-out, along with two of my fellow Latin dance bloggers: Salsa Dude and Tango Bliss; and three trucking blogs: Adventures in Trucking, The Trucking Blog, and Truck Driver Blog.
Of my blog Ms. Bright said, “Ms. Plank offers a lot of information on the leading Latin ballroom dancers. Her posts include details of the different classes she takes, as well as many photos and videos demonstrating forms of dance, including some from dance performances and competitions she attends.” The article can be found here, although you have to be a paid subscriber to access it in full.
This is so beyond exciting!! Thank you so much, Ms. Bright!
Bot Attack!
Sorry my website’s been up and down and up and down and up and down for the past day, you guys! I’ve been told by my web guy there’s been a “bot attack” on my server’s company. What’s a bot attack??!! Welcome to the 21st Century! Anyway, if the bots stop attacking I promise to get my Mimulus and Bad Boys reviews out today! I know Jennifer Dunning at NYTimes beat me to Mimulus… Grrrrr……
Flickr Problems
I seem to be having problems posting directly from my cell phone to my blog via Flickr. I checked the settings and they’re all correct. Are any other bloggers who post via mobile phones having this problem? Anyway, the last three entries I had to post manually through Flickr. They were originally uploaded yesterday afternoon, so the “yesterdays” referred to mean Thursday! Also, since I had to upload multiple times through Flickr, I apologize in advance if the last three entries re-post!
I got back home from Jacob’s Pillow yesterday afternoon. I had an amazing time and promise to blog about it and post lots of pics in the photo album today and tomorrow!
First Ever Reading Survived!!!
Hahahahhaha — I look SO intense!
Tonight I had my first ever public reading of my novel at the Cornelia Street Cafe. I read as part of the Writers Room Member Reading series, which takes place there every third Tuesday of the month from September through June.
Hehe, so much fun. I was so nervous, but once I got started, I was fine… at least that’s what my wonderful friend, Evangelina, told me 🙂
Here I am with Evangelina, my good old trustworthy friend from my writing class days. She’s known (main character) Sophie and all of her nutty problems since her inception so it was PERFECT to have her in the audience! I would have invited more people, but I was really nervous going into it and didn’t know how well I’d do, so I wanted to minimize the number of people to see me screw up!
But as it turned out, it went fine, and now of course I can’t wait to do it again. When I do, I promise to invite everyone I know in the NYC area 🙂
Here’s playwright and Writer’s Room Reading Series host, the hilarious Stan Richardson, about to introduce me.
Hehehe, I’m such a goof. I actually wrote out my intro to my piece that I was reading. I always do such silly things — whenever I give an oral argument in court, I absolutely MUST write at the top of my outline the words, “May it please the court. I am Tonya Plank and I represent (client’s name)” … my friends like to make fun of me — because what, am I going to forget my name?? — but I’m always so nervous approaching a podium, I just must have those words on my paper in order for me to get myself actually talking.
All in all it went really well. Like I said, I was very nervous and shaky-voiced at the beginning — which I felt and Evangelina confirmed — but after I got into it, it got much better. After I read, Stan said my reading made him think and there were a lot of things that he really wanted to talk about but there was no time — how sweet! And then later, he made a couple of jokes about Freud and everything in this post-Freudian universe being sexual, which was a riff on my first couple of lines 🙂
Then, after all readings were over, a writer, Jim Story, approached me and told me he thought I did well and my work sounded interesting but that I read way too fast and needed to slow down. Evangelina agreed, but said I only read how I talk (which is way too fast!). She also said that I need to learn proper comic timing — when I have a funny line, I need to PAUSE afterward to give the audience time to get it and respond. I know, I know, I know, but eeek, I just feel so weird doing that; I feel like I am begging for laughs, basically telling the audience I want them to think this is funny and to laugh by pausing in certain places — no??? I guess maybe just reading slower in general would do the trick…
Hehehe, also Stan asks everyone a question or two when introducing them. For mine, he asked me what I liked best about my website. I was thinking he was going to ask something like when did you join the Writers Room and / or why, what publishing house would you like to publish your book (questions he’s asked others), but instead I got this one and I couldn’t think quickly. I said the first thing that came to mind which was the graphic! I do really like the graphic designer my web builder, Gregory Tomlinson, hired, and those couple of little outlines he did of me and Pasha dancing in my first showcase, one on the main blog, and one on the home page. And then I started vomiting on (when I’m nervous I just start blabbing incessantly; it’s really just BAD), about how I used to take ballroom and, oh can you believe the guy in my graphic, my former dance teacher, is now on “So You Think You Can Dance” and woo-hoo a famous person on my blog, who knew Pasha would make it so big, and how awesome, and blah blah blah… have no idea what else I said; it’s just a blur now! Well, Stan had no idea what I was talking about — he’s like, So You Think You Can Dance, is that American!? I’m such a goof, I have to remember not everyone is as obsessed with dance as I am … And, hello, what kind of writer says their favorite thing about their website is the graphic!!!!!!!
Anyway, it was all so much fun and such a great experience and I so want to do it again. I could totally get used to this writer life 🙂 Thanks to Stan for being his humorous self and easing my nerves, along with my two co-readers tonight Dan Klein and Lauren Yaffe, and Evangelina, friend extraordinaire for her never-ending support :), and to Cornelia Street Cafe and the Writers Room (the most awesome of all urban writers colonies!) — as well as the Jerome Foundation, NYC Department of Culture, and National Endowment of the Arts for underwriting the WR Reading Series — all for giving new writers such a wonderful opportunity to be heard and to engage in the writing life in this way. Happy night!
Front of Cornelia Street Cafe, where Evangelina and I had dinner and caught up with each other after the reading. And, across the street, we noticed this very happening restaurant, Petra or something like that? Hmmm, will have to check it out someday…
I'm Off…
The Times review of Othello is now up — Gia Kourlas wrote it! (I just expected Macaulay would take all the biggies but he seems to be handing them around, which is nice 🙂 ). Anyway, she says a lot of what I was going nuts over at 1:30 a.m. the night / morning after, but in a much more civilized, reasoned manner 🙂 The thing is, now that her review is up and people are reading it and going to want to go see the ballet, they only have tonight to do so … which I think is all the more reason for ABT to CHANGE ITS BLOCK PROGRAMMING!…
Anyway, I’m almost off. I will try to blog from the festival, but Blackpool‘s a super small town — the owner of the B&B I’m staying at didn’t really know what email was so I don’t think they’re going to have an internet connection for me, and I’m not sure if there’ll be wireless access anywhere (and not sure if our computers are compatible to their wireless network anyway???) Anyway, I’ll try, and if I can’t, definitely expect loads of pictures of crazed ballroom dancers when I return 🙂
