hi.  hello there :)  I was just wondering if you remember the first time we met.  I think it was a few years ago now...and I had been driving for days, and you were sitting there.  or no, you came outside to meet me.  yea, that's when we met.  you were standing and walking, not sitting.  But you had been there already, before that.  and my hair was longer and I smelled like I had been sitting in the car for too long, which I had.  and you were probably wearing a red shirt.  and your short thinning hair was cute and funny.  and you were cute and funny.  and I think we had tea, maybe.  perhaps I'm not remembering this perfectly...hmm.

so, we met and we stared and we felt and we touched and we, I guess, decided to travel alongside each other for a little while.  and we did travel.  and we looked and ate and experienced and saw. 

i learned.  i think you learned, too.

I find myself back at the American Dance Festival for the fifth time in six summers…that seems a bit much.  It’s strange for me to think about all that has come to pass since then.  People in the ground, companies emerging and folding, elections, recession, all that external mess that is context and environment and a certain kind of life.  More shocking, of course – and this is no surprise as it’s my own acute experience – are the changes which have taken place in my own life, internally.  When I came here for the first time, in 2004, I had just started to dance.  I knew what a tendu was, and a contraction…grande plie and battement and all that…but there was no talk of soul, there was no real thought of DOING this full time.  I hadn’t been to Russia, hadn’t performed in Poland or Hong Kong, had yet to begin developing ‘my own’ technique class…I was learning who Ohad Naharin was, and knew only one thing about William Forsythe – that I didn’t like him.  Pina Bausch was a faint whisper on the wind and turn out and extension remained, in my mind, paramount.  That summer I danced for Gerri Houlihan and took class with her and Brenda Daniels…of course that was also the summer that I met Tatyana Baganova…the crazy Russian who would drastically change my life (or at the very least my 20’s).  I return to the festival this year to teach one master class, visit a Russian who I last adventured with to the Arctic, and to visit another long lost friend…one whom I had met that first summer at ADF.  I come back here with some experience, some knowledge, perhaps too many opinions, and more questions than ever.  I seem to waiver between wanting to do great things, to BE something great, and having a much more peaceful and perhaps more realistic expectation for myself…that my true task in life is to simply be kind and empathetic, to help people (including myself) along their ways…to beautify the world in every way possible.  Not to be a revolutionary…but to be some sort of gardener.

Amidst the craziness of 200+ students at ADF every year…each visit has been accompanied by, for me, a fair amount of loneliness and reflection.  Maybe this is why I keep coming back here…it’s a sanctuary of sorts, with the slowing heat and deep forests…with teenagers buzzing about like flies on dung, and the occasional beautiful person/dancer/human who has some perspective, and may be a bit jaded, but who still chooses to come here and fly across the Ark and applaud the efforts of so many hard workers.  

Dancers are workers, after all.  The greater working force might not want to acknowledge this…as the dancer works alongside and with their art, all the time…their work is soulful and deep.  In some cases (unfortunately, all too rare) the work is accompanied by a living wage – but most importantly it is accompanied by rigor and fulfillment…something which I think many dancers can find in a simple port de bras, and many people, I fear, never find at all.

I will return to San Francisco, and to my company, in just a few days.  Many tasks will need to be accomplished as we head into our second season…as we prepare to continue.

The days and weeks used to seem too short…now the months and years seem to be spent too far in advance such that I’m planning, already, for my efforts at 30 – five years away.  I bought a new computer recently, that’s been nice.

There are so many choices one has to make amidst two non-options: 1.) we will end up dead and 2.) until we end up dead, we have only to continue forward.  This puts us folk in a tricky situation…I imagine life is a series of choices, navigating that situation…I’m constantly hoping that the questions which plague my 25 year old brain are those of youth and immaturity, but I fear (and suspect) that they persist throughout our journey.

The work with FACT/SF is good work; I only want to make it better.  I believe I can.  I miss Ekaterinburg and the balcony and thought and compassion and nicotine and whiskey.  I feel like I’m so rarely making art, and so rarely thinking about art…which is surprising because I am a full time artist.  Weird.

A good friend recently mentioned how the corporate world has pulled her away from art making…I wonder if the trappings of my own ‘corporate’ world have done the same.  Time to sleep, then go home, and get back to work.

http://counterpulse.org/blog/2009/02/20/dance-discourse-project-writing-about-dance/#comments

Everything here on this blog, throughout, is exciting, relevant, interesting, and necessary – to me at least, but presumably to others as well. I think sharing spaces where one might find additional readings (like Jess’ post about sarma.be) are helpful, regardless of where they are based…dance IN San Francisco surely has unique issues that concern it alone, but traveling as a dancer quickly reveals that dance is something that can be done anywhere, is relevant anywhere, and can therefore be written about, with relevance, anywhere…though the concerns might be different, some of the greater issues are applicable across the board.

My earlier post was focused primarily on my gripes about people griping. On some level artists (most of them it seems) are dissatisfied and, like most people in the general public, seem to be more prone to complaining than doing. The blog, the ddp, and all other forums are a useful method of not only venting, but also proposing helpful thoughts/suggestions and most importantly, hearing what others think about them. I know in my own ‘dance writing’ (if we can call it that) I’m learning by watching/reading what you are all posting…this influences how I write and think about dance…so without imposing a ‘way’ or ‘style’ in an authoritarian manner, you’re still helping me to identify ‘good’ writing from ‘bad’ writing…that is, there is a concern that blog spaces will become filled with half-baked, inarticulate mess that no one can sort through…and here we have a space with plenty to read, and mostly of the ‘good’ variety (will I get in trouble for trying to distinguish ‘good’ writing from ‘bad’ writing!?).

It is difficult, as a new member to the ‘community’, to know that people were complaining incessantly 25 years ago, because I wasn’t here…and like times in the past when people were complaining (insert here any of your favorite civil rights movements), ‘our’ movement, or call to action, doesn’t seem to have been well publicized or documented…and so far as I can tell holds a tiny space (if one at all) in the study/discussion of dance history. Thus, it’s extremely important for those who might be more established, and who have been around for longer, to tell us new kids how it was. The fact that arts organizations are starting to advocate and lobby government/politicians (this appears to be something happening now-ish for the first time, but correct me if I’m wrong) is promising. A good step in the right direction, yes?

It was thrilling to see how many people were at the discussion, and, in retrospect, to see that so many people had so much to say – that there was an interest in active participation, even if it was sometimes rather nearsighted. I’m wondering how we might include others in this dialogue…if we’re to take this discussion board as an example, why aren’t there 50-100 different people blogging on here (I don’t think it’s because we 8 have an inordinate amount of time on our hands). So, I’m reminded of Jess’ questions about who is reading dance writing…especially in the context of who is reading this blog? Presumably there are more people reading it than posting on it, but what is preventing them from writing? One of the ways to help in issues of underrepresentation is, if you’re underrepresented, to try to represent yourself more, right? It is not the only solution, of course, but is sometimes a greatly effective one.

So, perhaps at the next ddp, maybe the blog gets promoted more? And also, maybe we should be not only encouraging people to check it out, but also encouraging them to share their thoughts.

CounterPULSE, as one of the few ‘centers’ of dance/performance in SF, might be on track to creating documented discussions which can later (and now) be used to tell us where we are and hopefully provide us with readily-accessible information about where we might go.

Keep posting ya’ll.

~Charles

            The well-intentioned community discussion last Thursday night at CounterPULSE, regarding the current state of dance writing, began with a sharing of insightful comments and opinions from a panel of some of the SF Bay Area’s better known dance writers. This efficient and informative beginning, however, quickly eroded into a disastrous Q&A of finger-pointing and scapegoating, with narcissistic and desperate explanations in self-defense against a (perceived) attacker which, instead of adding to the interesting conversation that was underway, threw it way off track. This, to a new resident of the fabled ‘Mecca of Tolerance’, was shocking, disappointing, and sad (although I suppose also extremely educational and eye-opening in its own right).

            It is all well and good to ‘damn the man’ and talk about the ways in which ‘the system’ keeps people down. At best this can be constructive, helping people to gain a clear(er) idea of where they are and where they need to go. Sometimes, however, these explanations are accompanied by such ridiculous melodrama and outrageous accusations that they, in expressing an urgent desire for understanding, actually highlight a gross short-sightedness.  Complaining about ‘the white people’ or pleading on behalf of the ‘immigrants’ cannot rightly be done without an entire series of qualifiers.  So when someone stands up and makes a vague comment about these groups, my first questions are: Which white people?  Which immigrants?  Which definitions are you using?  By white do you mean WASP?  Or do you mean Greek, or maybe South African? (even these distinctions fall incredibly short and barely begin to get us somewhere useful).  Immigrants can hail from Central and South American countries, but they can also come from Cambodia, Poland, Iran (or any where else), so while it is typical (I think) to imagine one type of oppressed group vs. one type of privileged group, we should keep in mind that some South American countries and their emigrants have a much higher standard of living than some European countries and theirs, and that there is not really a ‘white’ people just as there is no ‘black people’.  Racism directed towards the perceived group in power is still racism, and it’s not something you can combat effectively while promoting it at the same time.

            Apart from this bizarre boxing of perceived racial/ethnic groups, there was another, similar set of claims that were equally surprising.  Two of the artists present at the discussion have done a fair amount of work in Europe, so they would presumably have some important and nuanced ideas about ‘dance in Europe’.  It seems to be common for young artists with less experience to talk about the beauty and ease of being an artist in Europe and the sad toiling in the trenches of being an artist in America.  Things are great there, and horrible here; American artists are victimized while European artists are hailed as demigods.  It is my opinion and experience that the US and Europe are both far too large and varied to make any valuable statements, really, comparing the two in such general ways.  Europe does not only include La Monnaie in Brussels or Lucent Theatre in The Hague, but also decrepit, run-down theatres filled with asbestos and other unhealthy working conditions.  Dancers in Europe are ALSO dancing for free, just like in the US, and some American companies ALSO have huge budgets and mostly-secured funding.  So, when these two artists, who have experience living and working in Europe (these are the people who should know better), start ranting about the glory of Europe and the embarrassing state of things in the US, I wonder how much work they’ve done in poor Europe, or how much interaction they’ve had with some of its less gentrified communities.

            The moral of the story is this, community leaders in San Francisco should be expected not only to be talented, smart, and driven, but also to be aware of their own prejudices, biases, and ill-founded opinions, and to perhaps keep this in mind before they open their mouths and start criticizing others.  Preaching tolerance is necessary and wonderful, but it cannot ever be accompanied by blind intolerance or any sort of community-based/supported hatred. It is good to think about the differences between places, people, groups, etc. – but it is also good to realize that these ponderings are always based upon personal experience (and not much more), and so, just like this review, can hardly ever present insightful and objective observations.

            My proposal to make the next Discussion more effective?  Keep the Q&A’s, but limit response times.  Jessica did a good job of moving people along after they’d commandeered the microphone for too long, but I think creating a system of order that kept comments brief and focused would move the discussion along more quickly and prevent community members from getting side tracked by their own personal issues, which frequently have little bearing on the topic at hand.  It will be an exciting day when/if community discussions move away from ‘poor-me fests’ and become better at utilizing the intellectual wealth of the SF Bay Area to really do something, instead of just complaining about things not getting done.

            I undertook reading Naked a decade after its publication and surely after much hype surrounding the book had died down.  I knew, however, that author David Sedaris had already been hailed as an important American voice and that this book was quite popular amongst his many fans.  I started with a bit of apprehension and a fair amount of enthusiasm – knowing that it might be a challenging task to form my own opinion of the book after having heard so many others’.

            Naked partakes in the increasingly popular genre of the ‘memoir-as-novel’ and, says the description on the back of the book, is one in which “Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview – a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.”  This book, as a departure from or mockery of the memoir genre, may be on target (as I’ve read very few of these and can’t really say), but, nonetheless, the text did not generally strike me as anything other than flippant self indulgence.  Making fun of people, as well as making fun of one’s self, can surely elicit a good chuckle and the occasional roar of laughter, but I’m not sure that, at the book’s close, it amounts to much more than a collection of jokes and observations that one might otherwise encounter at a typical house party for the queer, urban elite.  Witty repartee is, no doubt, a necessary survival tool for any gay man, and while it does occasionally illuminate a truth or two, it often does so without any sense of humanity or relevance - it is, essentially, the ability to express that one is astute enough to notice, but smart enough not to care.  This in itself provides for a very entertaining read, as Sedaris introduces us to the clumsy, idiotic, and often racist, homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced characters he has apparently encountered on his journey, but it fails to execute any meaningful task or tell us much about ourselves as humans (or even about Sedaris as an individual), other than that we’re delusional egoists.

            What we get, on the whole, is something neither touching nor sincere, at least not in the way I expect it from works of art (or nearly-art) but instead something that proposes life and its undertaking to be not much more than awkward situations, missed opportunities, and random happenings…all with no meaning and purpose.  Perhaps this IS what life is about and perhaps it’s also what we should be trying to grasp…that existence is some big joke?  What is often more exciting, however, is the oscillation between the meaningful and the meaningless, that, in our struggle to ‘understand it all’, we continuously go back and forth between ‘everything matters’ and ‘nothing matters’, residing most of the time in some sort of middle ground where things exist and pass us by.  Surely, being able to laugh at ourselves and our situations is important, but doing so at the expense of depth and meaningfulness reduces this book to mere entertainment and prevents it from being elevated to any higher level.  Maybe this is Sedaris’ intention; maybe this is all I should have expected.

            Despite my ranting and general disappointment with the text (expecting it to be something more than a joke book), I was able to identify that I too, as a young gay man, shared (with Sedaris) the inability to comprehend why everyone didn’t see my greatness all the time, or how people could be so inconsiderate of my, supremely important, needs.  The difference is, of course, that though Sedaris may have struggled to get a proper audience in his youth, he now bends the ear of countless readers and thus, his holier-than-thou attitude is somehow justified.  Instead of indicating that I (as his trying-to-identify-with-the-author reader) should give it up and recognize my irrelevance, his example encourages me to continue on my path of self-importance until I too wield some significant, greater power in society.  This is not the lesson my already over-inflated ego needs, but it sure makes me feel good about myself.

            I do not disagree that the text is funny, only that it fails to live up to the hype.  I’d recommend this book only to those who have nothing better to read, have procured headaches from reading ‘serious’ texts, or are depressed and need a good laugh.  After reading – pass it on, resell or recycle…but please, don’t let it muck up your library.

I’ve returned to Warsaw, Poland for my fourth time in less than two years…and it’s starting to feel quite comfortable and familiar.  I am still not learning street names, but am certainly gaining sufficient knowledge of the city to get myself around and begin discovering new places without a fear of getting too lost.

 

This is my third proper winter.  The last two were spent in Russia, and so this winter in Poland is far less severe, although one notable similarity should be mentioned: the consequences of not learning how to walk on ice plague me here, as well.

 

I decided last week, after spending two weeks almost entirely indoors, to spend between thirty and sixty minutes outside each day walking around, headed in no particular direction and without headphones to listen to or books/magazines to read.  It wasn’t aimed at finding a coffee shop to sit in and continue my practice of reclusivity, but at opening up my senses to Warsaw and its people…to getting just a bit lost or seeing a new park, monument, etc.  On the first of these walks, last Monday, I was reflecting on my inability to walk safely on ice (onlookers might have drawn comparisons to Bambi) when a jogger ran, on the ice-slicked pavement, right past me.

 

I thought – well naturally, of course…I am behaving like a damned toddler while this cool guy trots on, right down the road, probably all the way home, without wobbling or sliding at all.  No tumble into the snow bank for him!

 

My envy and bitterness quickly subsided and I was left with some sort of clichéd but relevant metaphor about running and walking and being appropriate.  In this situation, for this jogger, running was possible and required and for me at that moment, walking (scooting, really) was possible and required…which is to say that at different times in different situations and for different people, different things are possible and required.

 

In the continued throws of starting the new company, I’m finding myself wanting to sprint off to the lands of 40 week contracts, health insurance, our own studio(s) and theater, grants from the NEA, and features on 60 Minutes or 20/20 about the Californian who braved post-Soviet Russia, found the meaning of life, and returned to SF to share his insights, gifts, and aesthetics.  The very fact that I would think about a dance company (which should be primarily aimed at making art, not headlines) as a vehicle for these things…or that I would want to run in these directions…is an indicator that now is the perfect time to be walking, with my eyes open and my headphones off.  For some time I will be stuck on a seemingly-eternal sheet of ice-paved pavement, with neither a clear destination in mind nor a clear means of getting there, and that’s okay.

 

Now is not my time to run, but to take long walks instead.  To take deliberate walks, maybe, but to keep at least one foot on the ground at all times.

 

This might seem like yet another ‘he’s only seeing that NOW!?’ realization, but it’s an important one that I’m making nonetheless.  Getting more…be it money or PR or butts in the seats IS good and necessary and certainly helps with keeping the budgets balanced.  But it doesn’t give the work integrity, depth, or meaning.  And, in fact, I think that rushing after these big flashing neon indicators of ‘success’ might deter us from our tasks as artists altogether.  Some of the “best” companies make the least meaningful work.

 

It’s not to say that artists should be poor or not in close proximity to Las Vegas…not at all…only that regardless of how many grants we’re getting, and how many friends we have on facebook, my company is still a new, young, fledgling company just as I am still a new, young, fledgling choreographer.  A big budget doesn’t give one experience…and I’m thinking that taking some time to slow the f down might be just what the craft is calling for, from me, now.  Playing with my sits bones and talking with my dancers about theirs…that’s where my work-of-late begins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcaUak0jc4g


Here's a video that was forwarded to me by Emily Woo Zeller.  I think it's wonderful, I'll do some research about it and hopefully post findings and thoughts soon.  But in the meantime, I thought it important to get this puppy into (more) circulation!

The challenge these new days is not deciding what to do...so much as prioritizing what to do now and what to do later.  The days of being a freelance choreographer (in a nearly forgotten, but rapidly growing provincial city in a developing nation) seem to have come to an end.   No more schlepping myself to and from rehearsal through the snow, this is true, but also, my day no longer begins and ends with rehearsal.  All sense of being a D-list celebrity accompanied, oddly, by nearly complete anonymity, has vanished.  I even waited in line last weekend to get into a club...I felt as if I had been duped. 
  Now, the making of the work itself is a ridiculously minute part of my 'day'.   We're trying to organize things...but before we do that we must first create the organization itself.  I knew all of this would require work, and that for the time being, and for much of the time to follow, I will be the 'point person' on nearly all issues...which means having answers to the questions and a simple but effective way of disseminating information.  A non-profit contemporary dance theatre company IS a company...and I suppose it IS a business, too...and I'm prepared to run it like one, in spite of the fact that I, myself, am not a business person and that my true interests lie not in creating or managing budgets, but creating and managing choreography.  It is currently the situation that having my own company removes me even more from the choreography itself, instead of bringing me closer to it.  I think, though, that this is temporary and that as this ant of an entity becomes a juggernaut of creative majesty (we've got big plans) I can spend more time talking with the dancers about their sit bones, and less time talking with the company manager about whether we should create a facebook 'person' for the company or a facebook 'group'. 
   It is time, then, given perhaps our most American of American holidays, Thanksgiving, to realize how much total-kick-assness I've had in my life...how many opportunities and 'breaks' and how many crazy fools, for whatever reason, believe in and support this crazy fool (me).  I took a few days off of email, off of web-based social networks...I've even had a difficult time responding to text messages...so that I can just kick it with my family and play with the dogs and watch saturday college football games and, in many ways, reconnect with my roots, my hometown(s), and all those who spent the last 25 years fretting and stewing about me...making sure that I was taken care of, provided for, and, most importantly, loved.  It's the very least I can do to realize what I have, experience and express my appreciation for those things, and give back to both those who have already given so much.  It's heavy...and a tad sentimental, I know...but truly important and awesome and calming. 
 Christmas is just a few weeks away now...this is exceptionally exciting as two of my favorite people (the former Ms. Hong Kong [2006-2008] and the current Mr. Warsaw [2008]) are coming for a visit  to my fair state.  We will drink and debauch, laugh and giggle and get pissed off...drive around, swim around, and meander around the wild southland and its ridiculous non-winter.  Between now and then I will finish my new choreography, file that pesky 1023, visit Boston, Providence, and NYC, have a few more drinks on top of my roof (from which I can see the TransAmerica Building and downtown San Francisco), build a bed for myself, smile and laugh a lot, cry a bit, wake up groggy-faced and tumble into the kitchen, waiting with eye-booger filled eyes for the coffee to finish percolating...I will do a lot between now and then...and probably way more after 'then', too...but I think it's sometimes good to parse things out and look under the covers and figure out what's going on...to take a breath and an extended moment to step back and observe all...all that has happened in the past few whatevers (minutes, days, years, etc) and ponder what will happen in the next few whatevers.  Life...that slippery mofo...is pretty damn ______________ (insert any adjective here).

Bon Chance to all...may your Thanksgivings have been plentiful and your smiles wider than you expected.  If you don't do the Thanksgiving 'thing', I'd suggest trying it on...it's definitely an American tradition I'm proud of, want to preserve, and encourage all to celebrate.  Be thankful for your surroundings, the little things and the big, your histories and futures, all the tragedies and triumphs...bold and cowardly actions...all victories and defeats...because these are the things of which life is made...in between, within, and surrounding every thought and action, emotion and impulse...we're connected by minutia and, well, I like that quite a bit.

            I had intended to write a very thorough essay of sorts addressing all of the issues surrounding Proposition 8, an initiative on this year’s California ballot which would alter the California state constitution, eliminating the right of marriage to same sex couples, but being billed as ‘protecting marriage’.  I wanted to talk about each of the many points made by the yes on 8 campaign and shoot them down one by one, exposing illogical conclusions, misrepresentations, and of course outright lies as well.  I thought about appealing to human goodness and a desire for progressive ideologies, hopes of working towards a greater society of tolerant, kind, and supportive communities filled with beautifully respectful and loving individuals.  I even thought about invoking the landmark Loving v. Virginia case in 1967 which overturned the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924” and brought an end to anti-miscegenation laws throughout the United States.  Of course we can look back to this horrendous Act (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924) and realize clearly, now, that it is and was racist.  But our task at the moment is not to compare movements and persecutions of the past century with those of today.  The question is not why vote NO on Prop 8…but really, why vote yes?  Shouldn’t we have a clear understanding of what we’re voting for, and why?  Would we vote to raise taxes 10% if we didn’t know where the money would be going or why the politicians were asking for it?  I’m curious because, for me (as I believe for most of you), the logic behind this ‘protect traditional marriage’ movement seems shady, boggled, and underformed, at best.

            Which traditional marriages are we talking about here?  It would be silly to say marriages from the good ole days of pre-1967 when racial lines were ‘clearly divided’…and it would be even sillier to say that traditional marriage is the one where the woman, as property, is unloaded by her father to her future husband via a hefty dowry.  Perhaps the next two speculations are a bit less silly.  The Mormons happen to comprise a quite substantial donor base for the yes on 8 campaign, so maybe it is the tradition of polygamy that we are trying to uphold?  Or, as the conservative right rallies around Mrs. Palin, perhaps it is wise to suggest that shotgun weddings, along the lines of the one her daughter is planning to have, are the ones to be preserved?

            It is also possible that a ‘traditional marriage’ is one sanctioned in the church.  This notion butts up against logic pretty quickly, though, as we know that not everyone wants to be married ‘in the church’…and certainly we wouldn’t make Americans conform to some battery of religious requirements.  We all recognize, as good Americans, that the United States is a secular federation based upon religious freedom and the separation of church and state, whereby the church does not, and should not, dictate law.  So, any legislation aimed at preserving marriage as it’s related to religion is unconstitutional and unacceptable.

            The only other argument I can think of in favor of prop 8 is a very misrepresented and fully unintelligent one, using children.  This argument goes something like – ‘the point of getting married is to make babies and raise a family’.  What we must recognize here is that there are many heterosexual couples who are married and, for whatever reason, do not have children.  Are we to say, then, that traditional marriage is a marriage in which children are born and thus, without procreation there can be no marriage?  Should cancer survivors, after having their bodies nuked with radiation and chemotherapy, be denied marriage because they have become infertile or sterile in order to save their own lives?  Or maybe post-menopausal women, whose most atrocious crime is simply aging, should be denied marriage rights?  Having or not having kids, then, doesn’t seem like a good rule with which to identify what type of marriage is traditional and should be condoned.  You don't need to have kids to get married, and you don't need to get married to have kids.  They are often related, yes, but one is not actually, tangibly, linked to the other.  Marriage doesn't produce children, the same way refusing to marry is not an effective form of contraception.

            I’ve yet to get my mind around why we need prop 8.  I don’t understand what the benefit would be, and it brings me to an important point, that making a constitutional amendment is a very, very serious endeavor.  If we do not understand exactly what the Proposition aims to do by ‘protecting marriage’, and if there are no truly compelling arguments in favor of removing rights granted by the constitution, are we not called upon, as conscientious voters, to say NO?  Is it not extremely telling that the proposition’s proponents have a difficult time identifying the ‘why’ in all of this?  We are clear that Proposition 8 states “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” but there has only been faulty logic and half-baked explanations for such a drastic amendment.

Use your brain.  Ask questions.  Vote NO.

In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag bounces around and between the issues and complexities that arise when things like war, art, and entertainment are confused with and for each other in the world of photography.  She marches briefly through many histories, mostly from the 20^th century, including that of war, paintings, and photography.  She includes, but refuses to focus on, disenchanting tales (like one of the staged Iwo Jima victory), and instead exerts her efforts on the many and varied influences and affects that these photographs have and have had, asserting that a photograph’s caption or publication date can grossly change our understanding of the photograph itself, can grossly effect a photograph’s reception, despite the prevalent idea that photography, the photographer, and the photograph are all objective objects, i.e., those tangible things which both are real and depict reality.  Though at times it seems as if Sontag is simply trying to dethrone the role of photography (particularly war photography) from its high position of authoritative story telling, where photographs behave as factual pieces of evidence, she is actually doing much more than this, something far less naïve.  Instead of advocating for the blind discrediting of photography and the re-positioning of writing and painting to its previously, (perhaps) more highly esteemed location, she is actually, quite importantly, encouraging the reader to see more frequently and more critically the complications that lie between products of reality, perceptions of products of reality, and the experience of reality itself.  She is called to re-iterate what has become commonplace in postmodern thought (though not yet in postmodern living), that all is subjective, all is valuable and questionable, all is worthy and vulnerable…that to question, investigate, and challenge, is a noble thing, a necessary thing, and that we should never equate.  Her punch line at the end let’s us know that although photographs might seem to bring us a closer to a conflict, and do have a specific and special role in presenting conflict and world events to us, they can never substitute or adequately represent the event itself.  That the photograph (like all things, essentially) exists as part, as a very small part, of much larger systems, happenings, histories, and circumstances.  The book is brilliantly written, quickly read, incredibly appropriate, and highly recommended.

This is nearly the entire work (in two clips) - just a bit at the beginning has been left out because the footage we captured wasn't too great.  I premiered this work at the Fringe Club in Hong Kong in July 2007, as part of a shared evening of choreography, with Emily Woo Zeller, titled "Corresponding Constructions". 

The work itself is largely based on my perception of a sketch Anna Timofeyeva made of me....so my perception of someone's perception of me.  As it's based on these ideas of identity and perception, I'm utilizing repetition throughout the piece as a means/attempt to present familiar material in new contexts, so as to make visible a new statement/reality/perception of the material itself,  making the argument that context and framing are ever present and will always affect the way we understand everything...ourselves, environment, others, histories, futures, presence, etc.  We can also think of existence this way, as constant re-framing of things familiar.  Throughout life our body continues to produce, more or less, the same cells built on the same DNA models and of the same materials, all the time...but they're NEW cells...and as our body is filled with new cells, and emptied of old ones, we become 'new'...though all of this new material has really just been re-framed/re-organized....such that we are always new and different and simultaneously always as we were.

This 'task' or 'message' may not be discernible to/for the audience.  I'm convinced that it's not absolutely necessary for them to 'get it'. Most important with this work (and all my work) is that the audience takes their own path to understanding what they're seeing (their own frames determine their own perception).  By having a clear task for myself and the work,  though, I can have clear direction, focus, and rigor during the process, and clarity during performance, such that the audience might be able to understand that I'm doing something - even if they don't immediately understand what I'm doing. Comments appreciated - more work to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkpRel0yyWc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nwo8x-oivc&feature=related

 

I suppose I've rediscovered my obsession with Forsythe - and what a wonderful re-discovery it has been!  I'm sure this is due, in part at least, to thinking about my own company...the work that I want to make, the affect I want it to have, and the relationships I want to have with my dancers and my work...basically everything.  In being frustrated that my first video-post was taken down, I've been searching just a bit for other clips about this work - and came across this absolutely fantastic recording of a rehearsal.  Featured in the 10 minute clip (ALL of which is worth watching) are both the duet I mentioned in the first Forsythe blog, and also the solo posted in the 2nd one.  It's wonderful to get an opportunity to see how Forsythe works with his dancers...and perhaps even more so, great to see how the work itself was developed, how the dancers 'figured' things out and etc.  Often the process is infinitely more interesting than the performance itself.

 

However,  San Francisco Ballet will be performing this work, January 29 to February 8, 2009, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, if you'd like to see it live.

 www.sfballet.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtpF7A_o0v0&feature=related

 So - I'm glad I checked on the blog today, because the video that I had posted was recently removed from YouTube!!  To make up for such unfortunate events, I've posted another video from this same performance.  Here, though, Sylvie Guillem is performing a solo, instead of a duet.  We can still get a clear sense, though - of all of the things I mentioned in the previous blog - about risk (sometimes even more visible here).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLWDtbHNzxw

 

Not my favorite Forsythe ballet* - but a damn good one nonetheless and arguably his most important work, as it cemented his place in the canon.  Created on the Paris Opera Ballet and premiered in 1987.  Just after Balanchine died, Forsythe emerged as the internationally heralded champion of ballet - providing a new (and much needed) take on neo-classicism and 'contemporary ballet' - making it a relevant form for the 21st century.  The angular aesthetics of Balanchine are sufficiently evident here, but also evident are the boundaries Forsythe pushes and the risks he takes as a choreographer, in addition to his unique use of and relationship to space, lighting, and music.

One can also find recordings on YouTube of the Mariinsky (Kirov Ballet) doing this work with Svetlana Zakarova, and while the her extensions are more extreme - the soul of the work seems to be lost and it moves from a dance to a series of unfelt acrobatics...I think this has largely to do with the way she contains her energy within her body...while it's clear with Syvlie Guillem that she's radiating outward, and focusing more on the performance of the work than on what it requires technically.

*The video mentioned in this blog was unfortunately removed from YouTube...so I've removed the deadlink on the blog. - 07.08.08

I flew in yesterday from NYC to LAX - how GREAT to arrive back in California.  This is the first time I've returned to the states with absolute happiness - without qualified enthusiasm or suppressed disdain for Americans.  I even saw an older woman wearing a shirt with American flags on it - and I thought it was cute!!  Have I gone soft, already??

Staying with the grandparents now, visiting dad in a few days, then heading up to San Francisco for a workshop...will slowly start making my way back into the San Francisco Dance scene...which should be a ton of work, and some good fun, as well.  In August I'll be driving across Canada (Vancouver to Nova Scotia), and finally in September properly settle in the Bay Area and really start to get things under way.

I learned about a book - "Consumed" that is about, or seems to be about, these questions of consumer culture and late-capitalism...has anyone read or heard about this book?  or I should dive in completely uninformed?

Also, I need a website designer.  Mediocrity is totally unacceptable...SO, if anyone knows of an AMAZING designer, or are one yourself - please let me know, I'd much appreciate it.
 

 Today marks my last full day on the tiny island of Britain...headed for the much larger island of the Americas!   I'm finally feeling prepared and ready for this...ready to re-integrate into the Californian culture...and wreak havoc on it with all my crazy (and relatively new) 'Russian' ideas.  This blog will not be about my drama...though...so, moving on.  I read an article today published in the New College (a division of Oxford University) Journal about the influence of Russian writers and choreographers during the late 19th/early 20th century on the modernist writers in England...the essay was mostly about the ways in which the English looked to the wild and savage east for soul and culture that no longer existed in the defiled west..etc...nonetheless I digress once again - the essay was mediocre, and disappointing thinking that it's coming from a student doing her PhD in English Lit at Oxford...I suppose my expectations were too high??? NEXT The new project I'm devising will stay under wraps until it launches, but I need support in doing research and field world.  I'm really interested in three, "c's"....Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and Complacency.....the roles that these three C ideas have in America, how they've come about, been developed and cultivated, how and whether the public feels that they 'consume' art by buying a ticket for a performance or a museum.   How does complacency tie into 'normal' 'average' lives in the states...what does it mean to be an active member of society?  What are the intellectual ideas surrounding late capitalism, post modernism, and all that wonderful Lyotard and Jameson stuff.  I need recommendations on readings, writings, viewings...blogs that I should check out, films I should see, musicians I should listen to...I'm trying to get a feel, basically, for what the state of ART is in the United States at this exact moment, and how that state ties in with the three C's mentioned above (yes, I realize there are actually 4 C's).  So...what is art, how do we define it, what do people do with it, how do they experience/consume/value it...what role does it have in society and what role should it have in society...what's the difference between art and entertainment, who gets to make the judgement regarding that difference, and why does noting a difference matter at all. I've been suggested a novel called 'Liquid Love' and also a film in which some artists/sociologists/anthropologists built a fake supermarket, did PR for it for 6 months, and then on opening day, filmed thousands of peoples' reactions when, after waiting in line for hours and hours, they all realized it was a hoax. I need to finally get my think tank of artists and intellectuals up and running - I suppose this could be it.

 I’ve now been in Oxford for two days, and the culture shock is starting to subside.  The first day of my arrival, I was bombarded with English politeness and properness – something grossly disorienting after having been in Russia, where things are (in some ways) simple and straight forward.  People don’t smile unnecessarily, and you generally know what people honestly think…unburdened by (some/different/British) social mores and etiquette.

Judging Oxford immediately, and failing to take a good look at my own dang self, I discerned that the city was full of privileged yuppies.  Public school brats (who’d be private school brats in the USA) who never knew ‘pain’ or ‘troubles’.  Of course this is antithetical to my idea that life is difficult and challenging for everyone, only in different ways – but that everyone has their demons, cockroaches, and the like – basically I was, myself, being a stupid judgmental yuppie brat.  The fact that I was surrounded by oddly repressed heterosexual European and English men didn’t help – nor did their exhibitions of ‘masculinity’…moshing at the ‘club’ we went to, riding bikes in circles around random girls on the street, and listening to EMINEM with much pride and excitement…like it’s something cool.  The thought that they were just having ‘fun’ didn’t occur to me, or that different people can have ‘fun’ in different ways, and I determined immediately that this was how they were, all the time.  Full of bias and prejudice, and refusing to simply ‘experience’ this culture/these cultures without decision, I concluded that Oxford is the epitome of pretension and completely devoid of anyone interesting.

Today, only an hour ago, or so, I realized that my issues with leaving Russia (which I had  somehow stopped noticing) were manifesting themselves in this strange aggression to a foreign culture…that I was mentally willing to accept Russian Culture and American Culture, but that anything in between (socially, geographically, or politically) was completely unacceptable.  So – today we’re seeing things with a new light…that the city is full of young students, but that students are usually interested in exchanging ideas because ideas is what they DO all day.  They aren’t necessarily showing off, or trying to ‘win’…some are just sharing to share.  It’s a community of thought.

Some are here for sincere intellectual pursuits, some are here for the prestige, some are here for other reasons – but that the city, the university, and etc is diverse and varied – some barons and princes, of course,  but also some middle class folk who just happened to be blessed with above average intelligence and a bit of luck.

The city is not one that I fancy, still – though it’s one I’m already less at odds with.  It is old and historic, it has seen good and bad, cultural atrocities and civil injustices – but has also been and remains to be an academic, intellectual, and so progressive, center of world thought, thinking, and development.
 
I’d not come here as a student, myself, but I’m okay with those who do.

The absurd and disturbing thing really, though, was not the yuppies at Oxford or the clean city, but how culture shocked I really was, and how angry that shock made me…immediate acceptance or even neutral distancing wasn’t an option – I felt it necessary to judge judge judge from the get go.  Of course today I’M wearing white denim capris, a blue terry cloth polo, red Gucci shoes and blue Miu Miu sunglasses – with my iPod and my Dior purse – I’m not really in a place to bitch about the privileged yuppies, am I?

Just when ya think you're grown up - you realize you're still very much growing...it's important to be destroyed and defeated, every once in a while - just to keep it all in check.

 The roommate left yesterday - her mom lives in Chicago and she goes to visit twice a year - she'll be gone for the next 6 weeks and won't return to Ekaterinburg until I've already left.  The anxiety she felt before leaving reminded me of the anxiety I always feel before leaving one place and going to another - something I suppose I should simply get used to, since traveling seems to be in my future...probably even more so than it is in my present!

The premiere of my new work "Experiments in Being Tall" is next Friday - I'm performing alongside a dancer/guest artist from Provincial Dances and two of my students.  A quartet of contemporary choreography en pointe...hopefully all goes well :)  The other work I've got in the show is a solo "Is all that a(n)na sees" which I premiered in July at the Fringe Club in HK...another student will be performing that work, and she already looks quite lovely, really great, actually, in it.

July 21st I head OUT of Ekaterinburg for St. Petersburg, making my way up to Murmansk (on the Barent's Sea/Arctic Ocean; largest city north of the Arctic Circle; home of Russia's Northern Fleet).  I'll be there only for a short while before turning south going to Moscow to fly to London, where I'll stay for a week with a dear friend from university.  Then back to California...taking a workshop in San Francisco in July, driving across the country and hanging out in Nova Scotia in August, and eventually, beginning of September, coming back to SF to 'set up shop'.

I'm feeling less nervous about the transition from "Russian life" to "American life"...perhaps because work in Russia for the 08/09 season is already starting to appear...but I think also because I'm starting to more completely understand the idea of possibility for me specifically, and that having so many options IS overwhelming - but also incredibly fortunate and wonderful...I can do what I want, basically...and choosing one of the many 'variants' will not, I'm sure now, result in a bad choice...only redirect the path of things.

I'm looking forward to starting the next adventure, but also trying to be present and stay focused for my last 'living' week in Ekaterinburg (by that I mean - the last week that I live here).

I think the next blog should be about something else...apples maybe.

 So, it seems as if my time in Russia, my extended-based-in-Russia period, is coming to a close.  I say 'seems' because it is something that I am finally able to grasp, to perceive, process, and act in accordance to.
  June 1st - the first day of my last month living here, in this Uralian Province...where so many, many things have come to pass.
  June 21st, I believe, I'll start treking west, take a short trip to Murmansk (in the Arctic), and then fly out of Moscow on June 27th (visa expires June 28th)....stop off in London for a short while and then fly back to the states, just in time to celebrate my nation's anniversary!  (I cleverly planned this so that I might attribute the fireworks to my grand return).
   Living as an expat is an incredibly different experience, I imagine, than living as an immigrant, traveller, or tourist.  There is something deeply unstable about the expat existence, something that I noted in Hong Kong during my last visit, and something that I, of course, have noted in myself since re-locating nearly two years ago.
  The expat has no home, and belongs to no culture.  The expat speaks (or at least often speaks) another language - but in the learning of this (these) new languages, the expat's own native language begins to deteriorate.  The expat becomes a member, of sorts, of the new society he inhabits, but the precarious situation the expat is placed in is one of both giving (providing something 'new' to the 'indigenous people') and of taking (as the expat has come to 'get' something he cannot get at home).  This is markedly different from the standard 'give and take' that happens in 'normal life'.
   The expat returns to his native country to be told how much he has changed.  This is first taken as a compliment - the expat is proud of his ability to adapt to the new culture...but this shortly thereafter becomes disconcerting, as the expat comes to realize that if he (in my situation, for example) is now a Russianized American version of his former self...what does that mean?  Perhaps those of you reading this in foreign countries with large expat community will feel entirely different...as being an expat in Hong Kong, for instance, immediately places you within a well developed and easily located 'expat community'.  In the middle of Russia, however, my experience has differed a bit...I suppose the question I'm grappling with is - aside from outsiders' opinions as to my Russianness or Americanness...which culture do I identify with more, now, which people do I want to be around, which foods do I want to eat, and which language do I want to speak.  Do/would any of these preferences adequately reflect (I think no) the changes that have occured?   Will I miss Russia more, after leaving, than I missed America, after leaving?  And is that even a fair question as somewhere, in the back of my mind, America was always a place I'd return to - to raise the family and watch my father grow old and etc...whereas I knew Russia was temporary - indefinite, but temporary.  Leaving Russia, and 'returning'.  I have no idea when, or if, I'll return.
  Questions about art and art making later to come...just dealing with where I am, geographically (and my relationship to that), and where I think I might want to be.