Silver Slippers: Musings on Dance in Houston (and now Atlanta)

Just because

2008-07-23T17:34:00.005-04:00

In response to my being tagged at something shiny disorder, here is a random sample of information about me:

What I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
Graduate school at Cornell, I believe working on time of flight Monte Carlo.

Five Snacks I Enjoy
cookies
apples and peanut butter
cheese and crackers
nuts
applesauce

Five Things On My To-Do List Today
pick up Gretchen's medicine
fill car up with gas
gestate
determine ionospheric structure functions
write a thank-you note

Five Favorite Recipes
Corn Potato Chowder
Cranberry Orange Apricot Bread
Crusty Chicken Breast Topped with Salad
Apple Betty Pie
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

Five Jobs I've Had
teaching assistant at a summer science program
modern dancer
nuclear physicist
ballet teacher
senior research scientist

Five Bad Habits
cookies
staying up late
leaving my shoes all over the house
not emptying the dehumidifier when I think of it (hey, it's in the basement)
paying bills late

All the Places I've Lived
Texas
California
New York (upstate)
Georgia

Five Random Things About Me
I enjoy Willie Nelson's music
I'm right handed, but my left eye is dominant and my left foot is bigger
I spend a significant fraction of my income on health care for my dog
I secretly long to work in movies
I'm allergic to cats (that means you, Mr. Bigglesworth)

Jon Stewart, May 10, 2008, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center

2008-07-01T17:07:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been almost two months since I saw this standup performance by the host extraodinaire of The Daily Show. What with Mr. Silvershoes starting a new job that requires him to be out of town a great deal AND with a baby on the way, blogging just hasn't risen to the top of the list lately, so I have a few things to catch up on. Don't expect much; I simply didn't want to leave this performance off the list.

What can I say? Jon Stewart is a funny man. While some of this routine was lifted from The Daily Show, most of it was new to me. Of course the joke lineup included several pointed political observations, but the funniest part was when Mr. Stewart started talking about his pets. I nearly rolled into the aisle when he went on a riff about his dog getting sick, having experienced something similar with Gretchen in the not-too-distant past. Isn't it funny (peculiar) that something so disgusting can turn funny (ha ha) in retrospect?

Atlanta Ballet, March 14, 2008, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center

2008-05-08T17:20:00.000-04:00

The Atlanta Ballet has a new home. Much as I liked the Fox Theater, their former home, it isn't the best venue for ballet performances. There's also the fact that parking was a pain and I didn't always feel safe walking to my car at night. The shiny, new Cobb Energy Center offers improvement on all fronts, plus it's closer to my house! It's not quite as chichi as the Wortham Center or even the Hobby Center, but it's still quite nice. I have hopes that the move will elevate Atlanta Ballet's stature and ambitions.

But enough about that. AB's first production in its new home was a mixed rep of pieces by George Balanchine, Diane Coburn Bruning, and Twyla Tharp. The first piece was Balanchine's "Serenade," which was performed for the most part rather sloppily. I also simply CANNOT get over the fact that the dancers use rosin on a Marley floor and, as a result, squeak like rusty huinges whenever they move, something that's particularly unappealing against the exquisite calmness of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. While dancers must feel secure for their comfort and safety, other professional companies routinely find a quiet way to achieve this goal. I mean, come on!

Fortunately squeaky shoes were not a distraction in the rousing "Ramlin' Suite" by Diane Coburn Bruning. Set to music by the Red Clay Ramblers, the piece was a lighthearted fusion of contemporary ballet and Appalachian charm.

Tharp's "In the Upper Room" closed out the show and, frankly, left me stunned at the choreographic accomplishment of the piece. As far as I can tell, the music was written by Philip Glass specifically for this piece. It reminded me of the music for the film Koyaanisqatsi, which was also written by Mr. Glass at about the same period. Or at least I think it did; it's been a reeaallly long time since I've seen that movie. The music contrived to have a beat without having a rhythm; the driving sounds evolved from one place to another but did not develop. Going on for a continuous 40 minutes, it had the drawn out qualities of Ravel's "Bolero" without the repetition or crescendo (a plus, in my blog). Tharp's choreography was divided into sections, and there was some development as the costumes lost layers to go from black-and-white with red highlights to red with black-and-white highlights. This helped things from becoming monotonous. The set was two stories, but the dancers stayed on the floor, dancing underneath an ever-present fog that added mystery to the proceedings.

I confess that it has been long enough since I saw the piece that I am unable to characterize the movement beyond saying that it was athletic but clearly ballet. The dancers largely directed their attention out to the audience rather than towards each other. The entire experience was mesmerizing and rather like watching a particularly fascinating screen saver. The dancers gave it their all and received a well deserved standing ovation at the end.

Houston, we have a problem (but it could be worse)

2008-04-25T17:11:00.003-04:00

I've always thought of Stanton Welch as a competent but not great choreographer, so I was interested to see a reviewer's opinion of his latest work, which premiered last night as part of the San Francisco Ballet's New Works Festival. Writing in today's New York Times, Alastair Macaulay was not shy about saying what he thought of the four works on the program. Mark Morris's piece fared the best with adjectives including "awkward," "tepid," and "static." At least (for Welch's sake) Welch's piece didn't come out at the bottom of the "ghastly" pile.

Welch's new work was title "Naked" and set to Poulenc's "Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos." Macaulay's main criticism was lack of dynamics: fast music got fast movement and slow music got slow movement.

Macaulay's comments on James Kudelka's "The Ruins Proclaim the Building Was Beautiful" fall in the "no, tell us what you really think" category:

[It] lasts no more than 30 minutes, but only by clock time. While you watch, you begin to feel that Bill Clinton probably eloped with Michelle Obama long ago, that the problems of Palestine and Iraq and Afghanistan must have all been sorted by now, that whole generations of human life have passed and aliens have surely taken over the planet and then departed, all while you are stuck there in the theater trying to find the least interest in watching the same tepid floozies doing the same limp steps.

Wow.

The other piece on the program was by Julia Adam, who choreographed "Ketubah" for Houston Ballet in 2004.

Maybe you should use a mug?

2008-02-07T17:25:00.000-05:00

Here's some sophomoric (maybe even grade school) humor for you. While I understand the image the author is trying to convey in these lyrics to The Shin's "Those to Come," I can't help but giggle every time I hear them:

Eyeless in the morning sun you were
pale and mild,a modern girl.
Taken with thought still prone to care
making tea in your underwear.

Nutcracker memories

2007-12-30T17:43:00.002-05:00

As someone who has been a Party Mother, Grandmother, Rat Queen, Snowflake, Snow Queen, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Mirliton, Flower, Bug (don't ask), Dewdrop, and Sugar Plum Fairy in various productions of the Nutcracker over the years, I can really identify with this quote from a December 21, 2007, article in the New York Times by Alastair Macaulay:

And so the changeover of roles goes on from one “Nutcracker” to another. Every performance is attended by ballet mothers who know more about it than anyone else in the audience. When the bed travels magically around the stage, they know there is a little boy underneath. My favorite piece of insider knowledge was uttered years ago by one such mother to another. Watching a young man making his debut as the Sugar Plum’s Cavalier, she whispered, “I remember him when he was the bed.”

Moving Forward, November 3, 2007, Rialto Center for the Performing Arts

2007-11-18T17:38:00.000-05:00

This show was a benefit for the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Sadly, it reminded me of the Illumination Project, in that there was really good dancing and no one came to watch it. This is only the second time this benefit has been produced, so maybe word is still getting around. The participating companies were Ruth Mitchell Dance Theatre, Northeast Atlanta Ballet, Moving in the Spirit, CityDance Ensemble, The Georgia Ballet, the Atlanta Philharmonic Orchestra, CORE Performance Company, Atlanta Ballet, and Giwayen Mata. Kudos to all of them for participating.

Ruth Mitchell Dance Theatre presented "Birthday Variations", a lighthearted piece set to orchestral variations of the song "Happy Birthday to You." (Sadly, music and choreography were not credited in the program.) The choreography reminded me of a silly-in-a-good-way piece I saw last year by Sam Watson, "Hi Jinks,"and I later discovered that he was also responsible for "Birthday Variations."

City Dance Ensemble presented three numbers, one of them being "Forbidden," described in the program as "a Polynesian-inspired love story involving a forbidden attraction and a jealous husband's rage." Choreography was by Saroya Corbett. Also presented was the ballet classic "The Dying Swan," danced by Christen Edwards. Ms. Edwards displayed a rare understanding of the classical styling of this piece, and watching her was a real treat.

Also a real treat was seeing Ben Stevenson's "Three Preludes" performed by Tara Lee and Jonah Hooper of the Atlanta Ballet. The first time I saw this piece was at Houston Ballet's tribute to Mr. Stevenson on the occasion of his retirement as director of the company. I don't recall offhand the dancers in that performance, but I do recall the program notes saying that Mr. Stevenson choreographed this piece for Roberts Scevers and his partner(?), who were students with the Harkness Youth Ballet. I used to take the occasional ballet class from Mr. Scevers, which I enjoyed a great deal, and remember thinking during the HB performance that the choreography suited his movement style. In the Atlanta production, while Mr. Hooper danced well, he was emotionally reserved, especially in contrast with Ms. Lee, whose emotion and beautiful lines brought out the beauty of the choreography.

Closing the program was an energetic and enthusiastic display of dances from the Susu people of Guinea, West Africa by the all-female group Giwayen Mata.

Make no mistake

2007-10-31T17:27:00.000-04:00

From today's New York Times in an article by Roslyn Sulcas reviewing a production by choreographer and artistic director John Jasperse:

It will come as no shock to many in the audience that some of the best dancers in one of the world’s cultural capitals earn less money in a year than unskilled workers. But some of the other numbers Mr. Jasperse cites may be more surprising: his own annual salary ($26,000) as artistic director of the John Jasperse Company; Judge Judy’s annual earnings ($26 million more than the combined annual salaries of all nine United States Supreme Court justices); and the daily cost of the war in Iraq, $720 million, versus the $160 million projected annual budget of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2008. (Read that again and marvel: The words daily and annual are not mistakes.)

(Emphasis added, not that it really needed it.)

Margot, October 16, 2007, my living room

2007-10-24T17:36:00.000-04:00

Yes, I've been bad about posting here. I really have no excuse. I can promise that I have not failed to post about any performances I've seen. I just haven't seen any lately!

There has been plenty of time to sit on the couch lately, though, and watch documentaries, including this rather thorough one about Dame Margot Fonteyn. Coming in at over 2 hours, it traces Dame Fonteyn's life from her birth into an Anglo-Brazilian family (as Margaret Hookham) to her death as a pauper in Panama.

Fonteyn is one of my style idols and the famous dancer I believe I most resemble stylistically, so it was fascinating to take a closer look at her training and career. (For the record, my other style idol is Audrey Hepburn.) I have always been inspired by how Fonteyn could do so much with what, by today's standards, would be considered so little. She doesn't have high extension, turn a lot, or jump high, and she had terrible feet. What she did have was precision, line, grace, passion, and musicality. As one of her former partners put it, refering to her technique, "The young dancers looking at it, they probably wouldn't be able to spot it because it was so amazingly disguised." (Unfortunately I was too lazy to identify the speaker, who was not shown on screen at the time he said this.)

I knew Fonteyn performed to quite an old age (60, to be exact) and that she was married to Roberto de Arias, a Panamanian diplomat, but I didn't know the two facts were related. Her husband turned out to be a real piece of... work. He used Fonteyn's fame and money for his own ends while cheating on her. He allowed her to be arrested for running guns into Panama. He was paralyzed from the neck down by a bullet shot by the husband of one of his mistresses. Fonteyn was on the verge of divorcing him when this happened, but ended up supporting him financially for the rest of his life. She kept dancing for so long because she had to. Even as a quadraplegic, Arias ran off with his physical therapist!

Keith Money, Fonteyn's assistant during the later years of her life, was extremely bitter at the way she was treated by, well, everyone. As he says, "These people [dance stars] are sacrificied. They are really sacrificial victims. They're put on the stone, and they're pulverized." Later in life, she was, according to him, forced to travel to London while fighting the cancer that ended her life and appear onstage (presumably a curtain call) during a concert given for her benefit. He argues that if these people were solely interested in helping her, they should have just sent her the money rather than making her do the dog-and-pony thing. It's hard to disagree with that and heartbreaking to see how such a talented woman gave so much and had so little for herself.

For that reason, it's even more important to remember just what a marvel Fonteyn was and how much of an inspiration to the dancers that came after her (myself included). What comes across most strongly in this story of her life is her enormous discipline and commitment to her dancing. Combined with her talent, it's no wonder she became a household name worldwide.

"So there are people that transcend...their life on Earth. They become like highlights of humanity." - Ana Cristina Alvarado, "friend in Panama"

It's a man's world

2007-08-05T17:14:00.000-04:00

In an article in Today's New York Times titled "Often on Point But Rarely In Charge," dance critic Claudia la Rocco explores the reasons behind the fact that the vast majority of major ballet companies are run by men. This is something I've noticed before; after all, given the overwhelming majority of girls in ballet schools, why do the men float to the top?

The situation bears some resemblance to that of women in physics, vis. self-perpetuation. Men hold the authority positions because they had them in the past. As Emily Coates is quoted as saying, "You think: 'What is the 20-year-old soloist going to think? What will she be looking at?' She'll be seeing the men advance and the women retire, often into teaching positions. And there's another generation that will not know that it can aspire, even aspire, to rise into that." Hmm, sound familiar? (Well, ok, maybe not to you dance readers, but it sure as heck sounds familiar to me.)

There is, however, one tiny difference. Women are minorities in physics; men are minorities in ballet. You can run a lab without a woman, but you can't put on Swan Lake without a man. So young male dancers are given special attention, face less competition, have lighter workloads, etc. The result? "Such embedded pathways function like 'glass escalators,' speeding men's ascension in female-dominated professions," says sociology professor Christine L. Williams. And here's the rub: "'Consequently you have this bizarre thing, really the opposite of when women enter predominately male jobs' and face glass ceilings." In other words, in male-dominated professions, men rise to the top. In female-dominated professions, men ALSO rise to the top. Isn't that special.

Emergence-See!, July 28, 2007, Woodruff Arts Center

2007-07-31T17:10:00.000-04:00

I had the good fortune to hear Daniel Beaty, the writer and actor for this one-man show, be interviewed on NPR a few days before he came to Atlanta to perform. How often does that happen? Anyway, the show sounded so fascinating, I bought tickets as soon as I could.

The story revolves around a slave ship that mysteriously appears in the water next to the Statue of Liberty in the present day. The ship is deserted, but people are drawn to the island to take a closer look. The cast of characters include a TV reporter, a man suffering from schizophrenia after the death of his wife, the man's two sons, a homeless man, and a transvestite. The show explores the questions (as stated on Mr. Beaty's website) "What does centuries of slavery do to the psyche of humanity? And how free are we really at the dawn of the 21st Century?"

Mr. Beaty does an excellent job infusing each character with a distinct personality. He switches from one to another in a heartbeat, but the viewer is never left behind. Part of the action is a poetry slam, and we heard four amazing poems. Oh yeah, and he's also an opera singer.

Sleeping Beauty, May 5, 2007, Fox Theatre

2007-06-12T17:26:00.000-04:00

It's been over a month since I saw this performance, so my memory of it has become somewhat sketchy; however, here's what stuck with me. This was a competent production by Atlanta Ballet. The dancing was solid but lacked dazzle. Naomi-Jane Dixon was sweet as Aurora, and was supported ably by her prince, Tamila. Her balances in the Rose adagio were evanescent, and, though no fault of her own, her arms just aren't long enough to form the grand poses required by this role. Of the fairies, two stood out: Kelsey Yip as Violente (the "finger fairy," as my mom and I call it), and apprentice Rachel Van Buskirk as one of the (pleasantly) highest-strung Canari's I've seen. Also nice were Jacob Bush, Nadia Mara, Christine Necessary, and Joshua Reynolds, listed as Gems (Silver, Gold, and Sapphire) rather than fairies and performing a dual pas de deux.

A complaint about the music: Atlanta Ballet can't afford to hire live musicians and so uses recorded music for most of their performances. I don't have a problem with this; it's not ideal, but it's reality for many companies. But what tone-deaf (style-deaf?) person picked the soundtrack? The adagio of the wedding pas de deux between Aurora and her prince is accented by typical Tchaikovsky runs and add a graceful counterpoint. Unless, that is, they are performed by squirrels running across a piano, jarring one out of the lovely reverie that is the music. I mean, come on!

It's elementary

2007-05-21T17:36:00.000-04:00

I've been going through some old papers of mine from grade school, and I recently ran across some "stories" I wrote in second grade. Since these represent my nascence as a writer, I thought I'd post of few of them here. Here they are, without corrections:

If I Were a Hostage in Iran

If I were a Hostage I would collect bugs on Sunday. On Monday I would get exercise. On Tuesday I would write to my family. Wednesday I would collect frogs. Thursday I would catch worms. Friday I would go fishing. Saturday I would play with my friends. I would sleep on the floor every night. I would drink milk and eat the same thing every night I would eat tacos.

If I Were a Stamp

If I were a stamp on an envelope this is what I would do. I would go into the mailbox intill the mailman came to pick me up. I visited the post office. I visited Mississippi. I visited the dump. Then I was burned up. And that was end of me. Never be a stamp on an envelope.

My brother comments, "Sounds like being a hostage is WAY better than being a postage stamp - although that may not be true depending on what Iranian tacos taste like."

Love's Labour's Lost, March 31, 2007, The Shakespeare Tavern

2007-04-02T17:52:00.000-04:00

Cool. Way cool. Atlanta has a theater company (The Atlanta Shakespeare Company) dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare in the "Original Practice," or shows produced the way the Bard would have done it himself. Not only that, they have their own building that resembles The Globe. Uber cool.

Mr. Silvershoes and I went early to sample the British pub fair served in the theater before the show. True to billing, it was a bit bland and overcooked. Happily, the same could not be said of the production.

Love's Labour's Lost is one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, which I mention for no reason whatsoever. It centers on four men who have just vowed a 3-year stint of reclusive celibacy in order to further their studies. Naturally, shortly thereafter a beautiful princess (did I mention one of the men is a king?) and her three attendants appear at court on a business call. Romance ensues. Confusion reigns. Someone dies. In other words, a typical Shakespeare play.

While the actors were all good, some stood out - none more than Jeff McKerley, who played the nominal lead, Lord Berwone (and has his own web page). He looks a bit like Steve Martin and is equally hilarious. Able to switch from sarcasm to tender longing at the flip of a sixpence, the audience was eager to follow. Jeff Watkins, the artistic director, played a daffy but engaging Don Adriano de Armado. His Spanish accent, while certainly adding to the comedy, was sometimes a bit hard to understand. Matthew Felten, as Armado's page Moth, and Troy Willis, as the princess's attendant Boyet, were sly comedic observers.

This play includes what may be the most ridiculous love letter ever written, that written by Armado to the village wench Jaquenetta. Because to excerpt it is not enough, here it is in its entirety:

By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the vulgar,--O base and obscure vulgar!--videlicet, He came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two; overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king's. The captive is enriched: on whose side? the beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture. and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

It's Shakespeare, so I could go on, but I shan't.

Cinderella, March 23, 2007, Cobb Civic Center

2007-03-31T17:21:00.000-04:00

I've never been crazy about the music to Cinderella. It was written by Sergei Prokofiev, whose music I like in general, and to be sure there are some parts of the music that I enjoy. For the most part, though, I find it a bit boring, and I think that colors my perception of the ballet. So going in to this performance by the Ruth Mitchell Dance Theatre, my expectations were modest.

Before the curtain came up, a woman came on stage and spoke for a few minutes about how expensive it was to put on the show. As an example, she had one of the dancers model a costume which she said cost $700. (Costume mistress daughter's note: $700, and it's made on a leotard?) She also told the story of how the choreographer, Tom Pazic, originally set this ballet on the Atlanta Ballet in the 70's, and how it had only been performed once since, by the Sacramento Ballet. This immediately made me wonder if perhaps the reason it hadn't been staged many times was that it wasn't a knock-out. This turned out to be the case.

Unfortunately, the quality of the dancing turned out to be at about the same level as the music and choreography. Ericka Shannon, as Cinderella, was a happy exception. While her line could be a touch more defined, she portrayed the character's innocence and sweetness with a natural charm. Also notable was Ashleigh Whitworth as the Autumn Fairy. Vincas Greene and Dean Williams were hilarious as the Stepsisters, and even danced on pointe in their size-12 shoes.

Wicked, March 13, 2007, Pantages Theater

2007-03-21T15:56:00.000-04:00

I was in Los Angeles recently and went to see a show at the beautiful Pantages Theatre with a friend of mine whom I'll call Ivy Hamwich (she knows why). We saw the musical Wicked, which fills in the backstory of how the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch came to be who they are in The Wizard of Oz The lead roles were filled by Megan Hilty (Glinda) and Eden Espinosa (Elphaba), who were both excellent. The role of Fiyero was played by understudy Adam Lambert, whose hairstyle made him look like Ashton Kutcher. Carol Kane, recognizable from roles in The Princess Bride and My Blue Heaven, was magic teacher Madame Morrible.

In short, the acting was excellent, the book and music were OK, and the story was fantastic. See it if you get a chance - but don't buy the soundtrack.

Paul Taylor Dance Company, February 10, 2007, Eisemann Center's Hill Performance Hall

2007-03-01T17:56:00.000-05:00

I'm all for letting audiences think for themself. There's an important difference, however, between letting audience members think for themselves and leaving them in the dark. That's how I felt at this performance, and I'm pretty sure that's also how the two women in the row behind me felt as they left before the end of the show.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed a lot about the show, and not just the fact that I got to take my mom. The company dancers are exquisitely trained and delightfully expressive. The choreography (all by Mr. Taylor) is thoughtful and well crafted. This show was just not audience friendly, and definitely not the right show to present in the dance hinterlands of Richardson, Texas.

I for one would have found much benefit in knowing when each piece was created. There were four pieces on the program, and they seemed to have been created at different points in Mr. Taylor's career. Profiles, a piece with two couples dancing like they stepped out of a Grecian frieze, felt like it came from further back in time, while Syzygy, for twelve dancers and a soloist, felt recent. Banquet of Vultures was clearly anti-war, but which war? And whom did the suits represent? Troilus and Cressida (reduced) was easily the most likeable, with its bumbling heroine and hero and gold-wigged, tripartite Cupid, and could have come from any time.

Profiles, Banquet of Vultures, and Syzygy all used music that could be considered non-Classical, either because of amorphous rhythms, discordant themes, or the non-natural sounds wrenched from instruments. (All of the music was taped.) Any one of these pieces would have been fine on the program by itself, but together they created a desert for those of us who enjoy watching dance set to a nice melody. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Taylor pander to audiences by only choreographing to Bach and Handel. But his biography makes a point of how he has found synergy with such composers, so it shouldn't be too onerous to include more of that sort of music in any given program. We're not in New York any more, Toto, and the audiences aren't as experienced.

Kvetching aside, here are a few higlights. An effective device in Profiles was having the dancers fold their fingers into their palms, so that their hands appeared stubby and their lines clipped. It also made it particularly poignant when, at the end, one of the dancers reached out to another and unfolded her fingers as the very last movement of the dance. Banquet of Vultures was so dark and obscure that I didn't realize there were two men in suits until the bows. It was powerful, though, and I couldn't help but feel anguish for Julie Tice as the soldier killed by Michael Trusnovec, the man in the suit. And how fun (and cathartic) for Julie Tice, Parisa Khobdeh, and Eran Bugge to wear little wings and curly gold wigs as Cupid. Lisa Viola was charming and hilarious as Cressida, and she was bright and adroit as the lead in Syzygy.

For the record, here are the actual dates for these pieces: Profiles - 1979; Troilus and Cressida (reduced) - 2006; Banquet of Vultures - 2005; Syzygy - 1987.

Momix, January 27, 2007, Ferst Center for the Arts

2007-02-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

Momix was founded by former Pilobolus member Moses Pendleton, and in case you should forget it, the Momix webpage is www.mosespendleton.com. The company's stock-in-trade is performance that inhabits the space somewhere between dance and Cirque du Soleil. The show presented at the Ferst Center, called Lunar Sea, alternated between otherworldly beauty and tedium.

The show opened with eight dancers on the stage in full-body unitards that were black and white, bifurcating the body into one visible and one "invisible" half. The dancers were lit solely with black lights and set behind a scrim to enhance the illusion. Abstract videos played on the scrim for the entire performance, setting an eerie mood. The half-dancers performed moves that seemingly defied the laws of physics, combining at times to make full dancers that floated above the floor or tilted at crazy angles. The illusion was striking, at least for the first 20 minutes. After that, it lost its novelty, except for the occasional new formation.

There were other sections in the show, but they didn't seem connected in any way. A man and a woman in flesh-colored skimpies performed a sensual duet in red light. Four women in bright green cavorted on clear Pilates balls. The dancers, now completely invisible, put on a short puppet show with spider-like sea creatures that pranced and ate one another. It was skillfully done, but overall it had the sophistication and curiosity of graphics created for an Atari 2600.

Dance with Me, January 23, 2007, my living room

2007-01-31T17:43:00.000-05:00

Just when I happened to be homesick for Houston, this movie appeared in my mailbox (thanks, NetFlix!). Unbeknownst to me, the movie was both set and filmed in Houston, although there wasn't much of Houston to see in the film except the bus station downtown and the skyline from the west. It was left unexplained how the main character managed to travel to Houston from Cuba on a bus....

The plot in a nutshell: Rafael, played by the very tasty Chayanne, travels to Houston to meet his father John (Kris Kristofferson), who runs a foundering ballroom dance studio and has no idea of Rafael's existence. At the studio, Rafael meets professional Latin dancer Ruby (Vanessa Williams), with predicable results.

Ms. Williams does not quite dance up to professional standards, but she does a far more creditable job than JLo did in Shall We Dance. She dances in a competition with her former partner (played by Rick Valenzuela), and we get to see them do all the Latin dances except Jive, which would be understandably confusing as a Latin dance to the uninitiated. Again I notice it in the shoulders. I think perhaps what separates amateurs from professionals, stylistically speaking, is the ability to relax into the movement and let it flow.

This isn't a great movie, but it has its moments, many of which are supplied by the supporting actresses. Chayanne and actress Jane Krakowski dance a charming Cabaret number (as amateurs) that actually looks more professional than Ruby's dancing. Joan Plowright and Beth Grant add quite a bit of local color to the dance studio. And of course "that guy from ballroom on PBS" (Tony Meredith) added authenticity.

The Nutcracker, December 15, 2006, War Memorial Opera House

2006-12-29T18:06:00.000-05:00

This production by the San Francisco Ballet was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. The show, choreographed by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, was new back in 2004, and the sets and costumes still sparkle. Of course the dancing was lovely, but I left my cast list at the theater, so I can't tell you who I saw, with the exception of Frances Chung as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Muriel Maffre (I think) as the grown-up Clara. (In a change from other productions, the Sugar Plum Fairy served as Dewdrop in Waltz of the Flowers, while grown-up Clara dances with the Nutcracker Prince in the Grand Pas. You can read the story here.)

What I loved so much about the production was the way it drew on the art and culture of San Francisco. The story itself was set there some time in the 1910's, with the Stahlbaums living in one of those typical San Francisco row houses. The costumes and sets of the second act reminded me of the Palace of Fine Arts, which was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Watercolor pastels abounded, and the act opened with the Sugar Plum Fairy entering her garden full of flowers, butterflies, and the most adorable ladybugs.

The variations were the usual Spanish, Arabian, etc., except for Mother Ginger, who wore a Big Top tent hiding a trained bear. The Chinese variation included a stunning dragon in the style of Chinese parades, although I was disappointed to see a white guy as the main character, given that the company has so many Asian dancers. (Sorry, white guy, it's not personal.) The three Mirlitons (one blonde, one redhead, and one brunette - I'm not sure if they had on wigs or not) were dressed as dance hall girls from the Gold Rush era and had the coquetry down pat.

Ballets Russes, November 2006, my living room

2006-11-19T17:07:00.000-05:00

I knew I would enjoy this documentary discussing the rise and fall of the "Ballets Russes" dance companies, but I was unprepared to have such a personal attachment to it. I mean, what do I have in common with one (or two) of the most famous dance companies of the 1930's and 1940's? Turns out, much more than I thought.

There I was, curled up on the couch with the dog, not 5 minutes into the film, when I recognized one of the dancers and flashed back to when I was 12. My first "real" ballet teacher (i.e. non-Dolly Dinkles) was of the old school of ballet, when upper body ruled over lower body; essentially pre-Balanchine. She would occasionally take us to the studio of a woman whom I knew to have danced with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, which at the time was pretty much only a name to me. That woman was Nathalie Krassovska, who, it turns out, was one of the most important dancers for that company and with it from begining to end. This documentary was made maybe 20 years after I last saw her, but she hadn't changed a bit.

Let me back up a little. This film chronicles the company known as Ballets Russes from when it was reborn after the death of its founder, Sergei Diaghilev, through the breakup of that company into the "Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo" and the "Original Ballet Russes" until the dissolution of both companies. It tells the story using the recollections of surviving company members and archival footage and photographs. A good deal of the commentary is provided by Krassovska (as I call her).

Krassovska's parents fled Russia for Paris when she was a small child. As both her mother and grandmother were ballerinas, it is no big surprise that she followed in their footsteps (no pun intended). Several other Russian families in Paris also took their daughters to the school of Olga Preobrajenska, a former star of the Russian Imperial Ballet. Dancers from this school made up most of the re-formed company after Diaghilev's death.

Seeing Krassovska from the perpective of adulthood (mine) rather than as a young student, I was newly able to appreciate her ebulliant love of ballet and her charming manner. In one of my favorite parts of the film, she discusses her experience with the company as it sheltered in Hollywood during World War II:

I receive a letter from David Selznick giving me 7-year contract. I just did not know what to do. Talked to my family, to my friends, but I didn't sign. I didn't like to be in Hollywood too much at that time. I have trouble with men. (laughs) I always get in love!

If you go to the film's website and look at her picture, it's easy to see why she garnered attention from Charlie Chaplin and other stars. Immediately after this clip, her fellow dancers tell the story of her ill-fated, short-lived marriage to the company's first violinist. Her veil caught fire during the ceremony, and they were divorced not six weeks afterwards, but Krassovska only giggles (as did I) as she remembers the follies of her youth.

I think I got the best of both worlds in my training, having been exposed to ballet style as a young student and rigorous ballet technique once in high school. As Nini Theilade says in the film,

The legacy of the Ballet Russes, the young ones, the young pupils, I don't know if it's the way of living nowadays or their mentality is different. For them it is more important to do 12, 14, 16 pirouettes. But there's more to it than that. It's very very difficult to make them warm. "Be warm," as I always say. "Tell me something." But what can we do, except try to make them understand. These things were taught to us, born with us, and never left us. And the young ones, where should they know it from? Now tell me, where? Where? Whom?

I studied with Krassovska at a summer program at the Legat School in Mark Cross, England. I remember doing "Four Big Swans" from Swan Lake as well as one of the Sylphides (Les or La, I can't keep it straight). So it seems the answer, to some extent, is me.

Giselle, October 27, 2006, The Fabulous Fox Theatre

2006-11-14T17:42:00.000-05:00

Atlanta Ballet showed some surprising strengths as well as a few weaknesses in this production. With only 20 full company members and 6 apprentices, the company can't match the depth of Houston Ballet, which has almost as many dancers in its corps alone. Still, it was an enjoyable performance, with much good dancing to be seen.

The title role was danced by Kristine Necessary, and the role of Albrecht was danced by Christian Clark. As in most story ballets, the main characters make an entrance, usually allowing an opportunity for the audience to applaud. Ms. Necessary received a warm welcome from the audience, which made me feel somewhat bad for Mr. Clark, who had entered earlier to silence. It was easy to see why; although Mr. Clark is a skillful dancer, his didn't have as much charm and emotion as Ms. Necessary. That said, the two of them worked well together and presented believable characters. The same cannot be said for Jonah Hooper in the role of Hilarion, who was flat-footed and one-dimensional.

The role of Giselle is demanding both technically and emotionally, and Ms. Necessary carried it with apparent ease, mostly. There were a few wobbles, but no hesitance. An interesting note: even though the company did not have to dance until warmup class that evening, Ms. Necessary, nervous about the performance, attended the adult class that morning.

A particular part of the second act always makes me think of my brother, who noticed with me a faintly ridiculous part of the choreography for Giselle and Albrecht as I watched a video. In it, Albrecht lifts Giselle straight up and down, piston-like, as she lifts her legs in the splits to one side and then the other. Seen closeup rather than on a TV screen, the move was somewhat more likeable.

Other supporting roles were filled by Sarah Hillmer (Myrtha), Toni Doctor (Moyna), and Kelly Tipton (Zulma). Ms. Hillmer was merciless as the Queen of the Wilis, and Ms. Doctor and Ms. Tipton performed well. The real star of the second act, however, was the corps, which showed a unity and uniformity unusual even for the best companies.

Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet, early October, my living room

2006-10-28T17:23:00.000-04:00

So I finally got around to watching this documentary after finally having broken down and joined Netflix. Other than the postal service sometimes taking more than a week to get a movie from Netflix to me, it's been great to have access to a much broader selection of dance videos than are availble at the local rental store. (It doesn't take much, does it?)

The movie explores the daily lives and careers of dancers in all five levels of the company: quadrille (sort of a permanenet understudy), coryphée (member of the corps), sujet (solists), premier danseur (principal), and étoile (prima ballerina and whatever they call the male equivalent). I'm sure some of this is fascinating to the general public, but it's actually not that interesting if you've trained in an intense ballet program and performed with a company, professional or not. After all, I know that ballet dancers start young, that the competition is extreme, and that dancers' careers are short.

There were a few interesting things along the way, though, including the discussion of how the view of motherhood has changed over the years. As in other professions, it seems to have gone from "once you get married/pregnant you're out" to "parenthood makes you a better dancer." There were also a few dancers whose parents had been Etoiles, which surely must give you a leg up (so to speak) on advancement in the associated school. After all, the teachers probably see someone's potential more clearly if they're familiar with her mother's dancing.

There was a lot of discussion of particular choreography and what it was like to dance it, but disappointingly short snippets of the dances themselves. If there wasn't time for it in the film, they might have at least included excerpts on the DVD.

The film was, naturally enough, in French. I took French in high school and can read it fairly well, but I could only follow what people were saying by reading the subtitles. It was amusing, then, when the film would switch to a classroom shot and the teachers were calling out ballet steps - all of a sudden, I could understand what they were saying. Mon dieu! C'est un miracle!

Uninterrupted, Saturday, September 30, 2006, Cobb Civic Center

2006-10-24T17:16:00.000-04:00

I finally made it to a performance by a local group other than Atlanta Ballet. The Ruth Mitchell Dance Theatre is based in Marietta, on the Square and a bit west of a local landmark, the Big Chicken. (Honestly, you have to see it to believe it.) RMDT is itself a local landmark, having been established 50 years ago.

The program consisted of 10 dances, a mix of ballet and modern performed by a mix of professional and student dancers. I was surprised to see that, coming from a studio that is primarily a ballet studio (at least to appearances), the modern pieces were actually stronger. The show ran a bit long (more than 2 1/2 hours), which makes for more than one reason a few numbers should have been cut. Also, as Mr. Silvershoes asked should a show called "Uninterrupted" really have an intermission?

I'll stick with the highlights. Hair (with a twist), choreographed by the current Artistic Director Lisa Toups, was a modern piece set to music by Digital Empire. (Which Digital Empire, I couldn't say.) Performed by a gaggle of teenagers, hair was indeed the star; the movement of the dancers served to propel their hair in amusing and rhythmic fashions.

Guest modern troup Zoetic performed Forever in 3 Days, choreographed by Candess Giyan. I loved this piece, partly for the dancing, which was skillful, but mostly I think because it was so similar to dances created by the modern community in Houston. There was a little too much "forever," but only a little.

The highest point of the night came, appropriately enough, with Hi Jinks. This high-spirited dance was choreographed by Sam Watson. With its 60's-theme-song-like music by Esquivel and Martin Denny, it reminded me of Mark Morris's lightheatered Sandpaper Ballet. The five couples gave it their all, making the campy choreography shine. It even had a surpise ending, with beehive wigs that glowed after the blackout.

One piece deserves mention because it shouldn't have been part of the show. Sinfonia Concertante was danced well, but it featured six girls who looked like they couldn't have been taking pointe for too long. The choreography was necessarily simple. It would have been a lovely recital piece, but didn't belong in show by a company that, in their words, "is committed to presentation of professional quality, varied, dance programs."

paragraph, uninterrupted

2006-09-16T17:13:00.000-04:00

For whatever reason, the formatting requirements for this blog have changed such that all my paragraphs have become one; the line breaks have disappeared. I plan to go back and insert HTML for line breaks, but it will likely be a while before I get all posts done. In the mean time, comsider it a game to figure out where the new paragraph begins.

Side by side

2006-08-25T17:49:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I was surprised to find two obituaries of interest to me in the New York Times; surprised, because I don't normally look at the obituaries. In a parallel to my dance/science dichotomy, the two notable people were Melissa Hayden, a dancer, and James Van Allen, a physicist. I make a few remarks about the former here, and a few about the latter on my science blog.

Here is a quote I liked from "Melissa Hayden, a Vibrant Star of New York City Ballet, Dies at 83" by Anna Kisselgoff (August 10, 2006):

Ms. Hayden was born on April 25, 1923, in Toronto, where she began ballet lessons at 12 with the Moscow-trained teacher Boris Volkoff. Seeking further training, she went to New York, where for six months she danced in the ballet corps of Radio City Music Hall. (The troupe was later disbanded.) In one pageant she appeared as a star in a flag representing Oklahoma. When onstage, she said, she would tell herself: “I am Oklahoma. I was admitted to the union on Nov. 16, 1907. I’m a great producer of oil.”

I never met Ms. Hayden, but someone I danced with in high school studied under her at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Ms. Hayden performed as the dance double for Claire Bloom in the film Limelight (1952). Claire Bloom was in Mighty Aphrodite, written by Woody Allen, who also wrote The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, of which Dan Aykroyd was a cast member. Dan Aykroyd shows up in the credits of She's Having a Baby. And who starred in She's Having a Baby? Kevin Bacon!

Learning to fly

2006-07-21T18:56:00.000-04:00

Last week I attended a 5-day dance workshop taught by Otis Cook, a former dancer with Pilobolus and one of the dancers in the show they brought to Houston last year. The goal of the workshop was to introduce us to the "Pilobolus Method," which is described on the company website this way:

The Pilobolus Method is, more than anything else, an approach to creative thinking. By shearing away preconceptions of what a dance should be, and by eliciting from others through movement those things that are unique to them, the Pilobolus Method awakens our sense of what is beautiful and possible.

A hallmark of Pilobolus's work is the creative interaction of the dancers with one another. This trait is nurtured through the use of collaboration and group improvisation, which is what we spent most of our time doing in the workshop. We would start by doing improv with our group, trying to keep an eye out for any neat movements that appeared. The challenge was to remember those movements and fit them together into a short dance, making one movement flow into another. I found the transitions to be the most difficult part to create, but by the end of the workshop I started to understand how this method leads to the organic feel of a Pilobolus piece.

The teacher and I did not get along famously well. It wasn't that we didn't get along, but it seemed to take him a few days to figure out where I was coming from. (Hello, I've done improv before!) I did learn a lot from him, though, and hope that this experience will broaden my horizons the next time I have a chance to choreograph. If nothing else, now when I look at pictures of Pilobolus dancers in crazy positions, I'll have some idea how they came up with them and how they make them work.

These experiences are beginning to make me feel that I've become old and inflexible. Ok, I can't avoid the old, but I do try to keep an open mind. Maybe it's just men that are the problem. I had a run-in with a teacher in Atlanta shortly before this workshop, one of the most uncomfortable class moments I've ever had. I won't go into the specifics, but I will tell you that one of the things that bothered me was that he insisted that his way was absolutely the only correct way to do things, and that if I looked it up in ANY ballet technique book, I'd discover I was wrong. I've taken ballet class from maybe 50 different teachers over the years, and I never heard a single one espouse this technique. I told him so in an attempt to explain the look of total disbelief that I COULD NOT keep off of my face. To top the experience off, a bit later in the class he made a general comment about how just because you've been doing something one way your whole life doesn't mean it's correct.

In the first place, I have looked in up in a few books, and they say to do it my way. In the second place, it's ok with me if you have a different way to do something - you run into that with all teachers - but don't act like you're God. And for God's sake, I don't go to ballet class to get insulted. In in way, though, the experience was good. It reminded me of one reason I didn't pursue a professional career: so I didn't have to put up with this kind of sh!t. I don't intend to ever return to this guy's class, which is a shame, because I learned a lot of other great things from him in just a few classes.

Don Quixote, June 10, 2006, Wortham Center's Brown Theater

2006-07-17T06:21:00.000-04:00

What a treat. Houston Ballet's performance of Don Quixote as chorographed by Ben Stevenson was a feast for the eyes, ears, and heart. Too bad it took me so long to write this post, or I could tell you more about it.

The cast for this performance included Gregg Garrett (a former company member) as Don Quixote, Connor Walsh as Basilio, and the enchanting Leticia Oliveira as Kitri. I've never seen someone convey so much meaning with a flip of a skirt. Ms. Oliveira and Mr. Walsh danced well together, but the final pas de deux didn't compare to the one Ms. Oliveira and Randy Herrara danced in the "Tribute to Ben Stevenson" performance in (I think) 2003. During that performance, sparks were flying, and I've seen very few other bravura performances to match, even including the most famous of dancers. (I speculate that the sparks were related to their at-the-time recent divorce.) Still, you can't top the fouetté sequence in the final section during which Ms. Oliveria repeated opened and closed her fan. (Damn, girl!) Mr. Walsh made it clear why he was cast as Basilio - the boy can jump. If he can tighten up his turns, he should have no trouble being promoted up from soloist.

¿ Que pasa?

2006-06-23T18:26:00.000-04:00

I was in Mexico recently with my mom and stepdad and happened to see what appeared to be the Spanish (as in, it comes from Spain) equivalent of Dancing With The Stars, titled ¡Mira Quién Baila!. Beware the website; it plays noisy music: http://www.rtve.es/tve/b/miraquienbaila/ It was hard to tell what the rules were or how people were judged since the hostess talked at approximately 1000 words per minute. We saw a few couples where it was clear that only one of them was being judged and another, elderly couple who performed the great feat of being off the music in their Viennese Waltz withing two measures of music. At that point I believe we gave up on the show.

Houston Ballet, June 2, 2006, Wortham Center's Brown Theater

2006-06-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

This mixed-rep program consisted of two works by HB Artistic Director Stanton Welch and one by Sir Kenneth MacMillan. For me, the juxtaposition solidified my belief that Mr. Welch is a good, but not great, choreographer. First, though, let me say what a pleasure it was to see the Houston Ballet dancers again. After seeing Atlanta Ballet's charming but shaky performance in May, the Houston Ballet dancers could have done just about anything and I would have been happy to just sit there and watch them move.

The program was titled "Moby in Motion" and started out with Mr. Welch's Play (2004), set to music from Moby's album of the same name. Interestingly, while Mr. Welch did not use all of the tracks from the album, those he did use stayed in the same order as they appear on the album. The "set" was the stage with legs and the back curtain removed, highlighted by a TV set sitting upstage center. As I was in the Grand Tier, I couldn't see the TV very well and never figured out how it fit into the piece. The dancers wore casual street clothes and (supposedly) captured the rhythm of today's urban lifestyle. It appeared that all of the HB dancers were in this piece, often waiting on the sides. There was a lot of jerky motion and strained relationships. The strongest section was for the men and set to "Run On." There was a section for the women, too, but I didn't realize it was only women until the very end of that section, maybe because the action on the sidelines was too intrusive.

The second piece was Velocity (2003), also by Mr. Welch. Dancing to orchestral music by Michael Torke, the women wore white tutus and the men wore black unitards. There was some virtuosic dancing in this piece, but the audience was oddly silent in moments that would normally evoke ovations. The lighting included stark contrasts between black and white and sometimes included a triangle of white light on the floor. The movement was not bad, but it struck me as uniformly staccato throughout the piece. That's OK for 10 minutes, but gets old after 20.

The last piece on the program was Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Gloria, a powerful rendition of the effects of warfare on the soul. The set, designed along with the costumes by Andy Klunder, was a "hill" about 8 feet high that ran across the back of the stage and was divided by periodic metal poles, sort of an expanded jungle gym. The dance began with several dancers walking up from the gloom behind the hill and down onto the stage. Combined with the unitard costumes and WWI helmets, the effect was rather like a 1950's film about aliens. Fortunately, the similarities ended there. Brigett Zehr, Carl Coomer, and Zdenek Konvalina gave moving performances while also showing off the beautiful shapes in the choreography.

Atlanta Ballet, May 6, 2006, Ferst Center for the Arts

2006-05-20T18:46:00.000-04:00

It's a little strange that a ballet company would feel the need to present new works at the end of the season in a small auditorium on a college campus, but that's apparently the way Atlanta Ballet chooses to do it. The show consisted of three works, two of which were world premieres, the other being a company premiere. I saw Atlanta Ballet perform the first time I was in Atlanta way back in 1999 when Mr. Silvershoes and I lived way out in the boonies in central New York, and ANY ballet was hard to come by. I recall at the time thinking that they were good - not great, but definitely a serious ballet company. Having spent the last 5 years watching the Houston Ballet, I'm coming at it from a different perspective.

The show opened with a piece set to various works of Rossini, aptly titled Inouï Rossini. (Did I mention that all the music was recorded?) Inouï is French for "extraordinary," which might be slightly too grand a title for this work. It was a piece for a lead couple, two female demi-soloists, and four supporting couples. This was ballet at its most classical; the women were in white tutus trimmed with gold, and the men were in matching jackets and their best white tights. The choreography was pleasant but sometimes not quite attuned to the tempo of the music. Very slow sissonnes look academic, not stately. What was most remarkable about this piece was that it was choreographed by the 73-year-old Violette Verdy, who took a bow with the company. She was a principal dancer with New York City Ballet for 20 years and seems to have retained quite a bit of spunk.

Since this was a college auditorium, I got to sit much closer to the stage than I do in the Brown Theater. At that short distance, it was all too easy to see the technical shortcomings in the dancing. Much of the partnering work was shaky. The male lead, Christian Clark, is a nice dancer, but had to put his hand on the floor to keep from falling over at the end of his solo. The women's pointe shoes were unforgivably squeaky, which was a surprise, because I've always been told that you shouldn't use rosin on a marley floor. Better to squeak than to fall down, though.

The second piece on the program showed up the company's strengths. While they lack depth in technicality, they have plenty in interpreting a more modern style. Lauri Stalling's Shoo Pah Minor, for fourteen dancers and set to music by Vivaldi, reminded me of works of Jiri Kylian and the style of the person who choreographed the first work in DWDT's Contemporary Baroque, who is, it turns out, Lauri Stallings. (I knew that name sounded familiar!) The similitude to Kylian is not terribly surprising, as Ms. Stallings has performed his choreography in the past. I greatly admire his work (seen when ABT came to town) and would probably also pick up some elements of his style if I had the opportunity to study it. Shoo Pah Minor had the same quirky intensity as Kylian's Petite Mort. The costumes were made of kelly green spandex, with the women sporting tutus created by a hoop in the hem of their short dresses.

The final work on the program was Lila York's Celts. I saw Houston Ballet perform this piece in their "Gee, we managed to find three female choreographers and put them on the same program" production from the fall of 2004. (Atlanta Ballet managed to do the same without making a big deal about it. I'm ambivalent about whether or not it should be pointed out.) I remember Mireille Hassenboehler as the woman in brown and Sara Webb as the woman in red, and that's a hard memory to top. With Kristine Necessary and Christine Winkler in those two roles, respectively, Atlanta Ballet did a creditable job, but the only standout performer was John Welker (man in red).

My dad loved the chromaticity of Violette Verdy's name, which translates to "violet green."

And now, Atlanta

2006-04-25T21:51:00.000-04:00

As the man says, and now for something completely different. You never know where life is going to lead you; in my case, it has led me to Atlanta. We have now officially taken up residence in Georgia, and thinking about it too much still makes my stomach hurt. It's not that I have anything against Atlanta, just that I've left so much behind in Houston. I have to say that I did not truly appreciate how many good friends I had made in Houston until it came time to leave. Logically, I know that I'll make new friends here, but that doesn't make it any easier to leave the olds ones behind.

Of course I'm impatient and want to have great places to dance right away. I've taken ballet classes at two different studios now, and according to that sample one could conclude that no one in Atlanta does frappés or ronde de jambes en l'air. Fortunately there are several different studios and many different teachers to try, and I'm sure at least one of them will get around to doing a grand allegro. In the mean time, I'm kind of enjoying not running off to dance class every day.

So, I'm sure you're wondering what will become of my lovely blog about dancing in Houston. (Or at least I hope you're wondering.) I see in the future many opportunities to compare and contrast the Houston and Atlanta dance scenes. As Mr. Silvershoe's former students would have written, "The dance scenes in Houston and Atlanta are both similar and different." To begin with, the Atlanta Ballet's season was over before I got to town in the middle of April. Houston Ballet still has two more productions scheduled! (I'm hoping to catch at least one of them on the tail end of a business trip back to town.) Additionally, the modern company CORE Performance Company performs in both Houston and Atlanta. I never managed to see them in Houston, but maybe I'll catch them here.

LOL - The spell-checker on blogger.com doesn't recognize the word "blog."

Dancing in your genes

2006-04-12T18:45:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine recently sent me a journal article with the alluring title of "AVPR1a and SCLA4 Gene Polymorphisms Are Associated with Creative Dance Performance." This article was published in PLoS Genetics (you know you have it in your bathroom) in September 2005. It describes a study comparing the frequency of variants of certain genes in dancers, non-dancing athletes, and the general population. The authors find significant correlations between being a dancer and having particular variants, which suggests a genetic predisposition to have the urge to dance. (It seems therefore appropriate that the phrase "Gotta dance!" was announced in Singin' in the Rain by Gene Kelly.)

A few quotes:

We suggest the notion that the "dance" phenotype is no more difficult to define than other complex human behavioral phenotypes (schizophrenia, attention deficit, personality, violence, and others) that have shown to be both heritable and amenable to genetic analysis. Dancers fulfill a set of criteria with considerable face validity (similar in principle to the usual Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-style "symptom checklist") that both identifies and distinguishes one disorder from another.

Read that last sentence without the words in parentheses: "Dancers fulfill a set of criteria with considerable face validity that both identifies and distinguishes one disorder from another." A little copyediting would have helped here, because I don't think the authors were suggesting that dancers suffer from a disorder - although that's open for debate! Two words: pointe shoes.

...in the Korean Salpuri dance, an ecstatic trance state is induced that results in changes in alpha wave activity. [snip] We suggest the notion that the association we observe between SLC6A4 and dance is perhaps related to the need for altered consciousness states that subjects participating in and performing this art form sometimes have. [snip] Perhaps a prerequisite for some types of dancing...is the ability to enter into such a higher state of awareness.

This idea intrigues me, because I've always found performing to be different than any other experience in that I seem to be particularly aware of the emotion and physicality of the movement.

Cross-posted on my science blog.

[4-25-06] Coincidentally, I saw a newspaper article about this study posted at the studio I went to for ballet class last night.

The New Texas Challenge, March 25, 2006, Sheraton North Houston

2006-04-08T18:23:00.000-04:00

This (the Texas Challenge) was the very first ballroom competition I've ever been to. I found watching it to be very much like watching a ballroom competition on PBS, minus the dippy commentary. They even had the same announcer. This was the fifth dance event I went to in Houston in March; a quick look back shows how broad the range of dancing is in Houston, because each show was quite different than the next.

The ballroom at the Sheraton is not very large, so you pretty much had a good view wherever you were. I attended the Saturday evening session and got to see finals for the Pro-Am, Rising Star, and Professional categories. (Will someone please explain to me what "rising star" means??) Many of the professionals were familiar from this year's PBS show, including Mazen Hamza & Irina Sarukhanyan, Anton & Lena Koukaeko, and of course Eddie Stutts & Victoria Belova. (Vika and Eddie definitely had the hometown advantage!) It was inspiring to see dancers at the top of the profession swaying not 10 feet from where I was standing.

I prefer International styles over American (is that un-American?), although I confess I can't tell the difference between some of the International Latin and American Rhythm styles. Nevertheless, I found all styles to be enjoyable when watching professionals in person at short range, which somewhat surprised me; however, I still can't STAND when women, even professionals (especially professionals!) break their arm lines at the wrist! Luckily, that didn't happen too often. There was one couple in the professional International Standard that I really enjoyed, although unfortunately I didn't catch their names. I believe they ended up third. If anyone out there can enlighten me as to who they are, please do!

Danse Macabre Part III: The Dance of the Dead, March 24, 2006, Talento Bilingué

2006-03-27T06:43:00.000-05:00

This is the first Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre show I've made it to, although I've heard a lot about their other shows. This show was a collaboration with Two Star Symphony and Freneticore, and combined with the show only being an hour long, that didn't leave much time for puppetry. I was disappointed with that, but not disappointed with the show.

The central figure of the show was a guy who had been buried alive but was not yet dead. Boy, if listening to someone describe being buried alive for an hour doesn't creep you out, nothing will. The show alternated between music, puppetry, acting, video, and dance. The acting consisted of a few monologues, some by the buried guy explaining how he got there, and one by a woman giving his eulogy. It seems his church was maybe a little too eager to get him in the ground.

Two Star's music was enjoyable, although their violin section was a little weak. When I played the violin in orchestra in high school, everyone complained about my tone, and now I see what they were talking about; however, I only cringed one time, when the musicians briefly got out of phase with one another. Most of the music was original composition, the exception being an excerpt from "The Unknown Soldier" by Luc Sante. I love the program note that reads, "Two Star Symphony is Houston's most unusual string quartet." Yes, having eight musicians and four non-string instruments does make for an unusual string quartet.

About two-thirds of the way through the show, we started hearing disembodied voices describing how they had died. ("I was trampled by horses," etc.) I took it to be an interlude between a monologue and the dancing, but apparently it was meant to be the other occupants of the cemetary. (We're in a cemetary?) Knowing this would have lent more meaning to the dance section, in which the dancers clearly portrayed dead people who (not so clearly) had risen from their graves to dance with Death. Since Two Star took up half the stage, and the set took up another quarter, the dancers had all of about 100 ft² in which to dance. That didn't leave much room for creativity, but they made good use of what little space that they had, flailing and sagging as any good corpses should do.

When is FrenetiCore going to have actual content on their web page?

Dance Houston Does Houston, March 17, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

2006-03-24T18:58:00.000-05:00

Well, they tried. This show promised to do the same thing as the Travesty show - give a portrait of Houston, warts and all. Unfortunately, it was not as sucessful.

I've seen one other Dance Houston production, the show in 2003. It was your standard multi-company performance, where each company performs one or two works, and the show covers the spectrum of dance. (I used to participate in such shows, with my ballet company, at Mountain View College in Dallas. That's where I started my tradition of eating peanut M&M's before performances.) This show was different; rather than gathering companies, DH gathered dancers and chorographers and put together a show with a central theme. It worked pretty well in the first act, but fell apart in the second.

The program helpfully informed me that there was an Act One called "A Warm Welcome" and an Act Two called "An H-Town Mythology Case Study No. 1." That's as specific as it got - there was no clue who choreographed what, what the various sections might be called, or who danced specific parts.

A newcomer to Houston provided a thread for the first act - he encounters IAH, downtown, rain, traffic, and mosquitos. He mostly disappeared in the second act, which had a few sections that were hard to relate to the Houston theme. The highlight of the show was the introduction of four human-sized mosquitos, all female, and all cleverly attired with bug eyes, antennae, wings, and proboscis. A narrator read an encyclopedia entry, and the mosquitos brough the words to life. The rain dance was done by a lone female dancer wearing an awesome hat and was Asian in flavor. It would have been nice to know more about the style.

The second act had few high or even middle points, although the opening section about refinery workers was effective, and the 20's jazz section was at least entertaining. In other sections, some dancers were looking at other dancers to see what they should be doing. I heard later that they'd just finished some of the dances the day before - not too professional.

Houston Ballet, March 11, 2006, Wortham Center's Brown Theater

2006-03-23T18:50:00.000-05:00

The first piece on the program was Indigo, choreographed by Stanton Welch to music by Vivaldi. I love Vivaldi, so it was a treat to hear the music. I liked the choreography, set on four couples, but it didn't inspire me. Too much head wagging. There was also a lot of dancers struggling to get out of the grip of other dancers, but I couldn't see what purpose that served.

The second piece was a world premier of Hush by Christopher Bruce. This pieces uses the recorded music of Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFarin. The six dancers protrayed a family, with a mother, father, two sisters, and two brothers. The set conveyed a dream-like atmosphere and was filled with dark blue lighting and oversized playground equipment. The quality of movement was very similar to Bruce's Ghost Dances, which I saw HB perform in my pre-blogging days. The women and men wore flat shoes, and movements tended to use the whole body rather than isolated arm or leg movement. Sara Webb was a charming Little Sister, and the rest of the cast was excellent as well.

The last piece was Balanchine's Western Symphony (1954). Ok, you can't fault the entertainment value of the music and costumes, but the whole thing was a little bland for my taste. There were certainly technically difficult moves in there, and the dancers did a great job selling to the audience. I felt there was too much empty space on the stage, though, which on reflection really meant that the dancers didn't move around the stage very much. A lot of the variations took place practically on the same spot. Combined with the Russian convention of repeating combinations three times, it just wasn't that interesting. Sorry, George.

Hometown, March 4, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

2006-03-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

This was just the program to see during my last month in Houston. Travesty Dance Group presented a reprise production of Karen Stokes's affectionate look at Houston, which premiered in 2003. The cast of 12 excellent dancers included Ms. Stokes, as well as other faces familiar to the Houston modern dance scene: Toni Leago Valle, formerly of Suchu, and Sonia Noriega and Sophia Torres of Psophonia. Julie Fox, a collegue of Ms. Stokes at the University of Houston, shone especially bright in this production, like a diamond set among sapphires.

The show was divided into six sections, each exploring some facet of Houston's identity. Range, Bayou, and Weather formed the first half, and Ranch, Traffic, and Space formed the second. The show opened with the cast standing on stage singing. Yes, singing. It was immediately obvious why; Ms. Stokes has a lovely voice and clearly some training. It would never occur to me to include singing in a dance show - at least, not me singing. Trust me, you are all happy about that. Anyway, the cast was game and good enough at singing that I was able to focus on the song and not the singers.

Voices, both song and spoken word, were interspersed with music and sound collages throughout the show. The Bayou section included a description of various swimming holes on Buffalo Bayou (from True Stories of Old Houston and Houstonians) back when it was a bayou and not a glorified drainage ditch. This led to a beautifully lit swimming scene in which the dancers made innovative use of "towels" (actually large sheets). A montage of thunderstorm sounds made me long for some rain. Do you realize that Houston has only had 5 days with substantial rain (> 0.5 in) in the past 3 months? Makes me thirsty just to think about it.

So much to blog, so little time

2006-02-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

My attention has been largely consumed lately by trying to 1) sell a house, 2) buy a house, and 3) relocate my life four states away. Yes, sadly I will soon no longer be musing about dance from Houston. Mr. Silvershoes got the job offer of a lifetime and we decided to carpe diem and move to Atlanta, GA. I will, however, continue to muse about dance in Houston, particularly concerning the differences between the Houston and Atlanta dance scene. I know next to nothing about the Atlanta dance scene, so it will be a journey of discovery for everyone.

In the mean time, here are a few abbreviated entries on performances both local and national. I'm hoping to catch a few more live performances before I make the trek out to peachland. I have 6 more days of vacation to use up, too, so I might even find the time for proper entries!

Acis and Galatea, February 18, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

2006-02-28T18:12:00.000-05:00

This 1718 opera by Handel was performed by Mercury Baroque with staging by Dominic Walsh. The cast consisted of two female and six male vocalists, two dancers, and two little boys. The dancers, Lindsey McGill and Dominico Luciano, are familiar from DWDT and were excellent. I enjoyed the performance, but had one complaint: in the first act NOTHING HAPPENS. The music was nice but too much the same throughout the first act; it was almost like listening to the same song for 45 minutes. The program notes for this act say

In the pastoral land of nymphs and shepherds, Galatea, a sea nymph who is partly divine, loves the shepherd Acis. The two pursue each other, and finally become lovers.

The pursuing seemed to consist of bumping into each other in the middle of a field. The second act picked up a bit as Polypheme got into the act. Polypheme loves Galatea; Polypheme is jealous of Acis; Polypheme kills Acis; Galatea turns Acis's dead body into a river. You know, standard Greek mythology stuff.

The female vocalists and the dancers were the highlights for me. Walsh's choreography was intriguing as always, but it was a little strange to mix contemporary ballet with a production which in almost every other way tried to remain true to how the opera would have been performed back in the day. I couldn't help but notice that as Polypheme transformed from crude, dirty monster to sophisticated, clean monster, he (or at least his clothing) began to look more and more like Walsh. I wonder if Walsh, who designed the set and costumes in addition to stage directing, did this consciously or unconsciously.

The best man won (DWTS weeks seven and eight)

2006-02-28T18:07:00.000-05:00

I'm astonished. The "star" that I thought most deserved to win actually won the discobolusish Dancing With The Stars trophy. (Don't look it up. It's an inside joke.) It's clear that Jerry Rice didn't make it to 2nd place with his dancing, although he finally let go and had some fun during the last two shows. Stacey's freestyle dance on Thursday was a real disappointment, but it did Drew a huge favor. Since Stacey came in third in the popular vote (which she had to in order to be third overall), it didn't matter who came in first and second in the popular vote, because Drew would have won overall either way. In fact, Drew could ONLY lose if he came in last in the popular vote.

Of course the above all rests on the order of the judges' scores. I didn't understand why they gave Drew 9's for his last dance. It's like they punished him for being as good as he was on Thursday, while rewarding Stacey, who merely came up to his level on the last dance. I guess that's the problem with judging something artistic - there's no way to be completely objective.

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No, I haven't forgotten about America's Ballroom Challenge, part II. I guess I was a little underwhelmed by it. In most cases, it was like the judges got inside my head and picked the couple I liked the least. Dragging someone across the floor is not ballroom, or at least it doesn't fit my image of ballroom, and I can't stand the way so many ballroom ladies break their arm lines at the wrist. If you want to see an example of what I'm talking about, go to this page and look at the picture of Erminio Stefano and Liene Apale. They were nice dancers, but that picture just makes me cringe.

fashion show

2006-02-14T18:51:00.000-05:00

This is the most fun I've had in years. Last week I was a volunteer model in a fashion show given by ballroom dress designers Designs To Shine. I got to wear sparkly dresses, and that by itself would have made it quite memorable, but what made it so fun was that one of the dresses I got to wear (the red one) was worn by Charlotte on Dancing With The Stars! There were several other dresses from the show on display, including the one on the left shown below. (My fellow models included Viktoria Belova, right, also way cool!) If you have several thousand dollars to spend on a dress, I'd definitely recommend Designs to Shine.

Erratum: I had previously reported that the dresses for Season One were supplied by ChrisAnn. Apologies to Designs to Shine for that mistake.

DWTS, weeks five and six

2006-02-09T18:33:00.000-05:00

week 5: Stacey really shook her thang, George did a little actual dancing, Jerry did a whole lot better. Which is all I feel like writing. So there.

For week 6, an experiment: stream-of-consciousness blogging!

Demonstrations by the professionals - oh goody!

I still don't like Jive. But Ashley does it well - I think it's her strongest dance.

Jonathan and Anna. I miss Jonathan; he's such a nice standard dancer. Oh, foot cam! Does every dance have to end with the lady bent over backwards?

Edyta must like that color. Oops, bird lift didn't work AT ALL. Been there, done that; they did a pretty good job covering it. I get the feeling they all had about an hour to come up with their dances.

Cool dress on Cheryl! She's really drapey. Three out of four.

I don't know the names of either of these dancers doing the Quickstep, but they're quite good.

Jerry and Anna, Paso Doble Can I say, it's awesome to have a professional football player on TV talking about how much he wants to dance. Ouch - bad joke about the quarter! Still a little stiff, but he's really into it. He looks like the king of Siam. 9, 7, 8? 8, 7, 8, I was close.

Drew and Cheryl, Tango My mom says to me last week, "Drew is very musical." This thing with his brother is a little hokey. They couldn't put makeup on the hand elastic? Another nice dress, though. I can't decide if this song sucks as a tango or not. Somehow, it both sucks and doesn't suck. Good intensity. Nice bow! I see 10's coming up. 10, 10, 10!

George and Edyta, Rumba Chernoble, lol. Ooh, I like this song, and nice singer, too. Wow, Edyta looks sexy! He's got the right feeling on those cucarachas. Oh yeah, he's enjoying this. Drag next time? 8, 7, 8? (Inspector Clouseau!) 8, 7, 8, yep.

Lisa and Louis, Quickstep They got screwed on the music last week. Ha ha, Miss Manners! What's that thing on her head? 9 to 5?? It's not working for her. Her hold is really weak. She's got the footwork, though. Cute ending. Let's see how gentle the judges are. Umm, really gentle - I think they're cutting her a lot of slack. 8, 8, 8? 9, 9, 9, wtf?

Stacey and Tony, Jive You know that coat's coming off. She's a performer. There it goes! Pretty good, I'd say. Hmm, I see a tie in the near future. Yep!

Wiener Waltz! Nice bird lift! Uh huh, nice spin, no surprise there. Nice funky chicken, LOL! Good standing foot spin. I don't think they did drop spins in Vienna. Another bird, imaginative exit.

Ok, I'm beat, going to bed. 'Night!

Get down

2006-02-08T18:26:00.000-05:00

Ballet is all about up. In just about any ballet class, you'll hear the instructor mention at least once how you should lift here, stretch up there, and look up! A Google image search of "ballet " pulls up pictures of women on pointe and men looking up to the balcony. Ballet has taken up to an extreme by having women dance around on their toes. Bent legs are a real no-no in ballet; if you're on relevé, your leg damn well better be straight unless you're doing hops en pointe. There are for the most part two levels in ballet, middle and up. Down is rarely used; sure, you plie for just about everything, but the plie isn't the end, it's the means. The most obvious exception is lunges, but those are usually only done as part of an adagio. All this is why my thighs always hurt the day after taking jazz, which could be seen as the complement to ballet as it's mostly done middle and down.

You know all that time you spent in ballet class mastering the "up?" Forget about it when you enter a ballroom studio. Ballroom uses all three levels equally in a manner unlike any other dance system I've studied. (Modern can be anything, of course, but I haven't studied much of any particular modern technique, except enough Horton to know that I'm not made for it.) When you're down, you need to be down, not just "below middle." This is something I tend to forget when my mind is focused on other things, like remembering what comes next. In the absence of conscious command, my body reverts to ballet technique. Just about anything my teacher tells me I'm doing wrong I can attribute to the fact that I'm doing it like a ballet dancer would do it. When I go "up" I straighten my legs, which is a real no-no in ballroom. It's actually hard for me not to straighten them, but I think I see the point: it's darned near impossible to maintain the correct hip placement with straight legs. I suppose, in this respect at least, I would be better off with less dance experience, as one of the more difficult things for beginning dancers to master is keeping their legs straight in relevé.

America's Ballroom Challenge, part I

2006-02-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

Did you remember to watch America's Ballroom Challenge last night? It was great to finally see professionals dancing with professionals. I haven't seen much of that since I started ballroom, and I was having trouble picturing what a lot of moves should look like. Now I have lots of examples! And I didn't have to pay $100 for a video!

I have to admit that I wasn't all that enthralled by the American dances. In some of the styles you could barely tell which dance they were doing because of all the flourishes and poses. I'm also going to take a moment to kvetch about the ladies' dresses, particularly the Smooth ones. The current fashion is to bare as much midriff as possible while keeping the illusion of a dress. This has led to tortuous cutouts that spoil the dancers' lines. You can be sexy and still be elegant, but this isn't the way to do it. I realize that I may come across as an old fuddy-duddy on this point, but for one thing I'm a traditionalist by nature, and for another, the costumes are blurring the line between ballroom dancer and Vegas showgirl. Dance isn't about showing skin, it's about dancing!

Costumes and choreography aside, the dancers were quite good. I mean, you'd kind of hope so, right? It was exciting to see Viktoria Belova and Eddie Stutts in the Standard final, since I see Ms. Belova teaching all the time. I even saw her and Eddie having a lesson of their own last Saturday. Everyone in the Standard final looked quite elegant (yea, no weird cutouts), and I felt very inspired by their performances. There were quite a few collisions in that group, but it makes sense given that it was the most progressive style.

My mom was paying more attention than I was; Tony Dovolani, one of the top finishers in the Smooth finals, is Stacey's partner on DWTS.

DWTS, weeks three and four

2006-02-01T18:31:00.000-05:00

Master P is gone, finally! It was becoming increasingly painful to watch him dance every week. I didn't mind that his technique was not so good; what bothered me was that he was barely even trying. I was shocked when the announcer-lady mentioned that while all of the other dancers had averaged 130 hours of training, P had only done 20. What message do you think he was really sending to the people in the 'hood? Ashley deserves sainthood for remaining positive throughout, at least on camera.

The level of dance in the competition is clearing rising. Some of these people are starting to look like dancers! Someone at some point commented on Drew's musicality, which really shouldn't surprise anyone given that he's a musician. (What do you call a musician without rhythm? "Waiter!") Speaking of music, some of the choices for the Paso Doble were truly appalling. How exactly is one supposed to imagine a bullfighter to "Thriller?"

This week everyone does the same dance for the first time, the Samba. The only dance left on the list is Viennese Waltz, so it will be interesting to see what happens next week.

DWTS, weeks one and two

2006-01-17T18:29:00.000-05:00

I missed the first episode of Dancing With The Stars due to a freak occurance on my VCR. I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up with two hours of CourtTV! Anyway, my first exposure was the Friday results show on the 6th, so it was difficult to get a feel for the dancers. I did get to see the current US champions dance to music by Burt Bacharach; unfortunately I can't remember their names, but seeing as their dance was pretty forgettable, that's not so surprising. It seemed like they were good dancers, but they didn't do much actual dancing. It was like watching a ballet piece composed mostly of chassés and arm waving. I also didn't like the way the woman's line broke at the wrist.

Last week I saw the Thursday show but not the results show, again due to trouble with my VCR. (Tivo is looking better all the time.) Stacy Keibler stood out for her Rumba; some of the other women were pretty good but didn't have the lines she did. From her bio it appears that she had a fair amount of dance training when she was young. You can see it in her upper body, that is if you can tear your eyes away from her long legs! This time around I actually recognized some basic steps in the Rumba. I do wonder if the dancers were told to stick closer to basics than the last group did, because this seemed to be true of even the pros who were in the competition for the second time. Speaking of which, it's been really nice to see more of Edyta this time around. She's really a good dancer, quite the opposite of Tatum O'Neil, who got voted off the show last week. Her Rumba was painful to watch - it was almost completely graceless.

The men were pretty good doing the Quickstep. P. Miller wants to keep his rapper look while dancing, and it just doesn't work for him. If he would put on a tux and dance shoes, his score would probably go up 5 points. That's an intruiguing idea, though, mixing ballroom and hip hop. I think it would actually work best in the Quickstep and possibly the Cha Cha. When Mr. Silvershoes and I took the hip hop class, the instructor gave us a brief demonstration of swing dance executed with hip hop style. It was amazing.

Seeing stars

2006-01-16T18:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was on a flight from Atlanta to Houston. While getting on the plane, I noticed a rather flamboyant gentleman sitting in first class. I immediately wondered if he was a stage performer. While waiting for the boarding line to move up the aisle, I witnessed the guy in front of this man babbling excitedly at him about someone he knew who got him his first job on Broadway. Gears...turning... It suddenly occured to me that the man must be actor, native Texan, and tall guy Tommy Tune, who is starring in a production of Dr. Dolittle in Houston starting tomorrow. Having graduated from Lamar High School in Houston, Mr. Tune was happy to lend his name to the Tommy Tune Awards for high school musical theater productions in the Houston area.

Might as well face it

2006-01-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted to blogging.

Last night I was thinking about a new book I'm reading on human sexuality and wanted to record some thoughts. Naturally I thought of blogging, but science doesn't fit in well with the theme of this blog, and my dog said that she's a little tired of writing about it. So, I thought, why not start a new blog? Thus was born Silver Science: Musings on Science, Anywhere. Damn Blogger for making this so easy. If you have an interest in science and want to read some technobabble, check it out. I plan to make it a more casual blog than this one; sure, I'll still check the grammar, but posts are likely to be shorter.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T01:01:00.000-05:00

On a personal note, I would like to wish "good riddance" to 2005. Since 2005 was, undeniably, the worst year of my life, I look forward to 2006, knowing that whatever happens will be an improvement over last year. That's not to say that good things didn't happen last year, and since I'd rather dwell on the positive than the negative, here are some of them:

-<>- I got to know some friends a great deal better through sharing my problems, and also received a tremendous amount of support and love. -<>- I had a "leading lady" role in a production. -<>- I performed on pointe for the first time since my ankle surgery in 2000. -<>- Mr. Silvershoes and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. -<>- I started studying a new kind of dance, ballroom. -<>- I got Mr. Silvershoes to go to several dance classes (tango and hip hop - we cool now). -<>- I started lifting weights and greatly enjoy having some upper body strength. -<>- I bought my first new car (a Prius!). -<>- I went to Hawai'i for the first time.

2006 is full of opportunities for new experiences and new friends - more on that later. For now I'm just happy to put 2005 behind me. Aloha, and the best of all possible wishes for you in 2006!

This is how bad my year was - when I went to Hawai'i, which should have been totally relaxing and enjoyable, I ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance! At least the EMT was cute.

Grab bag for the new year

2005-12-28T18:44:00.000-05:00

Here are a few things to keep an eye out for early next year:

January 5: The return of Dancing With The Stars at 7:00 pm Central time. This time around there will be 10 contestants, up from 6 last time. Four of the professionals will be returning: Ashley, Louis, Jonathan, and Edyta. (Hmm, none of them were finalists. Is that a good thing?)

January 18: The Fox network premiers a reality show that is ice skating's answer to DWTS. It's called (wait for it) Skating With Celebrities. Hosted by Scott Hamilton! From the commercials, it looks a lot more dangerous than ballroom. I wonder if they picked celebrities with some ice skating experience; it's strikes me that it's a lot easier to do a mediocre job of dancing than it is skating. Ah - the celebrities include Bruce Jenner, so I'm guessing they picked people who were on average more athletic than those on DWTS.

February 1 and 8 (possibly): Houston PBS may or may not show America's Ballroom Challenge, which is some sort of mini-competition filmed at the 2005 Ohio Star Ball. (Why they couldn't just show the OSB competition, I don't know.) Houston PBS doesn't have their February schedule available online yet, so I'm not sure on the dates. As they say, check your local listings.

February 17: Ballets Russes, a documentary about the two companies of the same name in early twentieth century, opens at River Oaks Theater. If you didn't understand all the fuss about Les Ballet Trockaderos, go see this film.

Maybe Never: Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet is another documentary that came and went about two years ago, apparently without much fanfare. You can get it on DVD at the link.

Happy Birthday to Silver Slippers!

2005-12-20T17:22:00.000-05:00

Exactly a year ago today Silver Slippers was born! What started as an exercise to keep myself from going insane has turned into something far more rewarding than I expected. (BTW, everyone in my head agrees that it worked.) I don't have any idea how many people read this blog, but if you're reading it right now, thank you!

By the numbers: number of posts (not including this one): 72 number of reviews of live performances: 26 number of comments: 9 (Come on, people, you can do better than that!) number of posts on "Dancing With The Stars": 9 number of reviews of movies: 5 number of reviews of dance made for video: 1 number of posts not about dance: 2

number of posts not about dance or my dog: 0 That comes out to about 1 1/3 posts per week (with a dog-to-dance ratio of 1 to 35) and attending one performance every two weeks. No wonder Mr. Silvershoes complains I'm never home!

A recital

2005-12-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

I recently dragged Mr. Silvershoes to a show at the dance studio at which I've been studying ballroom. It was basically an adult recital, primarily with teachers partnered with students. The range of abilities varied from not so much to phenomenal, and we didn't even stay for the whole show. A few notables:

A lady who looked a great deal like my 80-year-old grandmother and performed not one but two dances, Tango and Swing. Her movement was restricted, but the spirit was there, and the crowd loved it. She had great legs, too. When she started into the Swing you could almost see her back in the 40's. (Someone in the audience actually called out "You go, girl!")
A Cha Cha and Rumba in the International style by a great young couple. Oddly, although the lady looked quite good in the Rumba, I got the impression that she was far less comfortable performing it than the Cha Cha.
An International Waltz by a male student and a professional, Milana Pliner. Ms. Pliner was lovely in the waltz, but she very much had the look of a Latin dancer doing Standard.
Another International Waltz by a male student and a professional, this time with Viktoria Belova. Although standing next to each other Ms. Belova and Ms. Pliner have similar styles (clothing choices, hairstyles), they dance quite differently. Ms. Belova was sublime in the waltz, smooth, flowing, and totally without affectation. She and her partner Eddie Stutts recently placed 6th in International Standard at the Ohio Star Ball, so we should get to see them when that event is televised on PBS in early February 2006.

Watching all the dancers made me itch to be up there performing. I haven't performed since August, and I'm not currently in rehearsal for anything. I think I'm suffering from withdrawal....

Damn, it's hard to stayed seated when "Great Balls of Fire" comes on.

The edge of security

2005-12-15T18:24:00.000-05:00

Last night in ballroom class the instructor used me to demonstrate a throwaway. (See this page for examples of the throwaway position, including the picture at left.) He's done this before, and I like to think that he chooses me because I'm comfortable doing the position, it looks right when I do it (with him, anyway), and I trust him. This is the trust that you have to give your partner in order to dance successfully. If you don't trust your partner, it's likely that you'll move more tentatively or offer more resistance. There are some moves that simply don't work if you do that, but that work rather easily if you throw yourself into them, and I mean that literally. Of course, you sometimes get dropped on your head whether you trust your partner or not, but that's where you gain advantage being a ballet dancer - that bun serves as a pretty good shock absorber.

Anyway, the teacher was trying to make a point about the man's position in the throwaway and how to support the woman. I went into the throwaway, and he put me lower. And lower. And lower. It got to the point where I felt if I went just a little further, I'd fall over, and my instinct was to resist it. Instead, I decided to trust him, and I let him take me just that little bit further. It was the most extraordinary feeling - he had taken me just to the brink. I was perfectly balanced, not falling backwards, but no longer leaning into him. This guy really knows what he's doing. What made it so satisfying was the soft collective gasp the class let out when I went that last bit, which totally surprised me. Now if only someone'd had a camera so I'd know just how far you have to go to get that gasp.

Skiagraph, December 10, 2005, Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex

2005-12-13T18:48:00.000-05:00

This new production by Suchu was like one long dream - a pleasant dream, but a long one. Choreographed by Jennifer Wood, it was somewhat arbitrarily split into two halves to allow for an intermission. Eight hardworking dancers were onstage for almost the entire show. There were brief sections when fewer dancers were onstage, but no one dancer was dominant. Like a Dali painting, surrealism pervaded this work; it was not meant to be understood per se, merely experienced. Ms. Wood made great use of a sturdy farmhouse kitchen table and eight chairs which featured prominently in a great deal of the dancing, including the most surreal section at the beginning of the second half. This scene consisted of several tableaux across the stage, including an art lecturer and three observers, a man at a restaurant that served bowls of dry cereal, and a dancer riding a bicycle through it all. The man at the restaurant went through several cycles of eating the cereal (Fruit Loops I think), getting the check, and paying the bill. Each time he would use a large spoon to toss the cereal out of an oversized bowl towards his mouth, with most of the cereal ending up on the floor. As a dancer, my first thought was, "How are they going to dance on that for the rest of the show?" (They didn't - it got swept up by other dancers.)

In addition to the surreal was the whimsical. In the first half, the dancers came out two at a time and danced with a chair (one each) as if it were a person. Sometimes they rocked the chair like a baby, sometimes like a lover. I never knew one could have such an intimate relationship with furniture, although the relationship between my dog and my couch comes close. The second half contained a skit in which the dancers started by huddling around a suitcase, acting as though they were taking something out. Given the show to this point, I expected them to turn around with nothing in their hands. I was therefore surprised when they popped up with hand puppets! Three of the dancers sat at the table with one rooster puppet each, the "lead singers" of an instrumental pop song that somehow sounded Asian. The other five dancers were the backup with two puppets apiece of various animals. It was equally amusing to watch the dancers' faces and their puppets as they "sang" along with serious but lighthearted intensity.

The music for the show, about which I can't give details because I no longer have the program, was a collection of electronic instrumentals. Some of the songs consisted of not much more than various eletronic pops and hisses. Normally I wouldn't listen to music like that for any length of time, so I was impressed to find that Ms. Wood made the movement compelling enough to keep my interest, but it also contributed to my sense that some sections were too long. The lighting design was excellent, creating a mood without being intrusive. The costumes were simple pants and layered short-sleeved shirts. The eight dancers were Daniel Adame, Chad Chasteen, Dana Wessale Crawford, Jenny de Vega Haines, Jessi Harper, Aileen Mapes, Tina Shariffskul, and Lindsey Thompson.

"Skiagraph" is defined as "see radiograph." A radiograph is what your radiologist reads: x-rays, CT scans, and the like. "Skia" is Greek for shadow.

The Illumination Project, December 1, 2005, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

2005-12-09T18:29:00.000-05:00

The dance community has been particularly hard-hit by AIDS. Several dancers whom I've known personally are either fighting the disease or have died from it, including one of Mr. Silvershoes's cousins. A few years ago I met a man who danced with Houston Ballet when the disease was first emerging. He said that seeing so many of his colleagues suffering and dying from AIDS played a large part in his decision to find another career. It's a shame then that more of the Houston dance community, by which I mean both dancers and audience members, doesn't come out to this annual performance to raise awareness about World AIDS Day and the ongoing fight against this disease. First, because it's an important cause, and second, because they're missing some wonderful performances. This project is co-produced by Dominic Walsh Dance Theater and Hope Stone Dance. The theater space was donated by the Hobby Center, and the stage crew and some (probably all) of the performers volunteered their services. This year marked the fourth year for the project, with this year's proceeds going to the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative and Bering Omega Community Services. The program was an eclectic mix of live dance, dance made for video, and theater arts. I saw the first piece on the program, Duo, back in May, but performed by two women, both on pointe. (I didn't write about it in my post, but here's a link anyway.) On Thursday it was performed by Lindsey McGill (in May also, still on pointe) and Dominic Walsh. It may have been because I was a lot closer to the performers this time, but the dynamic between the two dancers seemed different, with more playful back-and-forth. It was also interesting to see the differences in the way the two dancers danced the same movement, particularly with one on pointe and one not. It's Gonna Rain was a fascinating study in repetition. The music was crafted by Steve Reich from a short sound clip of a southern preacher. We heard the clip in its entirety three times at the beginning of the piece - I (mis?)remember something about Moses and a flood, although Noah and a flood would make more sense. Regardless, the bulk of the music was snippets of the phrase "it's gonna rain," repeated at about 1 Hz and evolving slightly each time. It sounded as though Mr. Reich had kept the duration of the snippet constant but shifted the starting point. The repetition provided a beat of sorts, and the tempo varied occasionally as the snippet was stretched or contracted. The movement, choreographed and performed by David Neumann, paralleled the music, repeating but evolving. Mr. Neumann danced in a bright white special at the front of the stage, with the rest of the stage dark. To my eyes the quick movement against the dark background often appeared as a long-exposure photo, lending additional dimension. Rounding out the dance pieces were Rosa...48 Hours... by Paoli Georgudis and Glass Half Full by Jane Weiner. In Rosa Ms. Georgudis and Mr. Walsh moved with excrutiating slowness to music provided live by Mercury Baroque. I didn't get it until after the show one of the people I was with suggested that it evoked the feeling of frustration and helplessness experienced by people watching their bodies slowly fail. Duh... wish I'd thought of that. Glass Half Full was an ensemble piece for six dancers and had lovely flow and energy. It made me think that there is too little of this kind of choreography in "contemporary" performances; so much of it is solos and duets. On the theater side was a monologue from The Laramie Project, a play about how the town of Laramie responded to the murder of Matthew Shepherd. It was movingly performed by Rutherford Cravens, who is, by the way, one of the voices in the video game Axis & Allies. Apprentices from the Theater Under The Stars conservatory sang and signed "Love & Love Alone." There was one video, a "dance made for video" called Outside In choreographed by Victoria Marks and directed by Margaret Williams. This work was remarkable for many reasons, the foremost being that half of the six dancers had significant physical disabilities. The interaction between the dancers was warm and affectionate and served to humanize people whose disabilities often make us feel uncomfortable. One man, who had no legs whatsoever, was phenomenal. Ms. Marks's choreography demonstrated his broad range of movement; in fact, when he mirrored the movements of a dancer with legs, it became clear that he could do some things that a leggy dancer could not. Several elements reminded me of Reines d'un Jour from the Big Range video night: dancing in a green field, a succession of people passing on a kiss.

My blog is a googlewhack

2005-12-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Got this as a comment last week on my May 20, 2005 post:

tib catania said... did you know that your website is a googlewhack?! a google search for 'arthropodic underpants' returned only your website. Sorry to pester you but i was bored and stared 'whacking' see http://www.googlewhack.com/rules.htm for more info. Cheers Tib - UK

And it's actually true! Hey, my first international comment!

Color my world

2005-11-28T18:02:00.000-05:00

Your Blog Should Be Green

Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff. You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas. However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Thoughtless commentators, consider yourselves warned.

The Cooking Show, November 6, 2005, Wortham Center's Cullen Theater

2005-11-22T18:44:00.000-05:00

This work by Hope Stone is eclectic, suprising, and delightful. I saw excerpts of The Cooking Show back in June, so I already had some idea what was coming, but I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the show. A one-act performance, each section went in a new direction. It started with an "appetizer," as the program called it: Swedish Meatballs, choreographed by Jane Weiner and Lawrence Keigwin and performed by Ms. Weiner and Rob Davidson. This back-and-forth duet evoked the experience of sharing a kitchen with a spouse, where different habits lead to minor conflicts that are resolved by mutual affection. (Think of your significant other drinking juice straight from the carton or leaving a bag of chips open to get stale. Not that it's ever happened to me or anything.) The music, by Caterina Valente, was swingish and created a playful mood. The "main course" was The Cooking Show proper, which featured all of the Hope Stone dancers as well as some children from the Hope Center school. Each section presented a different aspect of how food affects our lives, from cookbooks to chefs to problems we might have with eating it. After the initial section, in which the dancers threw flour onto the stage, Alicia Moore Chew entered wearing a long, hooded cape and carrying a Betty Crocker cookbook (yes, the one your mother bought you when you went to college) in the manner of a medieval monk. As she chanted a list of ingredients, she proceeded slowly around the stage, the train of her cape sweeping aside the flour. It might not have been significant, but by the end of the section there was very nearly a peace symbol marked out on the floor. One of my favorite moments came in the "snack food" section, which was accompanied on piano by Stephen Tran, an accompaniest at the Houston Ballet Academy, in fact a very fine one. The dancers entered the stage carrying bags of popcorn, potato chips, and the like. In one swift move, Lindsey McGill placed a bag of Lays potato chips on the stomach of Joe Modlin and then swung up and into Mr. Modlin to pop the bag in a rather striking manner. The sharpest comedy came when Susan Blair, Amy Ell, and Penny Tschirhart brought purses onto the stage from which they each produced a sizeable raw steak. Placing the steaks on a table, each woman proceeded to tenderize her steak with a small mallet. There was no music except the sound of slapping the steaks and pounding the mallets in a complicated rhythm that the dancers did an excellent job maintaining. After one of the women had a rather more satistfying experience using a salt shaker, jealousy ensued. The women progressed to one-upwomanship, producing larger and larger mallets from their purses. In the end the steaks were left in tatters and the audience was left in stitches. The bios in the program had a rather unusual feature, with each company member including a comment about food. Ms. McGill includes a recipe for a concoction of chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, and butter; my only question is what does she call it? (probably "dessert") Ice cream and sushi were popular choices among the other dancers. Four-year-old Claire Carothers professes to wanting to be either a farmer, an astronaut, or Cinderella when she grows up. Hmm, me too!

A world of pure imagination

2005-11-21T18:01:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I took a master class taught by Dominic Walsh. It was the second time I'd taken his class, and this time I actually got some corrections. I'm usually not nervous when a teacher watches me, but I'm usually not taking from one of my favorite dancers ever, either. I tried to remind myself that he's just a regular person, like the Nobel Prize winner with whom I once shared an elevator. (I take it back. That guy was a practically a force of nature. It's the other Nobel Prize winners that I knew whom I saw as regular people, because I first knew them as professors.) I was so distracted that I totally blew the arms on one center combination. Geez, you'd think I was some nerdy guy trying to speak to a female. Anyhoo - the point of my story is that DW talked a lot about dance as imagination. In giving a correction on grande battements, he likened the feeling first to having lasers shoot out of your hands and feet, then to being a hose and having water gush out the end of both appendages, and finally to having paint on your fingers and toes and reaching for the canvas. He stated that in order to develop as a dancer, you had to use your imagination to guide your movement. It's true that ballet classes are filled with corrections that start "Imagine that...", but I never thought of imagination as an important skill for technique. Maybe that's why some students don't get my corrections no matter how many times I explain. If they can't see it in their mind, how can they feel it in their bodies? We did a lot of improvisation in my modern classes in college. The teacher quickly dispelled the notion that we were trying to "be" trees or bees or whatever. Instead he said to use the motion of the tree to inspire movement; don't be the tree, move like the tree. Although frankly, there are some days I'd rather be a tree. The moral of this story? Dance is a simile, not a metaphor.

I meant to do that

2005-11-08T18:58:00.000-05:00

Last night in ballet class I did a perfect double attitude turn. It was just like when I turn perfectly in my dreams. I felt like I was on a pole. So there I am, gliding around, thinking, "Am I good or what?" when I come around the corner of the second turn and realize that I didn't pay attention to how we were supposed to finish. I ended up falling forward most ungracefully while looking at the person next to me to see what she did. So much for my delusions of grandeur. I also dream that I have great extension....at least with the turns, there's some hope.

If you say so....

2005-11-01T18:55:00.000-05:00

I've started taking Latin classes and have come up with a few additions to my "ballet and ballroom" list. I thought learning to step heel first was hard, but it was nothing compared to having the correct posture for Latin dances. In every style of dancing I've studied, be it ballet, jazz, or modern, or even yoga, the one constant was the posture, the alignment of the pelvis with respect to the spine. The butt's brought in without being tucked. As a natural swayback, this has always been one of my biggest weaknesses and one of the most common corrections that I get in ballet class. So when I get to the Latin class and the teacher tells me to, in effect, stick my butt out, well, it's not so simple. I'll start out that way, but I'm having to put so much attention on where to put my feet and which way to swivel my hips that my posture automatically goes back to what my body has known for 29 years. The teacher keeps explaining the correct posture to me as though I haven't understood him. He doesn't understand that while my brain knows what to do, my body has other ideas! I took a few master classes last month, introductions to Cha Cha and Samba. The teacher was great and imparted a ton of information vocally and also by example. I've found Cha Cha very frustrating thus far, so when the teacher called out "Turn out your legs and point your feet," I thought I was in heaven. Finally something I'm supposed to do in a Latin dance that feels natural. After practicing what I learned for a few hours, I discovered that tilting my pelvis forwards seems to make it easier to produce the correct hip movements. If that's wrong, for goodness sake someone tell me (here! now!) before I get that in my body. If that's right, I can think in terms of "this is where my pelvis needs to be to get my hips where they need to go" and not "do the opposite of what you've been told your whole life." Just got back from Hawai'i, which has nothing to do with dance except that I watched Mad Hot Ballroom again on the flight back. Those kids can dance!

In the Pink!, October 8, 2005, Arabia Shrine Grand Ballroom

2005-10-12T18:55:00.000-04:00

Ok, so this isn't purely a "performance," but it was pure fun. A gala/benefit put on by the Houston chapter of USA Dance (formerly USABDA), it combined dancing to big band music with a program of local ballroom dancers. The band was Brass Rhythm and Reeds, which played favorites from the big band era. Anita LaVallee Hughes, the vocalist in the band, has a beautiful voice and really captures the big band style. Being in the ballroom was like stepping back in time. I got to dance just about every style except Samba. The dance performances included Latin dances (Rebecca Avila and Ryan Lewis, Melissa Blanco and Brent Borbon) and Standard (Sabra Yarbrough and Curtis Provost), and I was quite impressed with the level of the dancing. José Melendez performed with two of his students, one 8 and the other 9 years old. No two ways about it, kids are cute. Proceeds from the evening went to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Mobile Mammography Program. The event was officially part of National Ballroom Dance Week, which actually took place back in September. Usually the gala is that same week, but it was moved this year to correspond with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A fortuitous move, because Houston had an unexpected visitor the week the event would otherwise have taken place. Isn't that interesting - Melissa and Brent have been on Star Search. Check out the link for a video of them dancing.

T'Kia Lanefesh: A Call to the Soul, October 1, 2005, sanctuary of Congregation Emanu El

2005-10-11T18:27:00.000-04:00

"The work explores the universal themes of repentance and forgiveness and will be presented as part of Selichot, which marks the official beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days. This new ballet is being set to an arrangement of traditional Hebrew melodies, including the Kol Nidrei for Cello & Orchestra, Op. 47 by Max Bruch." This quote comes from the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater website, and does a better job explaining what this performance is about than I could, as I plum forgot to pick up a program. Choreographed by Dominic Walsh and coming in at a brief 30 minutes, it was more than worth the trip to see this performance, even though it was the only piece on the program. The piece was danced beautifully by 5 women and 2 men; the number of dancers may have been a coincidence, but the seven dancers at times resembled the seven candles on a menorah. The dancers at times encircled the altar at the back of the dias, sometimes to pick up candles, and other times to observe rituals with items used in Jewish worship. Canon was used frequently, but not overused. The dancing alternated between group movement and duets and trios. The choreography and dancing were filled with emotion, grace, and reverence. The movement was more serene than in other dances I've seen by Walsh. Some of the music was recorded, and some performed live by a male vocalist. I hope this piece can be brought to the stage in a future DWDT performance, as it deserves wider exposure for its artistic merits as well as its multicultural aspects. Be sure to catch the company (along with Hope Stone) at this year's Illumination Project performance! And while I'm plugging upcoming events, be sure to also check out Hope Stone's Cooking show on November 5 and 6; see The Dance Card for info.

Swing your partners

2005-10-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to three scientists for a chemical process that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences press release compares to a "change-your-parteners dance." To quote the press release further,

The word metathesis means 'change-places'. In metathesis reactions, double bonds are broken and made between carbon atoms in ways that cause atom groups to change places. This happens with the assistance of special catalyst molecules. Metathesis can be compared to a dance in which the couples change partners.

The web page includes a goofy flash animation of the process. I guess catalyst pairs have dreadlocks.

Ouch!

2005-10-01T18:41:00.000-04:00

I've written about how beautiful ballroom is, I've written about how hard ballroom is, but I haven't yet written on how expensive ballroom is! I bought my first pair of real, honest-to-goodness ballroom shoes today to the tune of $167 (including tax). Of course, I had to get the most expensive pair in the store because with my extremely narrow feet, they were the only ones that fit. They have 2 1/2-inch heels with a tiny footprint (heelprint?), and dancing in them feels like being on demi-pointe all the time. Up to now I've been practicing in my character shoes - it's nice to finally get some use out of them - and I've noticed that it's gotten me somewhat used to being in heels. I still rock around a bit in the character shoes, which scares me because I really don't want to have ankly surgery again. I think I'll practice in the new shoes at home for a while before taking them to class. Hopefully that will make it less likely that I fall on my face (or butt) in front of everyone. How graceful would that look? You'd think, given that I don't give a thought to paying $60 for a pair of pointe shoes that last about a month during heavy rehearsal, that this shoe price shouldn't be so painful, because I'm sure these shoes will last much longer than three pairs of pointe shoes. I've just never paid this much for ONE pair of shoes before.

Dance on TV

2005-09-30T18:45:00.000-04:00

Last week saw a return of Dancing With the Stars, a rematch between John and Kelly. My retention of this show is a little lower than normal, because I watched half of it before evacuating for Hurricane Rita and half afterwards. Both couples did a Latin dance, a Standard dance, and a freestyle dance. IMHO, Kelly and Alec do a better job with the Latin dances, and John and Charlotte do a better job with the Standard dances. John and Charlotte's Waltz was just beautiful. It was good to see Kelly and Alec put more dance and fewer tricks into their freestyle routine; unfortunately for them, the routine they came up with was not so interesting. John and Charlotte's freestyle had all their usual charm and character, plus a Bluebird lift! I was happy to hear that John and Charlotte won this time around. It gives everyone something to feel good about. While I was at my mom's, I finally got to see an episode of "So You Think You Can Dance." The field had been narrowed to six dancers. I can't say that I particularly liked any of them, although some of them were quite good technically. The format doesn't lend itself to expressive dancing, so we saw more turning and jumping than artistry. It's great that dance is getting more exposure on TV, but is the kind of dance we want exposed? To paraphrase Monty Python: "I object to all this dancing on television. I mean, I keep falling off!"

Fallen Sindhur, September 17, 2005, Barnevelder

2005-09-25T13:35:00.000-04:00

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance by Urban Indian Beat, even though I was so tired I could barely sit up in my chair. Sindhur, as explained to me by an Indian-American friend, is the red powder that married women wear in their hair. The company strives to combine classical Indian dancing with Western forms of dance (ballet, jazz, modern). This piece had themes of the struggles of Indian women to forge a unique identity, or at least I think it did, as I was unable to understand the spoken poetry. I can only guess was in Hindi or Bengali; it would have been nice, and furthered the company's mission of bringing Indian culture to the Houston community, to have had translations in the program.

The dancers had various strengths, with some strongest in the Western styles and some in the Indian styles, but most of them did a good job with both. The choreography kept my interest, but the first half lacked compelling movement in the short partnered sections between men and women. Fortunately, the second half did not suffer this shortcoming, and there were some nice song-length duets. For me, the most notable dancing took place at the end of the show in the form of a breathtaking solo by one of the women, whose name I unfortunately do not know. Like the recent FrenetiCore performance of Deviations, this show combined music, poetry, and projected images. Some nice pictures can be seen on the Spacetaker website. Unlike the FrenetiCore style, the projections were abstract images that served more as an extension of the lighting design than a separate element.

One Last Dance (movie), September 10, 2005, my mom's living room

2005-09-13T18:25:00.000-04:00

Like The Company, I ran across this movie at Blockbuster, having never heard of it before. Of course I recognized Patrick Swayze, and my mom recognized his wife, Lisa Niemi. They both star in the film and were involved in writing, directing, and producing it. While the plot of the movie is Oscar-worthy compared to The Company, it still is somewhat predicatable and forced. But it's a dance film, so that's not the point, or should I say pointe. By the way, one exception to that rule is "Save the Last Dance;" it may succeed where others fail because the story line doesn't include numerous performances and therefore doesn't rely on them to keep the audience's interest. The plot line in this film revolves around a gala performance the company puts on after the artistic director's death (or stroke - I wasn't paying that much attention) in order to save the company from bankruptcy. The choreography comes from Alonzo King (Alonzo King's LINES ballet), Patsy Swayze, Dwight Roden(?), and Doug Varone (Doug Varone and Dancers). It also appears that many of the dancers, who are all first-rate, come from the two companies. Except for a few scenes where Patrick Swayze is performing his inner struggle manifest as dance, the choreography is quite appealing. Why does every film about ballet have an arrogant asshole of an artistic director? If that's the way the ballet world is, and I suspect it's true more often than not, I'm glad I didn't choose dance as a career. Do such people really think that abuse leads to the best performances? Maybe the best technique, but not the best art. I wanted my mom to see Shall We Dance (the American Version - mom's not into foreign films), so I watched it again with her. I was rather surprised how many more of the steps I recognized after only a month and a half.

Stream of Consciousness: The Verge of Insanity, August 26, 2005, The Houston School

2005-09-12T18:04:00.000-04:00

This show was my first exposure to the dos chicas theater commune. The subtitle of this program is "An Assemblage of Playlets by Local Scribes in Need of Therapy." The show consisted of 11 short stories, and I won't even attempt to describe them all. It was all narrated by Captain Snappy Pants, who discoursed between the stories on such subjects as sex and retribution. If you haven't gotten the picture yet, this is not your typical play, and that's what I liked about it most. The performance space was tiny, probably the smallest black box theater feasible. The actors were great, although some were better than others. I think the most interesting section was "A Time to Confess," in which some disaster has occurred in an apartment building, and three of the tenants are stuck within speaking distance. We never got to see the two men, and we only saw the woman as a sillhouette, pacing back and forth with her cane. Not being able to see the characters, I was forced to focus on the voices. It's a bit like dancers dancing without music.

Ballet and ballroom

2005-09-08T18:51:00.000-04:00

Things about ballet that make it easier to learn/do ballroom:

The posture (upper body lifted and tilted back, head to side) is just like a back port de bras.
The upper arms are held in a similar manner.
For turns, especially spin turns, I already know how to hold my center.
The way that it feels natural to turn my head is usually the right direction.
Waltz steps have the same lilt as waltz steps in ballet.
I know how to turn my head quickly (useful for tango).
Anything with the leg extended feels like a tendu.
I'm used to changing levels (relevé, plié).
I'm used to moving my feet quickly (petite allegro).
I can step behind myself easily.
In the Latin dances, I'm all over turning out and pointing my feet.

Things about ballet that make it harder to learn/do ballroom:

Turnout, especially in promenade position in tango.
For years it was drilled into to me to always step with the toes first.
For years, it was also drilled into me to not stick my butt out, but you're supposed to for the Latin dances.

This list will get updated as more things occur to me.

[11-1-05] Added 11 on +, 3 on -.

Rain, rain, go away

2005-09-02T18:32:00.000-04:00

There is little I can say to describe my feelings about the catastrophe that is Hurricane Katrina. It is overwhelming. I send out best wishes and prayers for each and every person affected by the storm. The devastation in New Orleans is particularly striking to me because I was just there two months ago and vividly remember the sights and sounds of the city. I want to take a moment to remember the performers I saw in New Orleans back in June. It was my first real visit to the city (I had stayed one night for work back in April 2004), and I soaked up as much New Orleans jazz as I could. One night I debated having dinner at a pricy restaurant (Arnaud's Jazz Bistro) that featured a jazz trio; I finally decided, well, how often do I get to New Orleans? and had dinner there in spite of having to wait 30 minutes by myself for a table. It was worth it. That restaurant, on Bourbon Street, is likely flooded right now. One evening, I got to cruise along the Mississipi on the steamboat Natchez. On it there was a 7-8 piece Dixieland jazz band, the "Dukes of Dixieland," that played exceptionally. At the end of the night, I got a chance to tell one of the musicians how much I enjoyed the performance. He was touched and said that he had noticed me; it seems I stood out as one of the few people on the boat who actually listened to their music. Hopefully the Natchez survived the storm; it is a piece of living history. Wandering up and down Bourbon Street in search of music, I listened in on half a dozen performances. I remember thinking that New Orleans must have the best street musicians in the world. I stopped for a while in Fritzel's European Jazz Pub, a study in incongruity with its German beer hall decor and Dixieland jazz music. I saw another trio, memorable not only for their great performance but also because all three appeared to be in their twenties. It was good to see some younger blood carrying on the tradition. I also poked my head in Preservation Hall, where I heard a rendition of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." The irony of that memory brings tears to my eyes:

I see skies of blue and clouds of white The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

I hope that the city survives, rebuilds, and regains its vitality. And I wish I'd gotten a beignet while I was there. If I ever do, the sweetness will be tinged with sorrow. If you've ever had the pleasure of listening to a musician in New Orleans, please consider donating to the Preservation Hall Hurricane Relief Fund. 100% of the money raised goes to support New Orleans musicians.

Dare to be stupid

2005-08-29T18:59:00.000-04:00

Want to make a dancer with 29 years of experience feel like a complete novice? Put her in a ballroom class. After taking a few months' worth of classes in International Standard, I have a new appreciation for the 14 years I had to learn ballet when I was growing up. Thanks, Mom, for starting me when I was three! I know I can learn the ballroom technique, but I doubt I'll ever feel the same mastery of it that I feel of ballet. I'm not trying to say that I'm the world's greatest ballerina, just that I'm very comfortable with the movement vocabulary. And speaking of vocabularies, I'm having to learn a whole new one for ballroom. You've seen below my explorations of "telemarks" and "cortés." (I could go off on about five different tangents at this point, but let's not derail my train of thought.) My teacher recites the names of each step as he demonstrates it, but, as I'm discovering, it's a great deal more difficult to learn a combination when you have to remember the components of the steps (or "patterns" as they like to call them) in addition to the order. In ballet class, the teacher could call out "jeté, jeté, pas de bourreé, ballotté," and I would know what to do without having to think, "Ok, start by brushing my right foot to the side, jump off my left, and land with my right foot replacing it," et cetera. I'm not crazy about an art form that's been codified to the extent ballroom has, but one advantage of that, at least for blogging, is that I already know how to spell the pattern names from staring at the charts, trying to match what we did in class with "LF, backing LOD...." I had to look up spellings for half the ballet terms above! I suppose it helps that most of the terms are in English and not French. It's actually kind of fun to feel stupid in a dance class. I've always loved learning, and this gives me a chance to learn something entirely new about one of the things I love best, dancing. It may also give me new insight on teaching ballet to adult beginners. Ballet knowledge is definitely making it easier to learn ballroom, but more on that in a later post.

FLY in New York

2005-08-29T18:49:00.000-04:00

It's nice to see a local dance company reviewed in the New York Times. FLY Dance Company was in the city (New York) to perform in the Lincoln Out of Doors Festival and got a nice write-up in yesterday's edition. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, go to the Miller Outdoor Theater this Saturday, September 3, where FLY is presenting a free show.

Waltz across Texas

2005-08-26T18:31:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally found out what those funny-sounding waltz steps are. Turns out an Open Telemark is just a Closed Telemark that ends in Promenade Position. Does that clear it up for everybody? No? Note: The Cross Hesitation can be used from other positions and may be overturned, but only when the Supreme Court is in session. And a Hover Corte is really a Hover Corté. The Hoover Corté is a different step entirely and can only be done on carpet. One other comment on this old post: it appears that ridiculous amounts of feathers are no longer in fashion in the ballroom world (thank you, God). Just one more fashion disas... uh, I mean style to chalk up to the ol' Eighties.

My apple has no worm

2005-08-08T18:52:00.000-04:00

August is something of a desert for dance performances. Ok, I missed a Flamenco show on Saturday at Talento Bilingue de Houston that sounded great, but Saturday night I didn't even have the energy to watch the movie I rented, much less go to a performance. I do however, plan to be at the FrenetiCore performance at Barnevelder this Friday. Boldly going where no other dance company goes, FrenetiCore is presenting Deviations on August 12, 13, 15, 19, and 20. If you think you know fairy tales, think again; poet Anne Sexton retells some of the tales collected by the Grimm brothers in her book Transformations. FrenetiCore presents its interpretation of this poetry set to music by Two Star Symphony and Robert Thoth of FrenetiCore. It's powerful stuff:

If you danced from midnight to six A.M. who would understand? [...] The insomniac listening to his heart thumping like a June bug, listening on his transistor to Long John Nebel arguing from New York, lying on his bed like a stone table, would understand.

Sounds like some rehearsals I've been to. By the way, if you've ever asked yourself, "Self, how did the Barnvelder Movement/Arts Complex get its name?", the answer, a quote from the link above, is, "Barnevelder is a Dutch breed of big range of chicken and a city in the Netherlands." Ask a silly question....

You go, girl

2005-08-01T18:01:00.000-04:00

I'm pleased to announce that my dog Gretchen has started a blog. Check it out at dogsdotooblog.blogspot.com: Blogging the Binkie.

It's not just me

2005-07-28T18:40:00.000-04:00

According to an article by Bill Carter in today's New York Times, the judging in the final episode of Dancing with the Stars was not fixed. That leaves temporary blindness or incompetence. But what's more interesting than that is the fact that Kelly would have won the last episode whether the judges gave her 10's or 1's. She had already won the audience vote, and that vote held more sway than the judges' vote.

The president of ABC Entertainment suggested that Kelly got a larger percentage of the audience vote because she appears in a soap opera. Duh. According to the article, "...Ms. Monaco took umbrage at that suggestion, saying she surely has had less exposure on television than Mr. O'Hurley, who was an occasional guest star (as J. Peterman) in the 1990's on the NBC hit comedy 'Seinfeld.'" Yes, let's compare the enthusiasm of fans of current soap operas with fans of a show that ran SEVEN YEAR AGO. 'Nuf said.

As the article states, "The network acknowledged that the outcome had offended a sizable portion of the show's audience." That would be anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of dancing, because the people I've heard from weren't offended by the audience vote (or at least weren't surprised by it) but by the judges' scores.

ABC is going to produce another installment in this series, and they're considering somehow announcing the audience vote before the next weekly installment. It's unclear to me how that would make any difference to the outcome. Are they going to have an episode whose sole purpose is to ditch one of the competitors? Apparently that's what they do on American Idol. Either way, ABC can expect to have a large audience for the next installment; this installment had the largest audience for a summer show since Survivor. I'll watch it even if it's judged by a box of rocks.

After you've taken umbrage, where do you store it?

Shall We Dance? (movie), July 21, 2005, my living room

2005-07-25T18:23:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are my thoughts on the American version of the Japanese film of the same name. This version follows the original version very closely, with a few exceptions, like the fact that the main character is a lawyer rather than an accountant. Of course Richard Gere (as John Clark, the main character) and Susan Sarandon (as his wife, Beverly) are great, and JLo does a surprisingly credible job as Paulina, the professional ballroom dancer with a mysterious past. Somewhere in the "extras" on the DVD, one of the other actors says something about how you really believe she's a championship dancer. Well, he might, but I don't. She does do a very good job, but again it's the shoulders that give it away; they're just a little stiff, just a little too high. Try as she might, JLo also doesn't quite capture the soul-searching loneliness of Mai Kishikawa, who plays the equivalent part in the Japanese version. Ok, I can't stand it any more. Consider this a plug for a documentary called The Japanese Version. This film explores Western influences on Japanese popular culture. Well, here we have an example of Japanese popular culture retooled for Americans! There's some good dancing in the movie. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that some of the moves Link and Bobby do in the Latin competition aren't exactly standard and probably aren't allowed. There's a steamy scene in which John and Paulina tango alone, with the lights off; you can almost see the sparks from all the energy passing between them. The music for that scene is great, but I'll have to get back to you on who it is. The soundtrack also includes a lovely song by Peter Gabriel called "Book of Love."

Doggie Dancing

2005-07-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

How fun - Blogger just made it easier to include images! Here's an action shot of my darling doggie. Keep an eye out for a post about a dance I choreographed about her.

Oh, if you're wondering why she's playing sitting down, it's because she's ruptured multiple intervertebral disks and is paralyzed in her back legs. As you can see, it doesn't slow her down much!

Dancing with the Stars, final episode

2005-07-07T18:34:00.000-04:00

Bah. Tara Lipinski.

To quote my mom, "Once again naked shake your booty and tricks won out over good dancing. But that’s not really a surprise, is it…."

Dancing with the Stars, week 5

2005-07-05T18:02:00.000-04:00

And then there were two.... In the penultimate episode, the couples each performed two dances, the Foxtrot and the Paso Doble. John and Charlotte kicked ass; now every time I see the Paso Doble I'll think of Fernando! I looked for evidence that the dancers were "driving on the slow" in the Foxtrot. Did I see it? Maybe - I think I need to watch it a few more times. IMHO, John and Charlotte have consistently presented routines that are the purest of whatever dance they are doing; in other words, if you want to know what a dance is supposed to look like, watch them. I'm something of a traditionalist, so naturally this appeals to me. That doesn't mean you shouldn't push the boundaries, just don't destroy them! This picture shows how Kelly really needs to relax when she's trying to be graceful. I have to admit that Kelly is doing a much better job than I would have predicted at the beginning of the show. She has a real fighting spirit, and it has served her well. That said, if John and Charlotte don't win next week, I'll be sorely disappointed (as will they). It will be Michelle Kwan versus Tara Lipinski all over again. (Sorry - I went to the Galleria yesterday, "home of Olympic champion Tara Lipinski".) I just read Bruno's weekly blog. He gets to say more there than he does during the show, and he comes off better when he has more time to think about what he's saying. Many of his comments echo mine - do you think he reads my blog? ;) Tomorrow's the big night - merde to all!

Big Range Dance Festival, Program D, June 16, 2005, Barnevelder Theater

2005-06-29T01:27:00.000-04:00

I'm writing this from the 38th floor of the Sheraton in New Orleans. My room has a floor-to-ceiling window with a spectacular view of the river and some bridge I don't know the name of. I wonder from how many other downtowns in America you can see the flare of a refinery. (Ah, Louisiana.) The view is mesmerizing, and I find myself compelled to look at it and think about my life. Which, let's face it, makes writing this review seem less important. Also, this performance has passed the statute of limitations for writing a real review; I figure if I haven't gotten to it in a week, I probably won't ever. So, since food is such a big deal in New Orleans, I'm going to write this like a menu.

Rebecca Valls's Facade: Four dancers perform three sections to music with two creators; if you like spoken poetry combined with music, you'll love this three-course meal performed to the work of Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir William Walton.

Erin Reck's Let Me Fall: A duet for two women, one supporting the other both emotionally and physically. Danced with flair by Bonnie Boykin and Ms. Reck. Erin Reck's Ashes to Ashes: A tasty duet for Lindsey McGill and Joe Modlin. Ingenious use of table and chairs as ingredients. Who knew Joe could fit on a table that small by himself, much less with Lindsey? The excellent chemistry between the two creates a story without a storyline.

Leslie Scates's A Bun Dance: Left in the oven too long, or not long enough? What's the point of improvisation in performance? Assuming the audience only sees the dance once, they only knows if it's improvised if you tell them. That said, good energy at the end between JoDee Engle and Julie Fox might be missing in preset choreography.

Jane Weiner's 'S (A Tale of Possession): High heels are ironic on Penny Tschirhart when she dances with Joe Modlin. Sounds and snippets of song combine to make a gumbo of sound. For good measure, the voice of the automated checkout at Kroger is included. "If you have any coupons, please scan them now."

Mark Dendy's Night Moves: Jane Weiner turns a rainbow of flavors into a powerful performance. Suprisingly touching, although it could be 1/3 shorter without losing the effect.

Jane Weiner's The Cooking Show: Take one part flour, one part singer, and nine parts dancers; combine. The excerpts shown here will whet your appetite for the full performance to be staged later this year.

I'm Not Making This Up

2005-06-25T13:07:00.000-04:00

Tired of "Sweatin' to the Oldies?" Step aerobics just doesn't do it for you? Try Hollywood's fun fitness secret, "Yoga Booty Ballet!"

Dancing with the Stars, week 4

2005-06-24T18:37:00.000-04:00

Lots of excitement this week. Rachel lost her place in the competition, and Kelly almost lost her costume. All four couples did the Samba, and a few of them included the famous Samba roll, which is how I identify this dance. It's an interesting move, but it always struck me as somewhat awkward. I thought the judges were a little harsh with John and Charlotte's dance; it had the most interesting choreography, and while John's footwork could have been a little sharper, there was quite a bit of it and it was far from sloppy. Bruno did have a point about John not using his hips. Rachel got the lenient judging this week; her strength is her line, and I knew that when she got to a fast Latin dance she'd look less sure of herself. I'm sorry to see her and Jonathan go, although if I had to eliminate someone based on this week's performance alone, it would be them. Kelly had to deal with a real wardrobe malfunction when the strap to her dress came undone. If she didn't always wear outfits that accentuated her two biggest assets, she might have been less worried about the whole thing falling down. That said, she did a remarkable job finishing out the dance. While it was obvious that at times she was holding up her costume, she never stopped and didn't really falter. The judges were polite enough to not comment on it. At the end of the show all four couples came out on the floor for the Viennese Waltz. I loved the dresses, particularly Rachel's purple gown. Theoretically we got to see all the couples dancing at once, but most of the time the camera zoomed in on the couple taking their turn in the middle of the floor. This dance wasn't judged, although you'd think they could have come up with a way to add a few points to someone's score.

Mad Hot Ballroom, June 17, 2005, Greenway

2005-06-21T18:15:00.000-04:00

Let's face it, kids are cute. The directors of Mad Hot Ballroom use that to full advantage. This documentary has all the elements to tug at our heartstrings: kids from a working-class neighborhood, a contest with several stages, teachers who love to teach, and bouncy music. To be more specific, Mad Hot Ballroom follows teams from 3 1/2 public middle schools in New York City as they learn ballroom dance and compete for the big trophy. (One school doesn't become part of the story until the middle of the film.) It's sobering to see the contrast between the gyms in which the working-class and upper-middle-class kids practice. Notably, the producer/director/writer/photography team is all female. I don't know how it is in the documentary world, but elsewhere in the movies it seems there's a serious lack of women in authority positions. A glance at the Oscar nominees for 2000 through 2004 shows men with a 3:1 advantage over women. (Due to a missing comma, the producer/writer's husband is twin daughters. Sorry, pet peeve.) Enough about that, what about the dancing? you say. The kids learn the Foxtrot, Merengue, Swing, Tango, and Rumba. (I finally got to see the basic steps of the Rumba!) Some of them are clearly natural dancers. Some of them are not. They all make a real effort, so it's sad to see some of them left behind at the quarter- and semifinals. Some of the girls really let loose with the 'tude while dancing, which delighted both the judges and the audience. The teachers (both public-school and ballroom) have tremendous patience and obviously love working with the kids. To tie it all together, one of the judges at finals is Charlotte Jorgensen from Dancing with the Stars, and the foxtrot music in the finals is Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight," which is on my new CD. (That answers THAT question.)

Dancing with the Stars, week 3

2005-06-20T18:21:00.000-04:00

I don't like the Jive. I don't have anything against its predecessors, truly; I've even choreographed a dance incorporating Swing movement. I just don't like the way all those elements go together. However, I tried not to let that influence my judgement of the dancing in this show. This time the dances were assigned randomly to men or women. The other dance that was presented was the (far superior, IMHO) Tango. Joey, Evander, and Kelly did the Jive, while Rachel and John did the Tango. This was Kelly's best dance to date, and she convinced me that she deserved to stay on the show longer than Evander, who got voted off. Rachel really had it going on, too; there was one shot that was just right to show her rolling through her gorgeous foot. You don't learn that in six weeks. (Huh. She was "Stacey's Mom" in the video.) But she needs to look up! John was his usual smooth, charming self. There was an interesting bit in Joey's intro where we saw him trying to convince his professional partner that they needed some showmanship. Whaaaa? The dresses on the show are provided by Chrisanne, a popular dancewear company that also provided dresses for the UK version of the show. Unfortunately for them, this is mentioned neither during the show nor on the website (although I confess I have not watched the credits). This week I actually liked a few of the dresses. This wasn't one of them. I have to say that I generally like what Charlotte wears. I wonder how much say the dancers have.

Wow, DWTS was ranked 1st in the Nielsen ratings during its first week!

[6-22-05] Saw a bit about DWTS on Good Morning America today. (Hey, I was at the doctor's office.) Best part: the correspondent was sitting in the audience watching John and Charlotte practice a dance without music. He made a comment to the effect that since there wasn't music playing, he could imagine his own. Then he starts in on "I....like....big....butts and I cannot lie." ROFL

There was another article in the New York Times this morning. A great quote from John: "We left every step in the shoes."

It's everywhere, everywhere!

2005-06-15T18:27:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times has an article by John Rockwell about the recent prevalence of ballroom dancing. I've found that reviews written by John Rockwell, a dance critic for the Times, are well written, so I was curious to see his take on this phenomenon. In addition to calling the glitz of the movies and TV shows "Las Vegas meets ice dancing," he makes this comment:

"Aside from our fox-trotting Republicans, most of whom (like most Americans) would probably now prefer Vegas-style flash, the new popularity of ballroom dancing suggests a possible decline in free-form, solo self-expression on the dance floor. A Bush-era rejection of the dreaded 60's, if you will. To be sure, John Travolta's disco dancing was plenty rehearsed, plenty flashy. But dancing by yourself, opposite a partner but only sketchily interacting with that partner, is a lot easier than learning a real partnered dance, and hence more democratically open if less artistically interesting."

I'm not sure I buy the connection with democratic self-expression. It could be that our society has gotten so homogenized and impersonal that people are looking for ways to connect more directly with other people. What better way to get a feel for someone than to feel them? Like Frank Sinatra sings on a CD I just bought:

Strangers in the night, two lonely people We were strangers in the night Up to the moment When we said our first hello. Little did we know Love was just a glance away, A warm embracing dance away...

[The CD is called Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years. The first song is "The Last Dance," kind of a strange choice, but the CD is ordered chronologically. This song was recorded in 1960, and it's yummy. One begins to understand why he was so popular with the ladies.]

Dancing with the Stars, week 2

2005-06-10T18:46:00.000-04:00

This week the men did the Quickstep while the women did the Rumba. It's unfortunate that Trista and Louis got voted off, because that means we have to watch Kelly and Alec again next week. To be fair, Kelly and Alec did have the sexiest Rumba. Someone apparently forgot to give the women the other halves of their costumes. (I know that's normal. It just seems unfair.) Critique this time of the choreography rather than the dancers, who performed pretty much in the same order of competence as last time. In the Quickstep, it was easy to see what the dance was about: "dancing while running" as someone put it to me once. Maybe it's because I'm not as familiar with the Rumba, but I couldn't really identify any basic steps; it all seemed to be flourishes. One of the judges commented on this, so I guess it wasn't just me. I was amused by one thing in Rachel did in her number with Jonathan, or more correctly, something she did afterwards. She did a great job with the dance, and the final dip that took her almost to the floor was dramatic and smooth. Unfortunately Jonathan forgot to tell her how to get up from the pose gracefully once the dance was finished. In fact, he should have helped her out of it! Young dancers always have to be told to move like dancers onstage, even when they aren't dancing. At least nobody "adjusted" their costume, if you know what I mean. Cool - pictures of tech rehearsal!

This morning I read in The New York Times about a new ballroom-dancing robot. It's no surprise that it was made by Japanese engineers.

[6-20-05] I'm told that Joey's butt was sticking out during the Quickstep, a real no-no!

Dance Made for Video, June 8, 2005, Aurora Picture Show

2005-06-09T19:06:00.000-04:00

This program is part of the Big Range Dance Festival. Six films were shown, ranging from 5 minutes to 26 minutes in length. These were not videos of stage performances but works created for and integrated into the filmmaking. The presentation was curated by Louie Saletan of Suchu. I liked all of the works for one reason or another, but I think my favorite was Measure (US), choreographed by Dayna Hanson and directed by Ms. Hanson and Gaelen Hanson. The film was shot entirely in a hallway of a dilapidated building that nonetheless had bright blue paint on the walls. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think the camera moved, except maybe for brief closeups during transitions. Two dancers, a man and a woman, moved up and down the hall and in and out of the many doorways while having a "conversation" through their dance steps. There was no music, just the rhythm of their feet tapping and sliding across the floor. (If the word "foley" means anything to you, I'm told that's what they did with the sound. If it doesn't mean anything to you and you would like it to, check out this website.) My second-favorite piece was Reines d'un Jour (Switzerland), with choreography by Marie Nespolo and Christine Kung and direction by Pascal Magnin. Filmed in the Swiss Alps (drool), the film featured six dancers moving about and around a small village. There was a lot of gentle humor in this work, including a sequence in which the dancers take inspiration from the interaction of bulls in a field. ("I gotta have more cowbell.") In another great sequence, the dancers move in response to puffs of air from other dancers. I'm curious to know if that part was entirely set or if there was an element of improv. The dancers also interacted with the landscape, first by rolling down hills and later when the three women dance in a pond with graceful reverence. Other works on the program included The Village Trilogy (Canada), of which we saw parts 1 and 3. Part 1 showed a woman dancing in a war-torn town "inspired by the displacement and destruction of WWII." Here the film medium played the biggest role, as our attention was directed to specific movements of the dancer. For some reason I really liked a moment where the dancer moved out of the picture and then back in; by not following the movement, the camera was given its own inertia. In contrast, in Cornered (Canada) the camera's movement was almost the whole point. A single dancer moved around a corner of a cube, and the perspective was contantly changed so that "up" shifted to different axes. According to the program, this film "redefines gravity as an attractive force of right angles." Unfortunately my interest ran out before the film did. If they could redefine gravity as a repulsive tangential force of the sine of a second-order Bessel function, now THAT would be something. That leaves Contrecoup (Switzerland), a film that loosely tells the story of young city dwellers. Sorry to use this analogy, but it's kind of like Friends in that there are several characters that act independently but also sometimes connect with each other. This film had a constructed set that provided several surreal moments such as the scene in which all of the furniture suddenly had 10-foot legs. It was dark and violent but had some interesting choreography for the couples. In one dance, the man uses himself and his partner as something of a subsitute for castanets, clapping and slapping in time to the music. Although far cooler and more serious, it made me think of Monty Python's fish-slapping dance. I seem to have TV on the brain, but it makes sense given this was dance on film. You may have noticed that most of the pieces came from outside of the US. It's nice to know that art is funded somewhere else in the world, because it sure isn't here. Today a House Appropriations panel cut the funding for public radio and television almost in half. Tell me, how do you justify cutting funding for Sesame Street?

Houston Ballet, June 4, 2005, Wortham Center's Brown Theater

2005-06-07T18:36:00.000-04:00

Some dances I can watch again and again and never get bored; for others, once is more than enough. Saturday's program included an example of each. Let's get the bad news out of the way first. Houston Ballet's production of The Firebird is something of a snoozer. I saw it when it premiered a few years ago (before my blogging days) and didn't like it then, so I didn't expect to get much out of it this time. The ballet is hampered partly by Stravinsky's subtle music, and partly by the wooden choreography of James Kudelka, who among other roles has served as Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada. I was pleasantly surprised to find Leticia Oliveira playing the Firebird as she's one of my favorite dancers in the company. I believe last time I saw Lauren Anderson. The role favors Ms. Oliveira's size (she's quite short) and movement, so I enjoyed that character much more this time around. The costumes are extravagant, but with the exception of the Firebird's tutu are unflattering to the dancers and hide their lines. Sets and costumes were designed by Santo Loquasto. By the way, it's worth it to sit through the entire score just to hear the finale played live. We played a suite from Firebird in orchestra in high school, so it means more to me to hear it than some other pieces. The main thing that I remember is that the time signature changes roughly every two measures in the finale. In stark contrast with Firebird's elaborate costumes and sets, dark lighting (is that an oxymoron?), and serious subject was Mark Morris's Sandpaper Ballet. This gem is being presented for the first time outside of San Francisco Ballet, for whom the piece was choreographed. It was disconcerting hear the orchestra start playing "Sleigh Ride" in June, more so because I'd gotten it into my head that Firebird would be first, but as I sat listening I realized how well that piece shows off the orchestra. The music for Sandpaper Ballet consists of 10 works of Leroy Anderson; in addition to "Sleigh Ride," there's also "Jazz Pizzicato," "Jazz Legato," "The Syncopated Clock," "Fiddle-Faddle," "A Trumpeter's Lullaby," "Song of the Bells," and "The Typewriter." There's also "Sandpaper Ballet" - the title refers back to old Vaudeville days when dancers would spread sand on the stage for their soft-shoe dances. (Ok, that's only 9. Those are the ones I could identify from the Leroy Anderson website. The tenth is quite possibly "The First Day of Spring.") Anderson's music is happy, whimsical, and energetic, and all of this is reflected in the choreography. The costumes, which have the dancers in bright spring green from the chest down (including hands and feet) and clouds and sky from chest to neck, were designed by Isaac Mizrahi. (Yeah, the Target guy. I don't really like most of his clothes, but these costumes are ingenious.) The ballet starts with all 25 dancers on stage in a 5 by 5 grid. Morris returns to this grid at the end of each section, usually with the dancers getting there at the last second through some convoluted means. It's a striking image, especially from the Grand Tier, and demonstrates how effectively Morris has used the strengths of a ballet company. There was a nice pas de deux between Erin Patak and Nicholas Leschke, the only slow (tempo-wise) section of the ballet. Throughout the ballet Morris integrates quirky, playful movement with the classical ballet vocabulary. This piece is a delight, and I hope to see it again in the near future.

I think this post sets a record for number of links!

Big Range Festival, Program A, June 2, 2005, Barnevelder Theater

2005-06-03T18:24:00.000-04:00

So here I was feeling like death warmed over last night, but I still dragged myself to this performance because I'd already spent the $12 for the ticket, and dammit, I was going to see the show. That put more pressure on the show to deliver, because I really wanted to feel like it was worth the pain! Fortunately, I was not entirely disappointed.

There were seven works in the show, five of them solos. The best of the solos were choreographed by Lisa Gonzales, a Houston native who dances in New York City. Ms. Gonzales performed the things themselves, which included words periodically projected on the white backdrop. The words cajoled the audience to think about themselves and about the dance they were watching. Personally, I have to admire any dance that works in a reference to neutrinos, but I didn't quite get the connection with broken hearts. Ms. Gonzales is a fluid dancer with lovely lines and portrayed her dance with a clear intent. Also enjoyable was her brave brave bull, performed by the intruiging Roberta Cortes. This dance included spoken words, an umbrella, and a chair, props that Ms. Cortes seamlessly integrated into the dance.

The other three solos, which were danced by the choreographers, were less rewarding but still had their moments. Chrissy Leach made some interesting shapes in Light. Salt (Roxanne Claire) included some great gestural sequences, and it was an admirable if less-than-successful exercise in staying on a park bench for the duration of the dance. Lisa Gonzales opened the show with Silt, which used compelling music by John Oswald (performed by Kronos Quartet) but lacked a central idea.

Works performed by FLY Dance Company and FrenetiCore stood out not only because they were the only two group dances in the show but also for their charm. FLY did their usual (but highly entertaining) thing with street dancing in TRIAD: Yellow, Blue, Red. FrenetiCore premiered Rebekah French's The Little Peasant, which included dancing to original music by Two Star Symphony and text by, well, the program doesn't say. The piece alternated between spoken word and music. Much of the dancing was for four men and four women, and while it was quite enjoyable, it shortchanged the development of the characters in the story, among whom was a raven played with twinkling eyes by Eleanor Price. Pancakes play a bigger part in this story than you might expect through Robert Thoth's inventive film projections.

Episode I

2005-06-02T19:43:00.000-04:00

No, not Star Wars. Last night was the first installment of Dancing with the Stars. (see previous post here) We saw six competitors, three men and three women. The men did the "Cha cha cha." (Is it just me, or does that seem like one "cha" too many? The USABDA calls it the "Cha-cha," and they should know. Even the show's own website calls it the Cha Cha. And why stop at three? If it's a long dance, why not call it the "Cha cha cha cha cha"? But I digress.) The women did the Waltz. The men actually outshone the women, which leads me to believe that the Cha-cha is easier to make look good than the Waltz. That makes sense; most of what the men did in the Cha-cha was posing and moving their partners around, while the women were required to be graceful and controlled. By the way, it's amazing what you can tell about a dancer just by looking at their shoulders. After a second viewing I decided that Rachel Hunter actually did quite a good job. She and Jonathan Roberts are well matched; both have classic lines. I thought John O'Hurley gave the best performance, followed closely by Rachel Hunter, and then Joey McIntyre. I'm somewhat surprised to find that I'm in agreement with the judge's rankings. The professionals all looked great, although I was unimpressed when Alec Mazo introduced himself as "a living legend among ballroom dancers." His routine with Kelly Monaco was also not very true to the waltz style; it was more about posing than movement. I found the segments showing the rehearsals of the individual teams to be the most interesting part of the show, and the most revealing. I'll definitely be watching next week!

The Company (movie), May 25, 2005, my living room

2005-05-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

Go rent this movie. It has no plot, but some of the best dancing I've seen on film. The Joffrey Ballet plays "the company" of the title, and half of the movie is footage of them dancing. Neve Campbell of "Party of Five" fame plays the main character, and I must say that I have new respect for her. Growing up she trained at the National Ballet School in Canada, and she did all her own dancing in the film. She doesn't quite have the polish of the Joffrey dancers, but she does a great job in a duet with Domingo Rubio, My Funny Valentine by Lar Lubovitch, who plays himself in the film. (It's an enthralling dance, by the way.) There's a decent interview of Ms. Campbell here. Some of the other pieces shown in the movie are Light Rain, Suite Saint-Saens, and Trinity by Gerald Arpino, the artistic director of Joffrey. Also shown are Tensile Involvement (Alwin Nikolais), Strange Prisoners (Davis Robertson), and Creative Force (Laura Dean), a latin-inspired dance in red costumes. White Widow is a dance for a woman and a swing. The music is dreamy, and as she spins and swirls in her long white dress there are several excellent demonstrations of the conservation of angular momentum. The piece was choreographed by Cynthia Quinn and Moses Pendleton of Momix; Mr. Pendleton was also one of the founding members of Pilobolus, who performed here in April. The film ends with Robert Desrosiers's The Blue Snake, not my favorite piece but very colorful. The aim of the film is to show non-dancers how things run "behind the scenes" at a ballet company. There's a horrifying moment when one of the dancers is rehearsing a solo from La Vivandiere Pas de Six and snaps a tendon. (I'll wait while you cringe. Better?) Several of the dances are shown in rehearsal before we see them on the stage. I guess what with already knowing what rehearsal is like, I couldn't see the fascination of those parts of the film. Everyone knows that ballet dancers' feet bleed. Do we have to see it again? There's also very little character development; things happen to the dancers, some good, some bad, but I found myself not caring. Still, while the film's not going to win an Oscar for best screenplay, it should win one for best dancing. (If only there were such a category. Sigh.)

Encore! (Dominic Walsh Dance Theater), May 21, 2005, Wortham Center's Cullen Theater

2005-05-26T18:14:00.000-04:00

This program by DWDT was billed as "a celebration of the company's most beloved works." Rather than go through a laundry list of each piece in the show, I'm going to focus on what were, to me, the most interesting pieces. I was aware that Flames of Eros was one of the company's most popular dances, but up until this show I had never managed to see it. The piece is set on three couples who portray figures from Greek mythology: Persephone (Julie Gumbinner), Hades (Lucas Priolo), Psyche (Carolyn Judson), Eros (Andre Silva), Aphrodite (Lindsey McGill), and Apollo (Dominic Walsh). I remember Persephone and the pomegranate seeds, and of course Apollo and Aphrodite as sun and moon, but I'd have to pull out the old Edith Hamilton to brush up on the relationship between Eros and Psyche. Yeah, I could Google it, but my point is there was little if any obvious portrayal of who was what character or how the relationships of the three couples differed; it's very different than, for instance, George Balanchine's Apollo. The costumes (pants for the men and dance dresses for the women) and the image projected on the scrim behind the dancers gave the impression of neoclassical rather than classical anyway. That said, there was nothing not to like in this performance. The dancers were first-class; I caught myself saying "Wow" to something that Lucas Priolo did, not technically challenging but with a perfect line. Not that the choreography wasn't technical; it was, and the dancers handled the jumps, turns, and dynamic lifts with precision and style. The music by Ennio Di Berardo was sweeping and bold in some places, subtle in others. It's easy to see why this piece won the 1998 Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography. (I can't find a good webpage with information about either the award or Cho-San Goh, or I'd put a link!) Mularra is an intense piece about reconciliation. The music is based on a fragment of an Autralian indigenous song and composed by Paul Stanhope. The entire piece was danced in one pool of light on stage left; the musicians (Richard Belcher on cello and John Marcus on violin) sat on stage right. It seemed to me that Lindsey McGill's character was more important to the narrative, she remained the center of attention while Marcello De Sa Martins's character faded in and out. To tell you the truth, I need to see this piece again to review it; there was too much to take in in one viewing. For The Two of You was choreographed for Julie Gumbinner and Lucas Priolo as something of a wedding present from Dominic Walsh. Mercury Baroque, with whom DWDT has collaborated before, played the music of Giovanni Bonocini. (The music Saturday was actually a tape; presumably the musicians had appeared the night before. I think they were busy doing an opera on Saturday.) While I was watching this dance, I noticed one movement in particular and had the sudden realization that it exemplified Mr. Walsh's style, but I couldn't quite put it into words. Later, in the Q&A period with the dancers after the show, Lindsey McGill fortuitously made the comment that his style is "cause and effect," something with which I agree. The show closed with Katharsis, a dance with three living statues (dancers in white body makeup), a man, and a woman. The Terrence Karn Consortium provided wonderful live music from diverse instruments - a harp and an accordian, to name a few. Having taken many classes accompanied by Mr. Karn's inventive mix of percussion and other instruments, it was a treat to hear his more formalized work. The statues had a distinctive (dare I say statuesque?) style of movement, and the man seemed to be their creator. I never quite figured out how the woman fit in; most of the time she sat by the musicians. While this dance has unique elements, it could use a little more focus.

Shall We Dance? (movie), May 20, 2005, my living room

2005-05-21T13:28:00.000-04:00

Shall We Dance is a perfectly charming movie from Japan about an office worker who learns ballroom dance. (There's an American version of this film now, but I'll get to that in a minute.) It doesn't sound like much of a premise, but in Japan there's a real social stigma attached to ballroom dancing. As the intro to the movie explains, in a country where husbands and wives don't even hold hands in public, dancing in someone's arms in public is almost unthinkable. I saw this movie back when it came out in 1997, but since it took me 30 minutes into the movie to realize that, I might as well have been watching it for the first time. Also, in the mean time, I've learned a little about ballroom and was able to recognize a few standard moves of the waltz. I also recognized the earrings worn by the women; they look better on the dance floor than they do in the store, but I still think they're a little too much. There's quite a bit of dancing in the movie, some of it by professionals and some by the students, but all of it enjoyable. The title of the film comes from The King and I, and the musical is refered to repeatedly. I loved the Japanese ballroom remix of "Hello Young Lovers." My favorite quote: "Dance is more than just the steps. Feel the music and just dance for sheer joy." So about the American version. Part of the effectiveness of the plot line is the combination and contradictions of East and West. It's disconcerting, for example, to be listening to the actors speaking in Japanese and suddenly hear "Slow, slow, quick quick." With the film set in America, that tension must be gone. Well, I'll rent that version next and let you know what I think!

The Body Speaks, May 13, 2005, San Jacinto College South

2005-05-20T18:36:00.000-04:00

I went back to college last Friday night. Ok, it was someone else's college, but since all college dance productions have a certain flavor, I was reminded of my own college days. But enough about me. I admit to being pleasantly surprised by the quality of the SJCS dancers and the choreography. The show opened with the strongest piece, Rebecca Valls's "On the Wing." Unlike in Maximal Schnapper, these dancers were clearly meant to be birds. The eight dancers were fearless in their representation of chicks begging for food and adults flying in formation. I've seen this dance once before at Miller, but if I recall correctly, there were only six dancers that time. The additional dancers added to the effectiveness of the flock and chick tableaux. (ooh, French) White rods were occasionally used to extend the dancers "wingspans," to simple but elegant effect. "Nowhere Else to Go," choreographed by Victoria Loftin in collaboration with the dancers, was a powerful piece that I interpreted as being about refugees. The dance starts and ends with three dancers on the floor in separate pools of light. In between, the teeming masses stream across the stage in a fashion similar to what I saw in Arthropodic Animal: Insecta, although this time it was used to a more sinister effect as the dancers seemed to be fleeing something. Something you don't see every day in America is real flamenco dancing. "Fuerzas Liberadas," performed with exquisite style by Crystal Reyes, was a standout piece in the show. The choreography, by Sarita Salinas, was a tad underdeveloped; Ms. Reyes's movements did not make full use of the space, but she was so captivating it (almost) didn't matter. "...another beginning..." was awarded Gala recognition at the American College Dance Festival (2005). Michelle Manzanales's piece about exclusion transformed to acceptance had some nice moments, but structurally I didn't think it was as interesting as "Nowhere Else to Go." Crystal Audas did a nice job as the outsider who eventually wins over the crowd. Some of the other dances lacked clear emotional intent. Not all dances need to be narrative, but in some of the pieces I found myself wondering what the point was. "The Ticket," choreographed and danced by the lovely Fina Reisinger and Kristi Morrison, left me bewildered when it ended with one of the dancers putting her hand over the other's, because prior to that there had been very little interaction between the two of them. "Journey," by Susan Oliver, was well danced but needed more tension. "The Gathering," another piece by Susan Oliver, startly promisingly with cowled dancers moving to eerie Celtic music, but never devolped much beyond that and was unsuitable as the closing number for the show. In fact, there really wasn't a piece on the program that would have been a strong closer, but I would have put "...another beginning..." first and moved "On the Wing" to the end.

Dancing with the Stars

2005-05-19T18:44:00.000-04:00

ABC has a new reality series starting June 1 called Dancing with the Stars. Celebrities (or near-celebrities) have been studying ballroom dance with professionals and will be performing live on the show with their professional partners. This is the American version of a show that has been produced in other countries as Strictly Come Dancing. (I keep trying to get my head around that name and can't. Any thoughts?) One wonders then how ABC feels justified in calling this a "totally unique and original series." It might be painful to watch, but how often do you get to see any kind of dance in primetime on a major network? I'm hoping that we'll get to see some of the professionals dance together!

A Tip for the Documentary-Inclined

2005-05-12T18:36:00.000-04:00

Mad Hot Ballroom, a documentary about middle school kids learning and competing in ballroom dance, starts soon at a theater near you! Well... actually it starts tomorrow in New York City and May 20 in "select cities." (Sadly, Houston is not one of them. *grumbles*) Visit the official movie site here. Go ahead, you know you want to!

[5-25-05] I just noticed the tiny, inconspicuous up and down arrows on the website. The movie opens in Houston on June 3 at both the Angelika and Greenway theaters.

Musings on Dance in General

2005-05-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

[In honor of what would be my father's 61st birthday, here's a philosophical post. Both of my parents taught me how to be an artist, but my father was the performer. He'll never be matched as Mother Ginger.] So why, you might ask, do I care so much about dancing? Dance is part of who I am; I have no memories of a time when I wasn't a dancer. When I was three years old I told my mom that I wanted to be like the "dancy girls" I saw on TV, so she signed me up for a Parks and Rec ballet class to see if it was a phase. It was no phase. I was serious enough that eventually I ended up in a pre-professional ballet training program when I was in high school, dancing six days a week. I decided not to pursue dance as a career, but there was no way I could give up dancing. I danced through college, even though my major was physics. I stopped dancing for a few years at the beginning of graduate school in the mistaken belief that I couldn't afford the classes. My knee taught me otherwise; after all those years my it had gotten worn down in such a way that muscle strength was compensating for the wear. My body had literally gotten addicted to dancing. I started performing with the local ballet company, and I experienced several moments onstage that I can only describe as epiphanies during which I realized just what it meant to me to be back performing. I know my advisor wasn't happy with me for frequently leaving the lab early for rehearsal (especially during production weeks), but I believe that if I hadn't been dancing, I wouldn't have finished my PhD at all. As my mom puts it, I don't dance because I want to, I dance because I have to. I am not complete without it.