those who were seen dancing

Pina Bausch died this week. I know her as an influence (and collaborator?) of Anne Bogart, one of my own huge theatrical - and as it turns out, life - influences. Bausch and Bogart blur the lines between visual theatre and theatrical dance. Which is which? Who stops where?

It doesn't matter. I see the world differently thanks to Pina Bausch, though, and I would love for you to see it too. Not that Youtube can adequately express live dance, but at least it can try.

Here's some of Vollmond, I think my personal favorite example of her being awesome...
part 1
part 2
part 3

It's like joy and gut-wrenching, on stage. She could also create work that was deeply creepy, even offensive. Her most famous work shows a little of that...
Sacre du Printemps/Rites of Spring
Cafe Muller

I don't know if we'll do anything for First Friday this week (what with the baby, other people's schedules, plus the general freezingness of February at night), but there's a thing next Tuesday that a couple of TTE peeps are dancing at. I realize I've been terribly remiss in letting y'all know when we're doing something, so...

( It's in COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Tuesday 2/10. )

Anyone else read the description & immediately think of a dirty epic war costume/theme set to "Red & Black" from Les Miz?

Just me, huh?

I am. Dancing again, that is.

You may now be thinking you stopped dancing?? - which, okay. Technically I didn't stop. For awhile there I just performed with my dance peeps doing our regular shows and little else. Tribe stuff transcends dance. On a physical level, it's more like eating than performance. And the only classes I've been taking are flamenco and hula. I had lost a lot of my creative energy around dancing, and I still had to muster a fair amount of management energy to get things done. I think my body only produces management energy as a by-product of the creative variety.

So. The break was nice. I've worked on 2 minor choreographies for PURE [We're doing a short piece for each chakra, which is a very cool idea. Last week the back-of-the-class kids and I worked out a "penis chakra" piece.] and one major spaghetti western hair band fusion choreography. I'm particularly pleased with the latter. It was conceived in a biker bar. I bet my parents would've conceived me in a biker bar if there'd been one in town. It's almost ready for its debut, too.

I've found a new solo voice that I'm *cough* actually going to display in public in a couple of weeks *cough*. I'm having a new costume made. I'm going to local workshops again. I'm - my life is weird, kids - teaching a 30 minute hula party thing tomorrow. I'm enjoying dance enough that I could teach again... except I can't teach a regular class, keep up with hula, join a CST class (which is starting a week, yay!), keep up with my practice & performance commitments and possibly start aikido all at the same time. Giving my body new creative fuel is the most important thing this year, so I may not come back to teaching except for private students for some time still [If you're interested, that doesn't mean no one in TTE will be teaching. It just won't be me. Most of our other members are qualified to teach now.]. So, yeah. Not back to teaching.

But dancing! Dancing I am back to. I feel like dancing everywhere in response to everything.

I mean. Not really.

I had a friend who could just look at a movement and reproduce it. I envied that seemingly direct channel from his eyes to his body. A moment ago, I surprised myself by busting some convincing Acadian heel-toe action without even thinking about it.

Which makes total sense. I've been dancing and looking at dance for long enough that, having seen that dance, I can reproduce it. It would be even cooler to practice throwing down in unfamiliar dance forms enough that I could do what he did - replay a movement, then be able to break it down enough to teach it. That's a pretty badass skill right there, mixing unconscious with conscious competence.

Hey! I've found something really important!

I love hula. I think I'm going to have to start getting up at the crack of dawn every Saturday to drive up to the halau in Alexandria.

In related news, seated mele (chanting & dancing mostly with body position & arm gesture) drive my cats BATSHIT CRAZY.

It's officially my birthday! I now have an enormous photo of myself framed on the wall as you walk into the door of my apartment. AND an artist's rendition of myself on the facing wall. That's right... even my birthday gifts are apparently self-absorbed. And some are gay. Also, no one listens when you tell them not to bring presents.

My peeps are fantastic. They moved my living room into my bedroom. And back. In the time it took me to have a conversation and a couple of cigarettes outside. That's some motivation!

We also had a nice relaxed stage show at Gay Pride this morning. It was not, despite what everyone else in the tribe seems to feel, a bad set - it was just a contained set and on a stage, neither of which we do a lot. Technically, it was much more controlled and well-executed than our usual performances; it was solid, one of the more consistent performances this iteration of the tribe has done. We've just done so many loud, limit-pushing, interacting with the audience things that a technically good set feels weird, less sexy. Lest you think it was completely dry, though, know that every musician wore sunglasses the entire show.

I feel like everyone loves me today!

Everywhere I go, there's no line and people are smiling. Work was totally chill (if sadly lacking in Dickensian prose). There was no one in the Taco Bell (hangover food, though I'm not exactly hung over) drive-thru at lunch! In Short Pump! I got into and out of a Lowe's filled with happy people in about 3 minutes. An entire line of people patiently waited for me when I got the wrong thank you card for my colleague and had to go pick out another. I just happened to have cash on hand as I was driving down Broad St by VCU, so I got to stop at Aladdin (which was emitting the yummiest smell ever). They tried to get me to stay, and when I didn't, they gave me free cake.

And, guess what?! To the Earth will be TWO next Monday! We're a toddler.

My weekend actually started Wednesday with dance practice. ( What we do to prep for a big performance, if you're interested ) After practice, we drove to the wilds of Chesterfield because garrity and family are swell. And I went to bed way early because, I think, I was still healing (I am a little in awe of people who get tattoos that take several hours, given that my own recovery time was so long).

Thursday, as mentioned, cutegaychick and I went to Natural Bridge to act like dorks.

Friday was basically - get up, run mad errands, get in car at lunch time, drive to DC. We listened to the Buffy musical on the ride up, which made at least an hour of our three hour tour go faster and more fun-like. After that and tech and trying to get food and getting dressed and watching all of the other performances, I really don't remember how the show went. Brettocks and Dave took pictures, if that helps. ( Some thoughts on the other performances, at least, since I hardly remember ours... )

Friday night missmeridian and I stayed up too late. Saturday morning was a driving comedy of errors the likes of which only DC can produce. I did not get lost, though! I did, however, get to the workshop late. But in a way that was good - it helped me approach the workshop as just another way to dance and get better and have fun. I tend to keep skulking off to the back to take notes, like writing it down will help (it will at least give me a reference) even though I'm more of a kinaesthetic/spacial learner. I feel like I have to find a way to ingest everything because it may be a year before I have a teacher in front of me again.

This time was different, though - more time to focus on refinement, more willingness to dare and fuck up, no notes taken whatsoever and hardly even a second's break from dancing. It was so cool to see so many beginners there! It was even better to dance with new people! And I left Sunday with a Sahra turn and a calibrated spin which did not suck.

Also, I feel like I've now been invited into a sisterhood of tattooed bellydancers. I think everyone who knew the tattoo is new came up to exchange tattoo stories. Though people did mistake the pomegranate on stage for chili peppers, goldfish, and a variety of other unexpected things, apparently.

So, yeah. That was a really long weekend to not feel at all like a weekend. Just like a different kind of work. I LIKE work, mind you, but it does tire a girl out.

Last night, $DANCE_DEITY smiled down on us, I tell ya. We were gooood. The musicians overpowered the shitty acoustics at Plant Zero for the ROSMY set and rocked that joint (cutegaychick in particular pretty much drummed her whole awesome self out, necessitating 30 minute crash between sets). Every time I looked over at the chorus when arovd and I were duetifying or I was leading and turned around, TA DA - they were beautifully together, and dancing rather than staring at garrity's ass (though a fine ass it is).

Ironically, then we flubbed the choreographed ending... cause we were relying on an audio cue and could hear neither saz dynamic shift nor Brettocks' near-shouted count of eight. Thanks to the magic that is ATS, none of us were really phased by the departure of our choreography. Even that was a work of art.

Locals, if you missed it, man... you missed To the Earth mach 2 ON FIRE. [Er, I wish we had video of the set, so we could later pick apart something that was already made of awesome and make it into a more artfully carved awesome. The video we have now is mostly from one night of less conviction.]

Oh, yeah. And then we went back to Art Works and did it AGAIN. That time with a wee bit less fire and nailing the ending.

And then? I came home to an invite to perform at Tribal Pura. On stage with our (well, Dvora & my) TEACHERS. Which I am totally confident in our ability to do after last night. Dude!

I can't say "left" and then "right" without thinking of that Chemical Brothers song. Which this really has nothing to do with.

( I've been thinking about the dance- and injury-related laterality issues I have, then this seemingly endless debate about the sidedness of ATS - and really what that says about dancers' awareness and understanding of physicality. )