think-move art...

i'm writing in another place... i'll still be here, but i can also be found at thinkmoveart.com, my new space for movement/thought exploration. think-move art is a space for conversation about the moving body; its complexities, its function, its ability to create art.

thanks for stopping by. and please, share your thoughts...

Behavior is rarely rational; it is habitually emotional. We may speak wise words as the result of reasoning, but the entire being reacts to feeling. For every thought supported by feeling, there is a muscle change.

-Mabel Ellsworth Todd, The Thinking Body

Pina Bausch - Tanzteater Wuppertal - Rite of Spring

... an almost death.

"Oh honey, it was just a spell."

But the goose egg on your forehead; purple-yellow cheeks tell it as a different story. 

It smelled of gun powder and pipe tobacco. My fingers, black and fluorescent from scraping my nails against clay targets.

PULL - BANG - BREAK

I wiped my eyes. Tears, mascara and dirty fingers left stripes of war paint across my forehead and cheeks; solidarity for your marks.

--

The day after my mom called to tell me about her "spell," was the sorest day I can recall. My gut and visceral reactions made every muscle in my body tense. I slept poorly. My jaw locked. I could hardly move the next day. The fear reflex, the primal reaction to protect - changed my body.

jake and layla make a dance...

jake and i have been talking a lot lately about owning our happiness. that idea (sometimes seemingly obvious... but if you're human like me, shit. making mistakes and learning how to be the layla i actually want to be isn't always my initial reaction...) that being happy comes from being inside of what really drives you. you. not what others validate as an acceptable form of expression. doing what i need to do to be happy is key for me right now. for as much as i think i know about myself, there's always more. and i'm usually the last one on the obvious bandwagon, you know?

so, as i mourn the loss of one great pal, i've got another who is allowing and encouraging me to own the things that make me, me.

jake and i are making a dance together. yes. our friend ryan asked if it would be an adventure with a lot of spinning/twirling... he's interested in that. i think we'll have to throw some in to keep him engaged,

but seriously, we had a rehearsal on saturday. i am a better person because of it. for so many reasons. being in the studio is always beautiful/exciting/challenging. and when it's with someone that i trust and respect as a collaborator... shit is magical.

basically, we rolled around for two hours. which, isn't too far off from what we used to do back when we worked in the same building... but intentions were different. it was like being in grad school again. we played with patterns and tricked our brains into moving in ways that are not our comfortable lexicon. pure joy.

i'll post some video one of these days... for now, i'm enjoying how high it leaves me. seriously... i can feel the effects for days. owning this joy (with a little help from my friends...).

ps... for about a year now, jake has been saying this to me: i was meant to be a dancer. me too, buddy.

move ya' body...

oh heyyyyy. me and this guy:

are celebrating a year of friendship. yes, xavier stallone prince kitty that cat and i have been knowing each other for a whole year now. but, that's not what this post is really about, but i figured i had to stop making big red the subject of every post... you might begin to get the impression that i have no friends and no life. so, posting about my cat... so much better, right? oh, jesus.

generally, we look like this:

and these peeps are our neighbors:

the real point of this story is business related. that idea of change is still so prominent in my life. and, as it turns out, change promotes change. changes to the changes. ya dig? and the worst one? i have never had to sit in that effing office chair for so many hours in one day. gross. my back hurts like crazy town. so, i'm moving! moving my body that is. as much as possible.

in my training last week in la, i moved for two days. almost consistently. i felt the best. ever. swinging my head around. glorious.

seriously y'all. it works. got a loved one with low back issues? move. in a pain-free range of motion. as much as possible. it's magical unicorn medicine. and abundantly obvious.

i know, with no big red stories... there ain't much happening. there are plenty, of course. but, i'll keep 'em for another day.

found these ladies and their animals here and here. oh, and would you go ahead and tell yourself that you're doing a great job at least five more times today? because, you are. we are. we are doing great. great things. i love you.

best...

yesterday is one for the record books. such a brilliant day. jake and i had a bunch of together time... which can generally make me nervous, but we're pretty good at being friends. probably, i don't have to worry about too much together time.

we met for coffee at philz (duh) and then hit the road for the world savvy challenge. world savvy is an amazing organization promoting students k-12 to become active, educated, participatory and responsible global citizens. read about them, for real.

so jake and i were volunteer judges for the world savvy challenge. we watched performances, looked at exhibits and observed round table discussions about the need for change as it relates to sustainable communities. what what?! ya, junior high and high school students talking about using bamboo as a resource to build houses in haiti, the epidemic of e-waste, water shortages and hunger. the performance that i didn't get to see... which was a major hit... isolationism in north korea! the musical.


i. know.

oh, and... the keynote speaker rapped beef  by boogie down productions. yes. 

yes.

a bunch of my brown ledge crew was there. that's my summer camp world. in fact, the organizer of the even is a brown ledge girl and overall brilliant genius. and jake, who knows very little about camp was thrown right into it. he's a champ, but perhaps a teensy bit overwhelmed by our rapid paced conversations and squeals over memories and summers past.

we took a break from each other, but then reconvened for PINA. you haven't seen it yet? do. it. now. a wim wenders film made with the dancers for the late pina bausch. genius. and in 3-d.

and of course i ran into one of my sarah lawrence dancers in the theatre. ok, not just any sarah lawrence dancer... but the one who danced for me during her entire sarah lawrence tenure. more squealing. more rapid fire talking. this time with wayyyyy more gestures and general wiggling. we talked about dance and movement and training bodies for movement patterns and visceral reactions to movement and how fucking scary that can be.

i have amazing friends. so blessed. so in love with it all.


be kind. i love you. piccys are still coming from ffffound.

on ownership, part deux...

this is the [long awaited] part 2 of a series on ownership. part 1 found here.

since most of you know i don't have a tv these days, which i'm sure still amazes tony guest to no end, as he could never peel me away from it as a kid... guess i'm really growin' up, huh dad? at any rate, not having a tv means i watch my tv on the internet. sometimes a whole series at a time (hello dowtnon abbey, what!? more on that later). but, i also watch a lot of youtube, read a lot of blogs (duh) and listen to/learn about new music. so, if you're an internet sensation... i've probably heard of you. it's no wonder my friends never call after 9pm, they know i'm otherwise engaged...

the point? beyonce. i'm so mad at her. still. huh? maybe you don't know about this... the internet has calmed down on all of this, but i'm still pretty heated. and for a couple of weeks last fall, the internets were a blazin'... and i liked it! you see, as soon as the video for countdown was released, my heart sunk. let's be clear. i. loved. beyonce. love. love. loved. and i'm not sure how forgivable it is at this point...

watch these:
(at least watch the last two, they're the ones that hold all of the information)

1. beyonce's video for countdown. directors: adria petty and beyonce knowles.

2. for those with short attention spans... a quick look at some pretty clear acts of pagiarism. video from studio brussel.

3. the kicker. put your glasses on. put it on full screen and watch. please. from here.

change of plans kiddos... watch these and let them marinate, ok? i'll be back tomorrow with the letter i'd like to send to beyonce. anybody have her address?

image from here. also, if i forget... remind me to buy toilet paper by the end of the week. please. 

pop...

i've been loving this video for a long-ass time. b.r.i.l.l.i.a.n.t.

the kelly clarkson driving dance from adrienne truscott's dance/theatre piece genesis, no! performed by carmine covelli and neal medlyn. ps 122, new york, ny. 2007.

everyone should know about this.

here goes her website if you wanna browse around a bit more...

spirals...

You may or may not be aware... that I am obsessed with Irene Dowd's spirals. She designed the movement patterns as a warm and cool down for dancers, moving through extreme ranges of motion. Whenever I do spirals my body is so happy. However, since I finished up at SLC, I have managed to forget bits and pieces of the movement series. So, in search for any version... I came across this video by Ela Spalding, inspired by spirals... I love it. Hope you do to!