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This is my current dance inspiration.
Click HERE for Miriam’s website.
Choreography/ Artistic Direction: Jacinta Vlach
Danced by: Yeni Lucero
Monologue: John Leguizamo
Check ’em out here.
“Founded in 2007, Liberation Dance Theater, explores contemporary social issues and brings them to life through dance, theater and dialogue. Identity politics, race relations, gender inequalities, and marginalized communities are the core subjects of LDT’s work. Instituto Sacatar fellow and San Francisco Bay Gaurdian’s “Best Emerging Artist”, Artistic Director Jacinta Vlach draws upon movement from the Latin/African Diaspora, Contemporary, and Urban vernacular to reinvent various rituals, eras, and social movements.”
Eva Yerbabuena in “Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey.”
The Spanish Dancer
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white
flickering tongues before it bursts into flame:
with the audience around her, quickened, hot,
her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.
And all at once it is completely fire.
One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.
And then: as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches: it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die –
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally
and stamps it out with powerful small feet.
The director, Erika Janunger, is a Swedish musician and designer.
A short dance/architectural movie, about defying gravity.
In bedroom Malin Stattin
In livingroom Tuva Lundkvist
Directed by Erika Janunger
Scenography Erika Janunger
Photography and lightDavid Grehn
Costume Johanna Adebäck
Hair and Makeup Klara Janunger
Editing Josefine Truedsson
Postproduction Gustaf Holmsten
Music/ Lyrics-
and Vocals Erika Janunger
PercussionPontus Langendorf
Keyharp Erik Rydvall
Saxophones Nis Bäckvall
Produced by Henrik Svensson
Oh, Butoh…
Nina Ananiashvili is a Georgian ballerina born in 1963.
This video is a classic. I want her arms. The end.
Watch the vid HERE.
(The embedding was disabled so you’ll have to do the click-work your self.)
Carmen Amaya (1913-1963) was a flamenco dancer and singer from Barcelona. Her dancing won quite a bit of attention from the likes of film directors and US presidents along with the usual dance fanatics.
What strikes me about her dancing is the polarity between her two halves. She carries her upper body with a masculine roughness and strength, but her lower body is softer, and more feminine. I realize that this might just be a quality of flamenco, but Carmen pulls it off more poignantly than I’ve ever seen.
Since this is a collaboration with some of my favorite bay area musicians, I’m giving my self the leeway to post something personal on this lil’ art blog.
This is Avatar Ensemble with Doug Martin on lead guitar, Jason Vanderford on rhythm guitar, Clint Baker on upright bass, Michael Zisman on mandolin, and me on the dance floor. The song is “Quizas, quizas, quizas.”
If you know me, you know that I belly dance obsessively. I dance primarily tribal fusion, but lately I’ve had an itch to get into more traditional Egyptian belly dance. Here’s why:
I used to say that I’m only able to connect with fusion because its movements are more grounded and earthy, and less “harem-girl”, but now that I’ve grown into my own dance style a bit more, I’ve come to realize that in order to have a more well-rounded knowledge of the dance, coming at it from multiple angles is a wonderful thing.
Philippe Decouflé is a modern French choreographer that was brought to my attention by a contemporary dancer friend of mine. I adore the piece above for its use of light and space to add to the simple yet emotional choreography. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about him:
“Philippe Decouflé born Neuilly-sur-Seine, October 22 1961 is a French choreographer, dancer, mime artist, and theatre director. As a child he travelled extensively around Lebanon and Morocco, before learned his skills as a teenager at the Annie Fratellini ”Ecole du Cirque” and the Marcel Marceau Mime School.
While frequenting Paris|Parisienne nightclubs he discovered and was attracted to contemporary dance, and he eventually moved to the ”Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine” in Angers to study under choreographer Alwin Nicolais.
After briefly working as a solo dancer, he formed the Découflé Company of Arts in Bagnolet in 1983, moving it to a former electrical works in the Parisienne suburb of Saint-Denis in 1995.
He has worked for the Lyon Opera Ballet, and choreographed the music video for New Order’s ”True Faith”. It won the “Best Music Video” prize at the 1988 BRIT Awards, while his advertisement for Polaroid won a “Silver Lion” prize at the 1989 Venice Film Festival. On the back of these successes, he was selected to choreograph the Olympic Games ceremony opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Winter Olympics in front of a global television audience of over two billion people, the 50th anniversary Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and a parade for the 2007 Rugby World Cup in Saint-Denis in Paris.”
Fierce:Fragile 