it turns out twyla wasn't allowing watchers in the class--she was doing some kind of experiment thing for a cd-rom she's making--i wonder if it has anything to do with the new book she's writing about the creative process. saw her company perform last night. la-de-da beautiful intricate dancing, but where's the substance twyla? in the structure and sheer technique required she'd probably answer, but i don't know. myself, i tune out when there aren't any undercurrents. the new adf commissioned piece was called 'even the king', with familar music by schubert, and a lame story-ish thing going on between four guys fighting over two girls at a dance/ball thing--one girl in pointe shoes, the other in soft character shoes. one of the guys was awesome though. he was really sturdily built and his dancing was grounded, fluid, dynamic, sure but not arrogant, and oh so easy. like big breaths of air to watch.
eiko and koma will be doing site-specific works around durham-raleigh area for the next few days. one of the two pieces they'll be doing, 'offerings,' i actually saw them do last summer in bytom, around the base of a big tree that turns the parking lot of the cultural center into a circle drive-through space. maybe i'll go tonight, but it's at the art museum in raleigh so that's probably too long of a drive. i wonder how all the people i miss in bytom are doing...
that poem in the last post was actually a long digression i made while trying to finish up my poland paper. i was reading through old journals from poland and re-read this little entry about that dream and looking at my fingers and felt like re-writing it. i hardly ever do that with things i write--i tend to write in the moment and then not go back and change anything. it's pretty satisfying to go back though--get the material circulating again. i've just started to do that with my beethoven solo from last spring--asking myself questions about the meaning and structure. it's possible i might be able to add another girl which has some really interesting possibilities (alison, who i'm doing the reagan speeches with). the dance has many moments of frontal confrontation/contact with audience or the horizon, depending, and disrupting that front by re-orienting the dance as a duet seems to me might expand the meanings embodied. i'm also thinking of adding a little bit of speaking in the beginning and cutting out the long walk before the music begins. also, rethinking costumes. the text might be something like "before i begin, may i ask a question? i'm curious to know how you see me, as i'm standing here. it's quite possible that your answers will affect what i do next..." for a little while i was thinking of singing or chanting that, but now i'm thinking a pretty normal speaking voice while my arms are doing these slight rotating movements with this funny bird in mnd that i was watching a couple weeks ago. it was perched on a curb. its wings would come up like it was about to fly, stay for a moment, then come back down, and he'd hop to the side a bit, and repeat the whole thing, over and over. who knows what it was doing. testing the wind quality? keeping itself prepared? revving its energy? trying to look powerful then getting discouraged?
i stayed up late last night. i wanted to watch gillian welch on late night with conan o'brian, which doesn't start until 12:30, she didn't play her song until right before 1:30 (turns out that was her singing about miss ohio). i thought i would fall asleep before it came on, but i got pretty interested in watching this indian movie from 1953 about this farmer. the title translated to 'two acres of land.' it started with this great musical celebration of rain coming to this village that had been in a long drought. ah singing and dancing--it's interesting how powerful simple movements can be when done fully, like two concentric circles of people, one circle moving quickly in one direction while the other circle moves in the opposite direction. the greedy master/landlord (remnant of the feudal system) wants to buy/take this farmer's land (he doesn't want to sell of course) to build a factory on (the industrial future is coming), and he'll be allowed to confiscate the land if the farmer doesn't pay back his debt. the farmer takes the train to calcutta, with his little son who snuck aboard. he becomes a rickshaw runner (wow, can you imagine running people around a crazy city all day in bare feet, navigating cars, busses, trams--there was a shot at one point juxtaposing him with a horse--reminded me of some eisenstein movie i watched freshman year--'oktober' maybe), and his son becomes a shoe shine. it was neat to see the shots of the city cuz that's where cynthia is right now, and i didn't really have any mental picture for the chaos. and i liked all the music in the film. i want to watch and hear more indian music performances and recordings.
posted by Liza 27.6.03