UMove Online Festival and a New Blog Coming Soon!
Dear Friends,
We are very close to having the UMove Online Videodance Festival up here and ready for viewing for the entire month of October. At the same time we will be launching a brand new Move the Frame blog! We’re just putting on the finishing touches, so please check back soon!
In the meantime, reserve your spot now for the UMove Launch Party at The Tank in NYC this Sunday (October 4th!).
Featuring:
- Two Screenings of groundbreaking works by Video Artists merging Dance and Media.
- DJ Ben Bartelle and VJ Danielle McKleinfeld, offering clean electronic sounds and digital imagery mixing.
- Live performances by Bridgman/Packer, Foofwa d’Imobilitie’, and Adam Sondheim.
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
The TANK
354 West 45th Street, NYC (between 8th & 9th Ave in NYC)
Make your Reservations for Screening times – 7:30 or 9:30 showings.
Click HERE to RSVP
The Launch party reception begins at 8:30pm (after 1st screening) and the party continues after the 2nd screening wraps up. Your donations support this exciting new screendance movement.
If you would like to invite others to the Launch Party on October 4th, click here for an email invitation.
Can’t make it? Be there in spirit by giving a tax-deductible contribution to Movement Media. Every amount helps!
Thanks for your patience, we look forward to bringing you great videodance content soon!
best,
Anna Brady Nuse Director, Movement Media Pentacle
dance flash @ the appeal: smuin ballet’s fall/winter season 2009
this week's dance flash: smuin ballet's fall/winter season, which kicks off this weekend at the palace of fine arts."...Smuin's 'Medea,' follows a storyline that trumps even the juiciest of the original 'Melrose Place': there's love, lust, adultery, jealousy, rage, and mass murder. On Sunday, Susan Roemer's drama-queen Medea conveyed strength and a bald-Britney-wielding-a-baseball-bat-like craziness. True, I was saddened when she killed the Princess just steps from my feet, but minutes later, I was secretly rooting for her as Aaron Thayer's Jason met his demise. That debbie downer didn't last long, though, as the dancers took a short break and soon had me tapping my toes as they tossed their hats, twirled and waltzed across the floor, and strutted along to some of Frank Sinatra's best in Smuin's 'Fly Me to the Moon...'"
For the complete preview, go here.
Philly!
Sleep……or Dance. That is the question…..
The newest site-specific work for Lauri Stallings gloATL is this Friday in the historic Castleberry Hill district. There are two shows; one @ 7:30 and another @ 10:30. It starts at the corner of Bradberry and Fair street and will end at The Point. Its apart of this really cool thing called Le Flash. Le Flash is a photography exibit type thing but they have all sorts of other dispilines there as well. Alot of major cities all over the world have this event and this is Atlanta's second year hosting Le Flash. Visit www.leflash-atlanta.com for info on the project and also directions and parking info if you would like to come.
So, my life has been extra busy the past month because of rehersals on top of teaching and all. The rehersal process has been good.....a nice and steady pace. We have dress tomorrow night. Castleberry is a very interesting place to visit. It is very industrial looking but there are TONS of art galleries and little independant shops everywhere. Alot of the buildings look really old.....they have character. So far about 3,000 people have indicated they are coming! Its going to look so differant with all of the people, artwork and lights. I will try and get there early before rehersal tomorrow and snap some pictures of where we are dancing. And hopefully I can get someone to take pictures of the show while its happening to post later.
BAILA Society at Int’l Salsa Congress
Check out some of the photos from the weekend event.
5 Healthy Tips for Dancers
You may not realize this, but Ballet Dancers have some of the most unhealthy dietary and lifestyle habits. These bad habits effect dancers from daily class all the way to auditions. We’ve all read the famous Ballerina’s books like Gelsey Kirkland’s Dancing on my Grave and hopefully have learned a lot from their mistakes.
What can you do to improve your health so that you can reach peak performance? Follow a few of these simple guidelines to boost your energy in everyday class all the way to performance time.
1.) Don’t skip out on Breakfast- After 8 or more hours of fasting overnight, your body desperately needs food fuel in the morning. Make sure you are eating a balanced breakfast before heading out to class in the morning.
2.) Stay Hydrated- I cannot stress this enough. If you are not drinking water or an electrolyte enriched beverage before and during class, your strength will suffer.
3.) Eat- The skinny, emaciated look is so 1970. Artistic Directors are looking for strong bodies these days.
4.) Soak and Stroke- A hot bath at the end of a long day of rehearsing is just what your body needs to relax and prepare for tomorrow.
5.) Take a day off- Sometimes you need a mental day of rest. On your days off, participate in functions or activites that do not involve dancing. You will feel a lot fresher when the work week begins again.
I hope you have enjoyed these 5 healthy tips for Ballet Dancers! If you’re feeling a little low on energy, chances are you are missing one of the above components.
Happy Dancing!
Nikol Klein, Professional Ballet Dancer, Author of The Ballet Audition Preparation Guide
Tango, other dances of the world declared protected living traditions by UNESCO
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity include the art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs, the The Bulgarian Nestinarstvo fire-dancing rite (video below), the Farmers’ dance of China’s Korean ethnic group, the Japanese Ainu dance and many more. More information on safeguarding cultural heritage can be found here.
Based on the information available on the UNESCO website, it seems that the result of being placed on this list is that cultural groups can receive grant monies to engage in activities and programming that will document, protect, and promote the identified practice. The grant application asks applicants to identify how they will do that effectively and in doing so, educate a broad audience. Some examples of these plans can be foud at this link.
Documentary about Nestinarstvo fire dancing ritual
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UNESCO has a fantastic YouTube channel with many many more video examples of intangible cultural heritage practices.
Play House Lets Dance Loose in Long Beach
The upstairs gallery opens a little after eight, and some of us serious (read: uptight) dance fans who’d been parked on couches leftover from the building’s warehouse days head right up. More low-key guests continue to arrive, sip red wine and munch on pizza from the bar until deciding to encounter some art, thanks to the show’s soft start time – a brilliant idea in a city where traffic makes an eight o’clock arrival uncertain at best. Upstairs, works that mostly sit still approach themes of home, family, and the everyday: 1940’s-era portraits overlaid with block letters telling the subjects’ stories, a sandbox of red paper poppies bobbing in the breeze from a nearby fan, a family outing restaged with beach chairs and projected photographs. Excited chatter bubbles up from a game of bowling, but curiosity leads me on, and the flow of foot traffic pulls my focus out into the next dimly lit room.
Here, people play house. In the bedroom, Tara McArthur stuffs laundry in drawers, dropping socks and underwear absentmindedly. She tries on a pair of tight jeans, checking herself out in a mirror, and I feel more like a voyeur than a viewer. Peering around walls, furniture, and other audience members, I glimpse a scuffle over a liquor bottle at the dining room table and a woman in a flouncy apron busy at the sink and stove. Andrew Merrell enters the bedroom, and while the couple prepares for bed, self-consciousness prods me to crane, tilt and rise on tiptoe to catch parts of the drinking game turned mad musical chairs in the next room. Urgent and repeated kicking from the bed pulls me back to watch the pair on a sleepwalking stroll, treading lightly over backs, along wall and ceiling. They slump and drag into dreamy, slow motion death scenes – crossing back and forth over the line between hilarious and disturbing – but then a blaring alarm clock sends everyone into a panicked scramble over chairs, under tables, and out of the house. Several of us linger to watch the few remaining homebodies continue, apparently prolonging their performance with our presence.
Downstairs in semi-darkness, we take seats on risers and, based on the brown paper program I found after the show, I think we await the start of Bahareh Ebrahimzadeh’s “The Green Movement.” Ebrahimzadeh’s piece revs to include the most innovative partnering and thrillingly off-balance, risky dancing I’ve seen in a while. A disoriented, ever-falling trio lurches side to side, arches, and turns, cutting horizontally through the space. A man in blue – Sam Propersi? – jabs a knee out toward a distant point, and hips, rib cage, shoulders, head trail along in perfectly passive sequence, unstilted by tension or competing impulse. Erin Butkevitch(?) joins him and they dance a duet full of violence and tenderness; their rolling, shifting, clutching, shoving connection conveys the complexity of human relationships with a veracity rarely achieved in movement.
We aren’t sure if there’ll be more dancing after the applause dies, but the ambiguity gives us permission to get up and return to the bar for more snacks, and many do. Viviana Alcazar’s mellifluous “Unbroken Ties” eventually follows, a gentle duet danced by women with wonderfully unaffected stage presence and beautifully spontaneous smiles when they bound through space together. They establish such a clear and close bond that moments of unison bring delicious satisfaction. A preview of Invertigo Dance Theatre’s November show, Reeling, gets me hooked on their funky, free-spirited style. Goofing off – jerking, tripping, and flopping each other around – to Wanda Jackson’s 1961 rockabilly “Funnel of Love,” they switch from silly to strange in a second, legs contorting around shoulders in backbends and laughs bursting nonsensically from intensely focused looks. Dancers slingshot each other across the stage, run and dive at the audience, but then darkness interrupts . . . until November.
What a fabulous show – over by 9:30, and the cast ready to start it all again at 10:00. Thanks to all for modeling a concert for today’s viewers. This is how we build an audience.
Get Ready for the Big Move
For quick and easy directions, click on this link
Stay tuned for more information about our exact moving date
VelocityDC premieres this weekend– our very own Fall for Dance!
If you’ve always wanted to try a dance performance, but not sure what to see and on a budget, your time has come with VelocityDC.
On Friday and Saturday, October 2 and 3, for only $15, come sample six of the best dance companies from DC (and beyond) at the beautiful Sidney Harman Hall at 610 F Street NW, beginning at 7:30pm.
Ron K. Brown and Evidence
Featured are short pieces from Ron K. Brown and Evidence, The Washington Ballet, CityDance Ensemble, EDGEWORKS Dance Theater, Gesel Mason, Nejla Yatkin, Edwin Aparicio, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner presenting the outdoor piece “Bodies in Urban Spaces”. You’ll see modern, African, ballet, hip hop and many forms in between.
VelocityDC is designed for folks who may be new to dance, beginning with Gesel Mason’s performance of “How to Watch a Modern Dance”. Stay afterward at the bar to swap impressions, meet some dancers, and finally be able to ask them, up close and in person, how they do it all!
VelocityDC Late Night!
Night owls, stick around for VelocityDCLate Night! At 10pm on Saturday, October 3, a cabaret-style showcase of movement, music and mayhem featuring dancers, poets and musicians.
This late-night, 18+ cabaret promises an evening of music, movement and mayhem including appearances by Andile Ndlovu, Capital Movement Project, Contradiction Dance, Furia Flamenca, Gesel Mason, Gilded Lily Burlesque, Kentavius Jones, Komplex, Lucy Bowen McCauley Dance, Regie Cabico/Sol y Soul, and Urban Artistry.
In addition, relax and enjoy the Harman Center bars and lounges with DJ Ian Knight (Philadelphia) into the early morning hours.
The Washington Ballet performs Wunderland
Bodies in Urban Spaces
Street performances of Willi Dorner’s “Bodies in Urban Spaces” will take place both evenings free to the public. “Bodies” begins at5:30pm each night, beginning at the Archives/Navy Memorial Metro and winding its way throughout the Penn Quarter neighborhood.
Presented in partnership by Washington Performing Arts Society, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Dance/MetroDC with major artistic partners The Washington Ballet and CityDance Ensemble.
Visit www.velocityDC.org for more information.
Tickets are on sale now for $15 at the website or the Sidney Harman Hall box office, (202) 547- 1122 or toll-free (877) 487-8849.
CityDance Ensemble
Press Photos and Releases:
www.velocitydc.org/index.php/press
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/velocityDC
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/velocity_DC
