Making the Sky The Best Place On Earth

Yes, it's an ad, but its gracefulness makes you forget that.

Dang that James Brown

Lil Buck + Yo Yo Ma

Tap

Never too late to learn something new, right?
I went to my first tap class this week, and I loved every minute of it. 
I loved learning the basic steps, listening to the lingo (slap, spank, shuffle, paddle and roll).
There is also something about making noise with your feet that is joyous and smile-inducing.
Hopefully, pretty soon, I'll be like this little guy.

(image via:)

The Waltz

I've been fascinated by waltz music lately.
That playful OOM PA PA takes me to another time and place.

Here's a good one:

(image via)

A Little Gene Kelly

Magic begins around 2:15...

DV8

From DV8 Physical Theater's Cost of Living:


DV8 - Cost of Living por arthursoares  no Videolog.tv.

Pina Bausch

Wim Wenders' film documentary on the late choreographer Pina Bausch is still staying with me. Powerful stuff.





 

Baryshnikov is a god

Perfection on the stage! He defies all laws of physics!

I Will Try to Fix You

I was so moved when I saw this dance based on the choreographer’s own experiences watching his mother suffer through breast cancer. The last thing I expected from "So You Think You Can Dance"!

Five

1. 1999 Iranian film: "The Color of Paradise"



2. Fig tree metaphor from Sylvia Plath that struck me instantly:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

3. ABT's Swan Lake:
(Here's one of my favorite scenes: Odile beguiling the Prince)


4. Mendelsohn's Wedding March, Arranged by Horowitz


5. Mr. Emerson's words in the movie "A Room with a View":
"I don't care what I see outside. My vision is within! Here is where the birds sing! Here is where the sky is blue!"

Gene Kelly is Divine

From Jacques Demy's lovely movie "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort"

Waltzing in Grand Central

Just caught an old Terry Gilliam movie, The Fisher King - I really loved the ideas of chivalry in it, and also this magical scene, in which Parry (played by Robin Williams) waits for the woman of his dreams in Grand Central Station, suddenly spots her, and the hurried commuters around him turn into elegant waltzers. Terry Gilliam's movies are so precious because of scenes like this!

Lucinda Ruh

I have a bit of Olympics fever right now.  Watching Stephane Lambiel's spins the other night reminded me of a great great spinner - someone I remember even now after having watched her as a child - Lucinda Ruh.  I still can't get over how beautiful her spins are. Just amazing.

DV8

I first heard of DV8, the British physical theater / dance company, a couple of years ago when my British dance history teacher showed us their short film "The Cost of Living". It blew my mind and changed the way I thought about dance - and I keep on coming back to it even years later. The way they use bodies (even imperfect ones) to create such beautifully memorable scenes. Pure poetry of movement.

What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again

Lincoln Center. At night. Right before an opera. This is by far my favorite time and place in New York City. There was a really fascinating article in The New Yorker this week about the renovation / re-design of the famous fountain (I really will never see water the same way again.) They also put together this video of the fountain's appearance in films.


It turns out that the people who designed the new fountain also designed the Bellagio fountains in Vegas, which led me to watch this video of the Bellagio fountains in action - dancing to Singin' in the Rain. Marvelous!