So I'm sitting at my desk this morning, late morning, workin on my shizznat. My phone rings, and all of a sudden I am slated to perform at a nightclub for a private party tomorrow night. I have to wear all white, because I will be performing as a 'snow angel.' I did not have anything white to wear... the shows I've been doing have all called for reds or blacks... And I don't have an act. I have to improvise... make it up as I go. I suck at that! Crap!!
11/28/2007
11/25/2007
Quotidian's Interlude
An inspiring break, this one. I wasn't going to take Friday off of work, since we didn't officially have it off and I intended on saving vacation pay for Christmas in the Big Apple. But I woke up Friday morning, everyone but me with the day off, mother in town and all, and couldn't bring myself to go in. Thanksgiving was nice... family and wine and games and all... but the rest of the break was so much better. I slept in late on Friday, the Beau had to wake me. We immediately went to get brunch/lunch at our favorite place. Delicious as always, it gave the Beau a great idea: to go see if the new Museum of Contemporary Art designed by celebrated architect David Adjaye was open and inviting. Friday was very overcast and very cold, which is my most favoritest weather. We drove over, he ran in, and next thing I know there we are in the lobby of this carefully beautiful building. Its really an incredible space, subtle and calm, soft and cold. A few images...
This is the lounge -- filled with "love sacs" -- cantilevered over the sidewalk
The skylights were walkable and part of the roof deck (note the two feet in silouette in the skylight)
The museum's exhibit space is white, understated, and clean, stark. The two area's meant for hands-on interaction (the library and the rooftop coffee shop) are suddenly warm and amiable with dark wood finishes and more textures. What an incredible building. I was utterly inspired... David Adjaye is, I think, my new favorite architect. Thankfully, he has monographs, which brings me to my next subject: Nureyev. You see, the Beau's mother wants a list of things to get me for Christmas, and I'd been struggling with it. After the museum, while enjoying some delicious coffee in its rooftop, he had another great idea to go see a movie together. We left for the theater, discovered we had a bit of time before our movie started, and ended up in Barnes and Noble, perusing the books. A gorgeous cover caught my eye while we browsed:
It was the raw black and white photo as well as the understated cover design that caught my eye, then when I looked closer and found it was a biography of a celebrated ballet dancer. I am very new to the world of dance, as far as dancers go. I've only been giving it serious attention for about a year and a half, when I first tried the aerial fabric dancing. I've always been and artist, but always staid in the safe disciplines where one did not have to deal with the audience's reaction until one wanted. With dance... well, the audience is right there. There is no hiding in the shadows. There is no claiming ignorance. Not that I've exercised that option very often, but I've always taken comfort in its being there. Anyhow: As of late, I have been enjoying a slow and heartfelt introduction into the world of dance... first with an intro to modern dance class during the last semester of college; seeing the Alvin Ailey dance troupe's production of the "Golden Mean" (I think it was...) in New York City last Christmastime; videos, books, photos... so it was quite a pleasent surprise to see that this book was a biography on a ballet dancer. And even better that I was in the process of making a list of things I want for the Beau's mother.
After Barnes and Noble, we headed to our movie. We saw Dan In Real Life. What a fantastic and lovely movie. I am beginning to think that anything Steve Carell is in is friggin wonderful... the guy is a genious. The movie, however, made us late to family time... we were supposed to be at my brother's by 7 for dinner. We didn't get out of the movie until 7:30. But to be honest... the day of hookie from work, from my family, from my daughter (who was with Gramma) all to spend it experiencing things with my Beau was altogether saccharinely romantic. It was wonderful.
Saturday was two and a half hours of training at the circus center. And it was lovely. I hurt after, but it felt fantastic. The Circus Center is in Boulder, which is where we lived before I graduated and became gainfully employed in the "big" city of Denver (hence moving there). Once we were done with training, I grabbed coffee from one of the places I used to love getting coffee from, then a smoothie that goes by the name of Green Monkey (because it has spirulina in it, among other delicious things). Part of what I love about harsh and intense physical demand is that what you eat/drink after tends to have a much more intense flavor... or perhaps its that I am so much more sensitive to the taste. And to top off a good workout with two flavors I adore and don't get much any more (can't find good coffee in the "big" city and the Green Monkey is from a small, one of a kind cafe), was, dare I say, sensational. A treat only acheived through context, if that makes sense.
And finally, today. Sunday. After a little of this and a bit of that, the Beau and I sat down to watch "Capote." What an intense movie. Philip Seymore Hoffman was absolutely amazing in that role... we watched one of the special features on the dvd which piqued our curiosity in the professional photos of the murderers. The feature didn't show any of them, which struck us as odd, seeing as it was showing most of the other real photos of the subjects. So I googled their names, hoping they were posted on the web somewhere, and I ended up googling the photographer himself. Richard Avedon. And how weird is this: The photo of Nureyev on the cover of the book I put on the christmas list? The one that caught my eye? Richard Avedon. Not only that, but I also bought one of his monographs at he Met last Christmas as a gift for my former boss and his wife. It had caught my eye because of its raw nature not only in style but in its subjects: there are a number of circus performers, dancers, to boot. And paging through his photos, getting even more inspired, I see another photograph I recognized from an essay I love about Le Corbusier an his fetishes. My brain is firing like a barrel of fireworks with an errant, lit match...
Stunning! I can't decide what to do next... jump, swing, flail, read, create, cry, breath, click... I'll try breathing for now. What a wonderful and much needed break from quotidian!!!
10/30/2007
Overflowing
Wow, what a weekend... the Devotchka show was a blast on Sat. night, despite all the chaos and mishaps. Nay, blast... INCREDIBLE! I walked out into the crowd - in my underwear - to my fabric being held by my good friend Joe. Then it was waiting for the cue: a couple of comments from those standing around me, and up I went. I never cease to be amazed at the difference adrenaline can make in an athletic endeavor. Things that usually would have my full attention were almost as natural as breathing while I was up there... which I'm sure is a function of the amount of practice, but still surprising. It didn't go as rehearsed: at all. Everything was different. Somehow, and I don't know how, we all just went with it, and it seems to have turned out! Photos!
Photo courtesy of Mallory Freed. I am the one on the very left, in front of the lights. I LOVE the chandeliers!!
Photo courtesy of Rosalicious. I am the one on the right this time...
Photo courtesy Eric Edmondson. What a zoom!
In this last photo I was swirling the fabric around in order to make myself spin, which kept whipping people below me. Hopefully not too hard... No one complained when I came down, anyhow. I can't describe how shocking it was to see myself rising above a sea of heads... or how thrilling it is to hear so many people cheering for the three of us and what we were doing! I think I may be hooked...
That definitely was enough to make the weekend, and yet Sunday was a blast as well! After a delicious breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, and the rest of the morning in and out of sleep on the couch, the Beau suggested taking a walk down to a park in the city. It was such a nice day, I couldn't say no, so he, my daughter and I headed out. After navigating through the throngs of Rockies fans lining up to get into the last game of the World Series, we crossed a bridge and found a patch of green under vivid blue skies. My daughter and I practiced a little acrobalancing while watching all the dogs play and soaking up the sun. A few photos:
Then it was off to dinner at a neighborhood eatery. It was as if we were actually a family. I know that sounds funny, because we are an actual family... but one generally functions everyday not thinking of the line that defines a couple of people spending a lot of time together as more than just that... or the line that defines childhood from adolescence, or adolescence from adulthood. It seems like the older I get, the more immature everyone I looked up to becomes. But I digress...
Unfortunately a Rockies defeat is what awaited us at home after dinner (or I guess on the way home) but that couldn't ruin the delight from such a wonderful weekend. Man if they could all be so good...
10/15/2007
Updating
Firstly...
How serendipitous is this practice location??? A good friend of mine, who thought he'd take up flying as a pastime, and who has already crashed one plane (but he survived with no injuries so do NOT show concern for his life lest he express his contempt for this) has let me hang my fabric in his airplane hangar. I got a new, red, stretchy fabric: the advantage of this fabric lies mainly in training and in "comfort." It takes so much more energy to do anything on fabric with a lot of stretch than it does on fabric with very little stretch, therefore the ass-kicking training aid. And by "comfort" I am being a bit misleading, because it should be known that nothing in aerial fabric dancing is comfortable. I never realised a piece of fabric could leave you with deep bruises that last weeks until I began doing this in my spare time. But, with the drops -- where I climb up, wrap myself a certain way, and let go, freefalling until all slack is gone and I am yanked to a dead stop -- the stretchy fabric makes the arrest less of an impact, its stretch absorbing some of the force. At any rate, I had to catch a photo of me "flying" in front of the vehicles of flight.
And along those lines...
And along those lines...
This is a photo of Jeannie of Devotchka. A wonderfully sublime band who did the soundtrack to the movie Little Miss Sunshine (which is an incredible movie, should be in the market for such things), Devotchka is the very reason I am an aerial fabric dancer. A long time ago, when I fancied a side career in photography...
... I spend plenty of shutter time in front of this band. They had a belly dancer as part of their live shows in those days, until one wonderful Valentines day, I had this to shoot:
How incredibly gorgeous, I thought... how amazing... such intense feminimity and yet the strength and stamina... I was so inspired by these girls (known as the Oracle Dance Troupe) and took enough decent photos of/for them that I kind of became their unofficial photographer for a while. But, after seeing this a number of times, and being so inspired as to be at a loss for what to do, I figured the best way to try and release this pent up inspiration (that the photos weren't accomplishing) was to get on the fabric myself. Fast forward about a year and a half, in which I discovered the very intense beauty that is aerial fabric dancing, performed for the first time for a fundraiser, performed a number of times in a club that was an intense experience but not something that could last, unfortunately, performed for a grand opening of an aerial dance studio, performed in an incredible show with 35 performers and 4,000 guests, and began teaching in a number of places...
The aerial dancing community isn't a huge one, as I'm sure is no great surprise. I have come to treasure friendships with the oracle girls and with most of the people in the aerial dance community, and feel so incredibly fortunate to have found this beautiful outlet, these beautiful friendships, the amazing opportunities, the priceless memories, the fantastic mother-daughter bonding (surely, you didn't think I could deprive my daughter of such a fulfilling thing!). But all of that seems to almost pale in comparison to what I stand to do next, in about two weeks...
I'm performing with Devotchka in their next live show!!!!
Wow. I wasn't able to respond when Alex asked me. Talk about full circle. I'm still so stunned with the idea that I am relatively speechless. Relatively...
And the last bit of updating...
I'm not a big sports fan. Which is ironic, because my first real job out of college has been at an architecture firm that does none other than sports related architecture... and furthermore ironic that after moving to Denver to make my commute drastically shorter we ended up in a loft a block away from Coors field... And, honestly, even furthermore ironic considering I was a tomboy through and through as a child (bit through my tongue playing basketball, hyperextended my knee playing tackle football, and no, I did not play with girls, I played with all the neighborhood boys, half of which were college age). But. I have to say I have very much been enjoying the Colorado Rockies' success as of late. First and foremost, as an armchair sociologist, I am spellbound by the shear power one can feel in the presence of thousands of thousands of screeming fans. How crazy to think such a thing can bring out a person's passion, however misguided (or not). Our loft looks out onto Coors Field, essentially:
We have a Juliet balcony that opens up towards it (seriously... irony!!) and we are close enough to hear almost everything that happens there. I am, rediculously, but endlessly entertained by hearing the crowd go crazy and then 10 seconds later seeing what it was they went crazy about on the television. Its literally piqued my interest in the sport, and I find myself from time to time supressing a little cheer when they knock it out of the park. Maybe its part of my suppressed childhood vying for some appreciation thus denied. At any rate, I'm absolutely delighted by it all right now, and love that my delight coincides with such an exciting time for the baseball team.
Whew! Enough updating for now... but a lot more later!
The aerial dancing community isn't a huge one, as I'm sure is no great surprise. I have come to treasure friendships with the oracle girls and with most of the people in the aerial dance community, and feel so incredibly fortunate to have found this beautiful outlet, these beautiful friendships, the amazing opportunities, the priceless memories, the fantastic mother-daughter bonding (surely, you didn't think I could deprive my daughter of such a fulfilling thing!). But all of that seems to almost pale in comparison to what I stand to do next, in about two weeks...
I'm performing with Devotchka in their next live show!!!!
Wow. I wasn't able to respond when Alex asked me. Talk about full circle. I'm still so stunned with the idea that I am relatively speechless. Relatively...
And the last bit of updating...
I'm not a big sports fan. Which is ironic, because my first real job out of college has been at an architecture firm that does none other than sports related architecture... and furthermore ironic that after moving to Denver to make my commute drastically shorter we ended up in a loft a block away from Coors field... And, honestly, even furthermore ironic considering I was a tomboy through and through as a child (bit through my tongue playing basketball, hyperextended my knee playing tackle football, and no, I did not play with girls, I played with all the neighborhood boys, half of which were college age). But. I have to say I have very much been enjoying the Colorado Rockies' success as of late. First and foremost, as an armchair sociologist, I am spellbound by the shear power one can feel in the presence of thousands of thousands of screeming fans. How crazy to think such a thing can bring out a person's passion, however misguided (or not). Our loft looks out onto Coors Field, essentially:
We have a Juliet balcony that opens up towards it (seriously... irony!!) and we are close enough to hear almost everything that happens there. I am, rediculously, but endlessly entertained by hearing the crowd go crazy and then 10 seconds later seeing what it was they went crazy about on the television. Its literally piqued my interest in the sport, and I find myself from time to time supressing a little cheer when they knock it out of the park. Maybe its part of my suppressed childhood vying for some appreciation thus denied. At any rate, I'm absolutely delighted by it all right now, and love that my delight coincides with such an exciting time for the baseball team.
Whew! Enough updating for now... but a lot more later!
08/18/2007
I'm flying!
A photo from my performance a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun, a HUGE challenge, and an incredible experience. Hope to do it again soon!!!
obiter dictum
"We don't read and write poetry because its cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. Business, engineering, medicine, law: these are all nobel pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But beauty, poetry, romance, love: these are what we live life for!"
08/12/2007
Oh, and I suppose...
... I should post a few photos of my initial experiments with fractals from my studio course. Tell me they look like architecture... :P
Fractals
So I had a studio course in college that focused on "growing" architecture. This has a lot to do with something called fractals, but is an incredibly difficult idea to explain, so I'm going to opt out for sake of keeping this more to the original point: my affection for fractals. But feel free to ask, should you be interested in an explanation.
In nature, there are patterns. These patterns, very often, repeat themselves on different scales, especially with little external influence. An iconic example of this can be found in the short documentary that Charles and Ray Eames produced in 1977, called "The Powers of Ten."
A fractal is, by definition: A complex geometric pattern exhibiting self-similarity in that small details of its structure viewed at any scale repeat elements of the overall pattern.
In the documentary, this is somewhat hinted at by the similarity between the way protons orbit a nucleus and the way the planets orbit the sun. And in the idea that there is a pattern of activity and inactivity throughout the journey of scale. Fractals are evident in plants as well, how the veins in the leaves can mimic the branches that hold them.
"Fractals are often associated with recursive operations on shapes or sets of numbers, in which the result of the operation is used as the input to the same operation, repeating the process indefinitely. The operations themselves are usually very simple, but the resulting shapes or sets are often dramatic and complex, with interesting properties. For example, a fractal set called a Cantor dust can be constructed beginning with a line segment by removing its middle third and repeating the process on the remaining line segments. If this process is repeated indefinitely, only a "dust" of points remains. This set of points has zero length, even though there is an infinite number of points in the set. The Sierpinski triangle (or Sierpinski gasket) is another example of such a recursive construction procedure involving triangles (see the illustration). Both of these sets have subparts that are exactly the same shape as the entire set, a property known as self-similarity. Under certain definitions of dimension, fractals are considered to have non-integer dimension: for example, the dimension of the Sierpinski triangle is generally taken to be around 1.585, higher than a one-dimensional line, but lower than a two-dimensional surface. Perhaps the most famous fractal is the Mandelbrot set, which is the set of complex numbers C for which a certain very simple function, Z2 + C, iterated on its own output (starting with zero), eventually converges on one or more constant values. Fractals arise in connection with nonlinear and chaotic systems, and are widely used in computer modeling of regular and irregular patterns and structures in nature, such as the growth of plants and the statistical patterns of seasonal weather." (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary)
My affection for fractals comes from an affection for beauty, coupled with a dire satisfaction from understanding the world around me. Basically, I love that there is - in my mind - the beginning of an explanation of what makes nature so gorgeous. I should point out that when I say nature, I personally don't tend to first think of things like the mountains and flowers and trees, though I definitely don't exclude those. I personally tend to first think of things like how gorgeous the curve of an orbit can be, or how perfect sand dunes look from a few miles above, or how elegent the curve of a falling/thrown object is, or how incredibly elegent the system that is a human body can be (I'm sure its no secret, but yes, I am the nerdiest of all nerds...). Anyhow, my affection also has to do with the idea that something that looks so chaotic and messy, yet seems to have a beautiful order to it, such as a flame, can be understood by our silly little brains (at least to an extent). I guess it is a deeper understanding of - and so a deeper appreciation for - beauty in its natural form.
So of course, when I came across these images, my heart went pitter-patting away...
These are images that are completely computer generated by a program that takes a simple, original, geometric shape and subjects it to a set of rules over and over and over again. They look like images of a nebula in outerspace to me, or more obvious things like a set of wings or a flame. I don't consider it any coincidence that they look like things we see everyday (or, more often than not, anyhow). Nature employs fractals: fractals are how nature determines its shape. These fractals above are pure, in the sense that they've had no environmental influences on them to affect the momentum or direction of the shape being grown, and so are more perfect and, to an extent, more beautiful than those things they look like. But that they offer a deeper understanding of the beauty around us makes me very much in love with them. View more here.
In the documentary, this is somewhat hinted at by the similarity between the way protons orbit a nucleus and the way the planets orbit the sun. And in the idea that there is a pattern of activity and inactivity throughout the journey of scale. Fractals are evident in plants as well, how the veins in the leaves can mimic the branches that hold them.
"Fractals are often associated with recursive operations on shapes or sets of numbers, in which the result of the operation is used as the input to the same operation, repeating the process indefinitely. The operations themselves are usually very simple, but the resulting shapes or sets are often dramatic and complex, with interesting properties. For example, a fractal set called a Cantor dust can be constructed beginning with a line segment by removing its middle third and repeating the process on the remaining line segments. If this process is repeated indefinitely, only a "dust" of points remains. This set of points has zero length, even though there is an infinite number of points in the set. The Sierpinski triangle (or Sierpinski gasket) is another example of such a recursive construction procedure involving triangles (see the illustration). Both of these sets have subparts that are exactly the same shape as the entire set, a property known as self-similarity. Under certain definitions of dimension, fractals are considered to have non-integer dimension: for example, the dimension of the Sierpinski triangle is generally taken to be around 1.585, higher than a one-dimensional line, but lower than a two-dimensional surface. Perhaps the most famous fractal is the Mandelbrot set, which is the set of complex numbers C for which a certain very simple function, Z2 + C, iterated on its own output (starting with zero), eventually converges on one or more constant values. Fractals arise in connection with nonlinear and chaotic systems, and are widely used in computer modeling of regular and irregular patterns and structures in nature, such as the growth of plants and the statistical patterns of seasonal weather." (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary)
My affection for fractals comes from an affection for beauty, coupled with a dire satisfaction from understanding the world around me. Basically, I love that there is - in my mind - the beginning of an explanation of what makes nature so gorgeous. I should point out that when I say nature, I personally don't tend to first think of things like the mountains and flowers and trees, though I definitely don't exclude those. I personally tend to first think of things like how gorgeous the curve of an orbit can be, or how perfect sand dunes look from a few miles above, or how elegent the curve of a falling/thrown object is, or how incredibly elegent the system that is a human body can be (I'm sure its no secret, but yes, I am the nerdiest of all nerds...). Anyhow, my affection also has to do with the idea that something that looks so chaotic and messy, yet seems to have a beautiful order to it, such as a flame, can be understood by our silly little brains (at least to an extent). I guess it is a deeper understanding of - and so a deeper appreciation for - beauty in its natural form.
So of course, when I came across these images, my heart went pitter-patting away...
07/28/2007
Its been a while...
I apologize. My life has turned 180 and been go, go, go ever since... Two updates I had to share:
I performed in a (really big) show this last thursday, as one of six aerial tissu dancers. The above was the fantastic makeup Kelsie from glitterfreckle did on all 35 performers for this gig (the aerialists had the same makeup, but the others were different). She was amazing! She got us all done in such a short time, and we all looked so good! These photos were sans costume and red wig, but get's the makeup accross wonderfully!
And here we have a damn sexy song... which has inspired me to put together a sexy burlesque tissu piece for a gig coming up in Vegas... tell me you don't want to 'tango' after listening to this!!!
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