Feel the Music and Fill it Completely

Hot on the heels (so to speak) of my previous post in which I mentioned the idea of fully filling up the music when dancing, I have stumbled on this short YouTube clip of Zakharova in class.

I can't help but wonder if 'this is a setup' (!). She takes her time to do each exercise movement but she's sandwiched between 2 others who are in a bit of a hurry and their juxtaposition kind of emphasizes that she is dancing to music vs. doing calisthenics (no offense meant to the others !).

The documentary that this clip came from looks like it might be interesting. It's in my queue :-)

Kathakali, Bharatanatyam and the Wagner experience

This past Saturday I treated myself to take in some Indian Classical Dancing by attending a performance that was part the Festival of Indian Classical Dance in SF. That evening was one of 3 performance days held at the Yerba Buena over the weekend. The 2 styles that I saw: Kathak and Bharatanatyam place heavy emphasis on stylized gesture to convey emotions and tell their story.

The Kathak piece 'Sita Haran' was a full-length saga of 3 exiles and their adventures along their path through central India. With a help of a narrator whom opened each movement/scene with a description of the circumstances surrounding the scene (in English) it was easy to grasp what was unfolding on stage as the dancers acted out the drama. The entire dance was performed by women, apparently an ironic twist as historically many such dances were performed by troupes consisting entirely of men.

The Bharatanatyam pieces were performed by a husband wife duo V.P. Dhananjayan and C.P. Shanta (their pictures above). Here I was a little lost. The dance form clearly contains a repertoire of gestures representing a set of actions/emotions. Amongst the live band (with an absolutely masterful percussion/tabla guy) was a vocalist who I assume was narrating each of the dances. Unfortunately (for me), the singing was not in English so I could not really
understand what was happening.
The experience was not unlike going to a Wagner opera before the advent of 'super titles' to narrate the goings on on stage. Beautiful singing with orchestral leitmotifs that signify certain actions, but if you can't understand German being sung, you're pretty much in dark about what in the world is going on on stage.
So while I appreciated the Dancing and Music in the abstract, I missed the stories completely due to the linguistic barrier.

All in all, the evening was an enriching experience that I would welcome again !

update: here's the SFGate Review

Dance Wright Night Delights II

Having enjoyed last year's DanceWright Project show so much, I looked foward to this year's performances in Sept. and I was not disappointed !
Thinking back now, a few weeks later, a couple of things have stuck in my mind about the evening:

The excellence of the DanceWright dancers was impressive !
One of my former Jazz Dance teachers, Zafra Miriam, had remarked that Jazz was hard because one moment you can be doing the most contorted off-balance thing and then suddenly in the next moment you have to be as centered and balanced as a Ballet dancer. Well, the DanceWright crew had THAT for sure. Not only going from a 'crazy posture' to suddenly being centered and balanced, but all the way up onto full pointe (tips of toes) to boot. All of that while actually 'dancing' as in 'art vs. a gymnastic-like-technical display'.. wow..

Kat Worthington's piece 'Portals of Grace' with her group 'Copius Dance Theater' was lush/flowing and expressive. I don't know how else to put it. It really has to be seen as words can't convey it (or rather, I can't convey the feeling). The SFgate reviewer described the piece (later performed at the WestWave performance) as 'curious'.. hmmm.. I and the many sitting near me on the night that I say it thought that it was enthralling !

Lastly, the 'Adhesive Dance Theater' of Dexandro "D" Montalvo did some contemporary dance theater pieces (and they did adhere !). One of them 'Ride the Muni' was the comical transition of a very uptight (as in ska-way-yer conservative) MUNI rider letting it all go after being trapped in a MUNI trolley during a 'service outage'.. The confined MUNI car became the 'Club MUNI' disco hall with our hero loosening his tie and shakin' it (madly)... 'Club MUNI' became my personal theme of the week that followed :-)

I'm looking foward to DanceWright Night #3 next year !

Part of me wished that this recent Night #2 could have been experienced by a larger crowd. I ran into someone later who had also been at Night #2 and we agreed that if the show moves to a larger venue, that venue might be the kind of place where the audience would not be allowed to hoot n' holler (and we were hootin n' hollerin' mightly during night #2) and that that might be a loss... life's trade-offs...

Trained Technique vs Spontaneity

I checked out the 'KeKe Palmer Super Jerkin Contest Winners' video.

A pair had won a choreography contest posed by KeKe Palmer to submit a 'Jerkin' dance routine.

The 2 winners joined KeKe and another dancer to rehearse the routine. What I saw re-raises a quandry that's lurked in my mind for quite a while: Technical Training vs 'Spontaneity'. KeKe and Co look like 'trained dancers'. They're tight in timing and movement. The 2 contest winners are great but one can notice that in many places their hands and arms are not in sync, especially with regards to placement. The video was edited with many short quick cuts, I suspect that this was purposefully done so that the difference in the quality of the dancers would be less noticeable.

But, which of the pairs is 'better' ? I'm not sure that I have an opinion. What one group impresses with as far as precision, the other group impresses with being able to convey a different kind of feeling.

Try to compare trumpeters Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis. Wynton Marsalis wins hands down for versatility and technical ability. Miles would never have made it as a symphonic trumpeter, whereas Wynton Marsalis had remarkably won both the classical and jazz Grammy Awards one year. But Miles had a voice all his own and sometimes I wonder if a perfect 'classically trained' tone would have helped or hurt his art.

That's the dilemma with dance, how to train precision but also not come across as a robot (unless you're doing the robot style, of course !).

Romeo and Juliet

I went to see SF Ballet's production of Romeo and Juliet on Friday night. This was a 'complete' experience with a fantastic score, expressive choreography and an elaborate set and costumes. The score, by Prokofiev, is rich enough to just listen to alone. I recall vividly the first time I heard a section of it. In a crackling super-low fidelity ShortWave radio broadcast from 'Radio Moscow'. It was rich and dramatic sounding, I had to learn more about this music which was bouncing off the ionosphere traversing continents to reach me. Michael Tilson Thomas arranged a suite and recorded it with the SF Symphony, highly recommended.

The choreography struck me as classical ballet with modern touches (usually in the form of allowing some torso bending here and there). At one point, to demonstrate shared excitement through gesture, 2 of the dancers jumped up in the air to give each other the 'high five' (very contemporary !).

The performance looked sold out. The only floor level seat that I could get was off on the side (see photo). I prefer floor level seating because it allows me the best view of the dancers use of elevation. The seats at higher levels give a better view of the choreography and better acoustics from the orchestra, but for me it's mostly about the individual dancers so floor level it is.

I wish I could have taken (non-flash) pictures of the actual performance. Which leads me back to my main peeve about the 'old arts establishment'. In my humble opinion, they ought to get with modern times or continue to die a self-strangled death as their patrons slowly fade away. So.... I cannot point you to any exciting and interesting pictures of the performance on a photo sharing site because it's not allowed.

Earlier in the day I heard a podcast interview with Principal Dancer Maria Kochetkova. At one point the interviewer brought up the fact that she is on Twitter. Every time he asked a question about her 'tweeting' habits he and the audience could not suppress laughter because it sounded so funny (i.e. foreign and unknown). I'll grant SFBallet that they now have stuff up on YouTube and that there's a company Blog and an official Twitter account. But I think the next step is to relax the tight control and to allow patrons themselves to capture and relate their excitement about the SFBallet scene with their own media taken from their own point of view.

Socially evolved or not, I'm really looking forward to their next season !

1st Day Back !

My long awaited return to Ballet class has finally come to pass to today.

How sweet it is to be back in (e)motion !

Naturally, I could only do the physically easier 1/2 of the class warmups and exercises and could only 'mark' (step through and not really dance) the dance portions, but it is great to be back into the swing of things.

"Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder"

Paris Opera Ballet "La Danse"

Yesterday, I ventured out to my first public entertainment venue since the ACL surgery to catch the last screening of 'La Danse' at the Roxie Theatre in SF. After sitting to view the 2 1/2 hour documentary my knee was killing me and it was painful to walk the few blocks back to the train station but the movie was well worth the physical discomfort cost !

'La Danse' is a camera roaming the environment of the Paris Opera Ballet institution to give a view of the life that exists within its walls. For people like me who will never be professional dancers, it's a glimpse into a world only imagined. The camera looked at all facets of the Ballet: the dancers, the directors, the costume and makeup staff, the cafeteria staff, the custodial staff, the building repairs, even a nice sequence that started by gazing upward at the beautifully ornate ceiling of the performance hall proceeding all the way down to the Paris sewer beneath the building looking down showing the fish swimming in the sewer water !

The primary point of view of the movie though is (as I interpret it) from the point of view of a dancer in the company. Hence, the bulk of the footage concentrates on rehearsal. That's rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. Thus, appropriately, there is comparatively way less footage of actual performance. It's right that it should be this way since most of the dancers time will be spent in rehearsal. Right after some performance footage, scenes cut straight to the next days rehearsal just as the dancer would experience life.

If you're not interested in dance, or watching professional dance rehearsals, this movie will be 2 1/2 hours of sheer boredom as there is no plot and there is no focusing in on any 'personal story'. It's the professional's life here. The quality of the dancing is superbe, bringing gasps from the movie audience myself included. The company was shown to have a balance of classical and modern dance. Indeed some of the energy looked like Michael Jackson Amplified (and with greater training and discipline !). Spectacular !

A few interesting non-dance moments from the movie stuck in my mind:

- cut to the executives (in a modest office BTW) planning what they were going to do for visiting American 'premium donors', those individuals that have donated more than $25000 US to the dance company. One of the donor groups ? People from Lehman Brothers..

- In countries like France, Germany.. there are Ballet/Dance companies that are state organizations. The Paris Opera Ballet is a state company so it's the 'same' as working for the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) here. You're a government employee with the same concerns as gov't employees everywhere. In particular a meeting was shown in which the Director explained that the Dancers in the company were recognized as having on average a 'different useful working life' as compared with other gov't workers therefore they didn't have to wait until 65 to be eligible for their gov't pension, instead they are eligible at age 40 for the same benefit. The director added that the high level of achievement of the company was key in that decision and that 'slackening of standards' might put the special consideration in jeopardy.

- In one rehearsal scene a dancer could not shake her habit of pausing her movement with her leg swung back behind her (in Arabesque). This undoubtedly coming from a lifetime of training that way. "She keeps thinking that there is an Arabesque there, when there is none" the choreographer and others keep saying...

- The artistic director describing dancers as being:
1/2 Nun and 1/2 Boxer
Being both the Jockey and the Horse
Being both the Driver and the Race Car

- A choreographer trying to describe the feeling that he wanted from a pair of dancers:
C: "It is like the XMen movies, they want to be in love but because of their dangerous powers they cannot and must stay apart"
D: "Like Edward Scissorhands !"
(editorial comment from me: Hollywood rules the entertainment world...)


A movie worth watching if you're interested in dance and one to avoid like the plague if you're not !

Back On 2 Wheels Again !

And going nowhere fast !

At the advice of Kelly, my Physical Therapist/Torturer, I've climbed back onto my road bike and magnetic trainer to start the next phase of getting my rebuilt knee into shape. The first few full crank revolutions were pretty painful but spiritually uplifting. It's great to be back on 2 wheels again, no matter that I'm not going anywhere !

This week I also gained back the use of my Bass Drum foot. Life being so short of time, I've had to shove drumming aside in order to make time for dancing. I figure that the body will give up on dancing before it gives up on drumming, so dancing has gotten first priority ('Better get it while you can'). Now that my knee is rebuilding and I can't dance, I might as well jump back over and work on my rhythm. Ummph, Pop, Umph Umph... I'm a rhythm and syncopation junkie. As killer drummer Virgil Donati remarked during his spot at the 1997 Modern Drummer Weekend (on DVD) "Drums, the greatest instrument there is !" :-)

Lastly, I took my Mom out to breakfast this morning and saw this cute doggie waiting outside the cafe. I couldn't resist a picture !

Maria Tallchief

I was looking around for DVDs of Ballerina Maria Tallchief. For someone that I'd heard so much about I was surprised that I only found 1 DVD devote to her: an anthology of NBC and Radio-Canada performances. Well OK, I'll take whatever I can get.

Beautiful artistry, that's what it is.

In the performance of 'Les Sylphides' (B&W photo above), the nuances of the music are breathed into the performance. Also striking to me was how the quality and size of the movements matched up with the changing dynamics (loud/soft) of the music. I've not seen that so brought out until now.

With a few exceptions, changing of dynamics/tempo is something that most popular music does not have. If you want a change of mood, you play a different song. Only in classical-based music are there shifts of mood/tempo/dyamic and that adds a another dimension that can be expressed in a dance choreographed for the piece.
So the dance can change from lilting and delicate one moment to forceful and sharp the next. She does it all with refined artistry.

If anyone knows of any more DVDs of her, let me know !

voice of dance page on Maria Tallchief with video (at the time of this writing)

My Last Stand

For a while...

I reported to the Hospital at 6am this morning for ACL reconstruction surgery on my knee (thanks Sis and Mom for getting up so early to shuttle me over !).

10 years ago I completely tore the ACL (ligament) out of my right knee during my fight at a full-contact martial arts tournament. I had gotten knocked back and fell backwards onto my knee 'the wrong way'. My corner man had kept urging me to 'go for the kill' as I had stunned my opponent numerous times with strong but nearly undetectable body blows which left him completely open and defenseless against any quick followup attack. I found out in the ring that I had no desire to beat down a helpless person for sport (it would be a completely different story in cases of real combat or legitimate self-defense, of course !). So, I hobbled out of that match gaining some self-knowlege but losing an ACL.

Barring a few minor mishaps, the torn ACL had not been an issue until I took up dancing 3 years ago. Through all my dance training and classes, when I would start to advance to the next levels of technique my knee would have trouble handling leaps, jumps and general hopping off the floor (well, the landing parts of said manuvers anyway). I would get swelling and painful knees and have to take a break to recover. Finally, having been through numerous of these hop-injure-recover cycles, the time has come to finally have the ACL reconstructed, especially before it leads to more serious injuries: cartiledge damage and arthritis (which a torn ACL will eventually lead to dancing or no dancing).

There are a number of techniques for reconstructing the ACL. All of them involve attaching ligament material to the leg bones where the torn ACL was. Some of the methods involve taking the ligament material from yourself (patellar tendon or hamstring tendon) and another involves using a ligament taken from a deceased donor. I've opted for the 'Frankenstein' donor method. Miraculously after the foriegn donor graft is 'accepted' by the body (there is only a slight chance of rejection), the body begins to grow blood vessels into the graft and accepts it as it's own !
The long post-surgery recovery time (6-9 months) is required to regrow the drilled out bone material (holes required to able to thread and secure the new graft into the bones) and for assimilation of the donor graft..

It will be nice to able to hop about on an uncompromised (well, less compromised) knee after the recovery is complete !

Update: 16:20 I just got off the phone with the surgeon. Looks like I've gotten a bonus Meniscus repair in the back of the knee.. 6 weeks on crutches while it heals ! I need to see about getting a handicap permit !

Stuntman the 'Thelonious Monk' of BBoying

Rarely within established styles of artistic expression do we come across an individual with a developed style that is truly unique and is also at the top of the 'expression' game.

In the 'classic Jazz' realm, Thelonious Monk was one of those artists. His style was 'off-beat', totally unique and supremely expressive. I don't think I've yet run across another pianist that plays like he did.

Similarly, in the BBoy 'Breakdancing' world I've noted the unique dancing style of 'Stuntman' with 'Originality Stands Alone'. Over the years, 'Breakdancing' has come to have a staple of 'classical movements': Headspins, Air Flares (legs in the air spread out a stretch and spinning like a helicopter blade), etc. Often watching Breakdance contests can be like witnessing a gymnastic or ice skating competition, there are a number of well known moves and you judge their execution (and because this is dancing, also on their musicality): OK, here's the Air Flare, now a Headspin, Oh wait, that 6-step seems to be rushing ahead of the beat. 'Stuntman' on the other hand has a completely unique style that doesn't really utilize much of the repertoire of 'standard' moves, but still fits within the boundaries of the BBoy style. I really like it. It's imaginative and it's highly expressive. It takes a complete disregard for convention to show up
at a BBoy contest and dance like no other dancers do, judges be damned. Kind of like Thelonious Monk was when he played the piano and made music in his own unique way.

YouTube: Stuntman, Originality Stands Alone vs Hound Dawg Truckers

Stuntman @0:00 @3:04

Dancing is for the Birdz

It was great a weekend of dance artistry for me. Saturday night I joined some co-conspirators and enjoyed a spectacular performance at Yerba Buena Center by

Alonzo King's Lines Ballet

I have to admit that for me the overall style took some adjusting to on my part, but once that was done I was thoroughly engaged. I can add nothing in words about the experience, it has to be seen in person for full effect !

On Sunday afternoon I played videographer for

Kathy Mata Ballet

to capture the performance put on for the residents at the Sequioa's Senior Center in San Francisco. It was a pleasant couple of hours of serious and playful Ballet, Mambo, HipHop, Belly Dance and a great piano vocal duo Jack and Adele performing favorite standards and hits (e.g. 'I've got you under my skin')

Over the years I've wondered what it is that drives people to make music and to dance. Every culture (except for those espoused by the likes of the Taliban whom advocate the abolishment of music and dance) has their form of music and dance all commonly bound by concepts of rhythm and melody (and where there's absence of rhythm or melody, usually it's that way on purpose to make a statement about rhythm or melody, as in: 'hey, guess what's NOT here ?'). One of my favorite 90's music videos is by the B-52s and features clips of people from various cultures doing their dances (you might be able to find 'B52s Roam' on YouTube subject to the whims of the controlling Music Industry Dinosaurs).

Back when people bought music by walking into stores and sampling CDs, I remember watching a group of IQ challenged students come in to listen to some CDs. Regardless of differences in the brain from 'persons of normal IQ', they definitely felt and enjoyed the rhythm of what they were listening to and were happily rocking their bodies to the beat. Clearly, there's something innate in humans that allows us to create music and dance.

It turns out that this ability may be broader than something common to human kind though. Some researchers conjecture that dance may be something common to all earthly beings that have the ability to speak. Speaking requires the articulation of particular body parts at the correct time, the theory goes, and this ability to coordinate these actions to create speech implies the existence of a sense of rhythm. Included in the beings so blessed are talking birds, as reported in this

2008 NYT article: Avian Dancing

The article refers to videos of 'Snowball' a dancing bird. To test that Snowball was not bobbing and stepping in time with the music 'by coincidence' the researcher varied the tempo of the music and found that Snowbird adjusted his movements to whatever the tempo of the music was. Yes, that bird was dancing !

Video of Snowbird Doing It

So Dancing is for Birds, and I'm loving every minute of it !

DanceWright Night Delights

I went to see a concert put on by the SF DanceWright Project at Dance Mission Theatre in SF.

The DanceWright Project

It was a marvelous evening featuring 4 companies:
DanceWright
Labayen Dance/SF
Kat Worthington and Dancers
DAC PAC

All but DAC PAC performed premiere works that evening and the air was especially electric with the freshness of the new works being presented to the packed house.

I was particularly stunned by the performance of DAC PAC.

DAC PAC were amazing. Aside from the flexibility and energy that one might expect from young (pre-18 year old) dancers, the real surprise was the level of ensemble work. When the choreography called for homogeneous group movement, I don't think I've ever witnessed a group that has performed more tightly. Everyone was exactly on beat, even when falling to the floor (which yielded a satisfying unified 'whump'). When arms moved, they all moved at the same time and AT THE SAME PLACES. Even the smallest movements the hands and fingers were in sync. The effect of this was to feel a powerful wave effect from the group, like a school of swimming fish suddenly changing direction. If any member had been off in time or space, this effect would be diminished. It was not. And the effect was maintained and not diminished for the length of the entire piece.

Amazing.

I highly recommend catching DAC PAC when you can !

Michael Jackson: Live in Japan 1985

After getting the Michael Jackson live in Bucharest (1992) DVD

Michael Jackson Live in Bucharest

I was happy to see this Michael Jackson Live in Japan Tour DVD at my local video rental store (yes, I physically go to a locally owned video store where they have people who know me and recommend good movies from their own experience (not from inferences made by computerized data mining and correlation)).

I rented it and had a look.

Wow, what a difference 7 years makes when comparing this 1985 performance to the 1992 Bucharest show.

The younger Michael is far more energetic. Where one move was done in 1992, in 1985 he does 3 or 4. Where one spin was done in 1992, he does 3. The body movements have more articulated parts moving around, his balance on one foot is more precise and the 'moonwalk' is comparatively smoother with no uneveness...

In contrast to Michael's more catchy dancing in 1985, guitarist Jennifer Batten's hair was a lot more tame in the 1985 show as compared to gloriously expansive puff that it was in 1992. Well, win some, lose some..

The video quality is not great, but seeing MJ perform like that supercedes any disappointment that was felt over the fuzzy picture !

Michael Jackson 'Dangerous' Tour

I just got the DVD of Michael Jackson's 1992 'Dangerous' tour live in Bucharest.
I've been trying to track down a recording of an NBC TV special that he did sometime in the late 1980's early 1990's but have not been able to find one yet so this 'Dangerous' DVD will do for now.

It's pretty phenomenal. All aspects of his personal life aside, and though he did not invent a lot of the pop-lock influence dance moves that he does, he is an electrifying performer and this recording captures that. The atmosphere in Bucharest for the show may have been heightened even more as this show took place less than 3 years after the fall of the Ceausescu. There were probably a lot of pent up feelings to let loose in the audience that night and some of them were indeed going nuts out there.

One aspect of his show that I appreciate a lot is the judicious use of stillness and long pauses at appropriate moments. In my few years of looking at and considering dance choreography so far, I've come to notice 2 major "don't"s:

1. Don't do the same basic types of movement through an entire piece. Changes in theme
or pace are needed to complement each other.
I especially see this "don't" in some HipHop pieces that come off as one long unending
series of 'the same' gesticulations and my mind begins to wander off mid-piece.

2. Don't repeat the same movement more than 2 times in a row. Though sometimes you
can get away with 3 times in a row, usually by the 3rd time of repeating it, the mind starts
saying 'yeah, been there already !'.

It was noticeable in this DVD that Michael had a only a handful of basic 'bread and butter'
moves but he uses them effectively to convey the feeling of rhythm or flowing. He makes judicious use of short and long still pauses and never makes the 'too many repetitions in a row' mistake so his dancing never gets tiring to look at.

I was also happy to see that killer guitarist Jennifer Batten got a few spotlights on stage. She's a great guitarist. There's a clip of her playing 'Flight of the BumbleBee' out there somewhere that shows great virtuosity on her instrument.. Getting to see her playing on stage is an extra plus.

A highly recommended DVD for Jackson and/or Dance fans !

And now, the PDF revolution..

'Personal Dance Floor', a dance surface at home, that is...

I'll try to put this in context by describing its meaning in terms of another Personal Revolution: The Personal Computer Revolution.

Anyone that was interested in computer programming in the mid-70s and before had a problem to overcome: access to a computer. If one was associated with a University computer dept or worked at a business as a programmer you were set. All others were left to their own devices (or lack of their own device). In my case, I managed to get time on a small business mini-computer on (I think it was) Tuesday and Thursday nights after 9pm. So I would arrange my life to make the most of the few hours a week that I had access to the computer. Even then my options were limited. Being a business oriented computer the only high level language that was available was a limited business oriented interpreted language, not the best thing in the world. Happily, the machines were built on 8080 processors, so I could also write programs in the 8080 Assembler language. Needless to say, with only a handful of hours a week available, progress was slow. With the advent of the personal computer and with modern advances to date, that whole problem of access to computing power for personal use is now solved.

There's nothing like the give of a 'sprung' floor for dancing on. The floor feels alive and absorbs harsh impact giving some protection to the lower joints. Not many can afford to have a room built and dedicated for this purpose in their house or apt. So one alternative is to rent time in a dance studio for practice, or to clear out a part of the house and be careful of impact and resistance (this is what I've been doing so far). I've just gotten a 'portable' sprung wooden 6ft x 6ft dance floor and installed it in my study room. Very nice. The floor comes in panels that are machined to be easily fitted together via a set of spring clips. It's quickly assembled and if necessary can be quickly disassembled. Instant 'Personal Dance Floor'. The problem of access to a dance floor for individual practice is now solved.

I'm happy that my study room now houses both the 'Personal Computer' and 'Personal Dance Floor'.

Back to Civilization

It's good to be home again.
I went to Ballet class today feeling a little rusty after basically being off my feet and sitting on a motorcycle for the last 3 days. The classes I take are for beginners, and I'm struggling mightily to earn the title 'beginner'. As fate would have it, today a highly accomplished world class ballerina dropped in to take our class. Maria Kochetkova trained with the Russian Bolshoi and is currently a principal with the San Francisco Ballet:

Maria Kotchetkova Blog


Not that even in my best form would I be anything to sing about, but it was a little deflating being rustier than usual on the pirouettes and arabesques while being in the presence of a dancing star, sigh. It was really great to watch her matter of factly doing fantastic things up close and personal like :-)

Little Humpbacked Horse

This is a great DVD of the Russian Ballet:

The Little Humpbacked Horse

The primary role of the Queen-Maiden is danced by Maya Plisetskaya. The music is a refreshing score written in the '50s so it's not so heavily formal as classical music in the 18th or even 19th centuries tended to be. The composer Rodion Shchedrin is Plisetskaya's husband (what a life they must have together !).
The story is based on a Russian Folktale and features a pure, guileless proletarian hero and a bumbling, inept aristocracy. Just the thing for a politically correct '50s era Soviet production. Thankfully, the ballet is un-political and utterly delightful with such novelties as:
a dancing horse (the cute heroine Humpedback Horse),
dancing jellyfish !
dancing anemonies !


Plisetskaya shines in the role of the Maiden-Queen. She, like all great artists, has marvelous technique, but is able to transcend the physical to give us something that we get lost in as we are drawn to it.

Filmed in 1961, the DVD simulates the experience of going to the Ballet in Soviet Russia: starting with reading the performance announcement in the paper, going to the theatre, watching the ballet acts and wandering around the foyer during the intermissions and finishing with the curtain calls...

Nice and recommended !

from Video Artists International: www.vaimusic.com

Ballet Class

My favorite Jazz dance classes ended after Zafra left town.

farewell Zafra

Happily, I've found a new set of classes to fill the gaping void that was left behind:

Beginning Ballet classes taught by Kathy Mata @SF Dance Center.

The classes are great and despite being called 'Beginning', there are more advanced dancers that also attend the class (a very good sign !). Kathy is a teacher very mindful of everyone in her class at all times, offering helpful corrections and advice for the duration of each class. I can feel that I'm making technical progress since starting the class (a very good feeling). A happy start to a new chapter !

Farewell, Zafra !

I've been enjoying Jazz Dance classes taught by Zafra Miriam at
Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley .
The class is heavy on development of a strong technical foundation. I don't have a strong technical foundation (perhaps I should say that I don't/didn't have ANY technical foundation !) so the class has been both challenging and perfect for me.
Tonight was my last class with her as she's moving away to far flung landzzz. Thanks Zafra for sharing your passion and feeling for dance with us !