2012 Ballet's Time To Shine

Perhaps starting with the release of the movie 'Mao's Last Dancer' in 2009.
Followed by the movie 'Black Swan' in 2010.

Ballet is (once again) hitting the pop culture mainstream.

So far this year, hopping on and riding the popularity wave we have 2 current TV series:

1.  The reality based   'Breaking Pointe' on the CW network following the lives of dancers in the Utah based company 'Ballet West'
2. The not-reality based 'Bunheads' on ABC.

It all seems so improbable at first.

After all, Ballet doesn't ooze attitude like HipHop dancing,  or splash couple dynamics in your face like Tango..   So where is the mass appeal ?

Quite unexpectedly, I think I got an answer,  while reading the latest (June 2012) edition of the UK Motorcycle magazine 'Fast Bikes'.    'Fast Bikes' is about, well, Fast Bikes.  The magazine chock full of articles about machines sporting deliriously crazy power to weight ratios.   On such machines a decent rider could be hurled from a sitting start to 100 mph in less than 5 seconds.   That's awesome power on the human scale.

But on page 77 (shown above) there's a full page ad for the KTM 690 'Duke'...

It says (and I quote)  "I need a Duke because...
   dancing is my life"

Huh ?   Yeah,  that's right *because dancing is my life* (!)   So says:

Name:  Susi S.
Age:     24
Profession:  Ballerina

We're in an age where Ballerinas are selling motorcycles in the pages of 'Fast Bikes' magazine.  It seems that 'The Marlboro Man' has been kicked to the curb.

'Susi' goes on to say "..  blending previously unattainable refinement with sensationally cultivated manners and perfectly controlled power"

Yep, that sounds like Ballet  (or is it a motorcycle ?).   Controlled power with all the focus and grace of a pouncing leopard and there lies a lot of appeal.

German Gems 2012

2012 has welcomed in another edition of the German Gems film festival at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.
This year I opted to partake of one film:

Uber uns das All (roughly 'Over us the Sky')

This film, Director+Writer Jan Schomburg's first feature (!) is an investigation into the nature of romantic relationships. What we make of them, what we will do for them, what we will allow to happen for the sake of them. Martha, the main character is set to join her successful Medical Research husband in Marseilles where he accepts a foreign research/teaching post. Inexplicably, he commits suicide soon after he arrives. In what ensues, Martha finds out that he never was a Medical Researcher, a lie that had been going on daily for 4 years and that he may have been having a secret affair with her best friend..
In the shock of all of this Martha, consciously or not, seeks to find a replacement for her lost husband. She finds him in the person of a professor of German history who after numerous shocks over the situation, apparently acquiesces and they form a new life together...

It is a puzzling movie. Free from 'big studio' demands for tidy stories, many important issues such as 'well what was her deceased husband ACTUALLY doing anyway ?' are left completely unanswered. The movie is pleasingly vague and we're left with trying our best to live in Martha's head as the tale unfolds.

The after movie Q&A session with the Director/Writer/Producer was most interesting. Questions about 'what happened that we didn't see' were met in the spirit of: 'we both saw the movie, you know as much as I' (ha ha.. very good !).
It turns out that Georg Friedrich who played the character of the history teacher is usually typecast in mainstream German movies as a bad, tough character. The interviewer mentioned that Friedrich is usually 'the bad Austrian' (I'm not sure what that means culturally speaking !). The director said that after Friedrich read the script 'he (Friedrich) was in tears that someone actually wanted him to portray a history professor' :-)

Nice experience German Gems. Thanks for another great festival !

Fishbone Documentary

Around the 80's a completely unique and wacky band appeared on the scene: 'Fishbone'. I became aware of them for the first time when their Music Video send up of the Jimmy Stewart movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' made it to broadcast (photo 2). It was crazy and original and I loved it !

This past weekend a documentary that chronicles the rise and fade of this fantastic band premiered at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. The lead singer Angelo Moore was present along with the filmmaker to answer questions after the movie. Before the screening Angelo did a music + spoken number up on the stage (see photo 1). On the saxophone, I could have believed that he was channeling 'Trane, very accomplished !

It was asserted in the movie that the band had trouble with being 'classified' by Columbia/Sony and that this was part of the reason that they never hit it big. I can thoroughly believe that. They are/were completely unpackage-able for neat tidy consumption (I wonder what the iTunes 'genius' music-style-correlator would make of this truely genius band ?).

I highly recommend the documentary if you're even mildly interested in them or want to hear about a band that could only have come to life in the U.S. (till now, I think there is still not another band like them in the U.S. or anywhere else)...

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 :-)

A most beautiful Ballet Adagio (slow section)

I missed the big movie theater live simulcast of the Grand Re-Opening of the Bolshoi in Moscow because they had the nerve to schedule it in the middle of a work day (!).
Happily a video has sprung up on YouTube of an excerpt of a marvelous Adagio section from Swan Lake with Svetlana Zakharova as the 'White Swan'.
This is extremely 'luxurious' and beautiful dancing. I could not keep my eyes off of it.
To me it contains supreme expression of 2 things that I've managed to learn about dancing in the few years that I've been seriously involved in it so far.

I'm a rhythm junky. Since childhood I've been very fascinated by syncopation and emphasis on certain beats in a measure and what can be done with them. The backbeat (emphasis on 2 and 4) the foundation of much popular music and James Brown's invention of emphasis on 'the ONE' are still as fresh today as ever. So, what is now called 'Urban Dance' has always fascinated me. I learned that feeling 'in the streets' (not a dance studio) as a child.
So my first forays into dance as a middle-aged adult were, of course, HipHop where I could express the rhythm (it would always be the same scene coming into a class for the first time, the youngsters would have an attitude 'what's this old guy doing in OUR class'. Of course, once the music starts and the back-beat and the ONE beg to be set free, it usually is clear why I'm in the class.. it's to express the rhythm, and they usually respect that (the roots of that physical expression were planted in me as a kid, and I've never lost it).

There's more to dance than rhythm though and my first 'real' dance teacher Molly Kozma demonstrated to me very effectively a different kind of musicality, done during slow Adagio sections and that was a concept and feeling of 'filling up the entire space of the music'. 'Stretching it out' so to speak. It is a very beautiful feeling..
The above video of Svetlana Zhakarova shows her filling space and time in a way that I've never quite seen before. There are almost no stationary 'poses', there is just a continuous, sensuous 'unrolling' of feeling. It's inspiring.

Another lesson that has stuck with me is the idea of contrasts of expectation, that at certain times 'Less is more', that at the right time small movement can convey a whole lot more meaning than a big dramatic one. HipHop-Jazz teacher Christian Crawford effectively conveyed that concept into me. Right in the middle of some frenetic movements you could halt suddenly and take an entire beat to move only 1 finger and the small movement of that one finger carries a lot of weight because of the way that it has been staged !
In the video, I feel this at 7min 53 seconds during the movement after the pirouette (spin), the leg in the air moves from being bent towards the standing leg, outward. This movement is done very softly, almost like an afterthought. I've seen a number of others to this same part in the Ballet more forcefully, but to me, the way that it is done in this performance is striking and makes a big impression because of it's restraint... In this case it's playing with my expectations in another way. I've been conditioned to expect a more dramatic looking movement, the leg forcefully flung out and held, so when it is not, I take notice.. (the that it is done is also in tune with the overall feeling of 'continuity' of the section)

Marvelous stuff...

Steve Jobs the Driven One

It seems like a timely thing to post up my one personal encounter with Steve Jobs. Since his recent passing a lot of public press has been focused on his passion for the products that he shepherded, and deservedly so.

By chance, I had been witness to an aspect of the drive that is required to achieve these things.

The scene was the annual JavaOne Java Developer's Conference in the year 2000. These were heady times for the computer industry. The 'dot-com crash' had not yet played out, 9-11 was more than a year away. One of the big things at JavaOne that year was Steve Jobs sharing a Key Note announcing Apple's commitment to the Java Platform.

Jobs was his familiar smooth self on stage, laying out the integration strategy and the benefits of the integration.

I took a break from the ongoing key notes to use the men's room downstairs. This is at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco so the space is BIG. I'm alone down there and the unabsorbed sound pinging off of the porcelain walls and floors only underscores how caverness the space is. Within a minute someone else comes into the space. His breathing is halting, spastic and between gasps he's quietly muttering things to himself. The sounds are amplified by their echoes around the room. All indications are of a person that's a nervous wreck. It was Steve Jobs. A very different person from the smooth one that we all had just seen on stage, all of the difficulty had been suppressed for the show and now that the show is over it could be released. I leave first and he glances over at me, in this private place I have seen a side of him that maybe relatively few people have. I just look him calmly in the eye, a kind of acknowledgement of the situation, give a little nod and leave him in peace.

So, my big takeaway from the incident was that it was an example of what driven people will do in order to accomplish their ends. No one seeing the key note would have guessed that the person on the stage was also perturbed person that I encountered off stage. No matter how hard it is for you, no matter much you're suffering, you do what is required when it's required so that things stay on the course that you want them to be on.

I kind of see a parallel with another anecdote, the time that President George HW Bush (the real war hero one) was so sick at a state dinner in Japan, that he leaned over and vomited into a Japanese officials lap (I can't remember what post he held). This speaks to President Bush's will to go through with the important dinner even if he was feeling very sick.

Not everyone will push themselves like this in order to achieve their goals.

Massive Lava Field

I decide to take a scenic route west out of Sisters Oregon. Highway 126 just out of town is a beautiful narrow road through lush forest lands which suddenly give way to vast, stark, inhospitable lava fields. So inhospitable that no vegetation has grown in the fields for centuries. It's solid rocks.
The first picture doesn't show depth too well, but the field extends way back to and beyond the sharp peak in the middle. You can also see an 'island' to the left around which the molten lava flowed. The 'untouched' island is able to host tree and other plant growth.

The second picture gives some idea of the texture of the field. The average size of a rock is pretty large, probably a few feet across.

Coming down from the mountain range I had to make a decision about the trip. The weather is uncharacteristically good and the Oregon Coast is said to be in for a nice warm clear day tomorrow. I have a feeling though that it's time to start heading home. I decide to do that. As good a chance as a warm Coast is, it's also as well to leave something to look forward to on a future trip. There aren't that many areas of the western states that I have not been. Yes, let's leave that. I'm back over the California border now and will be home tomorrow...

signing off !