10 posts tagged “show review”
BIKE
It's pretty great & pretty fast (& also pretty). Everything seems to have conspired against me enjoying the bike (a few negative experiences with the bike shop, took forever to finally get it running, crashed on my first joyride, etc.) but when I'm riding that all seems to vanish. The joyride is tainted in my mind as panicky & awful, but that's the after-effects of riding home bloody and pissed off on a gravel road with crabby drivers. I'm in love with the tires (Schwalbe Big Apples) and the handlebar grips (something by BioLogic that my wrists LOVE). I like the seat (also BioLogic) (how could it POSSIBLY have taken me so long to get a seat that fits?). I totally don't need to keep talking about the technical details of my bike right now.
Other things have come to light: It sounds like it's a bad idea to lock up a folder. This is because a) all the parts come off and b) people notice it and therefore want to steal it. Despite obsessing for about a week before buying it, I somehow did not think of this. The online consensus is that you buy a folding bike so you never have to leave it outside. Which is great except for when I want to go to a dance show (only about 7 times a month) and there is no space for me to take it in. It's small, but not THAT small. So I've been mentally adjusting from, "This bike solves every problem I've ever had," to "This bike is awesome and does not solve all of my problems...just most of them." I'm going to keep Lysander the Liberator around, which means I still need a new saddle and new wheels. But Lysander is a good bike & worth the trouble.
BIKE NAME
Yeah, it gets its own category. Please help me choose:
1) Boas
2) Boudica
3) Dali
SHOWS, #24-26
#24 - 9x22 - Emily Gastineau, Beverly Cottman, Molly Kay Stoltzman
#25 - Momentum - Sally Rousse & Megan Mayer
#26 - Beyond the Owing - Directed by Genevieve Bennett
SUMMER
Just as I'm starting to get that it's summer, back-to-school stuff appears and I've missed the mulberry season altogether. My garden has suffered a bit from me being delinquent (as always--will there ever come a time when I don't feel like a delinquent gardener?) but it's doing alright. Producing gigantic zucchinis. None of my seeds sprouted except for one beet and two carrots. I have no idea what we did wrong there. I figured out yesterday that my tomatoes are wilting because they have wilt. Ah. Why didn't I think of it myself?
Going to the Boundary Waters reminded me that camping is pretty awesome and worth the effort. I'm reading a Walk in the Woods, on my dad's recommendation (and generosity, since he sent me a copy), and thoroughly enjoying it. I spend the time I'm not reading the book daydreaming about hiking. I try to relieve this frustration (since I'm NOT hiking) by going outside and standing somewhere quiet for a while twice a day and feeling wind & sun. Combined with biking it helps a bit.
101in1001
I am actually still working on it, miracle of miracles, but it's
incredibly boring so I don't update you on it. Otherwise you'd have to
hear about my struggles to get over myself and JUST CALL THE DENTAL
INSURANCE PEOPLE ALREADY. It's awful. I'll tell you when I'm all done
and throw a huge party in honor of accomplishing a bunch of stupid
crap.
OTHER STUFF
I've been writing, on paper, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm getting rid of stuff. I can't stop listening to Jay-Z's Black Album. MKT is still on hiatus, but we had a meeting last night with someone spectacular to talk about sharing a show at Bedlam in 2010. I'm still smiling. I've done NO cross-stitching or other making of physical objects for about two months. Tonight I'm going to a practice for Marcus Young's project, "Don't You Feel It Too?" I'm nervous, but I'm nervous about 70% of the time so I should probably just learn to ignore it.
THE END
This boring entry is for posterity only, sorry. Not even any thoughts on the shows:
Show #14: Vilification Tennis, BLB
Show #15: 5/5ths of the Brothers Grimm, Ritz Theater
Show #16: Crawler Art Opening, Max Wirsing, Galen Treuer & Elliott Durko Lynch, the Crawler
Show #17: Works-in-Progress, Red Eye Theater, NewWorks4Weeks Festival
Show #18: Pandemonium, Dominic Orlando, Red Eye Theater, NewWorks4Weeks Festival
Show #19: Ivan the Drunk, Off-Leash Area, Open Eye Figure Theater
Show #20: RadioBrain & The Screen/The Thing, Justin Jones & E. Durko Lynch, Southern Theater
Show #21: Dykes Do Drag, BLB
Show #22: Bedlam Romp (even though all I saw was 5-minute Bambi, it was awesome enough to make the list)
Show #23: My Father's Bookshelf, Live Action Set, Guthrie Theater
I think that's all of them? It's a lot considering that I was in two shows and then out of town for two weeks.
I fell off the 8 Days of Happiness wagon, and I'm three shows behind. Quickly, then! To the reviews!
Show #11: The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success), Cynthia Hopkins, Walker Art Center.
I left the theater in a pretty weird mood and then wrote some trippy space-time, life-death, faith-knowledge stuff that I am too shy to post (plus, I don't have to! This isn't some kind of writing workshop! Ha!) The second half of the show is raw. She is honest and there's rebellion in her. Watching someone enumerate their failings for you in clear, judgmental, but accepting tones is going to make you feel a little crazy and dangerous afterward. I'm not sure I liked it. I'm not sure I didn't.
Show #12: My Never Being Loneliness. Two works by Melissa Birch & Molly Van Avery, Open Eye Figure Theater
I hate to compare shows to one another, but these three all bear the comparison, since they are meta-autobiography-fiction (you know it when you see it?). It was great to see that genre done in three different ways--the extreme fiction/truth spectrum of Cynthia Hopkins, the poetic work of Melissa Birch, and the funny, surreal writing of Molly Van Avery. I am proud to live in a community that supports these two (and their collaborators, Maren Ward and Arwen Wilder).
Show #13: The Infinite Multiverse, by Chris Yon, Bryant Lake Bowl
Man, Chris does not shy away from precision. Daring to hit sound cues so perfectly. It sounds ridiculous but it's true--there didn't seem to be room for error, but it didn't matter because everything in the Ballad of Angry Dad seemed to click together perfectly. In I've Got the Heebie Jeebies, there was a long sequence of unison movement and I couldn't figure out if I was more astounded by the perfect unison of the performers or the shadings of difference that flared up because they were all doing the same thing. It was a trip, and uh, need I mention that his dancers (Justin Jones, Kristin Van Loon, Taryn Griggs) are crazy good at what they do?
1) I have tennis elbow? I don't even play tennis (real or Wii)! But I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, so I am taking 15 ibuprofen a day and wrapping my arm (doc's orders). These are the sexy rewards I reap for being a secretary.
2) Garden season creeps closer! I (again) want to plant way too much! Thankfully I have limited space, otherwise Paul & I would spend all summer canning. I am stoked about growing herbs and about having a Spacemaster cucumber (best name ever?), and about lots of tomatoes for delicious, frozen tomato sauce for the long winter, beets, carrots, peas, beans...okay, the list is long. But I think the moral of the story is: Vegetables!!!
3) Guys, I microwaved some eggs for breakfast today at work. You may or may not know this about me, but I have become a strict savory breakfast eater. This is sort of fine, except that it's hard to produce warm, savory breakfasts at work. Anyway, I scrambled three eggs in the microwave today. Next week I will bring bread & salsa, and have my favorite easy breakfast: Salsa eggs & toast.
4) I just finished The Confusion. These books are driving me insane. I don't really want to read anything else and I find myself frustrated that I can't bring up, say, the French attempt to kidnap William of Orange without looking like a jerk. Read 'em! They're awesome! Not that I'm a Neal Stephenson fanboy or anything!
5) Show #9: Transcendental Biology gave me a lot to think about concerning symbolism vs. representation, and whether it's better to just reproduce something than it is to abstract it. Also, I love the Rogue Buddha gallery as a dance space.
6) Show #10: Like A Movie I Saw Once (the Remake). I drank a little almond champagne, sang a dreadful banshee-like happy birthday to Sally Rousse, then raced Monica & Theresa on the greenway to make the show on time. And the show was lovely and confusing and thoroughly enjoyable. Laurie conjured an unfamiliar magic out of performers I am familiar with, magical to see known faces doing great, unexpected things when they're already so good at what I expect out of them. If this really were a movie, I guess I'd be saying, "Man, Brad Pitt was SO GOOD in that movie. I didn't once think about how it was Brad Pitt!" Only in this case it was Megan Mayer & Galen Treuer.
That said, certain things fell flat: the duet between the two men felt retrogressive even as it was (slightly) progressive (kind of, in that it wasn't 1000% heteronormative). Apparently, men can only be intimate if they're also kicking each other's asses?
And, let us not ignore the miraculous rhinestone undergarment of a certain Billy Bronco. Not that you'd be able to, if you could see it. Um, wow.
Overall: Enjoyable? Yes. Sexy? Yes. Talented? Yes. Jaw-dropping? More than once. Thrilling? Yes. Sort of meaningless? Yes.
We saw Penn & Teller the second night. I loved it, kids. I LOVED it. Magic!! OMG. I love it! I thought there was only movie magic, but instead there is actual magic. I want to be a magician when I grow up!
Tricks that stand out: The goldfish, the rose, the nailgun, the synthetic cloth, the close-up cow, burning the American flag, the mind-reading, and the Magic Bullets. I won't bother explaining them, since I'd fail anyway.
They both reminded me of the value and the danger of live performance--you get one shot, that's it. Minneapolis is a forgiving city, and if things go wrong, the audience cheers you. If something goes wrong in Zumanity or Penn & Teller...bad, terrible things could happen (like when I saw the North Korean circus.) It's exciting and important and dangerous. Draw your own conclusions there.
(p.s. I friggin' love Las Vegas.)
Well, it was more of a play than a dance show, but I'm hardly one to make distinctions. I wish I could see it again--it seemed overall very simple but there were moments that made me think that something deeper was happening, especially given how didactic the source materials sounds. It wove history with the present in a way that I admired and which often fails.
AND I think I learned something about Catch-22 from it.
...okay, from further searching, it turns out that I learned something else. Turns out the quote, "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" is attributed to Francois Villon. BUT the more relevant thing here is that apparently it's something people quote, and Joseph Heller was quoting it in Catch-22, when Yossarian kept asking, "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" It all makes so much more sense now! I thought he was just saying that, and I confess: I didn't really get it!
Well, I'm totally not seeing shows this year. Lucky for all of you. I think last year I was in five shows by the time March rolled around.
In the 2nd 9x22 of the year:
- Taja sang a song that stuttered back and forth between lovely and panicked; I really enjoyed the pacing of the sound score. I wondered about what life was like before Hooke invented the second hand.
- Seeing so many shades of beige made me think a lot about whiteness and how monochromatic most human beings are. Jessica talked a lot about her influences and feminist theory; I want to see more of her work and figure out where the theory comes into the dance.
- I love Georgia Stephens. I love the way she talks to things and people, the aliveness and casual nature of her onstage conversations, and the deep mystery I feel in her work. Plus Theresa was great in it. I hope Georgia keeps up these investigations of....whatever she is investigating.
The thing about dance is that it only exists while it's happening. There are no scripts or other artifacts. The fact that I have written down the names of the choreographers somehow lends the whole endeavor a bit more body. It is so sad that a single, off-the-cuff sentence about a dance is more than most dances get.
Two other notes:
1) This is apparently what I look like at 9x22 (monkey in the middle).
2) Georgia asked the audience about moments that made us sit forward in our chairs, and moments that made us sit back. Aside from it being a ridiculously smart way to talk to an audience full of kinesthetically-intelligent but orally-jumbled dancers, it's just plain smart. Try it the next time you're at a show or a movie, and I bet you'll find yourself sitting forward during the best parts. Coraline had us all squirming. It works!
I'll admit it: I am biased towards Young Jean Lee. I saw Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven two years ago, and I
attended her workshop then as well as this year. Songs sort of slayed me...it was hilarious and sad and uncomfortable and brilliant.
Church was a different beast, but still hilarious and sad and uncomfortable (and maybe brilliant? I don't know yet). It was a church service, complete with prayer and Bible readings and stories about unicorns and fountains of chicken blood. And it was earnest as well as silly. The dance in the middle knocked me down...the dancers were so genuine and joyful. It hit all the emotions I consider when I think about church (which is almost entirely an unknown place for me): creepy, soothing, fear-inducing, inspiring, judgmental, forgiving, fake, authentic, surreal, practical, mystical. And I couldn't put my finger on the switches between any of them. One moment I'm thinking, "Yeah, okay, it's probably kind of nice to hear someone tell you that you're a good person," and the next moment, I'm thinking, "Is he on drugs? Am I supposed to literally believe that Satan is a mummy, and his minions are mummies too?"
So, I liked the show. I wish I could see it again...at least once, and read the script (which is supposed to be released soon along with her other plays). It doesn't hurt that I'm obsessed with Puritans and Isaac Newton right now.
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In other news, I learned this at her workshop: Flatter your ideas. Even if they aren't good ideas, flatter them, pay attention to them, write them down. The more you flatter them, the more ideas you'll have. It makes perfect sense to me. If you tell your brain it's doing the wrong thing, it will stop doing it. Brains need a lot of encouragement. I've been hard on myself lately and there isn't any reason for it.
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In still other news, we finally had a January thaw this weekend. Hallelujah! It was good to feel sunshine and hear water running in the gutters. I got Katamari and spent a good couple of hours cleaning up fictional houses instead of cleaning up my own (note: My house would be real clean if I could use a katamari to get it done. It's sort of how I clean anyway, but instead of a katamari, it's a box or bag filled with whatever random crap I can find, and it doesn't turn into a planet at the end). The Cardinals didn't win, but they gave the Steelers a run for their money (I'm just such a sucker for the underdog). I dreamt that I became president, and sent my sister a text message that read, "btw omg i'm the president now".
Continuing the log of shows, I saw:
a) 9x22 at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 1/28/09. The featured artists were Cathy Wright, Tim Cameron, and Brinsley Davis.
b) Petrouchka at the Southern Theater on 1/29/09. Choreographed by Sally Rousse, with additional work by Morgan Thorson, Penny Freeh and Nicolas Lincoln.
Reducing the number of shows I see seems to give me a more generous eye. Some people have a much greater appetite for performance than me; I suppose I should see more, given that I want people to see my work and that I have friends in many of the shows I don't see. I'll be seeing three shows by the end of this week, and I know I'm missing at least one performance (that, of course, some friends are in). Every weekend is like this, and I just don't have that kind of stamina.
Beautiful moments I've seen this week:
-A hand stretching out from behind white cloth
-A lanky boy struggling to jump, with his ankles held to the ground, and a button on his pajama top flying off in the attempt
-A woman doing the best damn dancing-bear imitation I've ever seen
-The most charming/hilarious/overt seduction scene I've seen in a ballet
-Great costumes for Petrouchka, the Charlatan especially
-Hearing the ding of an elevator and feeling slightly afraid...maybe this is the last time you'll be getting on an elevator, and maybe you don't know where exactly the elevator is headed.
-Seeing Morgan's fleet of angels and thinking about Puritans and Isaac Newton
-The drummer blowing Sally across the floor
Okay, it's not a review, but I told myself I'd keep a record of every show I attend this year. Last night was Chris Schlichting's benefit for the tour of his show love things.
Performers:
The Goodmorning Gentlemen
HIJACK w/ Pablo
Laurie Van Wieren
Justin Jones w/ Elliott Durko Lynch
Kenna Sarge
The Nosdrachir Sisters
Pablo
Sally Rousse
Supergroup
(and us, Mad King Thomas)
I wish I got a chance to see that much good performance that casually more often.
I bid on a painting of a pug by Jennifer Davis but totally did not win it. Which made me sadder than expected.
