It's end of the year lists season! I don't think I've even been to ten dance/ballet events this year - somehow not much was appealing - so I won't make one of these. Next year is looking a lot more promising already.
Instead here are songs from 2013 that caught my attention, that I listened to on repeat for several afternoons at work, that I sang daily on my bike ride home, or that I had to play to get the party going. Warning: there is quite a range. I never really paid attention to dance music before. This year, things changed and my ears opened up. Those tracks will always mean 2013 to me.
To all the friends who shared these with me, thank you.
Dark Dark Dark - The Great Mistake
The album it is from (Who Needs Who) was actually released in October 2012 but I only heard a track in January 2013, it was playing on the radio at a friend's. Thankfully she had a digital one so I could check out what it was. I love the moody start, the harmonies and of course the lyrics. Words always mean a lot to me: 'the great mistake was mine'.
Dear Brigitte. On this sad anniversary (five years already, it really hits me), I want to free myself of some memories that return to haunt me way too often. If I remembered them once a year (like today, for example, which would make sense) it would be fine, but they return more often and I do not understand why. So here they are.
The joy of seeing that my partner calls me at work, transformed into immense shock.
Crying over my desk, crying bent in half on my chair, the pain is so intense I cannot stop myself.
Quickly, quickly running to get home - I manage to stop myself from crying on the tube (it must be the weight of strangers' gazes, you see I am becoming so British dis donc.)
My mother in tears hugging her granddaughter.
My brother who does not want to come and see you behind that curtain, and my uncle who puts his arm over his shoulder and says 'come, come, you have to say good bye'.
Your sister, heartbroken, crying, turning her face away from you, holding this big wardrobe, as though she is holding for dear life (dear life... hum)
My cousins singing along softly to Renaud's Mistral Gagnant ('il faut aimer la vie, l'aimer meme si le temps est assassin et emporte avec lui le rire des enfants, et les mistrals gagnants')
And the tears, the cries, the howling, the weeping.
And the kids playing Playstation in the living room because life continues right? Yes it continues.
Today I will feel a bit lighter, more joyful. You understand it I hope? We miss you.
The company of nine dancers performed three 'proscenium works'.
Astral Convertible
Haaa I just love Trisha Brown's movement. It's so flowy.
When was this made? With the light towers installation, the soundscape music, the 'nothing to hide' blue unitards, the serious faces, the general aimlessness of it, it looks exactly like the image most people have of contemporary dance. Is this hallmark of the sixities? Let me check my programme... oh wow it's from 1989!
It's funny how on Wednesday I saw that new Wayne McGregor work at Sadler's Wells, and I was so bored, yet tonight I am not. I mean the two works have interesting lighting and movement, no particular direction. But I guess Trisha Brown knows when to end it? [at 32 minutes rather than 1 hour and 15].
Some of those dancers are so cute.
'Thought reviews' are basically the thoughts that popped into my head while watching a particular dance work/evening. My partner just called the idea 'Distracted Review' - appropriate I think! This time, the LA Dance Project's triple bill at Sadler's Wells.
First piece, by Justin Peck
Oh they are wearing trainers and normal clothes. I think this guy's t-shirt is from Topman. Do they have Topman in LA?
I'm enjoying this. It's very Jerome Robbins. I need to watch that Opus Jazz film again. This piece could work as a film actually. An Opus Jazz for LA?
The dancer on the left is CUTE.
I like the music. I need to find out what it is. [it's by Bryce Dessner]
Decide to go out because you want to see your friends. Think that you've had a great day so far and maybe you are pushing your luck to try and extend this feeling into the night: staying home, eating rhubarb fool while watching some edgy crime drama would comfortably do it anyway. Anxiously wonder if you might miss out on something whatever decision you make. Go out. Your friends leave early in the end, not in the mood for the crowd and the commercial music served by the DJ. Decide to feel your fear of being in a club alone and stay anyway. Dance alone. Dance with people. Dance some more. Listen to a drunk female dental nurse compliment you about your smile and advise you to always floss. Tell her you learnt that lesson the hard way, thank you. Make a note in your mind of a great remix of some song you don't know, that you will easily find on the internet the morning after (yikes, you won't be able to proudly tell people you don't know any Taylor Swift songs anymore!). Cycle back home, feeling teary. Maybe you are just tired. You experienced some good times, yet they seem diminished in your memory because you did not have anyone to share them with. Talk to the love of your life about it all. Sleep peacefully.
Some words about a very personal experience that happened at my flamenco class yesterday. 'Chest open! Chin up! Stand taller, look higher than you normally would' shouted our flamenco teacher. 'You are dancing tarantos! When you dance tarantos the audience should cry!'. We laughed. 'Try and make me cry! I want to see lots of feeling!'. We laughed again: who will cry watching us dance under that awful sports hall light, covered in sweat? OK, maybe we can try this. How can I put lots of feelings into it, give it more intensity? Then I think about my dead. I imagine them in the room, sitting on the floor in front of the mirror, watching me dance. My grandmother, my aunts, my friends. They give me 'feeling', they make me dance more intensely, those people who will never see me dance. How can I impress them? I concentrate more on my elbow (drop it down, drop it down), on my weight when I lean forward (not too much), on my balance. It's kind of working but of course they are not there. Wherever they are, can they hear me stamp? I stamp harder, louder than I did before, in the hope that the sound will reach them. Pa-ra-tat-tat! Hello it's me I am dancing for you! Can you hear me out there? I get home and I think about this moment again, and how morbid it is: really, I should think about my friends that are alive and present, and how I would dance tarantos for them. I talk to my partner about important things, I sign some papers about buying a flat. Moving forward. Chest: open. Chin: up.
I've mentioned it before, but I'd love for amateur contemporary dance classes to include the chance to learn well-known pieces of choreography, in the same way that a ballet class might teach you some pas de trois by Petipa or some riff on Bejart. Who wouldn't love to learn a bit of Pina Bausch for example?
Well Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker has kind of answered my call. To celebrate the 30 years of her work Rosas danst Rosas, she is teaching the moves of the piece's chair section online, and inviting us to film ourselves performing it and send her the results.
From the first time I saw this work, I've always wanted to know the moves of this iconic section, and get hold of the music too. Well it's all on the Re:Rosas website, so pull up a chair and get learning! There are some great film submissions already to get you inspired.
I went on a 3-day flamenco course this weekend, which was fantastic. Bulerias are a fun, short flamenco dance that people tend to perform at a juerga (party). If you go to see flamenco shows in big theatres (eg Sadler's Wells), the performers (dancers, guitarists, singers) will often dance bulerias at the end of the show, at the curtain call: they form a semi-circle and all get to have a go. It's called 'bulerias fin de fiesta' then.
It's really fun but it's also very frightening as the dance is improvised on the spot. The dancer needs to call the singer when he is ready to start the dance, needs to respect the singer during his song and needs to show him when it's time to be quiet as he's about to show off his steps. So there's lots to be aware of, while you also need to look relaxed and have super attitude (see the video below for some cheeky steps, looks and more!). No need to say that dancing bulerias has always been scary for me: I had the feeling that I knew some steps but had no idea how to put them together and where they should go. That course has really increased my knowledge of the form, and now I know where things go - which feels amazing!
Structure
- walk into the semi-circle, simply right-left-right-left, be relaxed. You can walk for as long as you want, as the singer is unlikely to start his song until you give him a cue that he can start. A call to the singer is quite simple: clap your hands in front of you, hit your chest, direct your arms towards the singer and walk.
- while the cantaor sings, as a dancer you should do very little - by that I mean just do some marking steps (little walking steps to the right and left, nice arm movements, though you can play around). See 00:23-00:41 below:
- when the cantaor has finished his song, or is nearing the end of the song, you do a llamada, which is another type of call with a very distinct rhythm. This is the basic one, and you can play around once you feel comfortable.
- after the llamada, the cantaor will not start a new song. It's your time to do a bit of footwork and show off. The end of your footwork should include another call (like the one at the start) so the singer knows you're done and he can start singing again with another verse (then you go back to point two above). If you don't feel like doing footwork - or, like me, just want to be out of the spotlight asap! - you can simply end your llamada with a few steps that show the singer that you are about to leave the circle (usually the simplest is to to go into one of the corner of the circle, and show that you're about to walk through it in a diagonal: see 00:41 above for the llamada, followed by the walk to the corner showing that the dancer is about to leave) He will then sing a 'coletilla', a song that goes with those moves
So this is the basic. It gets more, way more complicated! For example, you can decide to wait for the singer to start his song and then jump in in the middle - as the man in the video above does. You can add lots of footwork. You can do a 'remate' to change your marking steps (as the dancer does at 00:22 above). You can do the llamada at another time. etc etc It's like improv - you have all those building blocks and you can play with them within reason.
Your bulerias can last only a minute or so if you want it to - it still feels like a long time when you can fuck up though. For now, I'm going to just keep it super simple until I get more confident and realise that embarrassment does not kill. After all a three-year old is doing it in the video above and she survived.
Alvin Ailey's Revelations, created in 1960, is the most seen modern dance work - over 23 million people have seen it live. Here is a guide to one of contemporary dance's classics.
Choreography: Alvin Ailey
Performed by18 dancers (9 male, 9 female)
Duration: 38 minutes
Original décor and costumes: Lawrence Maldonado
Revival décor and costumes: Ves Harper
Lighting: Nicola Cernovitch
First performance: 31 January 1960 at Kaufman Concert Hall, YM-YWHM, New York
Original dancers (the first version of Revelations featured fewer dancers than today's): Alvin Ailey, Joan Derby, Merle Derby, Jay Fletcher, Gene Hobgood, Natheniel Horne, Herman Howell, Minnie Marshall, Nancy Redi and Corene Richardson.
The other weekend I went to an antiques fair and found a copy of the 1945 edition of Pelican Books' guide to Ballet, first published in 1938 to what seems to be pretty good success (there were three reprints in 1938, one in 1940 and one in 1943, before a new edition came out in January 1945).
I mainly bought it for the beautiful illustration by Kay Ambrose, so I thought I'd do a 'Brain Pickings'-style post and share some of these. I can't decide whether my favourite is Checkmate or Les Patineurs - love the sense of the dancers being front of stage, almost blinded by the lights.
English National Ballet, one of the major British ballet companies, went through a major rebrand exercise this week, with a new logo, striking visuals and a collaboration with designer Vivienne Westwood. See Design Week for more.
It's quite exciting. I am not super taken by the visuals and some of the ideas behind them. For example the thought of partnering up with designers in other fields is not that original. Diaghilev did it after all. But I guess it's good for them to really run with it. The images are beautiful but sadly they don't say 'ballet' to me, they look like a normal fashion shoot, and I wonder what message they will convey to people who go to the Nutcracker or Swan Lake only once in a while - surely a core audience for this touring company.
Of course it's great to challenge them and show that ballet's unique selling point is not pointe shoes, tutus and fairytales, but athleticism, grace and emotions.
Their copy conveys that strongly to me: 'looks like a doll, dances like a demon' goes one version. And I love their new brand statement - it's got oomph and guts and I look forward to where this new drive will take the company:
'We danced before language and this is our promise. Through our art we will tell your story. We will dance the times you fell in love. We will dance your dreams and your fears. We will dance your death. Our suspended moments, grand glories, kaleidoscopic whirlings, rats, swans, firebirds, heroes, heroines and tracing of psyche are your mirror. We are not dolls. We are artists, young and hungry. At war with gravity to capture poetry from air. We do not exist to embalm traditions. We exist to cherish them and then create more. We leap and grasp for the new. We are for everyone. Watch ballet and you are not rich or poor. Cultured or barbarian. Brain or brawn. You are human. Full of lust and adventure. We are yours and we are you.'
We just don't get the chance to see many ballets created by William Forsythe in London. For some reason, he is not on the main companies' roster. So it's great to see Boston Ballet coming to town for the first time in 30 years with one of his pieces, The Second Detail. After really enjoying Artifact by Royal Ballet of Flanders last year, you bet I'll be there! Plus it's on a programme with Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia, which I also like (and some Jiri Kylian, oh well)
Here's a clip of the piece performed by Semperoper Ballet
