Happy New Year with Free Art.
Enter a comment on the YouTube page comment section and be entered to win a free hand drawn print by Monchito. Applies only for US residents. Winner will be announced 2/2/2012
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Girl Walk // All Day Filming - Today
Girl Walk // All Day from jacob krupnick on Vimeo.
Just a quick note to let you all know about a dance project that’s being filmed today.
Director Jacob Krupnick is creating an album-length music video using the Girl Talk album “All Day” as a soundtrack, with improvisational dancer Anne Marsen and a supporting cast of contemporary dancers.
They’ll be filming a ballet scene at Steps on Broadway @ 4pm today, and are looking for a few dancers to join them.
Please email girlwalk [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com for more information if you’re interested.
Still here
Hey Wingnuts!
Right now it is 5:12pm pst and we are still here so enjoy the video that I made for the Rapture.
A little challenge for anyone who lives in San Francisco and is able to guess the special guest artist that is not me and I will buy you dinner. Make your predictions in the comment box.
For all of you who enjoy my post you can follow my blog No Expectations
peace
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Special Guest Blogger Quinn Wharton of San Francisco Ballet!
Hey folks.
I was recently approached by a very talented friend of mine name Quinn Wharton about doing a guest blog on this site. We have known each other for years now because he and I were in school together at the North Carolina School of the Arts along with fellow Winger Matthew Murphy. Quinn is now living and working in San Francisco at the San Francisco Ballet with fellow Winger Madison Keesler. (See how small this crazy mixed up dance world is?) Quinn is well known for his magnificent ability to capture great photos of dance with his work been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, Pointe Magazine, various galleries, Album covers and tons others but you catch my drift! He has some information that he would like to share with all of you so without further ado……………..QUINN WHARTON!
Hey everyone, my name is Quinn Wharton, I am a dancer with the San Francisco ballet. A few years ago I went through an injury that took me out of dance for about 9 months. While I was rehabbing and wallowing in my misery I tried to find things to take up my time creatively. One of the things I turned to, among many, was photography. I had bought a nice camera on a whim during a tour and never really touched it. During the injury I decided it was high time that I figured out how to use the thing and take advantage of my investment. The first shoot was me and a friend on the beach for a few hours at sunset. I posted the pictures online afterward s and got some really great feedback, so I did another one, and another. Opportunities just seemed to keep coming and I kept getting more and more interested in what was possible with a camera. I have always longed to make dance more accessible to a larger audience, and to take off the pretty little princess sheen, photography seemed a great way to broaden the audience. I prefer to show ballet as a very real, athletic, graceful art form. I try to get my work to reflect that, as well as whatever piece of inspiration I had found for the shoot. I was recently approached by one of the Principals in our company, Tiit Helimets, to see if I would be interested in photographing/filming a tour to his home country of Estonia. I jumped at the opportunity, free reign to film and photograph a really talented collection of dancers?Why would I not be interested, its a fantastic opportunity to build my portfolio, and an amazing experience. Unfortunately this is the first year of the tour and as an arts endeavor it is on a slim budget. The tour doesn’t have extra funds to bring along an accessory like a photographer, they need to focus their money on the dancers and procuring rights to the ballets they are performing. So I have set up a kickstarter donation site to see if we can raise the money for me to go. There is a video on the site that I put together of all the dancers, a preview of sorts for what they will be performing, and some of who is involved. There is also an interview with Tiit explaining what the tour is about and why its so important. Its really an amazing collection of artists and the work I could create will be stunning. I just need a little help in getting there. So take a second to visit the site and support if you are able. I really appreciate it.
Here are some pics of my work and you can click HERE to help raise funds for this great opportunity!
Below are some photographs of my work. ENJOY!
Live Interview Tonight!
Hi all! As usual - long time no blog!
So so so much has been happening here in NYC since recovering from my surgery back in September…and tonight I’m being interviewed live on The Kiner Hour - Let’s Talk Dance with Ashani Mfuko! Tune in for this broadcast tonight, 7-8 pm EST, on http://talkingalternative.com, or watch here on Ustream.tv! Call in live at 877-480-4120. (It won’t let me embed the video here…sorry 
)
More updates to come soon 
3/30 UPDATED: Unfortunately the interview was canceled last minute To be rescheduled soon!
The Danish are Coming Monday March 21st
You are cordially invited to attend the next Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum live stream.
Who: The Royal Danish Ballet
What: Will be performing excerpts of August Bournonville’s The Jockey Dance, La Sylphide, A Folk Tale, and Bournonville Variations, plus Nikolaj Hübbe’s new staging of Napoli, and Jorma Elo’s Lost on Slow.
When: Monday March 21st at 7:30pm–SAVE THE DATE
Where: Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum. However, the show is Sold Out so you will be able to stream it on DIYdancer.
Why: To celebrate the beautiful, clean artistry of the Danish style, and as a preview to their American tour in May and June. Artistic Director and former New York City Ballet principal Nikolaj Hübbe will share his vision for the company in a discussion moderated by John Meehan, Professor of Dance at Vassar College.
I hope you will join us for the stream and live discussion with Candice Thompson.
Click here to read a short interview with Nikolaj Hubbe about his new staging of Napoli.
Live Stream of W & P Monday Night on The Winger
Once again, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum has sold out and they are offering a live stream of the show. Tune in to The Winger or DIYdancer tomorrow night, February 28th at 7:30pm, to see John Zorn’s Music Interpreted – New Choreography by Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz.
Each choreographer was commissioned by W & P to create new works to the music of composer John Zorn. Below, is an interview with John Zorn and Pam Tanowitz to get you warmed up for the show:
I will be moderating an online discussion in real time via Ustream and Twitter. Hope you will join me!
P.S. You can view the video from the last live stream of PNB: Giselle Revisited here.
The King of Limbs
Hey everyone!
I hope that everyone on the interweb and beyond are having a great start to the new year.
I want to share with you all a new video that i made and share some insight into the making of the video. Remember that show on MTV, Making the Video? Remember back when MTV played music videos?!?! Any who………Recently my favorite band Radiohead released a new album called The King of Limbs with a new music video with Thom Yorke dancing titled Lotus Flower. Not only is he dancing in it but he employed the services of the Royal Ballets resident choreographer Wayne McGregor to set the movement which is a very fascinating yet a perfect collaboration. I have always enjoyed McGregors work and have had the pleasure of speaking with him after one of his shows with the San Francisco Ballet and he is a very smart down to earth man with some great insight. Me being a huge Radiohead fan and currently developing new material the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, my new artistic home(YESS!!!) and working on my own projects and other collaborations I have been listening to all kinds of different music most recently Flying Lotus which reminds me a lot of Radiohead’s new album The King of Limbs. Both having jazz, dubstep, hip-hop, world, scatter, and electronic music all mixed with a human element have led me expanding my own personal dance vocab over the past couple years because i naturally listen to all different sorts of music which of course influences my work.
Video below of Lotus Flower.
Now lets take a walk down memory lane to see how my work came to be…. Twas a dark stormy night. SCRATCH THAT!!!
Last Saturday i was leaving a teachers meeting at a local studio that i will be teaching Contemp partnering/rep and me being the last one to leave because i was working out new moves during the entire meeting on the floor, the director of the studio said that i could stay behind as long as i wanted to. Little does she know that I always travel with a some sort of hand-held recording device because you just never know when lighting is going to strike and decided to do some filming in the space. First I set up the composition for the shot and then loaded my ipod into the dock with surround sound and went to town. I just danced, Lady Ga Ga styles with no rhyme or reason except the fact that i knew that i owed someone a video for valentines day. After i did about 3 takes while reviewing each one i noticed that my entire upper body was cut out of frame and my legs and feet appear to be acting as a drum kit which sparked the idea for me to create this video below. Plus how self absorbed would i be if sent a valentines video just of me dancing? I thought to myself having my upper body cut off is not as bad(is it?). Once i got home and to the editing business i had no big plans or ideas for what i wanted aside the fact that it needs to be musical along with not having too many effects to muffle up the movement which is already muffled. Note that i did not make any specific choreography. It was all improv. The most important thing in the video is the movement which is the only constant with my legs turning into drum machines so i wanted to keep that element in tact as much as possible so i did a lot of splicing. I know that I’m not a film director or anything but i do have a high expectations for myself and editing a video was a good way for me to learn more about Final Cut Pro which i love but also freak out about because I’m not a director.
Thankfully my friend liked the video after i posted it on her wall. I still don’t know what to think about the video because i made it with no supervision whatsoever so i hope that you enjoy and will also appreciate any feedback.
take care everyone.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet, “Giselle Revisited” - Streaming Live Tonight
Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum presents Pacific Northwest Ballet–Giselle Revisited.
Watch the sold out show live tonight, right here, at 7:30p and join our online discussion:
Online Discussion moderated by me, Candice Thompson on DIYdancer and The Winger.
Works and Process and PNB live on The Winger!
A special event via The Winger: This Sunday night, January 9th at 7:30pm, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum will be live streaming one of their shows for the first time! You can catch the show and online discussion live on the The Winger and DIYdancer.
The show, Pacific Northwest–Ballet Giselle Revisited, will preview excerpts of Peter Boal’s new staging of Giselle, featuring reconstructed choreography utilizing Stepanov notation circa 1899-1903 and French sources from the 1840s and 1860s. There will be discussion among dance scholars Doug Fullington and Marian Smith and artistic director Peter Boal as well as performances by PNB dancers Carrie Imler, Carla Körbes, James Moore, and Seth Orza.
Not only am I looking forward to being enlightened by all of this history and retelling of my favorite classical ballet, I can’t wait to moderate the live chat accompanying the streaming! The show is sold out but you can be a part of it by coming back to The Winger at the above date and time, enjoy the show and be a part of the discussion online!
In all ways, this is going to an historic event, so don’t miss out!
{Photos courtesy of Works and Process at the Guggenheim. Amanda Clark in PNB’s new version and Tamara Karsavina and Vaslav Nijinsky in Ballet Russes’ Act 2.}
