Archive for June, 2007
June 30, 2007 at 6:56 am · Filed under dance, EVAN MCKIE, the stuttgart Ballet, stuttgart ballet, performances, swan lake
Here are a few more images of what a Swan Lake reharsal looked like last week as I was waiting to learn my entrance with Odette called the ‘’waterfall.'’ This is where the prince rushes in and lifts the white swan in an arabesque pressage while walking backwards in a diagonal downstage. As the prince walks by each swan, she must immediately fall to the floor and assume ’swan position’…(see the 2nd picture here) This creates a look similar to what might be called a ‘wave’ from a sports-viewing crowd. The prince cannot see where he is going though which means that if even one unlucky swan is out of line then she must face the unfortunate consequence of having foot briefly stepped on. There was a show I can rememeber where, due to a combination of an ill-footed prince and a few swans that may need contact lenses to acheive a more precise diagonal, all one could hear from the wings during this ‘’waterfall’ was ‘’ow-ouch-ow-ouch-ouch-ouch…'’ as the swans’ toes were trampled. The audience hopefully wasn’t aware of it, but I am sure the girls have paid closer attention to this part ever since….:)
I’ll try to put up a video of this part because it is so beautiful when done well….and sadly but secretly sort of entertaining when not. 
Here are the pretty ladies through the course of an afternoon reharsal….
Recent Posts by Evan McKie
June 29, 2007 at 11:55 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, friends, training, pilates
Posted by Sloan | via mobile phone
Now I’m about to take Erica on her first motorcycle ride to one of the last happy hour events at Doug’s company thehappycorp’s NOLITA space. The building they occupy now is being demolished so they are stepping up to a 5,000 square foot loft space that happens to be only a few blocks away.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
June 29, 2007 at 5:22 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, injuries, training, physical therapy
Posted by Sloan | via mobile phone
Today was also my last training session with Cassaundra, which is sad because we had fun, but a summer of relative unemployment is not really a situation in which personal training sessions make sense. Looking forward to taking classes in Saratoga with the company, but kind of dreading the second MRI arthrogram that awaits me upon my return.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
June 28, 2007 at 10:38 pm · Filed under dance, butoh, MAIA, south africa, acty tang, physical theatre, sifiso majola, heike gehring, dance umdudo
Posted by Maia Jordaan
The Silent Wail of Melisande
Photo by Cuepix/Christiaan Louw
I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with Acty Tang, recipient of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Choreography (South Africa) to talk about his new work, Chaste. Emotions surrounding this work are running high as performers are dealing with highly relevant and personal issues of love and the repressed unconscious. This Butoh-inspired physical theatre work is an iconoclastic interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. Acty believes this work is about the awakening of desire that has the potential to conquer the repression of law, patriarchy and religion. Performed by Acty himself, a dancer Sifiso Majola, an actress Heike Gehring and two singers this work is bound to provoke stereotypical renditions of what constitutes dance. The politics of dance has been inherent to Acty’s work since he presented his first butoh-inspired dance work at the Dance Umdudo in 1999. Last year Apology for a Stranger questioned why dancers make work and what audiences desire to see. In this work he apologized for his inability to dance and asked “What is there left to make work about, except the act of making work?”
AmaQueerKwere
Photo by Suzy Bernstein
In terms of content, Acty keeps going back to the theme of love. Thematically it involves politics because he looks at the homoerotic on stage in a country where it is still not acceptable at a very basic level. For him, love and desire are very closely related. In AmaQueerKwere (2005) he explored desire across time and space through Sontag’s notion of the erotic, approaching meaning through the sensual. And in Beloved (2004), even though the title refers to love there is no exact love object in the work. Some of his other works include And the Empty Space of His Shadow (1999), Ndilinde - Wait for me (2004), Apology for a Stranger (2006) and The Silent Wail of Melisande (2006). Thematically, it is about the
politics of LOVE. Acty sees love and justice as very much linked: he believes there will be healing and community love but born through huge amounts of trauma, struggle and injustice.
The Silent Wail of Melisande - Studio Shot
Photo by Chipo Laba
At a very basic level Butoh takes the body out of the social realm (which is filled with trauma and resistance) into the extraordinary and spiritual realm. The white painted body classically used in Butoh also relates to South African Xhosa initiation rituals, where black Xhosa boys paint themselves white and live in the bush to exit as young men. This happy
coincidence is very similar to the original context in that it refers to a making other and a link to the spiritual. It also speaks to a local audience who might not be aware of butoh and immediately transports the work to a spiritual realm.
The Beloved
The Beloved
Photo by Elsabé van Tonder
More about Acty …
http://www.artslink.co.za/dance.htm
Recent Posts by maia jordaan
June 28, 2007 at 9:21 pm · Filed under dance, welcome, TONY, wingers, reading group, MAIA, maia jordaan, south africa, rhodes university, gregor rohrig, robin orlin, first physical theatre company, nicola elliott
Photo by Gregor Rohrig
Our apologies for dragging our heels a bit on introducing this lovely lady (her profile page has been lurking on the right side of the winger for some time), but computer and internet troubles in her native South Africa and busyness here at the winger caused some snags that have now been worked out.
Ms. Maia Jordaan’s profile reads like a list of individuals you would need to put together an entire production - except she can do everything herself… “director/choreographer, producer, performer, set/costume designer, stage manager, company manager, marketing manager, teacher and researcher…” Quite an impressive list of talents! She is studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, where she’s working towards a practice-based Masters in Contemporary Performance.
Maia is currently working on her thesis dissertation in which she “explores Lepecki’s proposals on the characteristics of contemporary dance/performance to three South African works:
Robin Orlin’s daddy, i’ve seen this piece six times before and i still don’t know why they’re hurting each other (2000), and
The First Physical Theatre Company’s 16 Kinds of Emptiness (2006).
This is part of what Tony Schultz thought would make her both a fantastic contributor to The Winger as well as a great addition to the Reading Group, in which Tony and Maia will be discussing and dissecting Andre Lepecki’s Exhausting Dance. Check out the Reading Group page to get a copy of the book, see what they have written and discussed so far, and throw in your own thoughts!
Welcome Maia!
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
June 28, 2007 at 3:25 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, new york city ballet, video, kyra nichols, new jersey
Posted by Sloan | via mobile phone
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
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