In Friday’s NY Times, Alastair Macaulay writes a nice piece on one of my favorite films of all time - Powell and Pressburgers’ “The Red Shoes”. Evidently it is the 60th anniversary of the film, so if you’re looking for something to do this weekend, and you happen to be nursing a sunburn/not interested in being outdoors, this may be something to watch.
Powell and Pressburger
I wrote a bit more in depth about the film in a previous post (from 2005, yikes!).
One of the greatest things about this movie, besides the intriguing characters and beautiful cinematography, are the choice lines - usually delivered by Lermontov.
Lermontov
“Even the greatest magician cannot produce a rabbit out of a hat, if there is not already a rabbit in the hat.”
Here’s a clip of the gown/staircase/Monte Carlo scene Alastair describes…
alternately, here’s a version of some of the dancing parts of the film set to Timbaland’s “Apologize”… wait for it at 48secs…
I have been seeing your “Google ME” signs since the beginning of the summer and am real happy I can help make the winger a place where the people can find out more about you share their own stories about you. The chickens make this sign next to the gas station on 125th my favorite. Hello to all the people in the cars who followed the sign. I looked at your myspace page. The pictures are great. This one really shows what you are about: living in peace and being healthy.
Artists depend on others to chronicle their work. The 2003 times article by Alan Feuer is a good start but nowhere near a complete story. My posts arent bad either but there needs to be more. I think people need to know more about how rich your life is before they can really understand what you got to say. Lots of folks think you are crazy or homeless. People should see your paintings and hear your music and read your poetry. If you could share the view from your terrace or inside your art studio the people would really know and want to help support your work.
I think we should create something together with images, music, video, books, wisdom, technology and people. We should continue to use the internet and signs to communicate to each other and with the people. It was great to meet with you on tuesday thanks for giving me a call on my birthday. Let me know next time you are putting up an installation so we can artifact it. I am in the neighborhood.
Tony
I dont know what you know and you don’t know what I do but together we got a whole lot of know.
Otis Houston Jr.
Have you ever seen a score of a dance? Did you even know that there is such a thing as dance notation?
I always knew that music was written down in scores, and my study of music notation began the same day I picked up a violin for the first time. But I can’t remember at what point I learned that there are scores of dances, and I don’t think I saw any examples of dance notation until I was in college - more than twelve years after I started studying dance. Musicians read scores, actors read scripts, but we dancers do not typically read dance notation. Indeed, I only started to learn Labanotation when I entered the MFA program at Ohio State - sixteen years after I took my first dance class.
Whereas I began my study of Labanotation late in my training - and while most dancers in the U.S. never learn any notation system at all - many dancers in Israel are exposed to movement notation at an earlier point in their education. Developed in the 1950s by the Israeli Noa Eshkol along with Avraham Wachman, Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation (EWMN) is the most prevalent form of notation in Israel. Both the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and Seminar Hakibbutzim provide a rigorous background in EWMN for their students, who are studying to be dance teachers, and they in turn use EWMN with their younger pupils.
As someone interested in how notation systems aid in preserving and passing on our art form, I was intrigued by EWMN. All I knew at the beginning of my research was that EWMN could be used not only to document existing movement but to generate new dances (a major difference between EWMN and most forms of dance notation), and I wanted to find out more about how the system compared to Labanotation. The Jerusalem Academy’s Dafna Jones gave me an overview of EWMN and explained how popular it was with young students, showing me examples of EWMN used and even created by 5-year-olds. She also directed me to Michal Shoshani, who worked closely with Noa Eshkol until Eshkol’s death last autumn. Michal let me sit in on one of her classes at the Academy and then talked with me for a podcast, speaking passionately about Eshkol herself, the development of EWMN, the system’s principles, and her own interest in notation.
Want more resources on Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation? Check out these two sites:
-Directed by Tirza Sapir, Rikudnetto is a dance company in Israel which uses EWMN; its website includes information on the company and on EWMN.
-movementnotation.com has a wealth of information about EWMN as well as a discussion forum and an online course.
Also curious about Labanotation, the most common form of notation used in the U.S.? Try out Laban Lab, an interactive website which can walk you through the basics of Labanotation.
On Saturday 13 September, Edward Villella will be honoured at the ninth annual Los Angeles Dance Invitational with an LADI Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement. He will also be presenting the Stanley Holden Award for Distinguished Teaching to Los Angeles-based Terri Best on behalf of his late friend.
The evening will also feature works by Terri Best, Genevieve Carson, Marie de la Palme, JT Horenstein, Kim Eung Hwa, Malathi Iyengar, Linda Lack, Christopher Liu, Jose Reynoso and Jia Wu.
To find out more about the event, please visit the official website.
Here are three of my favorite shots I took during Katherine Kramer’s “Stop, Look & Listen,” last month. I was quite fascinated with this dancer, Jo, and I crept up to the front of the stage during dress rehearsal so I could get some close ups. You can check out more of my photos here.
