Archive for manhattan
August 20, 2008 at 12:47 pm · Filed under ballet, dance, dance event, KATE, manhattan, art, modern, city, new york, nyc, mercecunningham, new york city, abt, choreographer, modern dance, contemporary dance, new york dance, companies, city center, dance culture, dance companies, american balet theatre, KATE-M, SYREN, kate mehan, chroeographer, SYREN modern dance
This is one of the posters starting appear around the city (this one at 5th Ave N/R/W train stop). This is a great event at City Center (all tickets $10!!!) The shows are in Sept. Everything from Shen Wei, ABT, Cunningham, to Oregon Ballet Theater and much much more. A great mix, the right price, and a SUPERB venue. One of these days, we hope SYREN will get on the bill! In the meantime, we are enthusiastic supporters.
Check it out!
http://www.citycenter.org/tickets/productionNew.aspx?performanceNumber=3775
www.syrendance.org
Recent Posts by kate mehan
December 18, 2006 at 4:23 pm · Filed under SLOAN, schools, student, events, lifestyle, manhattan, technology, science
| 
| Posted by Sloan
Yesterday, during my hour break between Nutcracker shows, I finally got to go to NYU’s ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) Winter Show, where the students display their work. (I’ve wanted to go for a long time, but performances have made it impossible in the past).
There was so much interesting stuff there it was a bit overwhelming. Also overwhelming is the feeling that I wish I could play around and make some of this stuff too! Maybe someday 
Our friend Dens, who’s responsible for an awesome little program called dodgeball, studied there and is now one of their esteemed teachers.
Above is a photo of me using this wand thing to create pretty designs on the screen in front of me. Below, Doug tries it out.
The set up looked just like the set-up with the red lights that Tony had in his black suit with the little white balls (check out his profile page).
The wand has sensors on either end and their position in space determines what is happening on the screen.
Here is a wall of paper disks with black and white patterns printed on them. There is a tiny camera embedded in the wall which makes it possible for the wall to read the light and shadow of what’s in front of it, and mimic it by rotating the disks to reveal the corresponding lighter or darker parts.
This one was really neat… an interactive dollhouse that told the darker versions of well-known fairy tales. (example: hansel and gretel was actually a story relating to a common form of infanticide, where parents who could not afford to feed their children, would abandon them in the woods.)
As you turned the page of the story book, a different room in the dollhouse would light up, sometimes with moving parts inside. There were tiny video camera’s inside the house that showed the interior perspective of the rooms on the screen to the left of the house.
Above, video of individual people, projected into glass jars.
This was SO cool looking, and a bit creepy. I think there were seven different-shaped jars with seven “trapped” people, each with a unique look and personality.
There was also a sensor built into the table that the jars were on. When you, or your hand, got too close to the jars, the little people would start getting angry and try to shoo you away, each in their own individual way.
And finally…
A solar powered bikini.
Makes it possible to have endless hours of tunes from your ipod or other electronic device while lounging on the beach.
Functional - yes.
Comfortable - probably not.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
October 1, 2006 at 9:37 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, injuries, computers, culture, events, lifestyle, manhattan, technology
| | Posted by Sloan
Today we caught the very last day of Wired’s Next Fest at the Jacob Javits Center.
It’s kind of the closest thing we have today to the World’s Fairs of the past.
Last year it was held in Chicago. I was devastated that I couldn’t go, until I found out that it was being held here!
All in all, it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped. But then again, it’s still held in a convention center. Hopefully someday it will get big enough that they can build their own structures just for the festival, like they did for Worlds Fairs. What still exists today in Flushing, NY I find so fascinating!
Abive, a creepy Japanese fembot. She looked My Phuong in the eye and totally freaked her out.
On the right, an abnormally large cabbage, which I pretended ate my hand.
These are two fembots which are built to dance!
The design is pretty cool (except for the random mouse ears), but the demo was incredibly lame. It’s interesting that after all the work that probably went into making these things, when you see someone dance with one, it looks like it would probably be more exciting to dance with a shopping cart.
This was one of my favorite things, it was just toooooo cute. It’s a stuffed seal that has sensors in it. When you pet it, it responds by moving it’s head, flippers, and blinking its big eyes and wiggling it’s whiskers.
Other highlights were an entire section on sustainable living (YES!! I want a green roof someday), and an area devoted to SpaceShipOne.
Special thanks to Jacob and My Phuong for helping us skip the INSANE line, (GE is one of his clients).
In other news…
I’ll be going to my FIRST DANCE CLASS tomorrow! Two weeks ago I saw my doctor, who said I had gained enough strength over the last few months of physical therapy, that he felt I was ready to start getting back into ballet class.
These last few weeks I’ve started slow, just doing a little bit of barre at home. But tomorrow I’m going to take the plunge and see what happens. Luckily I have physical therapy a few hours after!
Wish me luck
| | Posted by Sloan
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
September 25, 2006 at 4:49 pm · Filed under SLOAN, family, dougie, events, lifestyle, manhattan, germany
| | Posted by Sloan
Thirty one years ago today, one of my most favorite people on the planet was born. He’s accomplished a phenomenal amount in such a short period of time, including being a huge inspiration and source of joy for me 
This Sunday we went to Zum Schneider to celebrate with his family, just like all good Germans should… with human head-sized steins of beer.
The Jaeger Men (left to right)… Paul, Douglas and Erik.
And Their Ladies (left to right)… Karen, me and Susan.
| | Posted by Sloan
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
September 23, 2006 at 10:39 pm · Filed under dancers, manhattan, GWYNETH
| | Posted by Gwyneth
A few days ago I headed to the Hudson River Park with some of my dancer colleagues to participate in a rather unique form of cross-training -– we took a flying trapeze class! The Trapeze School of New York holds daily classes in a great location that overlooks the Hudson River, and we all had an amazing time learning how to swing, hang and flip from a trapeze that was suspended 23 feet high in the air!
Of course we were attached to a harness the entire time, so there was no risk of falling or hurting ourselves. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t at all frightening! On my first attempt, I was so busy trying to combat my shaking legs and trembling fingers that just getting a firm grip on the trapeze bar was a challenge all in itself. I barely had time to register just how high I was above the ground before the instructors gave me the cue to jump, and suddenly I was flying through the air, trying to pointe my toes and remember how to breathe all at the same time!
Once we all got the hang of it though, we began to have an absolutely incredible time. Our instructors were eager to teach us increasingly difficult maneuvers, and soon we were practicing our own specific aerial tricks! At the end of class we even learned to “catch”, meaning that we swung off of one trapeze into the grasp of one of the instructors who was hanging from a separate trapeze across the net! Not one of us got the catch on the first try, but being the determined ballerinas that we all are, we attempted it until we succeeded.
Here’s a picture of all of us with our three fantastic instructors.
And here are some pics of us “flying”!
I think I can safely say that none of us have plans to join the circus anytime soon, but needless to say it was an amazing experience and hopefully we’ll all be back again. If anyone wants to take a trapeze class, the school has locations in New York, Baltimore and Boston. I highly recommend it, and you don’t have to be a ballerina to try!
Recent Posts by gwyneth muller
September 18, 2006 at 1:44 pm · Filed under SLOAN, dance, dancers, artists, culture, manhattan, fashion
photo ©Fashion Wire Daily/Gruber
| | Posted by Sloan
Last week under the tents of Bryant Park at Fall Fashion Week, Michael Kors showed his latest collection… inspired by dance, dancers, and the outfits we wear!
From Yahoo News…
“We’re having a dance movement culturally,” said the perennially tanned designer while air kissing friends. “For the first time in 25 years, we’ve got Madonna, we’ve got Billy Elliot, we’ve got A Chorus Line, we’ve got Dancing With the Stars - and the Joffrey Ballet School is right around the corner from my new apartment. So, sexy and you can move? I love that!”
It must be big news for the dance world since Pia Catton of the Sun dedicated a whole article entitled Dancer Chic to the event…
“This was an homage to dancers, “A Chorus Line,” and the life in the studio. Inspiration came from the simple pieces that dancers wear to rehearsal — and from the stars themselves. The result was a sleek, body-conscious collection in black, tan, pink, and neutrals that was presented to the best runway music of the week: samples from the original cast recording of “A Chorus Line”spliced in with Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” and more.”
Hmmm. I do tend to wear a lot of black, tan, pink and neutrals, but until now I was never quite sure why.
He chose to name the pieces after famous dancers of the past (Fonteyn, Farrell, Graham, etc.), but I almost wish he could have used the opportunity to raise people’s awareness of the fantastic artists that are around today. In New York alone, I think it would have behooved him to enlist the talents of Dvorevenko, Whelan, Kistler or Kowrowski (among countless other beauties) for a Kors-clad cameo strut down the catwalk.
All in all it’s always nice to see dance represented and recognized by other popular art forms.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
·
Next entries »
