January 22, 2010
November of last year, I acquired a yoga passbook from a women who recently became a mother and wasn’t able to take advantage of the passbook. In fact, she’d purchased the book in January 2009, and come November she had only taken two classes. I bought the passbook for 40bucks. I understood I’d only have a few weeks to use up the passbook. Considering a single yoga or dance class costs 16-20bucks, if I took more than 3 group classes I’d get my money’s worth.
I arranged a private Alexander Technique class with instructor David Coben. The private session was one of the best experiences that came out of using the passbook. David was able to identify very subtle and improper habits I have. Perhaps this is part of the technique, but when making corrections, I was asked to think of a movement happening. Opposed to being asked to take an immediate corrective action. The intention behind this approach is when we address an issue in the body through action there is a tendency to over compensate or go beyond the point of correction. I left this session thinking about habits and movement patterns that I’ve never been open to. I don’t remember the specifics, but David Coben’s sessions are very well priced. And there is a promotional rate for referring friends. When I find another job, I plan on arranging another private session.
January 19, 2010
these groups are performing tonight, Tuesday Jan 19th. And I’ll be there.
I’m super excited to see dancers/choreographers Wendell Cooper and Nicholas Leichter perform with Gordon Voidwell. This movement and music performance seems so fitting.
tix: $12bucks
http://www.highlineballroom.com/bio.php?id=1317&o=3
January 15, 2010
http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti
January 3, 2010
This exhibition has come and gone, but this is something I really enjoyed working on. Chelsea Knight is an extremely talented and knowledgeable artist and instructor. This project allowed me to explore movement creation on dancers and non-dancers. While also negotiating ownership and claim of bodies, idea, concepts through movement. As a result of this project, I’ve begun to think more about dance/movement for film. Temporality is something I think about often, but I’m really intrigued wby what film can offer as method of movement translation; more specifically what is seen.
http://juliuscaesarchicago.com/chelsea.html
Chelsea Knight
I Lay Claim to You
December 6-20, 2009
Opening: Sunday, December 6, 4-7PM
Hours: Every following Sunday, 1-4PM
In I Lay Claim to You (single channel video, 2009), Chelsea Knight invites choreographer Khalia Frazier to translate a text — appropriating themes from Margaret Mead’s 1938 description of a Balinese cremation — into a dance. In an improvised rehearsal, Knight and Frazier perform attitudes of identification: claiming and reclaiming ownership of the dancers and of each other. The dancers operate as a Chorus, mediating and transcribing the process. Knight conflates tropes of cultural inscription with the situation of a rehearsal to engage difference and sameness as changeable, conditional and contested categories, whose instability is political.
December 27, 2009
My wife put me on to this.
http://www.behance.net/Gallery/alphabet/328194 see Arjan Bennings portfolio
December 27, 2009
This is really random, but I was in the market for reusable water bottle free of any nasty plastic byproducts. I was looking through reviews and found this bottle in an old SLATE article. It is the Platy Bottle by Platyus. It definitely looks a catheter should be hooked up to something. But the water bottle is actually pretty nifty and seems extremely portable.
photo from amazon.com
