Poem for Or

My first thought posting this now is that a year ago, at the time when this video was first released into the ether, I was falling in love. I was falling ungracefully, full of doubt, questioning it the whole way down, very unlike what I imagined the whole thing might feel like. But I was falling and here I am now, in the love jar, and it's great in here and I think I'll stay. 

I find it a bit ironic that this video takes me back to that whole experience because this piece of art feels like heartbreak. It also feels like separation, like distance. People are quick to tell you that distance either kills love or strengthens it. I'm not close with either person in the video, though I've been a longtime admirer of one of them, but in this case, it seems to have done both. 

I want to say more but I feel like I shouldn't, so here, watch the magic thing, and feel what you want in the space between the two.

Music- Cat Stevens Choreography- Bobbi Jene Smith

Mathieu Bleton And The Anatomy Of A Fall

You see now how we've missed the part where we turn around and fall up?

Gracias al proyecto Zubideak, de San Sebastián 2016, Mathieu Bleton, bailarín de la compañía Yoann Bourgeois de Grenoble, acerca la Biennale de la Danse de Lyon a San Sebastián.

This glorious flight is performed by Mathieu Bleton. For now, that's all I know, but let's hope there's more to find and see.

MILK

Well. This is stunning. If the theme of this week was running sprints, then I think perhaps this might be what happens at the end of the race.

Released in 2014, feast your eyes on the magical creatures of Gallim Dance in Zach Gold's remarkable film short:

ZACH GOLD - MILK Debuting at Art Basel Miami 2009, this film was shot in collaboration with the highly acclaimed dance company Gallim Dance and choreographed by Andrea Miller. Zach Gold uses the renowned quality of his photography and applies it to film, creating an engrossing series of environmental relationships, tension and peace.

Regardless of your real life abilities to digest lactose, DOES THAT OR DOES THAT NOT TASTE LIKE FREEDOM? Until it doesn’t.

Vera Ellen: Dance. Your. Heart. Out.

I can't stop thinking about that thing. That thing that happens when there is so much movement, and so little time, and what is being required of you, the dancer, is so big and so full that the only choice you have is just to get it the fuck out and trust that your body knows what to do, because you know that not only are you an artist but also that you are A Fucking Athlete and no one is going to stand there and tell you that you can't do something because you love, love, proving people wrong. And this moment will take the wind out of you but it will also feel, it is also, euphoric, and you, who maybe hates running, suddenly understand why people love marathons, because this is your marathon, except for that it is instead a series of sprints. One. After. Another.

This thing, this feeling, is maybe not so common these days, when we're all, me included, trying to do less, to make it seem easy, like it's not work at all. I think that's true about life too, not just dance. The working-without-making-it-look-like-work effect. Effortlessness and Expertise are your right and left hands, or that's the goal. It's my goal.

But sometimes, I am reminded that I like to just haul off and do the work with all the strength and the will I've got, and that sometimes, at least for me, that seems like the only way to get through it. You can't sustain this forever, this mode. Like I said, it's a series of sprints. My life, right now, is a series of sprints.

Which brings me to the following video, significant not only because this is from my early library, one of those precious dance scenes that set me on the path to get here, because I love this dance break. And when you are sprinting, you should often remind yourself exactly what it is that you love, and that is to say: why you are running in the first place.

BUT ALSO it fits the theme, because the sequence below is a full out sprint. A sprint that manages somehow to look effortless and like work all at the same time.

New goals?

I get all the old movies at http://bit.ly/moviefilm straight onto my pc.

Have a Look: Batsheva and Bob Dylan

There is a game that is played, in different variations, wherein two competitors are given a set of significantly dissimilar objects, people, or ideas, and must race to connect them to a center point, usually via Wikipedia. Clementines and the Empire State Building. An Achilles Tendon and Jennifer Aniston. The color Magenta and the River Nile. 

I think, in certain cases, you'd be allowed to modify the game and use your imagination in lieu of a computer. Let's try it now?

One:

There's not much to say about the first video clip except that it makes me BELIEVE. 

Enjoy this electricity: 

HOME ALONE is a performance evening created by the ensemble dancers of Bat Sheva - one of the top dance companies in the world. This video is a promotional video for this evening, but had a great success worldwide, and won Best Dance Film under 5min in San Francisco Dance Film Festival, "Best Dance Film" in SESIFF festival in Korea and a prize in Shortwaves Film Festival in Poznan, Poland. This video has been screened in over 40 festivals and venues worldwide and continues to tour the world to this day. For more info on Bat-Sheva Dance Company, check out their site: https://www.batsheva.co.il/en/ Director: Adi Halfin DOP: Roman Linetsky Editor: Shahar Amarilio Producers: Tamir Eting, Noam Eidelman, Adi Halfin Styling: Shani Sebban Makeup: Noa Yehonatan Art director: Netta Dror

Two:

The next thing for your eyeballs is a clip of Andy Warhol's 1965 Screen Test of Bob Dylan. Maybe what's really got my wheels, once I finish taking this all in, is the question of where exactly we go when we know we're being only-sort-of watched? It's a tricky thing to record someone in their natural state, but humans are adaptable, this is a fact. How long then before we forget that we are not alone?

And also, to bookend the week, see how much actually gets done in the pursuit of doing nothing!

...while we're on the topic of ANDY W. and his Screen Tests, we might as well (read: should definitely) watch this:

40 second moving picture. Page one of a conceptual editorial fashion story, inspired by the Andy Warhol screen tests of the 1960's. Direction, Lighting direction and design Layout by James Bareham. Stills Photography by Jeff Mikkleson Styling by Jersey Hair by Agata Helena Makeup by Kim Webber Model Emma Hansen / Elite

Start your engines and connect these dots why don't you? I think I will too. 

Fred Astaire: On Being Upside Down, Whenever Possible

I grew up in a big, airy house, with tall ceilings and an abundance of windows. To this day being in a small space with no natural light makes me feel a touch claustrophobic. This is somewhat problematic because I spend an average of three days a week working in a box office. (But I digress.)

There was a game I used to play as a child, by myself, that I called "walking on the ceiling." I would hold a mirror squarely between my hands, face up, peer into it, and walk.

That's it. It was incredibly simple.

The mirror, and my forward motion, was all I needed to defy gravity.

Fred Astaire took a different approach.

And so I'll share with you the following, something familiar (I hope!) but never tiresome, because every now and then we should lose, for a minute, our sense of up.

Also- last note I promise-- BUT:

“Everywhere that beauty goes, you are.”

— You're All The World To Me, Royal Wedding

SWOON. Enjoy.

Fred Astaire performs "You're All The World To Me" in the 1951 musical "Royal Wedding".

Judy Garland: Having Emotions Doesn't Make You Crazy

Here is the thing. 

For a long time, I have nonchalantly defended my emotional actions or reactions in this way:

"I know I know, but I'm a crazy person, so..."

It occurs to me that it's time to make an effort to stop. Because-- and this sounds cliche to me, but I'm going to indulge this thought for a second here, and it bears repeating since I certainly don't seem to have taken it to heart-- feeling something does not make you unstable, it makes you human. In fact, I think ignoring your emotions actually makes you crazy. If you believe that your emotions are tied to your instincts, and that your instincts are usually right, it might even make you stupid. 

Also, "crazy" used this way is a cruel word, and one of these days I'm going to quit being so mean to myself. There are enough people out there ready to oblige, if I'm looking for some sly cruelty. Which I am not.

The fact is, expressing emotion can be beautiful. It can be a very brave thing.

Resulting in this theory: maybe, in our heart of hearts, we actually crave it. Otherwise why on earth do we go the movies? What even is "Netflix and chill" if not an excuse to wear sweatpants, eat in bed, and watch other people feel the things that we're afraid to feel ourselves?

All of that is to say that the following video is sticking with me, as is the fact that it was never aired because producers found it "too dark" leading me to question: when did it become taboo to care?

via sunny skyz