the Botoh performance
ok, I'm ready to stop teasing, now that I'm home and dirty laundry is keeping me around for a few hours (hey, even glamorous bitches like myself need to wash their clothes)... First I'll tell you about the dance Celeste and I performed during her visit (4-10th of Sept.)
Botoh, if you'll recall, is a modern dance form that hails from post-atomic Japan. It's very intense, slow, deliberate, heavy, cathartic (not mutually exclusive to heaviness, it seems), and pretty fucked up to witness--it's just so beyond what Westerners expect of dance. That said, the performance for the American Dance Guild Festival on Thursday, Sept. 6 was all of these things for me.
On Tuesday the 4th, I watched a video of a rehearsal in order to get a feel for the choreography and premise of the dance. From my understanding, this work has everything to do with spirituality and mankind's relationship to it. There were so many iconic symbols: particularly the totem and the maiden/mother/crone/goddess. Of course there's corruption and violence, and my favorite part is that at the end, when one thinks hope is springing, it goes away, forsaking mankind. Promise I'll post a video when it comes my way.
Seven of us danced this work, and it was a mixed nut bag of personalities, let me tell you. There was Deborah, our intrepid choreographer and also Prez of the Dance Guild. There was Celeste and I, of course, who have extensive dance/theater experience and have worked together and/or with Deborah many times. Then there was Ashley, a 30-something Mormon (yeah, I don't get it either) who worries and chatters WAY too much and has limited modern dance exp., but tons of dedication. We also had *crap, forgot her name*, 14, blond cheerleader/dancer. And finally Amelia, Deborah's pregnant and petulant 17-yr. old daughter, who also holds extensive dance exp., and Amelia's husband/baby's daddy, John. Can YOU imagine dancing with your knocked-up, young daughter and her fella? No, me neither. It was rough, but luckily I didn't have to deal with too much of the drama, since I was thrown in at the 11th hour. Poor Celeste, however, saw every fight, silent treatment, breakdown, etc.
Regardless of personalities and experience, we pulled it off like rock stars. People cried. They praised us. They gushed. For a while there I was in shock. I ran through the piece full-out just twice; I felt confidant that I could dance it, but I was concerned how much I could FEEL it. Oh, I felt it all right... I just wanted to curl into a ball and weep softly to myself after it was over. It was thick on heaviness and light on the cathartic for me. Celeste, on the other hand--and this is telling of how different but complimentary we are to each other--was freaking out before the show (I think it's cute that she still gets stage fright), then felt happy and light as a feather when it was over. Deborah seemed relieved and proud. We all were very happy to wash the clay off of us (teasing again, aren't I?).
The most exciting part of the experience happened later--we (the "company") were invited back to NYC to perform another work for some big(ish) dancer/choreographer. When Celeste told me that I just smiled and thought, one more reason to move up here, friend. She knows her time in B'ham is drawing to a close, but she's still searching for a new home and center of creativity. Naturally, I've been heavily campaigning for NYC. I have a HUGE apt., after all...
Botoh, if you'll recall, is a modern dance form that hails from post-atomic Japan. It's very intense, slow, deliberate, heavy, cathartic (not mutually exclusive to heaviness, it seems), and pretty fucked up to witness--it's just so beyond what Westerners expect of dance. That said, the performance for the American Dance Guild Festival on Thursday, Sept. 6 was all of these things for me.
On Tuesday the 4th, I watched a video of a rehearsal in order to get a feel for the choreography and premise of the dance. From my understanding, this work has everything to do with spirituality and mankind's relationship to it. There were so many iconic symbols: particularly the totem and the maiden/mother/crone/goddess. Of course there's corruption and violence, and my favorite part is that at the end, when one thinks hope is springing, it goes away, forsaking mankind. Promise I'll post a video when it comes my way.
Seven of us danced this work, and it was a mixed nut bag of personalities, let me tell you. There was Deborah, our intrepid choreographer and also Prez of the Dance Guild. There was Celeste and I, of course, who have extensive dance/theater experience and have worked together and/or with Deborah many times. Then there was Ashley, a 30-something Mormon (yeah, I don't get it either) who worries and chatters WAY too much and has limited modern dance exp., but tons of dedication. We also had *crap, forgot her name*, 14, blond cheerleader/dancer. And finally Amelia, Deborah's pregnant and petulant 17-yr. old daughter, who also holds extensive dance exp., and Amelia's husband/baby's daddy, John. Can YOU imagine dancing with your knocked-up, young daughter and her fella? No, me neither. It was rough, but luckily I didn't have to deal with too much of the drama, since I was thrown in at the 11th hour. Poor Celeste, however, saw every fight, silent treatment, breakdown, etc.
Regardless of personalities and experience, we pulled it off like rock stars. People cried. They praised us. They gushed. For a while there I was in shock. I ran through the piece full-out just twice; I felt confidant that I could dance it, but I was concerned how much I could FEEL it. Oh, I felt it all right... I just wanted to curl into a ball and weep softly to myself after it was over. It was thick on heaviness and light on the cathartic for me. Celeste, on the other hand--and this is telling of how different but complimentary we are to each other--was freaking out before the show (I think it's cute that she still gets stage fright), then felt happy and light as a feather when it was over. Deborah seemed relieved and proud. We all were very happy to wash the clay off of us (teasing again, aren't I?).
The most exciting part of the experience happened later--we (the "company") were invited back to NYC to perform another work for some big(ish) dancer/choreographer. When Celeste told me that I just smiled and thought, one more reason to move up here, friend. She knows her time in B'ham is drawing to a close, but she's still searching for a new home and center of creativity. Naturally, I've been heavily campaigning for NYC. I have a HUGE apt., after all...