There has been so much to write that I haven't written... Make sense? Maybe.
I realized today that music holds a priviledged place in my existence. I recently lost my iPod and haven't had music to accompany me on my commute. I've been reading instead (which has been wonderful) but have not been supplementing that with music at other times. Silence can be wonderful but music is needed to tap into that elusive part of the mind and memory called joy. I haven't quite figured out why but it has to be something vibrational... Our bodies are built on movement. Music is essentially movement of our eardrums. MOVEMENT IS THE ONLY INHERENT TRUTH OF THE UNIVERSE. Nothing ever stays at rest. Anywhere. So music (it's almost movement of the mind, isn't it?) and dance (movement of the body) feel like the inherent truths of humanity.
How wonderful.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Lots
There has been much going on:
New wicked apartment
Summerworks
Much inspiration for Kinetic Convergence
Revelations on teaching
Ok, maybe it doesn't sound like much but setting up an beautiful apartment, seeing 7 plays in just over a week, planning a curriculum for the following school year and having Ame Henderson blow my mind about what I'm really thinking (how does she always know??) is slightly overwhelming... Oh, and I also found the Masters program I want to do... University of California at Berkeley Department of Folklore
http://folklore.berkeley.edu/programs/graduate.php
Also they have this
http://tdps.berkeley.edu/programs-courses/graduate-program/
The two will somehow come together in awesomeness in some future year.
So it has been an epic few weeks. I think I am mostly excited that now teaching has become a viable part of my artistic practice. It has become not just a money job but something that meshes with my beliefs as an artist and the goals that I want to reach with my work–a sense of community, collaboration, openness, joy, and acceptance. Ame made me realize that all of those things are what folk dance and folk music are. Somehow dance and music shifted from that participatory model to the "if you're not a professional you watch professionals do things on a stage" model. Bollocks. I want to put the folk back into dance. Audience participation has become such a wanted commodity but the "professional performance" part still overpowers that desire. You can't just engage an audience for 1 minute and then expect then to feel involved for the rest of the 59 minutes they are sitting as an audience not being engaged! We need to bring back the folk elements of dance and music. Find a balance between performance and community, between professional and joyful practicer, and then talk about a real sense of audience participation.
New wicked apartment
Summerworks
Much inspiration for Kinetic Convergence
Revelations on teaching
Ok, maybe it doesn't sound like much but setting up an beautiful apartment, seeing 7 plays in just over a week, planning a curriculum for the following school year and having Ame Henderson blow my mind about what I'm really thinking (how does she always know??) is slightly overwhelming... Oh, and I also found the Masters program I want to do... University of California at Berkeley Department of Folklore
http://folklore.berkeley.edu/programs/graduate.php
Also they have this
http://tdps.berkeley.edu/programs-courses/graduate-program/
The two will somehow come together in awesomeness in some future year.
So it has been an epic few weeks. I think I am mostly excited that now teaching has become a viable part of my artistic practice. It has become not just a money job but something that meshes with my beliefs as an artist and the goals that I want to reach with my work–a sense of community, collaboration, openness, joy, and acceptance. Ame made me realize that all of those things are what folk dance and folk music are. Somehow dance and music shifted from that participatory model to the "if you're not a professional you watch professionals do things on a stage" model. Bollocks. I want to put the folk back into dance. Audience participation has become such a wanted commodity but the "professional performance" part still overpowers that desire. You can't just engage an audience for 1 minute and then expect then to feel involved for the rest of the 59 minutes they are sitting as an audience not being engaged! We need to bring back the folk elements of dance and music. Find a balance between performance and community, between professional and joyful practicer, and then talk about a real sense of audience participation.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)