Frankfurt + William Forsythe

First, as usual, Forsythe's work has blown my mind.

If you have not already seen this, here's Forsythe himself doing this AMAZING solo. THen imagine that with crazy vocalizations and by 20 people and in, on, under, between tables...



It was neither dance, opera, ballet, theater... it was something so uniquly hybrid. The dancers slammed, poked, dipped, etc. through tables and a crazy obstacle course, just feet from you (it was an installation in the round). Not only were they dancing in Forsythe's inventive language, they were vocalizing in a fantastic manner.. indistinguishable but understandable i think is how they stated it. At any rate, it was terrifying for the most part, though I couldn't figure out why. It was primal, futile, anarchy, tender.. everything.

I don't have photos from it, but here are a couple from previous works that are in the same vein:






































Also, for those of you thinking of taking a couchette.. it's a tight tight fit. We were in a 6-bed couchette, which meant two 3-bed bunks. You could reach your arm out and hit the person in the bunk next to you :)

Frankfurt was beautiful, of course.. here's some photos of our 4 hr stay :D

Oh, so this is toward the end, before the show...


















This is the alternate opera i think..


















Reminder of history

















right across the street - this very odd glass building

















same building






















Just buildings.. plus i swear the same ugly trees (ugly in winter) we have at UCB

















Mosaics on building






















Happy German Platz - there was an office, a sign and a hippie van. Awesome.










Cathedral... it was an awesome coral color

















same






















outside of Cathedral






















Cathedral plus moon (and blue skies!!)






















More mosaics



















Weighing right and wrong

Off to Frankfurt

Tomorrow, we voyage to Frankfurt for a 24 hr trip just to see Forsythe's work Heterotopia.

We'll write about that afterward, but already it sounds INCREDIBLE!

Sean's been busy working on his new animation and Caitlyn and I have been busy working on choreography... it's been so wonderful to have class in the morning followed by hours of rehearsing and philosophizing about art. Caitlyn is an extraordinary dancer and an incredibly interesting and insightful artist. We're looking forward to collaborating with her for the rest of the month and hopefully well into the future!

Speaking of future, Dorsey arrives Saturday and then the craziness of the mini-tour ensues!

Till after Frankfurt...

Choreographic Platfrom Austria 2009 in Graz

Hello all.

This is simply the prequel to an upcoming post where I'll write a bit about every piece we saw this weekend. We had the pleasure of attending the Choreograhpic Platform Austria 2009 Festival as professional guests (so nice of them to offer such a thing). While we missed the first night, we did soak in 2 days / nights of Austrian choreography, theory, talks.... and almost more wonderful, we had many great conversations with interesting folks from all over the world. NY's DTW, PS 122 and even one of the owners of the BARN (where we performed in Oct), who's also with Movement Research were in attendance. It was nice to be able to discuss what we were seeing / hearing with so many Austrians and Americans alike. The conference even got a hotel room explicitly for the use of anyone involved with the conference to just go, sit and have conversations until late into the nights/mornings. Anyway, much much much to say. While there were only a couple pieces we enjoyed enough to want to see more of them, it was all interesting. There were many things that I'd never before seen happen on st age... that can be both good / bad, boring / exciting and so on.... but at least it all sparked discussion.

So, big post on all this coming.... but first we have loads of work to do :) We all have to start rehearsing and gearing up for the upcoming lectures and performances that February has in store for us!

Oh, we also got to explore a bit of Graz, so here are those photos -- it was SO beautiful there. SO beautiful. Oh, especially when the clocks all over town started ringing out for noon on Sunday.

Schloss Burg Fortress (i hope i spelled that right)... it was literally carved into and atop this mountain..






































A view from under the mountain - we were in a hurry so took this crazy elevator up.




































Views from atop the Fortress and Graz...





































































































Views from street-level... next, very cool (hard to capture) double-spiral staircase. No staircase has ever made me so dizzy and ill :)