Yes, I could go for a 3rd viewing...

I've never had much of a desire to watch award shows. Sure, in the back of my mind I register when they're on and I want to see what everyone is wearing and watch the performances, but I don't get all that excited. Unless Idina Menzel is singing at the Tonys or something.


But this year I actually wish I was going to be home to watch the Academy Awards. Because PINA has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature, and I have a strange sense of pride in that fact. I guess this must be how sports fans feel...and to think I always raise an eyebrow when they say "we won"!


PINA was breathtaking...awe-inspiring...best movie of the year...yup all those adjectives that describe so tritely an experience that obviously goes beyond words. Well my capacity for words anyway. 


Go see this film. 

Dancer or not...go see it. Actually I'd like to hijack the next episode of So You Think You Can Dance and broadcast it instead. Those things are like 2 hours long right? Now THAT would truly educate the masses.

I think what struck me most about PINA was not the 3D (which was absolutely brilliant) or the elaborate stagings and beautiful cinematography, but the rawness that underscored all of Pina Bausch's work. It's in her dancers' ability to sit in front of a camera practically motionless, without saying a word, and express the deepness of sorrow in mourning, the complexity of laughing when you want to cry, and the elation of feeling capable of love and filled with strength. It's in her choreography as it always has been, but it's also in the solos created by her dancers, who eulogize her with heartfelt evidence of how dancing for her has peeled away the layers of artifice and left only artistry: human, vulnerable, articulate, captivating.


Anyway I'm gushing. Obviously I want to make a dance film now. I actually always have, and especially since 2009 when I created a dance called Buoyancy on ten UCI undergraduate dancers. It's about my experience working with a community in Nicaragua, and all that they taught me about survival and humanity, and I've always seen it in vignettes. Parts of it happening in the shallows of a river, others in the dirt roads of a tiny village, still others in a landfill that is juxtaposed hauntingly with the beautiful and awesome natural force of a smouldering volcano in the background...someday!


Thanks for the inspiration Pina...now and always. And come this Sunday, GO TEAM MODERN DANCE!!!


<3 Claire

Tina Fey on standards of beauty

I'm reading Bossypants by Tina Fey right now, which is such a great read, and I thought this passage was smart and appropriate and hilarious so I had to share it. 

This is Tina's "laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful":

• Caucasian blue eyes
• full Spanish lips
• a classic button nose
• hairless Asian skin with a California tan
• a Jamaican dance hall ass
• long Swedish legs
• small Japanese feet
• the abs of a lesbian gym owner
• the hips of a nine-year old boy
• the arms of Michelle Obama
• and doll tits

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did =).
<3 Claire

P.S. no plans on Sunday? Come and talk dance and eat cupcakes with me...doesn't that sound dreamy? 2nd Sundays @ CounterPULSE

We're on Facebook!

Does that mean that we're legit? Like how you're not really in or out of a relationship until it's "Facebook official"? 

Check us out and "like" us! Otherwise we won't know if you really do or not...

http://www.facebook.com/forchangedance

New projects are brewing...so excited!

I love being in a dance studio. Just being there. Absorbing the energies of thinking bodies and moving minds that have left their marks on the floors and their scrawled notes and drawings strewn around. You can feel the dance in the air.

I'm in the studio with dancers now working again on "in a delicate way...", trying to delve further into the subject matter and deepen the material. And all the work we are going to be doing with it has been driven by conversation. I'm un-endingly grateful for everyone who's participated.

Engaging my dancers in the choreographic process is one of the driving principles of my work, and the idea of inclusivity is something that for change dance collective is all about for me. I also think that dance audiences have much to offer that is never mined by artists. Whenever it's possible, I want to give viewers of my work a chance to participate in it's evolution.

So, getting to my point (I know...FINALLY, right?), I'd like to invite you all to keep December 11th free on your calendar. I'll be showing some work at 2nd Sundays at counterPULSE in SF, which is a free salon where artists informally show work and solicit feedback from audience members. If you're curious you can check out the link here: http://counterpulse.org/programs/second-sundays/ or look under the "PERFORMANCES" tab.

I'm also in conversations with a composer friend of mine to possibly start working on a collaboration, which will be TOTALLY RAD because I've always wanted to do that. Wish there was more time in a weekend and more money in my bank account for all these projects!

<3 Claire

what makes you feel pretty?

http://www.prissyinpink.com/catalog.php?item=1504

Jess saw this on pinterest.com and sent it to me. It's from an online boutique that caters to "Girly Girls" called Prissy in Pink. When I was a kid I probably would have given my left arm for a chance to model in their clothes! And I made Lauren model in these shoes for my last piece muahaha =) She was amazing!

I don't think I'm quite finished with "in a delicate way..." there's so much to dissect about how the game of dress-up seeps into our everyday lives. I've been thinking lately that I spend way too much time on Facebook, and what is social networking really but a way for us to present ourselves to the outside world in a way that we can control and edit and fashion. It's digital dress-up.

Little girls love to pretend they are someone else. Maybe someone older, more fashionable, more powerful. Someone who can wear red patent leather high heels and walk with that trademark affectation that only comes from the effects these instruments of torture have on your body. 

Big girls love to dress up too. It's often asked, who do girls dress up for, the boys or other women? Isn't it really for themselves, to feel more empowered as well, wielding their feminine wiles with the full force of cultural preconceptions about appearance behind them? Even if you're dressing up in a different style...any style...you project an identity loud and clear. I feel great when I know I'm properly dressed for the occasion, whether it's dance class in San Francisco or LA (two clearly different aesthetics), work, a baby shower, or hanging out with my hipster friends who shall remain unnamed ;)

And boys are by no means exempt from the dress-up phenomenon. It's part of life, it's part of everyone's daily routine, it affected everyone's childhood, it's always one of the top five categories on any good list of how to interview well or get a date. It's interesting to me precisely because it is so inevitable, often enjoyable, and yet has destructive powers as well.

I want to ask everyone, what does it take for you to feel dressed?

<3 Claire

audience participation

It strikes me that one way art changes people is by breaking up the routines, activities, and thought patterns we become accustomed to in our daily lives. Which is often great, but can also really piss some people off.

I wanted to share a picture of my most recent collaboration at PARK(ing) Day. This picture was taken by Lauren's amazing mom, Bette Linderman, and captures so well a moment of art imitating life while life offers it's opinion right back. 

I felt this girl pass by me through the "stage" space while I was dancing, and though I had no idea how expressive she was at the time, it still made me smile. I realize now that the piece is kind of all about mashup: modern dance and pop music, theatrical elements and abstract movement, and the idea of parental love and protection both supporting and clashing against societal expectations. 

I just think that the composition of this photograph really speaks to those themes, and I wish I could hire this girl for the next performance! But I'm guessing I could never re-create the way this experience changed my perception of the piece and of myself dancing in the streets, nor could it re-create the emotions displayed so honestly by the mysterious character of woman-with-shopping-bags.

<3 Claire

PARK(ing) Day Performance in Berkeley this Friday

There's no such thing as a free lunch...but there is FREE DANCING AT LUNCHTIME!!! 

This Friday around noon, at Allston and Shattuck in downtown Berkeley, across from BART. We'll be performing "in a delicate way, without being beautiful." (that's a title...not a descriptor) with some awesome Bay Area artists!

The PARK(ing) Day Dance Festival is part of Nina Haft & Company's contribution to a now worldwide event. Check out their blog: http://ninahaftandcompany.wordpress.com/dancing-in-the-streets-with-friends/

A temporary PARK in San Francisco by event originators Rebar. Check out http://parkingday.org/about-parking-day/

I am so enamored by the concept of this event: leasing some urban real estate by paying the meter of a parking spot in order to create public space for art, play, and community activity rather than vehicle storage. Totally groovy and has already changed the way I look at parking spots as I drive by and wonder...Ooh the possibilities ;)

<3 Claire