regrouping

just going through my emails that have gone unread in the past week or two. earlier I tossed out the armory show brochure I had picked up the previous weekend at the queens museum of art, as I missed all of the armory events. helping out with *something stolen, well...borrowed* was a good way of gauging how much free time I have to do projects like that. it definitely took time out of my schedule, but not unmanageably so, and it was a great diversion from my normal routine. we've been balancing things pretty well, with the new store opening soon and my ongoing jewelry responsibilities. it made me realize that it is possible to take time off from things, or at least check in every day and tackle some necessary tasks. everything else can wait.

working with aaron, kim, the other dancers, comedians and the musicians was an unbelievable experience. they had been working on the choreography and music for several months, and brought in extra people in the last couple of weeks to round out the cast. I had danced in *the something effect,* the full-piece finale, a year and a half ago when aaron presented it at dtw for the danceNOW festival. a very short phrase is repeated over and over, with variations being thrown in such as sounds, direction and stillness. aaron put a couple of people who had other parts in the performance, but no dance training, in this piece. One of them wasn't a performer at all, but a fine artist.

the piece this time was worked into a cabaret-style show about a wedding gone awry. conversations were awkward, guests were strange, the best man gave a drunk toast that got ugly. dancers, male and female, became brides, blow-up dolls became grooms, aaron and kim stripped to their underwear and performed a very sexy duet, and twinkies were smashed into peoples' faces. sounds so weird when I describe it, but there were some very beautiful moments. performing in it, we were laughing most of the time- it really was a funny show.


if you only know me through my jewelry design, you might be wondering how I come to perform occasionally. art and dance were both things I tinkered with in my childhood, but never considered studying seriously. It was later on at the age of 25, after going to business school and working in retail management for three years, that I went back to school to study art. in my last semester, inspired by the dance majors I had seen perform, I took my first modern dance class. from there I was hooked, and got the opportunity to perform with Steve's House Dance Collective, which was put together by VCU dance grads. Upon moving to Los Angeles shortly after graduating, I enrolled at Santa Monica College. In five years I took many, many classes in modern and ballet, plus some choreography, jazz, afro-caribbean and performance classes. When I moved to nyc in 2004, I got a graphic design internship at Dance Space Center (now Dance New Amsterdam) which turned into a part-time job. one of the perks of working there was unlimited free classes.

Since I started dancing so late and have other priorities in my life, I've only performed a handful of times. But I am so grateful to Aaron and Kim for the opportunity to work with them last weekend. I hoping this will lead to other things, whether it means dancing for other choreographers or working on my own pieces. I think it's really important for small business people such as myself to have a fun physical outlet. The body can get really kinked up from working in the house all day. Which leads to my next thought- just finished reading Craft Inc. and I highly recommend it to any craft or design entrepreneur. Been wanting to give it a review here on this blog, but haven't done it just yet!