The latest concert we attended was beyond tragic and has thusly inspired the following
Dixon's Rules to Modern Dance
1. Pointless reaching for nothing. If you are going to reach for something, make sure it actually exists.
2. Under no circumstances should you touch or rub yourself unnecessarily. Make that shit stop.
3. Long and dramatic hugs with other dancers on stage. No.
4. There is such a thing as being too dramatic.
5. Facials. No. We are not a high school drill team.
6. When the piece needs to end, END IT. Do not make it 17 minutes long just because it is modern dance and you can.
7. BOYS-Just because you are a man does not give you any excuse to be any less technically beautiful as the women around you. I don't care that you probably only started dancing two years ago. The girls around you have been dancing since they were 3. Put in the work you lazy piece of s***.
8. BOYS- Freakin' point your toes and straighten your legs (see #7)
9. Do not wear dance paws or any foot attire. We are not in high school.
10. Do not do a ballet piece in ballet flats. If the girls are not capable of dancing en pointe, you should not be doing ballet at all.
11. Just because we are modern dancers does not mean that our extensions shouldn't be beautiful and our turns shouldn't be nailed. Work on it.
12. Music. Slow and dramatic orchestration is disgusting and cheesy. No. Be unique.
13. Girls in tights, booty shirts and normal tops is a HUGE no. Ugh. Only under extreme circumstances should booty shorts be worn.
14. BOYS- If you are going to wear booty shorts, make them BOOTY shorts. These shorts that awkwardly go to the knee make me SICK.
15. If you are going to have a prop, make it have a legitimate purpose and use it in new and original ways.
16. If you are going to push boundaries, push them until you can no more, or don't at all.
17. Countless big leaps and turns, no matter how pretty, become boring and useless. Stop.
18. Do not use the most famous speech in America's history and do a bunch of bad dancing to it. You should be kicked out of the country for that.
19. If the music has lyrics, do not interrupt them literally. We as an audience want to be able to think about it and not be punched in the face with it.
20. Bad technique ruins lives. Take more classes and try again.
Well there ya go. Good luck and you're welcome.
ps. Tomorrow at 10:15am is when the pieces chosen for the Gala concert are being announced and after tonight's tragic attempt at a concert our chances of being chosen are so much higher. Stay tuned.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Unfortunately Bipolar
6:00am - Alarm
6:00:01am - S*** D*** H***
6:00:03am - Sleep
6:15am - Repeat
6:30am - Izzy and I arise and head down to breakfast.
So that happened. Needless to say it was not the greatest start to a day.I did however end up going back to bed after breakfast for about an hour before getting up, getting ready and walking to the school for my first class. Jazz.
I have been waiting all year to take Lawrence Jackson's Advanced Jazz class again. It is a fabulous class that I took last year and I knew that I had to retake it. Jackson is a fabulously tall black man with legs out the ceiling. He teaches a glorious class full of leaps, turns, battements and ends with a fabulously sassy combination. I was in heaven. ( I honestly mostly just wanted to watch him kick and leap all day. Literally....legs out the ceiling. It is fantastically awesome and exciting in so many ways. Take that how you will. )
Jazz ends. Sad. Food happens. Happy.
The first (and only) informal concert started at 1:00pm. This is a concert full of dances that are not being judged but are just there to be performed and enjoyed. UVU had a piece in it and it was incredible. Not a terrible show. The U also did a piece that was remarkable.
Concert ended. Ballet began.
The more I take ballet the more I realize that I really do love it. Today I took a class from one of my former teachers are Weber and I remembered why she is the only person from Weber that I miss. It was EASILY the best ballet class I have ever taken. Just glorious. Fun, exciting, fast and ended with a good stretch. What else could a little dancer ask for? I also extended her the opportunity after class to tell me how much i've grown and how good UVU is making me,....shucks.....
After the ballet class we headed back to the theatre to tech our 12 min. piece in 18min. Man. That was just a joy.
Skipping ahead.
Concert is supposed to start at 8:30pm.
At 7:45pm we are all in the dressing room, taking our time, mostly not dressed and doing our makeup when we get a special announcement, "Standing by UVU, on deck SUU." WHAT!??!! Apparently the show starts at 8:00. We all begin panicking, stripping off our clothes and into costume and running upstairs to attempt to warm up before we open the show.
Alas, fear not. A mixture of long winded judges and idiot stage hands just muffed it up. The show did not start until almost 9:00. Ugh. Frustrated. The piece happened. It was fine. yadda yadda.
The rest of the show happened. I was pleasantly surprised with how good all the dances were. The standout (for me anyways) was Izzy's piece. He is a student at UVU and choreographed such an amazing workshop study in school that the teachers asked him to finish it and take it to ACDFA. It is a trio of three girls and is absolutely outstanding. Incredible choreography and dancing. So excited to see if he makes it into the Gala on Friday.
I should explain. All the pieces in the concerts are being adjudicated and friday after noon they will pick the best pieces to be performed again in a closing night Gala. End explanation.
I highly doubt our piece will make it in but I wouldn't be surprised if Izzy's did. Hurray Izzy. Whatever. You all know how much I love it when someone else is getting all the praise and admiration. Cue Dixon sitting at the back of the bus slowing slitting his wrist and plotting revenge while everyone applauds Izzy into his seat. I'm going to go so far in this profession.
End of day. It is most unfortunate that I do not have more to write about. I'd like to be sorry about it but it is just not in my nature. I had a fun day that was oddly relaxing. Got some good classes in, met some fun people (and by met I mean I didn't completely ignore them when they tried to make friendly small talk), again got to see and dance with some old friends and watch some really nice dancing. An all together good day. Tomorrow we do it all again. Oh the life.
Hope all is well. But who cares.
Dixon
6:00:01am - S*** D*** H***
6:00:03am - Sleep
6:15am - Repeat
6:30am - Izzy and I arise and head down to breakfast.
So that happened. Needless to say it was not the greatest start to a day.I did however end up going back to bed after breakfast for about an hour before getting up, getting ready and walking to the school for my first class. Jazz.
I have been waiting all year to take Lawrence Jackson's Advanced Jazz class again. It is a fabulous class that I took last year and I knew that I had to retake it. Jackson is a fabulously tall black man with legs out the ceiling. He teaches a glorious class full of leaps, turns, battements and ends with a fabulously sassy combination. I was in heaven. ( I honestly mostly just wanted to watch him kick and leap all day. Literally....legs out the ceiling. It is fantastically awesome and exciting in so many ways. Take that how you will. )
Jazz ends. Sad. Food happens. Happy.
The first (and only) informal concert started at 1:00pm. This is a concert full of dances that are not being judged but are just there to be performed and enjoyed. UVU had a piece in it and it was incredible. Not a terrible show. The U also did a piece that was remarkable.
Concert ended. Ballet began.
The more I take ballet the more I realize that I really do love it. Today I took a class from one of my former teachers are Weber and I remembered why she is the only person from Weber that I miss. It was EASILY the best ballet class I have ever taken. Just glorious. Fun, exciting, fast and ended with a good stretch. What else could a little dancer ask for? I also extended her the opportunity after class to tell me how much i've grown and how good UVU is making me,....shucks.....
After the ballet class we headed back to the theatre to tech our 12 min. piece in 18min. Man. That was just a joy.
Skipping ahead.
Concert is supposed to start at 8:30pm.
At 7:45pm we are all in the dressing room, taking our time, mostly not dressed and doing our makeup when we get a special announcement, "Standing by UVU, on deck SUU." WHAT!??!! Apparently the show starts at 8:00. We all begin panicking, stripping off our clothes and into costume and running upstairs to attempt to warm up before we open the show.
Alas, fear not. A mixture of long winded judges and idiot stage hands just muffed it up. The show did not start until almost 9:00. Ugh. Frustrated. The piece happened. It was fine. yadda yadda.
The rest of the show happened. I was pleasantly surprised with how good all the dances were. The standout (for me anyways) was Izzy's piece. He is a student at UVU and choreographed such an amazing workshop study in school that the teachers asked him to finish it and take it to ACDFA. It is a trio of three girls and is absolutely outstanding. Incredible choreography and dancing. So excited to see if he makes it into the Gala on Friday.
I should explain. All the pieces in the concerts are being adjudicated and friday after noon they will pick the best pieces to be performed again in a closing night Gala. End explanation.
I highly doubt our piece will make it in but I wouldn't be surprised if Izzy's did. Hurray Izzy. Whatever. You all know how much I love it when someone else is getting all the praise and admiration. Cue Dixon sitting at the back of the bus slowing slitting his wrist and plotting revenge while everyone applauds Izzy into his seat. I'm going to go so far in this profession.
End of day. It is most unfortunate that I do not have more to write about. I'd like to be sorry about it but it is just not in my nature. I had a fun day that was oddly relaxing. Got some good classes in, met some fun people (and by met I mean I didn't completely ignore them when they tried to make friendly small talk), again got to see and dance with some old friends and watch some really nice dancing. An all together good day. Tomorrow we do it all again. Oh the life.
Hope all is well. But who cares.
Dixon
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
I Have Returned
I have returned. Hurrah. Hurrah. High Five.
Enjoy my favorite picture of all time (this will come back into play later).
http://pinterest.com/pin/66287425737308908/
I must give a forewarning for this blog to anyone to has read my last blogging endeavor about New York. This is going to be tragically less exciting. Just get that into your head right now and lower your expectations so that this blog doesn't disappoint.
Let me describe to you what is happening this week that I am going to be blogging about. It is called ACDFA. Something about America and Dance and a Festival ( I don't have a clue as to what the C or the other A stand for ). It's great. It happens every year. Blah blah blah. Anyhow, this year it is in the wonderfully exciting town of Cedar City at Southern Utah University. Schools from all over in our district come for the week to perform pieces to get adjudicated and take class from teachers at all said schools. So this sounds fun yes? During a normal school week, yes, it would be a delight to miss classes to come do this. Unfortunately, these bastards always plan it around our spring break, making it a hellish and terrible trip ( I am being dramatic. I usually end up enjoying myself but I like to have something to complain about. ) Let me just get this off my chest. Dancing is great yadda yadda yadda but there is a time and a place and SPRING BREAK is not the time NOR place. Ugh. Oh well. Moving on.
We rode up here with the University of Utah students on a nicely equipped 'Le Bus'. Comfortable, cozy and has a bathroom. (Anyone who has ridden with me for any extended period of time in a car will realize why this last amenity has been the highlight of this trip thus far). I was content. Three hours later, we arrived (see how exciting this is already?) We get here and check into the Crystal Inn. I sleep for 2 hours. We then get back on Le Bus and head out to dinner. We had a very nice time at the pizza place eating our pizzas (surprised?) and proceeded onto campus to the theatre when we would be delighted with an opening night concert.
(I did at this point get to meet up with some of my old Weber buddies which is always a treat. I do not miss the school or the program but I did get to dance with some wonderful people that I am glad I get to see again and dance with again for the rest of the week. This is of course referring to a select group of these individuals. Not all of them. No no no. Some of them I would still be fine pushing off a cliff. Ahhhh how some things never change.)
Okay, here goes. To sum this concert up.....it was boring. Man, I get that modern dance is great and people of all ages can do it but....REALLY?! We watched two hours of old wannabe's prance around in silence talking and trying to dance. It was gross. Yes there were some good meanings behind some of them but I got the distinct impression these people just couldn't leave the past behind and needed a reason to be on stage doing whatever the heck they could with their old and saggy bodies trying to make some meaning out of it or make it bizarre enough that we as an audience just accept defeat and start looking at the lighting (picture at top of post). There was however, one very excellent piece performed by UVU's very own Angie Kelleher. It was beautifully done and I super enjoyed it.
Concert over. We head to register for classes, long line, smelly people, crowded space, flashbacks of Willy Wonka ("Somebody's TOUCHING ME!!") and then we get into the gym, sign up for a couple classes (jazz, ballet, jazz, jazz, contemporary, modern) and then into the ballroom for some free food then back to Le Bus to head back.
Wow. Maybe this blog wasn't the best of ideas. I'm already dead bored. Here is to hoping that something dreadfully exciting, or just dreadful, or just exciting, happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is a day of classes and the concert where we are performing so hopefully something goes really wrong and so I can write wonderful stories about it. Start praying now.
Until next time.
Enjoy my favorite picture of all time (this will come back into play later).
http://pinterest.com/pin/66287425737308908/
I must give a forewarning for this blog to anyone to has read my last blogging endeavor about New York. This is going to be tragically less exciting. Just get that into your head right now and lower your expectations so that this blog doesn't disappoint.
Let me describe to you what is happening this week that I am going to be blogging about. It is called ACDFA. Something about America and Dance and a Festival ( I don't have a clue as to what the C or the other A stand for ). It's great. It happens every year. Blah blah blah. Anyhow, this year it is in the wonderfully exciting town of Cedar City at Southern Utah University. Schools from all over in our district come for the week to perform pieces to get adjudicated and take class from teachers at all said schools. So this sounds fun yes? During a normal school week, yes, it would be a delight to miss classes to come do this. Unfortunately, these bastards always plan it around our spring break, making it a hellish and terrible trip ( I am being dramatic. I usually end up enjoying myself but I like to have something to complain about. ) Let me just get this off my chest. Dancing is great yadda yadda yadda but there is a time and a place and SPRING BREAK is not the time NOR place. Ugh. Oh well. Moving on.
We rode up here with the University of Utah students on a nicely equipped 'Le Bus'. Comfortable, cozy and has a bathroom. (Anyone who has ridden with me for any extended period of time in a car will realize why this last amenity has been the highlight of this trip thus far). I was content. Three hours later, we arrived (see how exciting this is already?) We get here and check into the Crystal Inn. I sleep for 2 hours. We then get back on Le Bus and head out to dinner. We had a very nice time at the pizza place eating our pizzas (surprised?) and proceeded onto campus to the theatre when we would be delighted with an opening night concert.
(I did at this point get to meet up with some of my old Weber buddies which is always a treat. I do not miss the school or the program but I did get to dance with some wonderful people that I am glad I get to see again and dance with again for the rest of the week. This is of course referring to a select group of these individuals. Not all of them. No no no. Some of them I would still be fine pushing off a cliff. Ahhhh how some things never change.)
Okay, here goes. To sum this concert up.....it was boring. Man, I get that modern dance is great and people of all ages can do it but....REALLY?! We watched two hours of old wannabe's prance around in silence talking and trying to dance. It was gross. Yes there were some good meanings behind some of them but I got the distinct impression these people just couldn't leave the past behind and needed a reason to be on stage doing whatever the heck they could with their old and saggy bodies trying to make some meaning out of it or make it bizarre enough that we as an audience just accept defeat and start looking at the lighting (picture at top of post). There was however, one very excellent piece performed by UVU's very own Angie Kelleher. It was beautifully done and I super enjoyed it.
Concert over. We head to register for classes, long line, smelly people, crowded space, flashbacks of Willy Wonka ("Somebody's TOUCHING ME!!") and then we get into the gym, sign up for a couple classes (jazz, ballet, jazz, jazz, contemporary, modern) and then into the ballroom for some free food then back to Le Bus to head back.
Wow. Maybe this blog wasn't the best of ideas. I'm already dead bored. Here is to hoping that something dreadfully exciting, or just dreadful, or just exciting, happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is a day of classes and the concert where we are performing so hopefully something goes really wrong and so I can write wonderful stories about it. Start praying now.
Until next time.
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