Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

Throwdown Collective is an award-winning contemporary dance company based out of Toronto. They have been doing a dance residency in Waterloo region, and invited several local dancers to participate. Although I've essentially been retired from dancing for a few years, I was grateful to receive an invitation. The workshop was sponsored by MT Space, an organization which is amazingly supportive of the arts, locally, nationally, and internationally. They're kind of a big deal.

Day 1 was held in the Charles Room of Kitchener's Downtown Community Centre. It's a tiny dance studio with an amazing sprung hardwood floor--probably the best floor I've ever danced on in Waterloo region. I used to teach in that studio several years ago, and it was nice to be back. After we all did our Covid rapid tests, we took our masks off and many of us jumped off the deep end of our comfort zones. Although I have often worked in tight proximity with other people over the years (eg. acro yoga, martial arts, contact dance), I have not been in close contact with other people since the beginning of the pandemic. Our first dance exercise was based off of slow-motion hugging/embracing. We paired up with another dancer and worked through this exercise, which after three years of physical distancing, felt scary, transgressive, intimate, and tender. Being close enough to feel skin on skin, smell shampoo, hear breath while moving up and down from the floor took me back to experiments with butoh and contact dance. And when we broke the group into two sections so we could watch the other dancers work together, it was fascinating to see the unplanned synchronicities of movement.

The second half of the day was spent working on walking at the same tempo while moving in separate patterns from the other dancers. The synchronization gradually dissipated, and then dancers would collapse, and other dancers would help them up, press them back down to the floor, or ignore them. It was a simple exercise, but it yielded complex dynamics, and was fun to watch, too! Dramas unfolded, and some comedy, too.

Unfortunately for me, I developed a limp, and by the time I got home, my foot was very sore. It appears that something has been lodged beneath the skin close to my toes for some time (maybe a sliver or a piece of gravel), and when I went into relevé, all my bodyweight pressed onto that spot so it felt like I'd jumped onto a four-sided die. There's a nasty bruise there, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to participate in the second day of the workshop. I woke up feeling down, but rather than call and cancel, I decided to pivot. I brought a sketchbook with me because at the very least, I could sketch the workshop.

Day 2 began with takeout from Three Kretans (I had the lemon chicken soup: it's good) at the Registry Theatre. I've danced at this theatre many times over the past seventeen years, but never on a rotating stage!

I've still not danced on a rotating stage. I kept my winter boots on so I wouldn't accidentally go into relevé again and re-injure my foot, so I stayed off the stage in order to not get it dirty. The first half of the day was spent in groups of three on the spinning stage. Each dancer did a figure eight with a consistent walking tempo, with each dancer coming in on the fifth step. The result was sort of dance fugue, something like a movement-based rendition of singing in rounds. Paired with the spinning stage, dancers frequently got lost in their figure-8s. When rotating is put into the mix, it seriously messes with proprioception. Eventually, the dancers got it figured out, and it looked a bit like a human spirograph or the Scrambler ride at the fair done on foot.

Since I was unable to safely participate in this part, I decided to do a drawing of the sounds I heard. These single-line drawings demarcate the rhythms I heard, the various instruments of the music, and the footfalls of the dancers.



The second half of day two was something I did feel safe participating in. I am not good at memorizing choreography. That being said, this choreography was simple enough that even I didn't have a hard time learning it. I stood off to the side of the stage to do a cycle of swaying, side stepping, and finger snapping on 8 counts. Each cycle got bigger and bigger until the rhythms began to disintegrate and movements grew wild. It was a lot of fun, and my hair, which has grown very long again over the pandemic, started dancing with me.

I've missed dancing with big hair.

I'm grateful I got to participate in this residency. Hopefully, the next time around, my body will not malfunction and I will be able to throw myself into dancing again with full exuberance.

It's been a while, but this one jumped to my attention. It's not a stellar piece of virtuosic skill. The choreography isn't earth-shattering. However, it is amazing because of all the students who were involved in this production. What a great teacher, to get so many kids interested in dance and the sheer joy of moving.

This is the A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School doing their interpretation of Uptown Funk.

"According to most people who show interest in cultures and especially in the culture of Gouro ethnic group, Zaouli, a popular mask dance, was created in the fifties. The Gouro ethnic group is the midwestern part of Ivory Coast / Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. According to what people say, there are diverse legends regarding the origin of the Zaouli mask and dance; yet, all come to the agreement that such legends were inspired by a very beautiful girl - 'Dzela Lou Zaouli' - daughter of Zaouli." -- Gouro Culture

Upcoming dance classes alert!

Tuesday night classes start May 27 at Aradia Fitness at 607 King Street West, Unit 5A, Kitchener (the strip mall with the LCBO!). Classes run from 6-7 pm. Small classes with heaps of one-on-one attention for total newbies on up.

$15+HST per class, or you can get a 10-class pass for $99.99, good for one year.

Clicky clicky to register.

I'm a full-time student, though I'm not enrolled at any institution, and am not working towards a degree or certificate. I take university courses online, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), through Coursera and edX. Sometimes I drop the course. Sometimes I follow it through completion. Sometimes I do all the assignments and readings. Sometimes I just watch the lectures. I am always grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge and comprehension.

My current courses are

• Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology
  
• The Modern and the Postmodern
  
• Animal Behaviour
  
• The Ancient Greek Hero

I have more courses starting up within a few weeks.

I take classical voice lessons at Maxwell's Music House. Although I've touched on pop, Broadway, and folk, the bulk of the songs I work with are classical. Right now, I'm working on pieces by Mozart and Haydn. It's challenging and fun. Without this training, I'd never have known that I'd be comfortable singing ^{up high}.

Typically, I do regular physical fitness training at CrossFit Kitchener. I bust my ass there, and I'm in vastly superior shape now than I was in my 20s or 30s.

I study china painting at the Rockway Community Centre. Community centres are under-appreciated sources of training/education. China painting is a dying art form, and I'm doing my part to resuscitate it. Of all the painting styles I've studied, this is my favourite.

I'll soon be starting a pastels course at the Breithaupt Centre, another community centre.

I'm taking intermediate/advanced pole dance at Aradia Fitness. I plan on alternating between pole and aerial silks, which I study at In.Motion School of Performing Arts.

To top it all off, I take workshops when I can, mostly dance-related, through a variety of organizations.

I also teach. I have introductory belly dance classes starting up this month at the Downtown Kitchener Community Centre, and I may have more coming up at another community centre. This is pending an upcoming interview.

I love to learn. I love to teach. I love to make myself stronger and more knowledgeable, and I love to help others do the same for themselves.

This past year has been tricky for me. I recover from one issue just to fall back into another. My hip is feeling pretty good, but my peroneal tendonitis has flared up again and put my training on the back burner. So much for the running I was hoping to do.

Still, I survived the Louise LeCavalier workshop last weekend. Although the choreography with its tic-like specifics combined with jumps and full-body movements eluded me, it was because my brain and choreography don't mix well. Physically, I was fine. I was tired from the intense training, but not as tired as from one of my usual training sessions. I could tell the other dancers were feeling it, though. Although everyone else had the choreography better than I did (no surprises there), I suspect I was the only one who wasn't feeling muscular soreness from the training.

As a note, tricky dance workshops are not a good match for wicked menstrual cramps. That is all. UGH.

In regards to the material itself, we worked on conditioning exercises drawn from boxing. I am not a boxer. However, I have studied a variety of martial arts for over a decade, and know how to deliver a solid punch, and how to use my body mass to drive that impact. There were a few stylistic differences between my trained/natural fighting stance and the stances expected by Lecavalier. She wanted us to put more weight on the front leg, which may work fine for boxing, but for any sort of fighting where kicks or leg sweeps are a possibility, it's not so ideal. I did as she said, because it was a dance workshop, not a fighting workshop. Still, a few things niggled at me. The guard position she touted had the elbows touching or almost touching the torso. This is a weak defensive position, just begging to be jammed. And when we were doing punches, she said I was hitting too hard. This boggled me until the end of the workshop, when we got to do a Q&A period. This is when I learned that although she does a lot of boxing training, she never competed, only sparred once, and hates hitting things.

Ahhh... This explains much.

The choreography she taught was a combination of elements from Édouard Lock and another choreographer whose name I didn't catch. Lock's elements were twitchy and precise, with jumps and arm waves. The other choreographer's work used more space, larger, less specific movements, and incorporated rolling and floorwork.

When it comes to dance, Louise Lecavalier is amazing. She's a living legend who's been accorded the Order of Canada. When it comes to applicable martial arts, though, seek someone else. After having taken two workshops with her now, I think I have no more need to do it again, unless she showcases new content. The material was almost identical for both.

Nevertheless, I recommend her workshops to any dancer who gets the opportunity. She is a sweet, highly-skilled dynamo, and holy heck, she sure is fit. She did two workshops each day, back to back, and did most of the work alongside us. That's some serious endurance. She also has an incredible memory, and called out to each of us by name throughout the workshop with corrections/critiques. To top it off, without introductions, she remembered me and the other student who'd taken the workshop with her two years ago by name. And I look very different now from then, too!

....

On March 10, I performed at 60x60 again. It went well. ( Here's a still. )

This is 2012 pole dance champion, Michelle Stanek.

Wow.

It's been a while since I've posted one of these. This time, it's a comedy piece: a parody of a belly dance routine by "Sibel Istanbul". I do not know the dancer's actual name. Watch for the unique isolation shimmies. ;)

Just me having fun at the KW Bellydance BiZaRrE earlier this month.

It's been FAR too long since I've done one of these.

Here is Leo Hedman's aerial silk take of the old movie Nosferatu. The piece is called Nocturnal and was performed in 2005.



I would love to be able to do any of this even half as well....