Mom 2

This is the last day of the year and it has been great. I got my MFA, I turned 40, I have lots of great friends near and far who love me. However, I want to be aware of what and who is not here. A friend just lost her dad. It is truly a terrible time to lose someone but life makes no guarantees for perpetual happiness or appropriate times for bad things to happen. This video shows where my mom spent her last moments alive. The site of her accident 12 years ago is a very powerful place for me as it is just down the road from where she worked at a juvenile prison as a teacher. The lone car making a path that she did not have the good fortune to make. Live life to its fullest and don’t wait to act. Don’t sit in the fear of what if; making things happen is much easier.

Dad's House

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time playing on this street. This was my grandmother's house and now my dad's house. It looks different from when I was a kid, there seems to be less activity and everything is much shorter.

Nissa

This is my sister dancing. We were at my grandmother's house, you know how grandmothers are.

Grandma

was (home) for Christmas and before I left I had a dance with my grandmother. We call her Mu which is a form of mother without the other. I got the music from David Morneau as I have many times this week.

http://60x635.com

The Store

This is my home town of Raeford, NC. When I was in high school I would hang out with some of my friends behind this store and talk about stuff. There was absolutely nothing to do so we just hung out.

Happy Kwanzaa

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. Kate and I dance by the Willard Inter-Continental Hotel and again I swiped music from David Morneau.

http://katejordan.net

http://60x365.com

Love You

It is Christmas Eve so I am spreading the love.

Going YouTubing

After many months I have decided to put all (most) of my dance a day videos on YouTube. I resisted for many reasons but mostly because blip.tv was (is) so very awesome but the tube has more traffic. Soooooo starting tomorrow,this blog will have videos from the tube and danceaday.com will host videos from blip. Happy Holidays Everyone.

Most Wonderful Time

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Hanging out by the National Christmas tree with Kate and Johnny Mathis comes on over the loud speakers. I loved listening to Mathis as a kid. In fact I got into chorus by practicing singing with his records.

Red Christmas Tree

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Kate and I walked into this building and saw this very nice red Christmas tree. As soon as we saw it, we knew there had to be a dance in front of it. Eventually we got kicked out. Sheesh, where is the holiday spirit. I went into the archives of David Morneau's 60x365 site and swiped some music since he is being all Christmaasy.

http://katejordan.net

http://60x365.com

http://danceaday.com

National Christmas Tree

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This week David Morneau and I pull out the old Christmas home movies for your viewing pleasure. This movie is when Kate and I did our first danceaday together back in 2007. Kate thought the bows on tree were hideous. I was impressed by the LED lights which were cool to the touch and energy efficient. David was manning the projector but broke the tape because he heard that a new version of Atari Combat was coming out for Christmas and rushed to the 52 inch plasma television to see it.

http://60x365.com

http://katejordan.net

http://danceaday.com 

Washington's House

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Psycho, noooooo it is the house the Washinton built, George that is.

Shed

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I found a shed out back and I did a dance. The Mount Vernon Shed dance.

Mount Vernon Farm

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Orr, Holliday and I took a look Washington's Farm. Orr spotted some slave quarters and I did a dance there. Washington was the only slave holding founding father to free his slaves when he died.

Mount Vernon Potomac

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The day was spent at Mount Vernon with Mr. Holliday and Mr. Orr. It was very different from the last time I was there. They expanded their resource center and museum but the basic grounds were the same. I made some dances as we walked around. This tree was prominent in the movie we watched about the life of George Washington.

Ode to Umeda

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When I was in Columbus the last time I saw a performance by Hiroaki Umeda called S20. He used music and projected patterns to great effect. I wanted to make a similar thing and though this video is nothing like his performance the movement is similar.

Twenty-Five 2

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This is another idea that I had for the 25th collaboration between David Morneau and I.

http://60x365.com

http://danceaday.com 

Twenty-Five

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This is the twenty-fifth collaboration between David Morneau and I. It is also the twenty-fifth hour of danceaday videos. This week we do Cunningham/Cage for you. We worked seperately and even now I have no idea what the final product is.

David says: I invoked my inner John Cage for this. There are 25 sound segments of various lengths, arranged randomly. Some are repeated. Some are filtered using randomly selected filters with random parameter settings.

I made several attempts at making 25 movements and I think I will show two one today and one tomorrow with the same music. I tried to do movement that was typical of the kind of movement that I like to do.

http://60x365.com

http://danceaday.com 

Botanic Garden

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I hesitated to put this one up for a while. It was, until a few moments ago, over 2 minutes long and that felt wrong. I was looking for color and thinking of a post by Amanda on the DC Dance Blog. So, I added some color and made the video shorter. I was at the Public Gardens exhibit at the US Botanic Gardens

Melvin

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Rob introduced me to Melvin who is from the Netherlands. We hung out for a while and visited the Lincoln Memorial, stood where MLK stood when he delivered his "I have a Dream" speech and walked along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. We also danced by the cherry blossoms on the Potomac River.

Real Goldsworthy

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A month ago I made a version of an Andy Goldsworthy piece. Today I am dancing in front of a real Goldsworthy, not the white piece in the front but the stones in the back.

Wind

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This dance is brought to you by the Smithsonian Castle, wind and leaves. Remember there is no Smithsonian Museum but the Smithsonian Institution which has many museums and a zoo. It is called the Air and Space Musuem not the Aerospace Museum and don't be alarmed that the Museum of the American Indian is not called the Native American Museum.

Sylvana

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It was an early morning because Sylvana had the great idea of doing a sunrise dance, the only problem was that it was raining. We did not see the sun but that did not stop us from dancing across the streets of historic Mt Rainer. Gael is gonna watch this one over and over and who knows maybe one day he will do one.

Russia House

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I was hanging out with Jessica and Marty in Dupont Circle. Marty suggested that we try the Russia  House. I had always wanted to know what it was like to go there but I was intimidated by the place. I am not sure why. We go in and I had the best time that I have had in a long while. Jessica took a moment to do a dance while we sat at the bar drinking shots Imperial Vodka. So smooth! Michael was the friendly guy who took care of us and we appreciated that.

Capitol Christmas Tree

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This year the Capitol Christmas is from Vermont, (Thanks Tiffany and Marty). Todd, Delante and I had dinner at Rosemary's Thyme and then we headed over to the National Christmas Tree but it was dark. I was there earlier for the lighting but I had to leave because I was at work. So we headed over to the Capitol Christmas Tree and as soon as we got there the police car that was there circled around us, which scared us, and then took off. Delante agreed to do a dance by the tree and here it is. David Morneau took a look back at our first collaboration which you can see and hear here.

http://60x365.com

http://danceaday.com 

The First Snow

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It finally snowed here. Not that I was waiting for snow mind you. I enjoy dancing when things like snow happen because it gives me a different environment. I was working and I jumped off my trolley to dance in the snow. I gave my camera to Margo whose voice you hear. My trolley guests clapped when I returned. That was very nice!

Kicking Leaves

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Happy Hanukkah!

I made a similar video for my video dance mid-term. For this dance I kick some leaves and stomp.

My New Pre-Futurist Obsession

I found this dance clock while visiting the video dance forum. I love it. I know it is connected to a site that sells clothes and that is their main business but four things I really love about it are:
1.The movement is simple enough to learn but changing camera angles and number of dancers keeps it interesting.

2. There are services (the time, performances) being provided.

3. Lots of variety depending on the time of day. On the hour instead of seeing women dance for 5 seconds, you see two men dancing for 30 seconds.

4. The music is fun.

I watch it all the time. I love that they dress simply and do other things besides dance but the dancing is just very nice to see. It is very pre-futurist because it puts dance in the culture. It is not a dancing clock but a clock that shows people dancing on the internet. You can get it for the clock or for the dancing but you are still seeing dance every five seconds and repetition is nice.

http://www.uniqlo.jp/uniqlock/

I am a tree

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Sometimes when people imitate dancers they become a tree. I am not sure why, in fact it makes little sense. Trees may sway but they don't locomote. Their movement vocabulary is limited. I was playing around with some sounds and Todd came over and yelled at me for some unknown reason and made me put the sound with this video which he had not even seen and. . . it worked. I banished him from my room and but decided to post it. I am a tree. Watch me sway.

The Ohio State University, Dept. of Dance- Big Ten Network

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Profile of the Dance Department at The Ohio State University, featured on the BIg Ten Network

Dumbarton Oaks Park

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At the back of Dumbarton Oaks is a staircase that leads into the park. The gate is locked. You have to pay to walk the grounds in this place where the United Nations Charter was created in 1945. You can enjoy the park for free and dance.

This is tennis

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On the court and across the net- I lobbed, reached love and returned what came at me. I played until it stopped bouncing

OpenSpace

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Ok so as time goes on the solo dance in a new location is becoming less interesting to me. I have done many that I just could not post because I felt that I have just seen it too many times. However, it is not possible for me to make what I call double solo's everytime or at least not very interesting. But then again I am not sure. Anyway I will work with effects when I have solo dances. Today's effect is called noise.