Tuesday, July 31, 2007

audio and fun

I was hating the tinny sound of the audio on the compressed versions of the videos posted to danceaday so I changed the codec to apple lossless but that made the file size too large for me. Then I dropped the khz from 44 to 16 and that did the trick, small file size and clean audio. This was especially important for my Friday collaborations with composer David Morneau.

Went to see Jane Franklin on Friday at Lubber Run but it was canceled because of the rain. Wanted to see the Monday night movie on the mall but I missed that too along with missing salsa lessons at Lucky Bar. Working every night is cramping my style, I am too tired on my days off to have fun, and I need to have fun.

Cherry Blossoms

The Cherry Blossom trees bloom in late march. It is wonderful to walk among them with someone you really like and a bit sad to walk among them alone. I danced in circles until a tango overtook me. The Jefferson memorial is on the left.

Monday, July 30, 2007

The Awakening

There were some kids at the Awakening and I called them the screamers, for a good reason. I could not decided on a way to show this dance for a long time, I had two other videos that I was going to mix in with this one but I could not make them work. Finally I did this, enjoy!

danceaday 


Sunday, July 29, 2007

War College

Today's dance takes place across the river from the War College in DC. This is where military officers learn how to fight wars.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

No new dances daily

With my current work schedule I am not able to create a new dance everyday. I work about 12 hours a day 5 days a week and I am not digging the dance in a uniform idea. So this week I am trying something new, I recorded 9 dances yesterday in different locations around the city and I will be posting them all week. I may have time for a new dance here and there but I won't be attempting to make a new one everyday :-(. I am getting the urge to get back to choreography and especially to getting back to my grad project Abandoned Revolution and making a version in DC.

Todd's Back Yard

I really don't like to hang out in Todd's back yard because there is too much stuff, but since he is out of town and I need to do some dances, it is a great place.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Midday

Another collaboration between David Morneau and I. This time I made a response to last weeks Late Night. David says"
it's all bug summer sounds (i searched "noon", "heat", and "summer" on the freesound project website...)"

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Old and Tangy

Oh dear, I totally forgot about this one. Back when I was in Columbus I did this video and the stair series. I was by the Olentangy River dancing on cement and with broken glass in a corner.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Merge

Last weekend I saw two performances as part of the Capital Fringe festival. One was "The Farthest From the Earth" by Peter DiMuro, performed by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and the other was Bob Rauschenberg America by Charles L Mee performed by banished? productions. The first was a dance company that incorporated theater and the other was a theater company that incorporated dance. The both also used some technology although the Dance Exchange performance did not use the video for this performance because of time limitations. I enjoyed both performances for different reasons. "The Farthest From the Earth" was a work about Shakespeare and his sonnets. The audience learned what a sonnet was and how one is written. Suzanne Richard narrated and played several characters as the piece evolved. Wheel chairs, crutches, shopping carts, ladders and other wheeled devices whizzed across the stage during the show as performers of different levels of skill and ability performed together. Sign language interpreters crossed into the realm of performance as they were communicating the events on stage. Almost everyone "danced" in some way as the focus of the communication was through movement.

Bob Rauschenberg America was a play that integrated technology. All of the male characters were either video or animation. The performance was somewhat interactive as people were taken from their seats to the stage on more than one occasion and some audience members were given white smocks to blend in with the performers who were dressed in all white. The actors sat among the audience and at times delivered their lines from their seats. There was dancing mostly by Carrie Monger who I saw rehearsing as I walked by the gallery one evening and made me want to see the performance. However movement was an important part of the performance and all of the performers moved. I especially liked Dionne Audain's impression of Michael Jackson's moves. There were moments when the energy dropped a bit too much and those were the moments of straight theater. It was best when the performance got crazy or there was a conversation between video actor and live actor.
The fact that technology is relatively cheap and software is easier to learn more and more people will be trying to incorporate technology into their work and at some point it will work very well. I applaud banished? productions for their experimentation

These performances reminded me of my own ideas for performance and reassured me that the world is moving in this direction and that I need to get to work. I may move into the world of theater for a spell and bring a few dancers along.

Todd

Sometimes Todd gets the urge to dance. Back in the day he would hit the clubs and jam out all night sometimes however the club was his bedroom.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Georgetown

Today I remembered that I have spent no time in Georgetown so I decided to make my dance there. I do not feel very comfortable leaving my camera alone while I go dance a few feet away as I did in Columbus so I don't dance as much here. The Kennedy homes on N St and a few other landmarks were left out of this video for that reason. Mr. Holliday was our trolley conductor.

http://danceaday.com

Monday, July 23, 2007

Capitol Spring 2

So today is a continuation from yesterday. I went inside the brick structure where the spring is and used masking for the double solo this time. Security was tight, tight, tight.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Capitol Spring 1

I was feeling that the dances I created were getting less creative so I decided to do another double solo this time with transparency instead of masking. I was at the natural spring by the Capitol building.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Harry Potter and creativity

I was out in Dupont Circle today and I counted 26 people reading the new Harry Potter book. This morning I was feeling that I had lost some of my creative impulse with danceaday. When I was in Columbus and I was not working 12 hour days I would explore the city find a spot and muse about how I would shoot the video and create a dance. Today I did that again which was very nice for me. I shot in the double solo style and had an interesting encounter with a police officer. It will be up next week.

Street Dance

Some people jog and some people jog dance. I captured this guy getting a workout and giving a performance at lunch.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Late Night

This is another collaboration between David Morneau and I. I spent some time at the FDR memorial and waited till it got dark. Then the camera started rolling.

http://60x365.com/

http://danceaday.com

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Tryst Wall

I was at Tryst, I saw some art on the wall. I danced to the music.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Wilson Plaza

Contradiction Dance performed on Wilson Plaza at the Reagan Buliding yesterday and as a part of the perfomance we did a dance-a-day. It was 92 degrees but I got the people to move a little and of course Contradiction Dance moved a lot.

http://contradictiondance.com 

http://danceaday.com 


Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Performance Today


Today I am performing with Contradiction Dance. Noon at the Wilson Plaza at Reagan Building. Come and see it.

Takoma Park

It is not always this quite but Takoma Park is full of art and poetry and environmentalists.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Money Back


Yesterday I went into Starbucks for a little breakfast and I ask the lady to take off the cheese from their premade breakfast sandwiches. Somehow she did not hear me or ignored me but she cooked my sandwich cheese and all and I rushed back to work only to find my sandwich not edible. I tried to give it away but no one wanted it. At the end of the day the sandwich was still there and we sort of laughed about taking it back for a refund. G said he would take it back and get my money so I gave the sandwich and he returns with the cash. The lady in the store said she did not remember him, I wonder why, but he insisted that she was the person he talked to. A manager resolved the dispute and I got my money back. Thanks G you are one swell guy and what a great story!

Slow Dancing

I found this link on the Apple website about David Michalek's "Slow Dancing" project http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/michalek/
lots of info about the project including videos and interviews.

Todd the Choreographer

Todd is a dancer and choreographer who has performed for me thousands of times. He just has not taken his work to the stage yet. We here at danceaday believe in discovering new talent even old talent whose time has come. From time to time Todd is an EMMY Award winning producer and director.

http://onanonproductions.com

http://danceaday.com

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Alexandra Beller goes Prefuturist

Village Voice
I am so excited to see that work is being made to address the state of the world we live in. Alexandra Beller examines the meaning of the American Flag and our allegiance to our leaders.

Performance on Tuesday

I will be performing with Kelly Mayfield and Contradiction Dance on Tue July 17 at noon at the Wilson Plaza of the Reagan Building.

Vertical

Rob, Kelly and I were hanging out at Kramer Books and Afterwards Cafe when danceaday peered its head down and commaned us to move. Rob turned the camera to match the vertical display in the bar. I like the woman who ducked but decided not to limbo through.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Pole Dance

Ha ha made you look. I was on the metro alone so I started dancing.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Hare Christna

This week David Morneau and I collaborated on a video I shot on the 4th of July.

http://60x365.com/

http://danceaday.com


Thursday, July 12, 2007

US Capitol

I danced in front of the Capitol Buliding and still people ignored me. The Dome is made of cast iron and weight about 9 million pounds. The statue on top is called freedom.

http://danceaday.com 


Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Doc Nice

The doctor is in, who is next, oh! you are not ready for this no no no.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

One Way

Rob wanted to dance in the yellow tape so he grabbed Kelly and off they went, then he disappeared.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Sidewalk

Isn't it funny how people can ignore you when you do something out of the ordinary.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Grand Entry

My Friend Todd and I went down to the Folklife Festival on the National Mall and saw a lot of dancing and had some food. This is called a Grand Entry where you see lots of styles of movement and dress.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Why you should pay your speeding tickets

On September 11, 2006 I was returning to Ohio after attending my cousin funeral in a rented Red PT Cruiser. I heard years ago that it is a fact that red cars and sports cars get stopped for speeding the most. So, I got stopped for speeding and received a ticket for $140. At the time I was in grad school and money was tight but I was willing to pay whatever I needed to pay. I make all of my payments using electronic means and when I could not find a website for NC that took electronic payments, I did not pay. Months went by and because I did not live at the address on my license, I did not receive any threatening letters to pay or have my license suspended. Five months after I received my ticket, my license was suspended and my name was entered into the National Drivers Registry preventing me from driving legally. Of course I did not know this for sure, but I assumed it but kept on driving anyway.

In March a friend from Finland was in town and I decided to take her to DC for the weekend. About three hours outside of Columbus, I was stopped for “driving too close” and it was discovered that my license was suspended and I could not drive the car. The officer took us to Burger King up the street, told me that he could have arrested me and left. He did not mention that he stopped me for completely bogus reasons in the first place. He also charged me with driving with a suspended license and with no license.

I had a court date for the following Wednesday at 8:00am. The court house was three hours away. I could not drive there and I was not about to ask anyone to drive me there at 4am so I took a bus the night before leaving my friend alone in my apartment while I stayed at a hotel near the court house in Zanesville, OH. There were two busses leaving town that next day, one at 10:30am and one at 4:00pm. If I was lucky I would get out of court in time to get back early. The punishment for my crime was a maximum of six months in jail, $1000 or both. During the mass hearing, there were about 50 people there, the judge was not giving out the harshest sentences but he was not being soft either. I was one of the last people to go and I had to explain my situation to the judge. I pleaded “no contest” to both charges. Because I was charged with no license and suspended license, the suspended license charge was thrown out even though I admitted to driving with a suspended license. However, I was charged with driving too close and I could have fought it but how would I convince a jury that I was not driving too close, besides, that would mean that I would have to go back to court so I pleaded no contest, was found guilty and paid the $110 ticket. When I got back to Columbus I paid NC $190 and I would have to pay Virginia to reinstate my license, which was another $95.

So far I have paid $140 to NC plus a $50 late fee, $50 for a bus to and from Zanesville, $65 for a hotel, $110 ticket to Ohio for a grand total so far of $415.

Time passes. I start to drive around Columbus with a suspended license and eventually fly to DC to get my license renewed.

My first day at the DMV, I forget my passport for proof of legal presence. I go back to get it and pay the $95 reinstatement fee. When I return and I am seconds from getting my license when the woman behind the counter says “uh oh” and tells me that I have to call NC because there is a problem. I discover that I own NC another $50. I send them a check overnight only to discover that my account is overdrawn by $867. It turns out that someone used my check card to go to Walmart and spent $700.Talk about stress. The check I just wrote to NC was now going to bounce and there would be other charges no to mention that I would not have my license still. I could not work until I got my license because I drive a Trolley and give tours of DC. I went to the bank and got everything worked out, they returned the money and eliminated the fees. The check did not bounce. I went back a few days later and got my license and started working the next day. So I will never do that again but it does suck that NC does not do electronic payments. All in all that $140 ticket cost $560.

Trolley

So if I am going to do this everyday I have to do it when I have time that means at work. Here is a glimps into my day at work and me taking a moment to dance.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Morneau Bass

This is the second of the weekly series by composer David Morneau and myself. This week he sent me a musical composition and I created a dance to it. Check out his daily 60 second compositons at http://60x365.com

http://danceaday.com

http://60x365.com

http://5of4.com 


Thursday, July 5, 2007

July 4th

Kelly, Kailei and I spend some time in Canada, well at the Canadian Embassy, before heading over to the mall to hang out with the Hare Christna's. Kailei dances in circles around us, then we all are wowed by the fireworks.

http://danceaday.com 


Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Leaving my apartment

This was the last time I was in my apartment. All of my stuff was packed in a truck and taken to storage. Thank goodness for Lilli who drove me around all day to put stuff in storage and return the truck and take me to my car. What an Angel! Anyway I was recording my final dance and she comes in and joins me in my last dance.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Domestic Dancing

I flew back to Columbus to move my stuff out of my apartment and at the end of the moving Lilli had an idea. She wanted to do a domestic type cleaning dance to reflect what we had been doing all day. Jessica grabbed the feather duster and Lilli grabbed the vacuum, Marty grabbed a coke and I grabbed the camera.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Samba


Kelly and I were hanging out at Tryst again. It was closing and new art was being put on the walls so I jumped up and started dancing. I made my way outside and just like in high school someone thought I looked like Eddie Murphy. They were from Brazil, we danced the samba on the sidewalk.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Kelly Taps

Kelly puts on her tapping shoes and makes some rhythm.