Beading Dancer...earrings and paintings

So I did promise to put up my stuff on the blogg and it`s kind of not made it on here...till today. 

These are my earrings and paintings I have made and designed over the last 5 or so years. 

Holla at your gurl for more

             

Artworks I have made...some are still available and other`s are hanging in someone`s living room....I have a mix of different mediums.

                

        

  

What: In Transit 09, 11-21 June

location: Haus der kulturen der welt

nande:Theatre, Dance, Body-art, Performances, Video and sound installations, lectures, discussions, laboratory, interactive library, parties.

 

Intransit....Housed in the Haus

The Haus is a great piece of architecture, it was a gift form the United States of America to West Germany when the wall was still up. The building was supposed to have no walls and no roof, the was a structure over the building that acted as the roof. Unfortunately, the roof structure collapsed and had to be rebuilt. It was then that the building was customised.  The structure is said to look like a pregnant oyster....Jimmy Carters laugh. If you get the opportunity to get to the building, stand close to the pools of water near the garden and look for the reflection of the building....it should look like an eye. 

Speaking of gardens, the are families of rabbits that house themselves around the grounds(but especially under the green zozo offices in the Haus. But, where there are bunnies there bound to be foxes....yes...foxes. We saw a fox on the first day at the Haus...walking out with a rabbit in it`s mouth.And that`s not all, there is a technician dog...well, actually. The head technician comes to work with his dog....whom we came to love and called `Fox`. Sweetest thing ever!

The Intransit Festival took place in Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt in the middle of Berlin,Germany. It ran from the 11th of June till the 21st of June. This years theme was Resistance of the object....which we only realised was a re-occuring theme in our work. 

I joined sharp-sharp activities in the earlier stages of the project. It has always been hard for people outside dance or performance art and people who have a fixed idea about performance to understand our work.  The beauty of this project is that we work between performing and not performing; theatrical events and social events. We have had a few activities where the start of the activity was a silent walk(we take a group of people around an everyday place like an office to show them a specific sites and events along the route) followed by a sort of social event where you will find elements of the theatre. 

The question for me as a performer is always that: are we putting chunks of theatrical stuff into social events? 

Looking at the whole performance-non-performance it does seem like its a blur, in that you don`t see where one fits into the other. But when you have planned out the activity(which we do do...a lot), you do see where the line is in the performance schedule. I guess the trick is working at an idea so much that, as open as it will be, it starts looking like a blur to the performer as well. 

Performances:

Butoh Banger

I had the pleasure of viewing a butoh performance at the festival. Sankai Juku performed Hibiki(1998). The performance was truly awesome. WARNING: If you aren`t into a more ancient, native flava....don`t attend these type of performances or genres cause they are that exactly. You won`t find people trying to fake or please an audience. It`s more of a ritual than a `dance performance`. 

I thought it was a great piece of art for my first butoh piece. The stage set was on point, the make-up, costume and music too. The stage was covered in sand...and when the performers ran across you could see the dust...loved it! The slow drips of water from these canisters hanging above the stage created a light effect on the stage as the dancers moved across or even stood still. I really felt that this performance combined mobu,metsi,moya,mollo(earth,water,air,fire) and man....as the fifth element. 

I would recommend to anyone that hasn`t been to a butoh show..to catch Sankai Juku if they can. 

Magriza Power!!!

The last performance I caught was a 60min comedy-dance trip. Gustavia)2008) performed by Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot. This was a hilarious 60minute piece. This was mix of dance, script,drama....well...physical theatre really. The ladies had social/cultural/political commentry. 

I was not bored for a minute....it was a good watch. I can`t say a lot, just that if you catch these two women...dancing away on stage at their age(they are in great shape.....my role models for my dance career). 

Intransit was  a great experience and was totally accomodative to the artists and housed most continents...the artist line up was great(even though artists don`t get to see each other`s performances cause of rehearsals).

Curator: Andre Lepecki

www.myspace.com/festival_intransit 

Labor Gras

Class: improv.

Location:labor gras,kroenzberg

Berlin,German

Early on a monday morning, my first day off since the cross currents lab...which happens to also be my second last day in Germany. I wake up early to go catch an improv class. I get there late. I got lost. The class kicks off, and its already too nice. 

My body finds itself between exercises, looking at anatomical places between my spine...and the small toe. The class specifically focuses on the muscles covering the back of the body....from the ankle till just below the buttocks and then from the lower back muscles till the place where the spine inserts into the skull. 

The entire class in fact, focuses on that. And the front of the body is kept soft. I found it exciting cause you focus more on your extensions using the 'backside of your body' as a friend of mine would say.  hadn't taken a proper contemporary class in a while, I thought I'd be lost. But amazingly, the teacher guided our every step.....his voice felt like a thought at the back of your mind. 

This class was a typical classic contemporary class of note. We did basic floor for warm-up, then we did centre work and then moving work....and a combination. I just hadn`t done a class like that in a while....in fact I hadn`t done a class for the last two weeks. 

I`d definitely give this class a thumbs up...in fact that studio is too dope for words. If you are in the Kroenzberg area or Berlin in general and you are looking for classes get down to that studio. It won`t be the easiest place to find but it`s worth it.

If you are taking the train...take the U-bahn...U7....till Hermannplatz...which is a station before...I forgot what the station name is...it`s after Hermannplatz.

studio: Paul-Lincke-ufer 44a

D-10999 Berlin

info:tanz@laborgras.com

tel: +49(0)30-695.051.83

contact and sex

o.k...so we all know about dance. We know about contemporary dance, ballet etc. What a lot of people don´t know about is....Contact improvisation....C.I in short. C.I is a great way to move with limited rules. It began way back when people like steve paxton, Martha graham started moving away from ballet. An alternative type of style came through.
Nowadays people can go to contact jams...you don´t need to be a dancer. You do a basic warm up and start working.
I cannot describe the feeling I walked out the class with after taking the class at Tanzfabrik. GOD!.....contact has been described as the best fun you can have with you clothes on...and im starting to think...it´s like sex with your clothes...I mean really. You touch and move with your partner(who happens to be a stranger) in ways you would probably not move with your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner. Anyone can quote me on the last statement.

I will try get into more details on the class I took in future just for dancers out there trying to get free teaching notes.
Gotta go get some sleep cause we rehearse from 10am till 8pm tomorrow at the haus der kultuur der weld in town. Preparing this work is never easy cause there´s an invisible labour thing....when work doesn´t look like work....mara i´ll gambarimasu(hope I see the cute technician tomorrow,haven´t seen him in days).

Cross currents....sharp-sharp aktivities

Im currently in Berlin...as a result of this project...so i´ve decided to break down what it is and how it began.

The cross current project began shortly after I got my feet rooted at home after leaving Japan. I bumped into Sello(Pesa) and decided i should make contact as we had worked together before. I worked with Sello in the `George era`...which I´ll get into more detail as my life story unfolds and when certain wounds have started healing in ways I can decipher them.

Anyway, i went to the Drill hall-Keleketla Library- to check out my homies that I work with ko Imbawula Trust...so it is then I bumped into Sello giving class and he said I should drop in and take class. Alas, this class was actually a project that had started two days before. So...true to my nature of loving movement i hooked it up the next day. So this is what followed:

1st day:
Carlos took warm-up. We had to hold our partner by the hands, they bend forward and we pull them towards us8the partner is now at a 90° angle. You are basically pushing them off their axis to transfer their weight forward. You then let go of your partner and they then start extending their hands and weight forward into a dog stretch. The other partner now places themselves behind the partner bending down to hold them at the hips. The partner bending forward then reverses the forward bend, while the partner thats behind pulls their hips back so that the partner feels like they are flying up.

sello then took the second part of the class focusing on extensions and curving.The exercise was to extend the limbs, then once you have established the that, you then start curving yuor extensions. This exercise was done with a partner, where the one partner manipulates one partner´s limbs(throws them), then the partner thats manipulated starts adding curves to the extensions. The moving partner is then left to move on their own and explore the posibilities.

The other days had different exercises and had build ups to the exercises being done. This phase of the project took place over the )th to the 15th of november 2008 at the Drill Hall, Johannesburg(by Joubert Park, next to Noord taxi rank).

Cross Currents/sharp-sharp aktivities is a three phase project. It started on in November 2008 and will finish on the 22nd of June 2009. The first phase of the project was held in Johazadousburg(Johannesburg,South Africa), the second phase in Newtown, Diepkloof and Saxonwold(South Africa) and the last phase in Berlin(Germany).

I am currently in Berlin finishing off the last phase in the Intrasit festival. i would say that this project was primarily a dance project but has changed its form and shape to a more open type of approach. We havea way of working within the project which is a collective, open and participatory type of approach. Also, we rehearse using different exercises(with specific exercises being our repertoire) during the week, then at the end of the week, we usually have a presentation...we call them: performance-non-performance.

The group as a whole experiments and plays around with how we can perform and not perform something? What is performance? Who are the audience? what justifies and audience? At which point is something natural...and at which point does it turn into an performance? and at which point can the audience become the performers?

All these questions are continually being interrogated by the artist as they perform and not perform. It is an interesting way of working, I find, cause it makes one understand the audience-performer relationship as well as timing(when performing).
Another re-occuring thing are social activities like parties....when they happen, how they happen, what makes a good party....and FOOD....glorious food...the collection, preparation, and consuming of the food in different environments or places. In South Africa where you find yuorself eating with hashi(chopsticks) one moment, to fork and knives the next and eating with your hands....eating at a chisa nyama is different to eating at home and resturants. So we do a lot of thinking behind ´normal´ every to day activities and place them in a different context and play around to see what processes take place from that.

These last days have been hard cause Berlin never really sleeps, so I´m not used to the 5 hours of sunshine. I am hoping to go to dance classes theis week to check out dance classes in Berlin....u know the usual around the world dance crit...but I´ll be out at Tanzfabrik kicking it. I´ll be giving a class to class analysis.

I´ll be preparing for the performance on June 16 at the Intrasit festival....cooking...tomorrow night, we´ll see how that goes...
Hoping to download some pictures one of these good days of Berlin.
If anyone´s interested in catching the last week of the festival...its and Haus der kultuur der weld in Berlin...and runs everyday...there´s a woman blowing bubbles, people sleeping, dancers on water....and talks on dance and installations at the festival....will break down more on the talks...maybe hook up a podcast...will see....all in good time...plus there´s sumthing bubbling under in the jozi dance seen....watch this space....
it on now!

oh,ja....for more info ont he festival...check out this link....or address...or google it
www.tanzfabrik.berlin.de

Dancing forward in space::

After a well deserved rest from Sello and Carlos`s workshop(my brain needed the rest more than my body). I somewhat came across Benij`s workshop. The scene looked peaceful through the peep hole from which I stole some scenes of improv.

I called the company to ask if they had available workshops, and alas they had(o.k....so I knew cause I peeped through the door but who was the wiser?). The next day I hit the dancefloor on schedule and had an hour and a half yoga to put me back in my place.

So Benji`s class is simple: warm-up by yoga, then movement research. The way he explained it was that he goes into simple movements that can build up to anything. Thing is the build up does take time, cause he works with the bodies movement memory.
On that thought: it is wonderous that the body can remember certain patterns, movements and habits(whether good or bad). The body has a mind while it dances or moves in daily life, this is why a dancer can dance in the moment or in a trance when they dance cause we move with our whole being.



So I felt Benji`s class did get a bit heavy after a week or two of doing the same thing. The yoga almost killed half the class as they positioned themselves into dogs, ploughs everyday. Those who lacked stretching ability found the warm-up a challenge and those that who lacked in movement could work towards better dancing in the second part of the class.

In our third week we took a trip to the apartheid museum to work on a piece between participants from South Africa, France, Belgium and Mocambique. We took notes on things that stuck out for us in the museum. The following day we had to work together and show our ideas from the previous day.

From Working on our ideas and developing them, Benji decided to pick from some of them to make a new piece. The idea was then to create a dance museum through the Drill Hall. So one piece that makes up a movement museum of sorts.
We worked at how everything can fit in together...sort of like a puzzle. Once we figured that out, we rehearsed it till it felt as good as it could and Benji would capture the rehearsals...even the performance.



Working with different people from different places was interesting. I mean with some dancers you can see how not having regular classes gives them a false sense of accomplishment...and I could feel it myself. Where a dancer can go 100% on adding ideas and movement...laziness comes in. It`s not that the dancer is tired it`s just that they can`t see themselves giving that much of themselves. It also comes with professionalism cause if you know you have to kill every piece even if you aren`t getting paid for it...then you`ve reached a new level in your profession.

The two performances we had went well...I rather liked the first at the Drill Hall. Simply cause it felt like a museum, the conditions were right and the building also was a nicer setting for the piece. The second one we did we did only in a room, we had changed the final piece from what it was the previous week and energy was different. We had lost the museum-ness of the piece plus there some issues during the piece as we had to climb over the audience most times and some happened to be kids.






I look forward to the next time I can build my audience/performer relationship...and try my hand at choreography(god forbid...I actually become one....that would mean I loose all ability to give someone directions!)

Beading Dancer

• Beading Dancer finally has stock u at the Market!Get more choices and stock at the Newtown Market between Wednesday and friday from Hlubi`s stall.

Some items are once off items...so get em while you can!




Will do a proper blog later.....and more tales.