"Does this happen to a lot of people?" he asks me quizzically, after an impromptu and intense counselling session (Mum groggy with her splash of wine, not to mention emotionally tenderized for the grilling after an equally ad-hoc one-on-one-over-yong-tau-foosession with me just prior). "These identity issues, a lot of people face?"
"Oh yeah, sure," I answer assuredly, wondering where in the back of my amateur Psychology Today newshound archive I might substantiate my assured claim. "Most couples go through this sort of conflict, especially at this point in their lives. You are facing three major impasses in terms of how you each view (1) your gender identities, (2) your roles within the marriage, and (3) your aging process and conscious self-realization."
He nods, maybe he grunts, and Dad grips and protrudes his jaw as he whittles his already short teeth to philosophical chalk. He's a do-er and a thinker, not a feeler, he already stated during this session, and from somewhere deep in the personal investment I have in the "clients" before me I hope that in swallowing that uncapsuled residue my Dad might come to appreciate the fine art of following the feeling-pill right down to his belly.
Navel gazing: it exercises your longus colli throat muscles and elongates the cervical spine ... not to mention draws your awareness to potential double-chin rooster gobbles that grow with age and gravity.
Mum starts gasping for air because with three instead of the usual soporific singular slosh she has managed to put herself into mild cardiac arrest, or perhaps refluxed her gastroesophageal, or very possibly provoked her last remaining latent menopausal symptoms, and in this distress calls session to a close and abandons her further bitchings for later ... fifteen minutes later, on the couch, whinnying and woozy. In recollection, elegant Wong Kar Wai soundtracks iPlay and I find it no wonder that I enjoy paradoxes and pathetically cruel realities, like the image of a poisoned mouse dying to the tune of Ne Me Quitte Pas. Bee-whizzing violins and sultry saxophones continue my mind-music video staring at these two bodies lodged on yesterday's couch into the realm of fantastical melodrama vignettes: the alternately hateful and loving couple I have always known as my parents.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Scratchpad
Les Vies Amoreuses de la famille Guillotines
(LES GUILLOTINES)
When i was learning how to ride a bike in Japan ...
Did you hear about the Korean businessman with the beautiful wife who had an ugly kid?
(LES GUILLOTINES)
When i was learning how to ride a bike in Japan ...
Did you hear about the Korean businessman with the beautiful wife who had an ugly kid?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Retrospectorant drips – it’s peaches and the pits
I've instituted a practice between my parents for both within our home on Jalan Jerusalem and elsewhere (West Bank analogies do not stop there) of looking into each other's eyes for at least 5 minutes a day. You would think that a pretty facile exercise for people 33 years married, but actually it's quite and quietly radical. We are known in "Asian" culture not to look people in the eyes; thinkers are known to walk with their heads forward and eyes down; my father and my mother after all this time still have difficulties recognizing each other for who they are, and not who they expect each other to be. So sitting as the early-dinner crowd in an otherwise empty Chinese restaurant (post-movie matinee, everyday senior citizen's discount), my mum and dad sneak little raised eyebrow peeks at each other, playfully, guiltily, and never for too long. Calling out to our kitten garden guests later that evening for their nightly meal, I see the same curiosity and eager hesitation in feline faces; this is the first time in my writing life that I have found cause to use the phrase, "furtive glances."
It's baby steps, it's difficult, it's brave and horrifying, it's not glamorous. It's eyes that see too much. It's eyes that see too little, receding back flat into the head and not rolling around in their sockets to get a good 360 degree bearing: ah. here we are. we're at the top. top of what? we're looking outside. we're looking inside. inside of what? what of inside?
As a youth, I used to relish every morsel of the past I could get: stories of when mum got tricked and abandoned at the top of a mango tree (another time when she scaled solo and was stung by bees) and when the same trickster brother poked the eyes out of her only doll; O-ma chasing chickens and children. Stories of when I was born, when I was locked inside the apartment, when Sue was forgotten, and found her own way home; stories of our house at what was then the end of the road and of our excursions into the vast empty field adjacent. This image of a young, simple couple and their sweet, happy children being raised in the "marital home" in a sweet and happy Singapore.
Now to hear these stories peppered between slurps and exclamations ("the cod is so fresh!") makes me realize how much I have been old before my time and simultaneously just how much I relinquish by choosing the Not This. These stories are tired. They are not intrinsically mundane or, on the pancake flip, romantic. They are just what has happened. When all the forces of fortune and convention get plastered onto the headlights of the car that drives backwards, the stories get tired, literally (um, inside of this metaphor), mowed down into the soft mud that is human will in the course of history. You only get to drive the car, maybe, occasionally getting off the beaten path for short secret jaunts to piss epithets in the sand.
The journey stops and you're done driving around the world in 80 megabytes and you end up in the home you are lucky you ended up in and that would be much too inconvenient to abandon or even change. You squirrel away baby books and children's toys neatly in ziplock bags into not-so-secret nooks awaiting unborn grandchildren while the organization of your daily needs and the hoarding of your material treasures from travels to so many countries you can't remember pile and scatter and colonize your peace. Your hope springs eternal and you will wait for happiness as you dreamed it or you will die waiting. But what if you don't get to live out that dream? What if you don't get to lose yourself to and suspend yourself on the web of your family? What if you no longer get to take group photographs with the birthday cake? Whose house will you visit when you are in the neighbourhood?
Who will remind you that you are beautiful? Who will remind you that no one will marry you if you eat the last piece of jambu? Who will keep it for you? Who will keep it for somebody else what you no longer want? Who will take your mail? Who will take your boys? Who will take your shit?
As usual, I end up talking to myself, primarily.
The comfort zone is a den full of food and snakes -- it's peaches and it's the pits. Retrospectorant may keep you smelling peachy, but it doesn't stop odour from oozing out your arm--
Pity the repatriate, who with wits and beseeches, pleases and appeases each,
but all her own.
It's baby steps, it's difficult, it's brave and horrifying, it's not glamorous. It's eyes that see too much. It's eyes that see too little, receding back flat into the head and not rolling around in their sockets to get a good 360 degree bearing: ah. here we are. we're at the top. top of what? we're looking outside. we're looking inside. inside of what? what of inside?
As a youth, I used to relish every morsel of the past I could get: stories of when mum got tricked and abandoned at the top of a mango tree (another time when she scaled solo and was stung by bees) and when the same trickster brother poked the eyes out of her only doll; O-ma chasing chickens and children. Stories of when I was born, when I was locked inside the apartment, when Sue was forgotten, and found her own way home; stories of our house at what was then the end of the road and of our excursions into the vast empty field adjacent. This image of a young, simple couple and their sweet, happy children being raised in the "marital home" in a sweet and happy Singapore.
Now to hear these stories peppered between slurps and exclamations ("the cod is so fresh!") makes me realize how much I have been old before my time and simultaneously just how much I relinquish by choosing the Not This. These stories are tired. They are not intrinsically mundane or, on the pancake flip, romantic. They are just what has happened. When all the forces of fortune and convention get plastered onto the headlights of the car that drives backwards, the stories get tired, literally (um, inside of this metaphor), mowed down into the soft mud that is human will in the course of history. You only get to drive the car, maybe, occasionally getting off the beaten path for short secret jaunts to piss epithets in the sand.
The journey stops and you're done driving around the world in 80 megabytes and you end up in the home you are lucky you ended up in and that would be much too inconvenient to abandon or even change. You squirrel away baby books and children's toys neatly in ziplock bags into not-so-secret nooks awaiting unborn grandchildren while the organization of your daily needs and the hoarding of your material treasures from travels to so many countries you can't remember pile and scatter and colonize your peace. Your hope springs eternal and you will wait for happiness as you dreamed it or you will die waiting. But what if you don't get to live out that dream? What if you don't get to lose yourself to and suspend yourself on the web of your family? What if you no longer get to take group photographs with the birthday cake? Whose house will you visit when you are in the neighbourhood?
Who will remind you that you are beautiful? Who will remind you that no one will marry you if you eat the last piece of jambu? Who will keep it for you? Who will keep it for somebody else what you no longer want? Who will take your mail? Who will take your boys? Who will take your shit?
As usual, I end up talking to myself, primarily.
The comfort zone is a den full of food and snakes -- it's peaches and it's the pits. Retrospectorant may keep you smelling peachy, but it doesn't stop odour from oozing out your arm--
Pity the repatriate, who with wits and beseeches, pleases and appeases each,
but all her own.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Scratchpad + reading list
artist:
the business of being yourself as deliberately as possible
“By giving us a framework for marshaling our thoughts, language does a lot for us,” Professor Gentner said. “Because spatial language gives us symbols for spatial patterns, it helps us carve up the world in specific ways.”
Immersing the face in water produces a protective action in humans similar to that in dolphins, seals, otters and whales. Called the mammalian diving reflex, it quickly lowers the heart rate and then constricts blood vessels in the limbs so that blood is reserved for the heart and the brain.
“THE STUFF OF THOUGHT: Language as a Window into Human Nature,” by Steven Pinker, Viking. The author uses language to examine how the mind works, in perception and thought.
“FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution,” by Ray Jackendoff, Oxford University Press. Ideas about how the brain stores and processes language.
“BASIC COLOR TERMS: Their Universality and Evolution,” by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, University of California Press. Originally published in 1969, this was an early investigation of color terms in different languages.
“LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND REALITY: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf,” by Benjamin Lee Whorf (author), John B. Carroll (editor), M.I.T. Press. This work, first published in a different edition in 1956, reflects Whorf’s view that a language affects how one thinks.
“SPACE IN LANGUAGE AND COGNITION: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity,” by Stephen C. Levinson, Cambridge University Press. How the language and conception of space varies among cultures.
“LANGUAGE IN MIND: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought,” by Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow, The M.I.T. Press. A collection of articles on linguistic research.
the business of being yourself as deliberately as possible
“By giving us a framework for marshaling our thoughts, language does a lot for us,” Professor Gentner said. “Because spatial language gives us symbols for spatial patterns, it helps us carve up the world in specific ways.”
Immersing the face in water produces a protective action in humans similar to that in dolphins, seals, otters and whales. Called the mammalian diving reflex, it quickly lowers the heart rate and then constricts blood vessels in the limbs so that blood is reserved for the heart and the brain.
“THE STUFF OF THOUGHT: Language as a Window into Human Nature,” by Steven Pinker, Viking. The author uses language to examine how the mind works, in perception and thought.
“FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution,” by Ray Jackendoff, Oxford University Press. Ideas about how the brain stores and processes language.
“BASIC COLOR TERMS: Their Universality and Evolution,” by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, University of California Press. Originally published in 1969, this was an early investigation of color terms in different languages.
“LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND REALITY: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf,” by Benjamin Lee Whorf (author), John B. Carroll (editor), M.I.T. Press. This work, first published in a different edition in 1956, reflects Whorf’s view that a language affects how one thinks.
“SPACE IN LANGUAGE AND COGNITION: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity,” by Stephen C. Levinson, Cambridge University Press. How the language and conception of space varies among cultures.
“LANGUAGE IN MIND: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought,” by Dedre Gentner and Susan Goldin-Meadow, The M.I.T. Press. A collection of articles on linguistic research.
Friday, April 18, 2008
(not) a lo-mo, (but) an end to hope and fantasy
i didn't want to be the one who looks back.
i wanted to be the one who turned away and never looked back.
every day that i am here i watch myself disappear to myself.
every day that i am here i watch the self that i like because i earned it evaporate to make space for the self that i was given as a hand-me-down.
and i kept taking it!
glutton! cruiser! free-rider! lame duck!
what is our we?
why do we have to keep reasserting our we?
what does it matter if someone has been there every holiday and every major meal event since you were a baby? does having seen you as a baby make a we?
it gets better and better over here, easier and easier to be a singaporean. and maybe there was a beautiful cusp where i wanted this and i made myself belong and i believed i belonged and it hurt to extricate me from my we -- she knew this, she must have known this. but she took my we. and now i can repeat the same habit to force myself into situations and to try to enjoy, but i am left with this, like this, incomplete stunted sentences -- no wanting. summer 07 echoes: want want back. is the land of no wanting peace? or is the land of no wanting death?
who cares right, but i cannot explain otherwise these feelings, the complete ineptitude of being, becoming ridiculous, unbecoming, becoming unbecoming, not having will but having force. i don't like it.
it's all not so bad but i have to understand why this desperation never gets any better, only the distractions do, to help save my days.
i wanted to be the one who turned away and never looked back.
every day that i am here i watch myself disappear to myself.
every day that i am here i watch the self that i like because i earned it evaporate to make space for the self that i was given as a hand-me-down.
and i kept taking it!
glutton! cruiser! free-rider! lame duck!
what is our we?
why do we have to keep reasserting our we?
what does it matter if someone has been there every holiday and every major meal event since you were a baby? does having seen you as a baby make a we?
it gets better and better over here, easier and easier to be a singaporean. and maybe there was a beautiful cusp where i wanted this and i made myself belong and i believed i belonged and it hurt to extricate me from my we -- she knew this, she must have known this. but she took my we. and now i can repeat the same habit to force myself into situations and to try to enjoy, but i am left with this, like this, incomplete stunted sentences -- no wanting. summer 07 echoes: want want back. is the land of no wanting peace? or is the land of no wanting death?
who cares right, but i cannot explain otherwise these feelings, the complete ineptitude of being, becoming ridiculous, unbecoming, becoming unbecoming, not having will but having force. i don't like it.
it's all not so bad but i have to understand why this desperation never gets any better, only the distractions do, to help save my days.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
all i've got so far
What is most important to me?
I am supposed to know?
I'm only good at keeping myself busy,
staying ahead of Every Body else's game.
What is most important to me?
Is it this?
Is it not this?
Is it that?
Is it not that?
My words are important to me.
I am supposed to know?
I'm only good at keeping myself busy,
staying ahead of Every Body else's game.
What is most important to me?
Is it this?
Is it not this?
Is it that?
Is it not that?
My words are important to me.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Audition Recap: ASIAN SEEKING ASIAN II
The path to fame and infamy and famine and faux fur ... is fun and steady.
My second attempt at auditioning for an acting role in New York City, the memories are so clear of my other attempts since they are always the times that I am faced with the behemoth of my unexamined Asian identity (first attempt was for an organization called 2nd Generation that produces new works by Asian American writers and directors. Lines from sides included, "I was wet like the hot springs at Chengdu!" and every, every play was overeducated. Ahhh .... us). These are roles to fit into. I would like to dare Sandra Oh to perform M Butterfly.
But this was a new play, 3 years in the making, by a Japanese American mongrel, speaking to mongreloid experiences:
I must say, I could have spent more time preparing except for the other audition I did the day prior and my insistently in-my-grill houseguest for the most of that Sunday.
I must say, I don't think I would have been any less nervous or neurotic otherwise. Coming before a panel of other obviously hybridized people doesn't make it any better. The fear of fraudulence is epic. "Authentic Asian accent"?! I've never spoken with an Asian accent in my life. She wants us to sing a pop or folk song, preferably in a language other than English. I mouthed silly nothings for Chinese New Year assemblies in middle school in Hong Kong, drooled in Mr Kong's Chinese class, and fell asleep with my one-on-one home tutor. The fighting spirit in me that has sought dance above all else honorable has been to insist that I am not Chinese--some would say, by ignoring the question of "What I am" all together.
But this refusal to be defined has its precedents, its glories, its downfalls. The Malay Straits-born Chinese have for generations considered themselves "orang china bukan china"--people Chinese, not Chinese. The conflicted personality is what has enabled us, inside of merchant port culture, to be the open, tolerant, and syncretic poster children of globalization, usually towards the goal of learning and advancement rahter than power. I often use the analogy of the televised speeches made at former Education Minister's wake to demonstrate how and how deeply Singaporeans' allegiances are forged through the universities they are sent to: two grandchildren are invited to speak, vanguard of the next generation--one voice purely British, the other short of nothing save her Texas gallon hat. Both women, meaning, not men. I just noticed that. I feel slightly ashmed that I have to notice Woman when she is Not Man. You feminists know what I'm talking about.
So back to the audition, and me, and my forgotten Chineseness, and my heightened not-Chinese-consciousness, and scripts kind of being written for people like me, but then, not quite, and how can I explain it other than for the fact that it has taken me 8 years of being Other in America to even accept the roleplay. I recall spewing a mental snot-rocket when Theatre professor Allen Kuharski emailed me an audition notice for an Asian American actress for a production in Philadelphia--poo! snork! Stop telling me who I am! I don't want to know in my happy belly-baby bliss! Let a thousand pot plants bloom!
But this, well, I could do this. " I can DO this!" thunk I. (I thunk it. Visit my website at tohavethunkthethought). I have reached a place of satiation with this dance thing where I know it is only just beginning, but it has taken so much from me and centrifuged it and put it back together again as a NEW BODY, a new old body, the same, but different, my point--that I can roleplay. (Melee the Humanimal -- I am also trying to get my shit together for MAKINGOFHUMANIMAL, my new piece to apply for the NY Fringe, side note).
So I can do this. I get a massage from Jeremy (taxation for him living in my apartment for a couple weeks). I do my laundry. I cook -- what?!? Obviously, I procrastinate. But I can do this. I convince myself that these mundane, useless, household activities are exactly what I best need to prepare. I wait for Jeremy to leave. At 6pm, before my 9pm audition slot--I prepare.
"Shit!" thunk I. "There is no time!" As usual, only NOW do I read the fine print to the audition preparation notice. Sure, the song I knew I would have to forge. The side--well, I don't understand it and I'm going to overact anyway, so hell why not play it by ear. But a contemporary monologue too?! Shit!
I clear my throat (I also, stupidly, so endearingly stupidly, ate jalapenos for dinner which have made my throat constrict) and start the search: I type a trepidatious "chinese pop song" into YouTube and hope for the best. Number 3 down the list provides me with exactly the simple kind of song I need .... perhaps an octave too high for my velvet-soul voice, but nevermind. The words--I can read these words?!?! Before my shock blows me down I see that it isn't hard to know these words. The lyrics are along the lines of
Etc, etc. Move on to the accent--but wait. I am rethinking this song. I rethunk it. The joke will never get too old for me. I can imitate the effortless childlike high pitch that is the ultimate value of any Chinese pop song (this one included), but that is not showcasing my talent! I am velveteen soul! I am Melretha! I am Mella! I am Mina Simone!
So I waste time (a) looking for the one Chinese folk song I do know, but only by the first lyric, and (b) preparing a second song in English that would better showcase my skill but that I think will be inappropriate for the character (NOTO BENE that the role is a 15-16 year old, and that I have looked 32 since I was 14. A bit of a stretch, but really -- my stock is the old hag or new babe, not the Mickey Mouse club, and certainly not named "Cissy") I sing Indie Arie in the kitchen and realize that I can be a LOT more off pitch than I thunk. And that I cannot modulate very well (up and down trills, small steps). I settle on "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and pray to the invocation of spirits that jalapenos wear off within 3 hours and that my faith (in....?) will get me through.
Song-trauma over, it is time to practice my accent. Now, I can hold an authentic Asian accent forever, and despite my own doubts I know it is authentic everytime I step into a Chinatown market. And really--who's gonna know? But the pro'rrem is dat this authentic is exactly of the marketplace and the market seller--perhaps not the foreign exchange student from some elite school visiting another elite prep school in America. My accent is like my dancing--usually a touch too strong.
But I get through this, struggling in the inbetweens with Hong Kong and Singapore intonations (is 3 "free" or "tree"? Is "with", "wiff" or "witt"? Is the emphasis on the high first syllable, or the emphatic, drawn-out last?) I record 25 minutes of myself singing and Cissying and run to the train with no minutes to spare.
The audition itself is relatively painless. I am goofy, and it is because I want them to like me -- the clown. They laugh a lot (I am used to this), but I don't realize just how little I understand the scene I am reading from (so focused was I on the accent, and the authenticity) until I jump back on the train afterwards. Of COURSE when she is describing the split nature of Hamlet ("dividied in two"), she is describing her own situation, being bicultural, a split self, "the good one and the bad one". And I wrote "Scene Study" on my resume.
Well, Aya was gracious, and said she enjoyed my work. I am frankly not too disappointed, since to jump in at the end of a 3 year process for a new repatriate to the theatre would probably give me a heart attack ("myo-car-di-al in-farc-shun"). I want to get Jeff's site off the ground, I want to keep dancing and training, I want to get my American legitimacy, I want to write/devise my own play. Shifting from conduit to conductor can only happen so many times in one day.
So that's the close of Battle With The Self Episode 2.2. It is very, very strange to read and speak Chinese again. I dare say it's a little exciting, ooh! ooh!, maybe even exotic?!?! I jest, but how else to handle the warm awkwardness of returning home?
My second attempt at auditioning for an acting role in New York City, the memories are so clear of my other attempts since they are always the times that I am faced with the behemoth of my unexamined Asian identity (first attempt was for an organization called 2nd Generation that produces new works by Asian American writers and directors. Lines from sides included, "I was wet like the hot springs at Chengdu!" and every, every play was overeducated. Ahhh .... us). These are roles to fit into. I would like to dare Sandra Oh to perform M Butterfly.
But this was a new play, 3 years in the making, by a Japanese American mongrel, speaking to mongreloid experiences:
about ophelia3:
A woman swept up in the rhythms of a foreign city discovers that she can live without ever uttering a word. The fragile microcosm of expatriated schoolgirls is shattered with the arrival of a new teacher and transfer student. Cultures clash in a theater producer's office and the translator bears the brunt. Japanese-American writer-director Aya Ogawa weaves a haunting exploration through movement and music of themes arising from the character of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Multiple disparate stories of disjoint and disconnection portray the convergence of dream and reality in a globalized world.
You are auditioning for the role of CISSY
CISSY. Schoolgirl. Asian (preferably East Asian, but not Japanese) Must have authentic Asian accent when speaking English, great physicality, and STRONG and unique singing voice. Must work well in ensemble.
I must say, I could have spent more time preparing except for the other audition I did the day prior and my insistently in-my-grill houseguest for the most of that Sunday.
I must say, I don't think I would have been any less nervous or neurotic otherwise. Coming before a panel of other obviously hybridized people doesn't make it any better. The fear of fraudulence is epic. "Authentic Asian accent"?! I've never spoken with an Asian accent in my life. She wants us to sing a pop or folk song, preferably in a language other than English. I mouthed silly nothings for Chinese New Year assemblies in middle school in Hong Kong, drooled in Mr Kong's Chinese class, and fell asleep with my one-on-one home tutor. The fighting spirit in me that has sought dance above all else honorable has been to insist that I am not Chinese--some would say, by ignoring the question of "What I am" all together.
But this refusal to be defined has its precedents, its glories, its downfalls. The Malay Straits-born Chinese have for generations considered themselves "orang china bukan china"--people Chinese, not Chinese. The conflicted personality is what has enabled us, inside of merchant port culture, to be the open, tolerant, and syncretic poster children of globalization, usually towards the goal of learning and advancement rahter than power. I often use the analogy of the televised speeches made at former Education Minister's wake to demonstrate how and how deeply Singaporeans' allegiances are forged through the universities they are sent to: two grandchildren are invited to speak, vanguard of the next generation--one voice purely British, the other short of nothing save her Texas gallon hat. Both women, meaning, not men. I just noticed that. I feel slightly ashmed that I have to notice Woman when she is Not Man. You feminists know what I'm talking about.
So back to the audition, and me, and my forgotten Chineseness, and my heightened not-Chinese-consciousness, and scripts kind of being written for people like me, but then, not quite, and how can I explain it other than for the fact that it has taken me 8 years of being Other in America to even accept the roleplay. I recall spewing a mental snot-rocket when Theatre professor Allen Kuharski emailed me an audition notice for an Asian American actress for a production in Philadelphia--poo! snork! Stop telling me who I am! I don't want to know in my happy belly-baby bliss! Let a thousand pot plants bloom!
But this, well, I could do this. " I can DO this!" thunk I. (I thunk it. Visit my website at tohavethunkthethought). I have reached a place of satiation with this dance thing where I know it is only just beginning, but it has taken so much from me and centrifuged it and put it back together again as a NEW BODY, a new old body, the same, but different, my point--that I can roleplay. (Melee the Humanimal -- I am also trying to get my shit together for MAKINGOFHUMANIMAL, my new piece to apply for the NY Fringe, side note).
So I can do this. I get a massage from Jeremy (taxation for him living in my apartment for a couple weeks). I do my laundry. I cook -- what?!? Obviously, I procrastinate. But I can do this. I convince myself that these mundane, useless, household activities are exactly what I best need to prepare. I wait for Jeremy to leave. At 6pm, before my 9pm audition slot--I prepare.
"Shit!" thunk I. "There is no time!" As usual, only NOW do I read the fine print to the audition preparation notice. Sure, the song I knew I would have to forge. The side--well, I don't understand it and I'm going to overact anyway, so hell why not play it by ear. But a contemporary monologue too?! Shit!
I clear my throat (I also, stupidly, so endearingly stupidly, ate jalapenos for dinner which have made my throat constrict) and start the search: I type a trepidatious "chinese pop song" into YouTube and hope for the best. Number 3 down the list provides me with exactly the simple kind of song I need .... perhaps an octave too high for my velvet-soul voice, but nevermind. The words--I can read these words?!?! Before my shock blows me down I see that it isn't hard to know these words. The lyrics are along the lines of
I miss your me / I am missing who? / You miss my you / You are missing who?
Etc, etc. Move on to the accent--but wait. I am rethinking this song. I rethunk it. The joke will never get too old for me. I can imitate the effortless childlike high pitch that is the ultimate value of any Chinese pop song (this one included), but that is not showcasing my talent! I am velveteen soul! I am Melretha! I am Mella! I am Mina Simone!
So I waste time (a) looking for the one Chinese folk song I do know, but only by the first lyric, and (b) preparing a second song in English that would better showcase my skill but that I think will be inappropriate for the character (NOTO BENE that the role is a 15-16 year old, and that I have looked 32 since I was 14. A bit of a stretch, but really -- my stock is the old hag or new babe, not the Mickey Mouse club, and certainly not named "Cissy") I sing Indie Arie in the kitchen and realize that I can be a LOT more off pitch than I thunk. And that I cannot modulate very well (up and down trills, small steps). I settle on "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and pray to the invocation of spirits that jalapenos wear off within 3 hours and that my faith (in....?) will get me through.
Song-trauma over, it is time to practice my accent. Now, I can hold an authentic Asian accent forever, and despite my own doubts I know it is authentic everytime I step into a Chinatown market. And really--who's gonna know? But the pro'rrem is dat this authentic is exactly of the marketplace and the market seller--perhaps not the foreign exchange student from some elite school visiting another elite prep school in America. My accent is like my dancing--usually a touch too strong.
But I get through this, struggling in the inbetweens with Hong Kong and Singapore intonations (is 3 "free" or "tree"? Is "with", "wiff" or "witt"? Is the emphasis on the high first syllable, or the emphatic, drawn-out last?) I record 25 minutes of myself singing and Cissying and run to the train with no minutes to spare.
The audition itself is relatively painless. I am goofy, and it is because I want them to like me -- the clown. They laugh a lot (I am used to this), but I don't realize just how little I understand the scene I am reading from (so focused was I on the accent, and the authenticity) until I jump back on the train afterwards. Of COURSE when she is describing the split nature of Hamlet ("dividied in two"), she is describing her own situation, being bicultural, a split self, "the good one and the bad one". And I wrote "Scene Study" on my resume.
Well, Aya was gracious, and said she enjoyed my work. I am frankly not too disappointed, since to jump in at the end of a 3 year process for a new repatriate to the theatre would probably give me a heart attack ("myo-car-di-al in-farc-shun"). I want to get Jeff's site off the ground, I want to keep dancing and training, I want to get my American legitimacy, I want to write/devise my own play. Shifting from conduit to conductor can only happen so many times in one day.
So that's the close of Battle With The Self Episode 2.2. It is very, very strange to read and speak Chinese again. I dare say it's a little exciting, ooh! ooh!, maybe even exotic?!?! I jest, but how else to handle the warm awkwardness of returning home?
Sunday, January 13, 2008
I want Tim Etchell's job
...I want Tim Etchell's job.
www.timetchells.com
www.forcedentertainment.com
I am overwhelmed with the minuteness of Being in America (as an alien, no doubt worse, from a tiny island with no diaspora-based cultural-capital, no doubt worser) that I come home greedily to watch Grey's Anatomy on the internet after my days at work-plus-rehearsal, failing which (when I discover that 1am Friday does not yet mean "Fridays online") I watch the full 2-hour launch special of BRUNO AND CARRIE ANNE'S DANCE WAR. I thought I was allowed this much escapism since I am not having any sex, but then I see the lifework of someone like Etchell's and I think: my God, there is so much I have not done in order to become a cultural icon.
I can do this! I think, I watch, I write, I save every damn program note, I draw, I defile (Ok confession: I spent a season drawing on stickers and only once did I actually paste one on the subway), I make dances, I make texts, I make videos, I like to improvise, I want to work on improving my improvisation, I want to do this with a core group of similarly-motivated people but I can't find any as ...I dunno, hungry? as me, it's true that I sometimes want to look pretty which is evidenced to myself every time I check myself out in window reflections, it's true that I presumptuously judge which is evidenced by how I condemn myself to social and creative isolation by drowning my enthusiasm every time I check myself out in reflections because I think I am too vain for depth. I want to write as freely as I do on this personal blog when I am writing about performance and cultural phenomena but without the constant triple-time self-referencing, but I don't know, this is just what happens with my words.
I got the feeling today that Steffe only loves me as a reflection of himself, not as my own person and a potential part of his life. I sensed that he doesn't know what part of me is real and what part is a fantasy he is afraid he made up. I thought perhaps I have the same fears -- but I am used to thinking things through more, and I understand that this feeling of "dissociation" affecting me now (feeling a little unrecognized) is part of the cost to love him. I know that this is who he is, and similar to how I struggle with the loggerheads of passivity and action, he struggles with the conflict between dreaming and self-concern. We both get lost in other people. I get lost in them to the point where I am either doing nothing with them or doing everything without; he gets lost in them in a kind of universal love that makes the details disappear--a place where he can and often does get lost. I know you can't really choose who you love (so it is not like I no longer love him because I had these feelings- I am trying to get to know him and myself better), but since I am treating this like a relationship I sure would like him to do the same. Steffe, I need you to say you want us to happen. But I know that is too much to ask.
www.timetchells.com
www.forcedentertainment.com
I am overwhelmed with the minuteness of Being in America (as an alien, no doubt worse, from a tiny island with no diaspora-based cultural-capital, no doubt worser) that I come home greedily to watch Grey's Anatomy on the internet after my days at work-plus-rehearsal, failing which (when I discover that 1am Friday does not yet mean "Fridays online") I watch the full 2-hour launch special of BRUNO AND CARRIE ANNE'S DANCE WAR. I thought I was allowed this much escapism since I am not having any sex, but then I see the lifework of someone like Etchell's and I think: my God, there is so much I have not done in order to become a cultural icon.
I can do this! I think, I watch, I write, I save every damn program note, I draw, I defile (Ok confession: I spent a season drawing on stickers and only once did I actually paste one on the subway), I make dances, I make texts, I make videos, I like to improvise, I want to work on improving my improvisation, I want to do this with a core group of similarly-motivated people but I can't find any as ...I dunno, hungry? as me, it's true that I sometimes want to look pretty which is evidenced to myself every time I check myself out in window reflections, it's true that I presumptuously judge which is evidenced by how I condemn myself to social and creative isolation by drowning my enthusiasm every time I check myself out in reflections because I think I am too vain for depth. I want to write as freely as I do on this personal blog when I am writing about performance and cultural phenomena but without the constant triple-time self-referencing, but I don't know, this is just what happens with my words.
I got the feeling today that Steffe only loves me as a reflection of himself, not as my own person and a potential part of his life. I sensed that he doesn't know what part of me is real and what part is a fantasy he is afraid he made up. I thought perhaps I have the same fears -- but I am used to thinking things through more, and I understand that this feeling of "dissociation" affecting me now (feeling a little unrecognized) is part of the cost to love him. I know that this is who he is, and similar to how I struggle with the loggerheads of passivity and action, he struggles with the conflict between dreaming and self-concern. We both get lost in other people. I get lost in them to the point where I am either doing nothing with them or doing everything without; he gets lost in them in a kind of universal love that makes the details disappear--a place where he can and often does get lost. I know you can't really choose who you love (so it is not like I no longer love him because I had these feelings- I am trying to get to know him and myself better), but since I am treating this like a relationship I sure would like him to do the same. Steffe, I need you to say you want us to happen. But I know that is too much to ask.
Transnational Zeitgeist
Happiness Committee formed in Perkins Cole
At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a “happiness committee,” offering candy apples and milkshakes to brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. [Law is] an industry in which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at some point in their careers."
Crown Prince of Qatar invites Singapore Civil Defence Force to help build Qatar's civil defence academy
This is actually old news, but I am damn proud.
Taser International releases new product line
A handy new holster from Taser International Inc. holds not only your stun gun but a music player too.
The latest Taser -- in a leopard print and costing $379.99 -- ''provides a personal protection option for women who want fashion with a bite,'' said Chief Executive Rick Smith.
Buyers for the Sayang Singapore showcase get 1 free ticket for every 5 purchsed if they say "I love Singapore" when ordering tickets
A very small part of me deep inside aches because I could be one of these people
Tim Etchells:
"I think it comes back again to absence and presence. We feel presence more acutely when the possibility of absence is raised. That's why one's interested in deletion, in absence. Because to think of it points back to the absolute uniqueness of presence."
Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
“Note down what you can see. Anything worthy of note going on. Do you know how to see what's worthy of note? Is there anything that strikes you? Nothing strikes you. You don't know how to see.
You must set about it more slowly, more stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colourless.... Don't say, don't write 'etc'. Make an effort to exhaust the subject, even if it seems grotesque or pointless, or stupid. You still haven't looked at anything, you're merely picked out what you long ago picked out. Force yourself to see more flatly…”
At the Chicago office of Perkins Coie, partners recently unveiled a “happiness committee,” offering candy apples and milkshakes to brighten the long and wearying days of its lawyers. [Law is] an industry in which about 20 percent of lawyers over all will suffer depression at some point in their careers."
Crown Prince of Qatar invites Singapore Civil Defence Force to help build Qatar's civil defence academy
This is actually old news, but I am damn proud.
Taser International releases new product line
A handy new holster from Taser International Inc. holds not only your stun gun but a music player too.
The latest Taser -- in a leopard print and costing $379.99 -- ''provides a personal protection option for women who want fashion with a bite,'' said Chief Executive Rick Smith.
Buyers for the Sayang Singapore showcase get 1 free ticket for every 5 purchsed if they say "I love Singapore" when ordering tickets
A very small part of me deep inside aches because I could be one of these people
Tim Etchells:
"I think it comes back again to absence and presence. We feel presence more acutely when the possibility of absence is raised. That's why one's interested in deletion, in absence. Because to think of it points back to the absolute uniqueness of presence."
Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
“Note down what you can see. Anything worthy of note going on. Do you know how to see what's worthy of note? Is there anything that strikes you? Nothing strikes you. You don't know how to see.
You must set about it more slowly, more stupidly. Force yourself to write down what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common, most colourless.... Don't say, don't write 'etc'. Make an effort to exhaust the subject, even if it seems grotesque or pointless, or stupid. You still haven't looked at anything, you're merely picked out what you long ago picked out. Force yourself to see more flatly…”
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Title of titles
In conversation with Morgan today, we develop some interesting leads in terms of titles to make pieces to, oblivious to bored sales associates in FOXY LADY clothing store on 14th street.
"Never before seen!"
Perhaps, in the style of New York:
"Never before seen...even by the choreographer!"
"Never before seen...never before rehearsed!"
Killing time and killing feet circling blocks (that is an oxymoron - rather said, around the block and between and back again) we discover Chinese fashion apparel in the store next to HERS where almost every item is individually housed in plastic and most every item, in comfortable flashback to my Hong Kong/Singapore past, is usually passable except for one, or two, fundamental flaws. This penchant for the designed faux-pas can also be coined:
"So close, yet so far"
Or
"So bad it's good"
Or
"No, we really mean it, this stuff is impossible, but you can get away with it if you are tall and skinny or Yves Saint Laurent"
A woman wearing a purple leather skirt and shag denim sweater and 3-foot-long rabbit ears walks into a yoga class full of optimistic, yelling bunnies. The men in the class are naked and perform downward dog with their dongs at attention. The class ends with a communal Bananarama chant and the simultaneous consumption of a 30-foot Italian hero.
I would like to consume an Italian hero.
If you do not wish to get my drift, you may stand upwind. Hakuna matata pranayama.
"Never before seen!"
Perhaps, in the style of New York:
"Never before seen...even by the choreographer!"
"Never before seen...never before rehearsed!"
Killing time and killing feet circling blocks (that is an oxymoron - rather said, around the block and between and back again) we discover Chinese fashion apparel in the store next to HERS where almost every item is individually housed in plastic and most every item, in comfortable flashback to my Hong Kong/Singapore past, is usually passable except for one, or two, fundamental flaws. This penchant for the designed faux-pas can also be coined:
"So close, yet so far"
Or
"So bad it's good"
Or
"No, we really mean it, this stuff is impossible, but you can get away with it if you are tall and skinny or Yves Saint Laurent"
A woman wearing a purple leather skirt and shag denim sweater and 3-foot-long rabbit ears walks into a yoga class full of optimistic, yelling bunnies. The men in the class are naked and perform downward dog with their dongs at attention. The class ends with a communal Bananarama chant and the simultaneous consumption of a 30-foot Italian hero.
I would like to consume an Italian hero.
If you do not wish to get my drift, you may stand upwind. Hakuna matata pranayama.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Notes to Self
Trying to look at myself objectively for the purpose of the new year and in the hunt for red conviction. I tell Emilie with breathless flourish that perhaps I should adapt to accepting myself for who I am, in the sense of someone who is motivated by continual interest rather than long-term goals. Yet later on it is easy to doubt myself because everyone respects a purpose-driven life (hence the hardcover, best-selling book). And lack of purpose doesn't get you a job.
So I am closer to letting this life go than I have been. I am reading up on dance therapy and realize that it's goals could be my mission statement if it weren't for just how uncool that would be. "Dance that helps people" -- that's all. It helps me. It could help you. It could also help you understand other people that you would have no access to, verbally, or otherwise.
Among the many things I am spending my time looking up on the internet, vocationally these currently include:
--yoga certification
--maintaining my pilates certification
--journalism: print (periodical, magazine, publishing, editorial):: arts and cultural criticism/writing/discourse (riding the wave of my studies and my interests) / medicine, health, the body (riding the wave of my current job that I am at this moment running late for and my growing professional interests)
--London
--Amsterdam
--California
--greencard
--fuck greencard, London
--London International School of Performing Arts (voice, mask, drama, movement, space studies)
--Singapore
All things vocational must have a context, many things passionate have no home.
I have been watching dance and theatre performances since I've had a mind of my own.
I am tired of being sad, being sad is tiring.
So I am closer to letting this life go than I have been. I am reading up on dance therapy and realize that it's goals could be my mission statement if it weren't for just how uncool that would be. "Dance that helps people" -- that's all. It helps me. It could help you. It could also help you understand other people that you would have no access to, verbally, or otherwise.
Among the many things I am spending my time looking up on the internet, vocationally these currently include:
--yoga certification
--maintaining my pilates certification
--journalism: print (periodical, magazine, publishing, editorial):: arts and cultural criticism/writing/discourse (riding the wave of my studies and my interests) / medicine, health, the body (riding the wave of my current job that I am at this moment running late for and my growing professional interests)
--London
--Amsterdam
--California
--greencard
--fuck greencard, London
--London International School of Performing Arts (voice, mask, drama, movement, space studies)
--Singapore
All things vocational must have a context, many things passionate have no home.
I have been watching dance and theatre performances since I've had a mind of my own.
I am tired of being sad, being sad is tiring.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Assessments for 2008
Someone likened me today to someone I would rather not be likened to. She is nice but an emotional heavyweight and a messy thinker. Uh oh. Is this me?
I don't want to make sense, but I think I don't have to not make sense so publically. It's well-fitting to my age hypothesis for my life (18 at 14, 25 at 18, 32 at 23, 4 at 25) that technology has finally caught up to my needs (I willed them into being): voice over internet protocol, web blogging, photo blogging, idea blobbing. Everyone and their third grandmother now can be a quiet entrepreneur. Everyone can be a hobby artist. Artaud, Rimbaud, Sartre, Hughes -- take an IP address and shove it.
It has taken me 7 years of living away from the home I always lived away from to send a video wave for the holidays. I can spend endless amounts of quiet time scribbling happily into blank journals and typing into private desktop widgets. When I am on an airplane and I imagine it crashing, I think first how to save or resuscitate, if necessary (mouth to plug?), my Powerbook, because if it died I wonder if I would be able to move on.
No no, Nostalgia.
No nostalgia.
Mo' nostalgia.
Nostaglia sounds Italian.
Nostaligula sounds Shakespearean.
My horoscope advises me to get ready to be as big as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers this year.
I am a little upset with myself that I found an author who works in line drawings and scribble-thoughts at the San Francisco MOMA Museum shop and forgot to write his name down.
I am not alone.
I am so alone.
I am only not alone when I am alone.
I am running out of space.
I forgot already what it was I actually wanted to write in this entry that was substantive and ambitious.
I don't want to make sense, but I think I don't have to not make sense so publically. It's well-fitting to my age hypothesis for my life (18 at 14, 25 at 18, 32 at 23, 4 at 25) that technology has finally caught up to my needs (I willed them into being): voice over internet protocol, web blogging, photo blogging, idea blobbing. Everyone and their third grandmother now can be a quiet entrepreneur. Everyone can be a hobby artist. Artaud, Rimbaud, Sartre, Hughes -- take an IP address and shove it.
It has taken me 7 years of living away from the home I always lived away from to send a video wave for the holidays. I can spend endless amounts of quiet time scribbling happily into blank journals and typing into private desktop widgets. When I am on an airplane and I imagine it crashing, I think first how to save or resuscitate, if necessary (mouth to plug?), my Powerbook, because if it died I wonder if I would be able to move on.
No no, Nostalgia.
No nostalgia.
Mo' nostalgia.
Nostaglia sounds Italian.
Nostaligula sounds Shakespearean.
My horoscope advises me to get ready to be as big as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers this year.
I am a little upset with myself that I found an author who works in line drawings and scribble-thoughts at the San Francisco MOMA Museum shop and forgot to write his name down.
I am not alone.
I am so alone.
I am only not alone when I am alone.
I am running out of space.
I forgot already what it was I actually wanted to write in this entry that was substantive and ambitious.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Oh shit here we go: My Top Ten List of Performances in 2007
Not in any particular order:
TINO SEHGAL: This Situation
Where I saw it: Sammlung Beggruen, Berlin
Sum: A curious happening involving synchronized walking and posing bodies, quotes from the best and worst of the 20th century, and the occasional unison phrase: "Welcome...to this situation".
SASA ASENTIC: My Private Biopolitics
Where I saw it: Podewil, Berlin
Sum: A brave, hyperintelligent, and endearing (if not seductive) young man delivers a lecture-demonstration problematizing the definitions of contemporary dance. Set includes laptop, academic research, vases, stick-on body fur, a shrine, audience participation, a couple dance sequences, and a significant amount of the performer's conviction and sweat.
SARAH MICHAELSON: Dogs
Where I saw it: Haus 1, Berlin
Sum: The most traditionally avant-garde thing I have seen since the documentary Ballet Russes. More balls-in-hand (and silken-night-gown-on-dagger) than tongue-in-cheek, this London/New York doyenne of dance-theatre delivers an evening's hallucination of razor sharp, repetitive movement sequences, subtle yet bizarre light projections, and fills the auditorium with pink-lit stage smoke to the point where theatre and audience sublimate.
CHRIS HARING & LIQUID LOFT: Art of Seduction Posing Project B
Where I saw it: Semper Depot, Vienna
Sum: Operatic lip-syncing, pristine white breasts, shag carpets and whirring fans, all in the most beautiful old stable (?) space imaginable, this fabulous site-specific experience sashayed away with the Venice Golden Lion Award earlier in the season. Superbly talented cast. Entertaining and engaging scores so well executed you can't complain it's too sexy to be art.
JILL SIGMAN/THINKDANCE: Rupture
Where I saw it: Danspace Project, New York
Sum: No personal bias (I was close to being in this piece), Rupture is an almost transcendent totalizing and ritualized space full of eggshells, video screens, ladders, and smart, smart thoughts. Sigman's red-frocked solos coexist in parallel but colliding worlds with the group movement scenarios of her extreme-bodied cast. The text is as lulling as the movement is jarring, although once the conceit unfolds and audience is invited to participate in the space my sense of philosophical provocation is over and I want to be alone so I can rewind to the beginning again.
ALAIN PLATEL with BENJAMIN VERDONCK+FUMIYO IKEDA: Nine Finger
Where I saw it: Vienna
Sum: So unique is the experience to say "I've never seen anything like it before" that it is possible for an enjoyment of new alienation to twitter alongside one's rage at the injustice of the scenarios presented. Based upon the semi-fictionalized narratives of child soldiers in Uganda, outstanding performers Verdonck and Ikeda embody characters that I would name A Child Dehumanizing, and A Woman: Lost Mother of the Imagination, respectively. One cannot forget the opening image of a childish Verdonck yelling, "FUTUUUURRRE!" before leaping headfirst into a cardboard box, or his later discombobulations and violations of himself and of the Ikeda girl figure in his midst. The feeling if raw, the feeling is forgiving, the feeling is lamenting, the image is of a tragic Caliban who is so deformed at just six years old. I walk outside and sign a petition.
LUCIANA ACHUGAR: Franny and Zooey in the Nothing Festival
Where I saw it: Dance Theater Workshop, New York
Sum: A pure disco show where only lights move (all the guns in DTW's array) begins this celebratory collage of formalized female bodies, cats on a screen, a vagina that crawls to recede into the horizon, and a glorious mass of nakedness dancing to a YouTube clip of Dora performing Chicken Noodle Soup. If Achugar's previous work philosophy has been seen as "dance is labor" then hand me the overalls because labor, it seems, is liberation.
SUSAN RETHORST in the Nothing Festival
Where I saw it: Dance Theatre Workshop, New York
Sum: What at first glance may seem like a Dogma 96 domestic drama (multiple generations of women peppered amidst Rethorst's home furniture with stern and contemplative gazes) becomes an idiosyncratic display of gesture and action/reaction dance-ping-pong between bodies. One performer traces the outline of another, posing, with her hand, while another assaults a friend with a pillow and then herself replaces the couch. The work is a lacing of unique character threads; a polysymphonic harmony of unique body voices; each dancer is dressed with such detailed dignity and determination that Rethorst's piece is both comic and empowering.
JOSH FOX & INTERNATIONAL WOW: You Belong To Me & Death of Nations Installment 5
Where I saw it: Performance Space 122, New York
JANEZ JANSA nee EMIL HRVATIL interviewing MEG STUART
Where I saw it: Podewil, Berlin
Ok, ok, #11:
JEN ROSENBLIT/BOTTOMHEAVY PRODUCTIONS with ADDYS GONZALEZ: That Sick Sound
Where I saw it: Judson Memorial Church, New York
Sum: Rosenblit is a fierce heart on the stage, and she and her dance partner Gonzalez develop a fierce vocabulary of gestures that speak of frustration, insistence, surrender, and the journey. Their relationship in the duet is not at first romantic or filial but somehow connected in resistance to the foreboding space around them. What comes as a natural result of having the dance and the fantastic live music (performed by Jules Gimbrone and band) be of equal emotional weight and resonance is that, to the dance-focused viewer, the power of the physical seems to concede to sonorous, but dramaturgically this balance of elements leaves an airiness that gives room for the viewer to feel too ... and for Rosenblit to emerge (we hope) with more dancing to come. A well-deserved standing ovation from the Judson crowd.
::EXTRAS::
I liked, but lots of people liked better:
IVANA MUELLER: While we were holding it together
Where I saw it: Vienna
Raved about, and I missed it:
JEREMY WADE
Where it was that I missed it: Joyce Soho, New York
It was good, very very good:
LUIS LARA MALVACIAS: There is no such thing
Where I saw it: Dance Theater Workshop, New York
JONATHAN BURROWS & MATTEO FARGION: Speaking Dance
Where I saw it: Vienna
CLARE BYRNE DANCE & HOT YOUNG PRIEST: Rounds / The First Last Dance, or, The Last First Dance, or, An Ordination
Where I saw it: Dance New Amsterdam, New York
CRISTINA MOURA: like an idiot
Where I saw it: Danspace Project, New York
THE FORSYTHE COMPANY: Three Atmospheric Studies
Where I saw it: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY: Three
Where I saw it: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
Sorry, I hated it, and I'm pretty good about appreciating most things for something:
CHRISTIAN RIZZO/L'ASSOCIATION FRAGILE: comme crane, comme culte
Where I saw it: Vienna
SIDI LARBI CHERKAOUI & TONEELHUIS: Myth
Where I saw it: Opera House, Vienna
MORGAN THORSON: Faker
Where I saw it: Performance Space 122
TINO SEHGAL: This Situation
Where I saw it: Sammlung Beggruen, Berlin
Sum: A curious happening involving synchronized walking and posing bodies, quotes from the best and worst of the 20th century, and the occasional unison phrase: "Welcome...to this situation".
SASA ASENTIC: My Private Biopolitics
Where I saw it: Podewil, Berlin
Sum: A brave, hyperintelligent, and endearing (if not seductive) young man delivers a lecture-demonstration problematizing the definitions of contemporary dance. Set includes laptop, academic research, vases, stick-on body fur, a shrine, audience participation, a couple dance sequences, and a significant amount of the performer's conviction and sweat.
SARAH MICHAELSON: Dogs
Where I saw it: Haus 1, Berlin
Sum: The most traditionally avant-garde thing I have seen since the documentary Ballet Russes. More balls-in-hand (and silken-night-gown-on-dagger) than tongue-in-cheek, this London/New York doyenne of dance-theatre delivers an evening's hallucination of razor sharp, repetitive movement sequences, subtle yet bizarre light projections, and fills the auditorium with pink-lit stage smoke to the point where theatre and audience sublimate.
CHRIS HARING & LIQUID LOFT: Art of Seduction Posing Project B
Where I saw it: Semper Depot, Vienna
Sum: Operatic lip-syncing, pristine white breasts, shag carpets and whirring fans, all in the most beautiful old stable (?) space imaginable, this fabulous site-specific experience sashayed away with the Venice Golden Lion Award earlier in the season. Superbly talented cast. Entertaining and engaging scores so well executed you can't complain it's too sexy to be art.
JILL SIGMAN/THINKDANCE: Rupture
Where I saw it: Danspace Project, New York
Sum: No personal bias (I was close to being in this piece), Rupture is an almost transcendent totalizing and ritualized space full of eggshells, video screens, ladders, and smart, smart thoughts. Sigman's red-frocked solos coexist in parallel but colliding worlds with the group movement scenarios of her extreme-bodied cast. The text is as lulling as the movement is jarring, although once the conceit unfolds and audience is invited to participate in the space my sense of philosophical provocation is over and I want to be alone so I can rewind to the beginning again.
ALAIN PLATEL with BENJAMIN VERDONCK+FUMIYO IKEDA: Nine Finger
Where I saw it: Vienna
Sum: So unique is the experience to say "I've never seen anything like it before" that it is possible for an enjoyment of new alienation to twitter alongside one's rage at the injustice of the scenarios presented. Based upon the semi-fictionalized narratives of child soldiers in Uganda, outstanding performers Verdonck and Ikeda embody characters that I would name A Child Dehumanizing, and A Woman: Lost Mother of the Imagination, respectively. One cannot forget the opening image of a childish Verdonck yelling, "FUTUUUURRRE!" before leaping headfirst into a cardboard box, or his later discombobulations and violations of himself and of the Ikeda girl figure in his midst. The feeling if raw, the feeling is forgiving, the feeling is lamenting, the image is of a tragic Caliban who is so deformed at just six years old. I walk outside and sign a petition.
LUCIANA ACHUGAR: Franny and Zooey in the Nothing Festival
Where I saw it: Dance Theater Workshop, New York
Sum: A pure disco show where only lights move (all the guns in DTW's array) begins this celebratory collage of formalized female bodies, cats on a screen, a vagina that crawls to recede into the horizon, and a glorious mass of nakedness dancing to a YouTube clip of Dora performing Chicken Noodle Soup. If Achugar's previous work philosophy has been seen as "dance is labor" then hand me the overalls because labor, it seems, is liberation.
SUSAN RETHORST in the Nothing Festival
Where I saw it: Dance Theatre Workshop, New York
Sum: What at first glance may seem like a Dogma 96 domestic drama (multiple generations of women peppered amidst Rethorst's home furniture with stern and contemplative gazes) becomes an idiosyncratic display of gesture and action/reaction dance-ping-pong between bodies. One performer traces the outline of another, posing, with her hand, while another assaults a friend with a pillow and then herself replaces the couch. The work is a lacing of unique character threads; a polysymphonic harmony of unique body voices; each dancer is dressed with such detailed dignity and determination that Rethorst's piece is both comic and empowering.
JOSH FOX & INTERNATIONAL WOW: You Belong To Me & Death of Nations Installment 5
Where I saw it: Performance Space 122, New York
JANEZ JANSA nee EMIL HRVATIL interviewing MEG STUART
Where I saw it: Podewil, Berlin
Ok, ok, #11:
JEN ROSENBLIT/BOTTOMHEAVY PRODUCTIONS with ADDYS GONZALEZ: That Sick Sound
Where I saw it: Judson Memorial Church, New York
Sum: Rosenblit is a fierce heart on the stage, and she and her dance partner Gonzalez develop a fierce vocabulary of gestures that speak of frustration, insistence, surrender, and the journey. Their relationship in the duet is not at first romantic or filial but somehow connected in resistance to the foreboding space around them. What comes as a natural result of having the dance and the fantastic live music (performed by Jules Gimbrone and band) be of equal emotional weight and resonance is that, to the dance-focused viewer, the power of the physical seems to concede to sonorous, but dramaturgically this balance of elements leaves an airiness that gives room for the viewer to feel too ... and for Rosenblit to emerge (we hope) with more dancing to come. A well-deserved standing ovation from the Judson crowd.
::EXTRAS::
I liked, but lots of people liked better:
IVANA MUELLER: While we were holding it together
Where I saw it: Vienna
Raved about, and I missed it:
JEREMY WADE
Where it was that I missed it: Joyce Soho, New York
It was good, very very good:
LUIS LARA MALVACIAS: There is no such thing
Where I saw it: Dance Theater Workshop, New York
JONATHAN BURROWS & MATTEO FARGION: Speaking Dance
Where I saw it: Vienna
CLARE BYRNE DANCE & HOT YOUNG PRIEST: Rounds / The First Last Dance, or, The Last First Dance, or, An Ordination
Where I saw it: Dance New Amsterdam, New York
CRISTINA MOURA: like an idiot
Where I saw it: Danspace Project, New York
THE FORSYTHE COMPANY: Three Atmospheric Studies
Where I saw it: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANY: Three
Where I saw it: Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
Sorry, I hated it, and I'm pretty good about appreciating most things for something:
CHRISTIAN RIZZO/L'ASSOCIATION FRAGILE: comme crane, comme culte
Where I saw it: Vienna
SIDI LARBI CHERKAOUI & TONEELHUIS: Myth
Where I saw it: Opera House, Vienna
MORGAN THORSON: Faker
Where I saw it: Performance Space 122
Sunday, December 02, 2007
i suppose this was something about art-making, and i don't know why i didn't publish it until now (addendum 2009)
"the art of confession and concealment within the group...to avoid what is unspoken and yet that Every Body knows"
From its inception and up to this point, I have been asking myself what "it" is. What is unspoken? What is the cause of so much torture? What is the motivation for our Gentle Cruelties?
Although it may seem deductively obvious, it is interesting to me that it was not obvious to me until now, that the Unspoken can as much be the rage against indifference, neglect, withholding, and absence, as it can be the Unspoken of "I love you." As JK deciphers for me at the bar last night, "Shut the fuck up" is code for "I know, me too."
This "gentle" realization (paraphrase: there are no epiphanies for those who are paying attention) comes in the nick of time to push this work forward. It has been uncomfortable in some ways to be working on a remake of a piece that was created in such an emotional environment of dependency, longing, and regret (yes, yes: post-break-up). Watching and working off the video of our one-night-only performance in May, I feel very disembodied from the rawness of myself and my creation. The hermitage period that was my summer in Europe (unplanned as such, and not without a fight) had positioned me far away from those previous desires for explosion.
Or so I thought. Creation is explosion. Explosion (expulsion) is creative. Big bangs. Aloud is allowed. 'Allowed aloud' is the driving force of moving and sounding the way I do, in life as well as in the condensation machine of the rehearsal studio. I ought to recognize, trust, and run with those scissors. There is still that taste of bitter mixed into my bowl of brussels sprouts, but there is no good reason (with two weeks to show) to deny the natural state of a once living thing.
From its inception and up to this point, I have been asking myself what "it" is. What is unspoken? What is the cause of so much torture? What is the motivation for our Gentle Cruelties?
Although it may seem deductively obvious, it is interesting to me that it was not obvious to me until now, that the Unspoken can as much be the rage against indifference, neglect, withholding, and absence, as it can be the Unspoken of "I love you." As JK deciphers for me at the bar last night, "Shut the fuck up" is code for "I know, me too."
This "gentle" realization (paraphrase: there are no epiphanies for those who are paying attention) comes in the nick of time to push this work forward. It has been uncomfortable in some ways to be working on a remake of a piece that was created in such an emotional environment of dependency, longing, and regret (yes, yes: post-break-up). Watching and working off the video of our one-night-only performance in May, I feel very disembodied from the rawness of myself and my creation. The hermitage period that was my summer in Europe (unplanned as such, and not without a fight) had positioned me far away from those previous desires for explosion.
Or so I thought. Creation is explosion. Explosion (expulsion) is creative. Big bangs. Aloud is allowed. 'Allowed aloud' is the driving force of moving and sounding the way I do, in life as well as in the condensation machine of the rehearsal studio. I ought to recognize, trust, and run with those scissors. There is still that taste of bitter mixed into my bowl of brussels sprouts, but there is no good reason (with two weeks to show) to deny the natural state of a once living thing.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Flowers fall from the sky
While I was crying about the moon, pre-post-prandial-menstrual dysphoric disorder, love, my fear of intimacy, my painful need for isolation which sabotages my absolute necessity for company, and missing missing missing my twin (complement/mate/match/bear/dog/fox/mouse) -- while this was happening and I was also lamenting the superfluous use of my time with pixelated screen-people constructed by actual writers (not mediocre try-hard-retrograde-teens like myself, at 25) -- I receive a halleluia "beep" from my phone inbox (almost full to capacity with old messages that record significant times that have long evaporated. Why do I keep them? I don't know. I don't find that much authenticity or pleasure in them now. But they are documents. They mark time.) A picture message! Who could this be? What could it be? Who is my redeemer at this critical moment of self-discovery, self-actualization through pain and longing?
CINGULAR: You recived a picture message your phone can't display. See it at the URL below-expires soon. Use code 5q342fn9 http://www.cingular.com/inbox.
It's so mysterious. It's so magical. It's from a (405) number. WHO? WHY?
It's a picture of a $20 bill. Andrew Jackson. What is this secret code? Why the note? What is this message? Realize: I am still hoping for some fortuitous message, some sign that I am loved, or that I matter, or that all my efforts are not just robotic attempts at validation and that really I can hawk off all my belongings and move to London as soon as my work here is done. Forget theory. Ditch grad school. That's for ambitious workaholics with no access to soul. I want soul. I'm gonna get me some soul with my $20 enigma.
I call the number.
Who the fuck is "Chip"?
CINGULAR: You recived a picture message your phone can't display. See it at the URL below-expires soon. Use code 5q342fn9 http://www.cingular.com/inbox.
It's so mysterious. It's so magical. It's from a (405) number. WHO? WHY?
It's a picture of a $20 bill. Andrew Jackson. What is this secret code? Why the note? What is this message? Realize: I am still hoping for some fortuitous message, some sign that I am loved, or that I matter, or that all my efforts are not just robotic attempts at validation and that really I can hawk off all my belongings and move to London as soon as my work here is done. Forget theory. Ditch grad school. That's for ambitious workaholics with no access to soul. I want soul. I'm gonna get me some soul with my $20 enigma.
I call the number.
Who the fuck is "Chip"?
"I am nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I am nostalgic for right now."
I can't stand it.
The feeling that tomorrow, You will disappear.
You will all disappear.
I can't stand it.
The feeling that all that has disappeared once was.
I can't stand it.
The feeling that these feelings that I could not once stand, are now understandable.
I float, knowing that the deeper longing exists, that simplicity was actually the answer, and that letting go was the solution, not the defeat.
I can't stand it -- that there are spaces for can't-standing and there are other spaces for standing, and that I know where I am in those places, but that I can't stand not knowing where I am until it's left. Maybe I chase and hurry along so that I can recognize .... something. I want it all to be over so that I can remember. Maybe Oliver Sacks has a phenomenon to name after me.
It's so odd, to feel the shadow like an impending doom and then to see the monster walk away. When does failure really start? Weren't you failing all along? Always making the wrong choices? These are not angst-filled regrets -- they are just a nod to the memory of dreams that were thankfully shattered, because the dreams were from Some Body else. Can I coin it "oppression by hope" without seeming a cynic?
Was it cheap? Was it the easy way out? Who is the overseer? Who is the standard of comparison? These are all just nothing questions.
The feeling that tomorrow, You will disappear.
You will all disappear.
I can't stand it.
The feeling that all that has disappeared once was.
I can't stand it.
The feeling that these feelings that I could not once stand, are now understandable.
I float, knowing that the deeper longing exists, that simplicity was actually the answer, and that letting go was the solution, not the defeat.
I can't stand it -- that there are spaces for can't-standing and there are other spaces for standing, and that I know where I am in those places, but that I can't stand not knowing where I am until it's left. Maybe I chase and hurry along so that I can recognize .... something. I want it all to be over so that I can remember. Maybe Oliver Sacks has a phenomenon to name after me.
It's so odd, to feel the shadow like an impending doom and then to see the monster walk away. When does failure really start? Weren't you failing all along? Always making the wrong choices? These are not angst-filled regrets -- they are just a nod to the memory of dreams that were thankfully shattered, because the dreams were from Some Body else. Can I coin it "oppression by hope" without seeming a cynic?
Was it cheap? Was it the easy way out? Who is the overseer? Who is the standard of comparison? These are all just nothing questions.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Letter to Sminz
Just some thoughts as they come to me standing on my balcony blowing smoke in salute to your graceful and oafish presence missed --
Who are the "others" that I presume will judge me for feeling so perfectly comfortable and appropriate wearing eclectic colors, a bright blue hoodie, and boots made for the Appalachia, searching for your hand? Perhaps they are chefs and hostesses at fancy vegan restaurants -- perhaps, more likely, they are my fears.
The manic life I lead--I need--I bleed for--this seems like an ass laughing in the face of my happiness with you ("ridi" + "culo", English to Italian transliteration = "ass laughs"). I loved dressing up and dressing down with you by my side. I am waiting still for one day in coat and tails and silk dresses (oh, but which one of us shall wear the high heels?)
I am waiting already for Lego-man and Lego-woman body suits (perhaps both sitting in lifesize, cardboard port-a-potty toilets). There are many costumes I wish so much to share with you still.
I am missing you like a deck of cards misses its box; like a chopstick misses its twin; like a pot of boiling water misses its lid. No boil. Slow steam -- evaporate. Sense -- maybe no. Free - thanks to you.
Tonight I returned to the free performance at the Judson Church and it was great. Full of performers I know and like and strong, sensory, idea-fueled pieces. The last was a happening, really -- 20 or more people piling up cardboard boxes in the space, along the sides of the space, blocking the entrance/exit. My friend Tin from Singapore was there and we went out after for a Nutella crepe and love stories.
I smoked two cigarettes (=kissing you). I ate a bagel, plantain chips, a salad, a slice of pizza, ginger ale, an apple, half a mocha chocolate chip vegan cookie.
I found 2 "new" pins on my shelf.
I wore my black hat with 2 pins on it, not 1.
Who are the "others" that I presume will judge me for feeling so perfectly comfortable and appropriate wearing eclectic colors, a bright blue hoodie, and boots made for the Appalachia, searching for your hand? Perhaps they are chefs and hostesses at fancy vegan restaurants -- perhaps, more likely, they are my fears.
The manic life I lead--I need--I bleed for--this seems like an ass laughing in the face of my happiness with you ("ridi" + "culo", English to Italian transliteration = "ass laughs"). I loved dressing up and dressing down with you by my side. I am waiting still for one day in coat and tails and silk dresses (oh, but which one of us shall wear the high heels?)
I am waiting already for Lego-man and Lego-woman body suits (perhaps both sitting in lifesize, cardboard port-a-potty toilets). There are many costumes I wish so much to share with you still.
I am missing you like a deck of cards misses its box; like a chopstick misses its twin; like a pot of boiling water misses its lid. No boil. Slow steam -- evaporate. Sense -- maybe no. Free - thanks to you.
Tonight I returned to the free performance at the Judson Church and it was great. Full of performers I know and like and strong, sensory, idea-fueled pieces. The last was a happening, really -- 20 or more people piling up cardboard boxes in the space, along the sides of the space, blocking the entrance/exit. My friend Tin from Singapore was there and we went out after for a Nutella crepe and love stories.
I smoked two cigarettes (=kissing you). I ate a bagel, plantain chips, a salad, a slice of pizza, ginger ale, an apple, half a mocha chocolate chip vegan cookie.
I found 2 "new" pins on my shelf.
I wore my black hat with 2 pins on it, not 1.
HELLO MY NAME IS...
...under the watchful eyes
...enigma of the amygdala (AMGINE)
...SPUTNIK: The Invisible Face of Infinite Invitation: Magnificent Dream!
...Halibut Endofdays, vigorous upstream swimmer
...SPUTNIKERS: Flies both ways (also known as Man on Mars)
...PROFANE (it hurts your between the ears and armpits that I am true)
...EPIPHANY (the childish hide and seek with perfection which secludes itself in berry bushes)
...IMAGENA: Tetrapak Generation
****
P.S. the memo is that I've been drawing
...enigma of the amygdala (AMGINE)
...SPUTNIK: The Invisible Face of Infinite Invitation: Magnificent Dream!
...Halibut Endofdays, vigorous upstream swimmer
...SPUTNIKERS: Flies both ways (also known as Man on Mars)
...PROFANE (it hurts your between the ears and armpits that I am true)
...EPIPHANY (the childish hide and seek with perfection which secludes itself in berry bushes)
...IMAGENA: Tetrapak Generation
****
P.S. the memo is that I've been drawing
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