June 4 2013

Don Juan in Tech Rehearsal February 2013. Photo: Manuel Rotenberg. Dancers: Joseph Hochschild & Stephanie Maiorano. In the central section, Don Juan's "ideal" dances in a couple of pas de deux before actually dancing with the Don.

Don Juan in Tech Rehearsal February 2013. Photo: Manuel Rotenberg. Dancers: Joseph Hochschild & Stephanie Maiorano. They are pretty much just music visualization in somewhat erotic poses. But still "elevated". I can't remember if I have ever used the term "music visualization" before. I think I have. It just means that the choreography "apes" the music. If the melody goes up, that dancers get higher spacialy. If it gets fast, so do the dancers. Sometimes people think that the closer you visualize the music, the better choreographer you are. This isn't true. Anyone who has ever had a music class can read a score and set dances note for note. The trick is to be sensitive to the music and use music visualization when it is effective.

Daily Stuff: Just a bit more chat about my Artistic Engagement Adventure. So after I left Vicki's studio, I headed over to the Museum of Contemporary Art, where they were having an artist lecture in the evening.

Always enjoy going down to La Jolla to walk around the cliffs. I was early so I spent half an hour vegging on a bench that had been graciously plunked down to face the Pacific Ocean. Yes, I know, Southern California life can be so difficult sometimes.

Anyhow, before the lecture I ran into Judy McDonald and her husband and we had a very nice chat about... arts engagement and my mission, which in the course of about 6 hours had brought me to 3 events.

I thought the speaker, Charles Ray, was somehow attached to the upcoming "Approximately Infinite Universe" exhibit and that he would be getting all science fiction-y on us. But he didn't. It was an interesting enough talk, but then I realized that he was the artist behind the recent international arts "scandal."

Scandal Link!

That is the Boy and Frog in the middle of the scandal. So then he talked a bit about that and I felt very "cosmopolitan" having seen something about it online a few days before. But I also felt a bit tired (having done an artist's "retreat", gallery visit, studio visit, nature walk, and artist lecture in one day). So the day was over, but I had the Adult Puppet cabaret to attend the next day!

For more info on the Museum of Contemporary Art click here