New joints/re-edits every Thursday until we travel to DC to work with Dr.Bacon again on some new material.
Hope that everyone enjoys the material. Everything that we have done thus far is quickly becoming old. Bacon and I are both maturing independently as artist and share a common vision. Once we start working together again we will be moving into new un explored directions.
Dance maker extraordinaire and father of contemporary dance Jiri Kylian has had a huge impact on the dance community and the world. His works can be seen in all major dance companies across the globe while his artistic home is with the Netherlands Dance Theatre where he was once director. Tracing back all of the choreographers/artists that he has influenced you can easily see that without Kylian you would not have Forsythe or King. No Kylian or Forsythe means half of the choreographers working in concert dance today’s work would look vastly different and not in a bad way. Kylian has opened up the doors of possibility for dancers and dance makers with his usage of classical vocab fused with modern/pedestrian movements along with his sense of high theatre.
I’m gonna stop rambling so you can watch for yourself.
A fine example of humility and that im still climbing that social ladder. I received this message in an email this morning concerning my involvement with helping bringing in new perspective art students.
"Thank you so much Brain. Sorry for the inconvenience. We sure appreciate you doing this for us".
Man redefined is a radical remix of an old classic monologue from the play A Rasin in The Sun. I was asked to choreograph a solo to the famous monologue by the Lorraine Hansbury Theatre and this time around I decided to not show the movement which is beautiful but instead let you listen to the music.
After the performance at the Ritz i had the pleasure of meeting Lorraines Hansburys sister whom i asked of she liked what i had done with the monologue. Her opinion was the one that mattered the most to me because shes so close to play and to my surprise she gave my rendition her blessing. She told me that she can feel the drama and liked the choices that i had made with the dance and the music. Highlight of my night. I have to post pics too of what she had on because it was something feirce!
This is dedicated to all you who came to the Gala or the other performances at the Community Music Center in San Francisco.
A special warm thanks to Robert Birks and Stanley Williams for taken a chance on me and of course the dancers Micheal and Beth for "killin that bitch!"
I’m posting another video of Cedar Lake (try and guess who I wanna work with) performing in an installation piece. Notice how the artists are performing on ground level challenging the viewer’s perspective of dance watching.
As a viewer we are used to been seated with the stage being elevated so that you are able to catch all of the action which makes perfect sense. However, if you are walking downtown and you see street performers doing there thing you will always have the crowd circle around them while they are break dancing or whatever magical act they are doing. Same difference in the Club applies. Here’s an example: Some fool is eye balling you from across the floor trying to see what you got, next thing you know homedog is following you into the bathroom which is creepy. After you let him know that you don’t get down like that you find out that he does not either and his weird ass was trying to battle you. Wanting nothing more then to get rid of this creepazoid because lets not forget that he did follow you into the bathroom you tell him that you are a choreographer who’s been working all day and tired. The only reason why you are even in there is because you are doing a favor for a friend. With that newfound knowledge "Dude" is asking all kinds of questions about his dancing now that he knows that you choreograph. "Wait, did you see me dancing?" "NO" "So... You like make dances and did not watch me dance?" "NO" "You choreograph and did not watch me dance? But you were looking my direction. Really, you did not watch me dance?" NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!..........And I digress.
What im getting at is having the artist perform on ground level is a very exciting thing. Maybe for some too exciting. Looking ahead too the end of the month I have a new 20 min piece titled Micro Machines and Dinosaurs that will be going up here in San Francisco. The new piece is gonna be on ground level and have 2 facings along with some multi-media and other surprises.
Pop Sensation Lady Gaga is set to team up with the world class Boloshoi Ballet in a new performance art piece that she will be featured in at the Los Angeles Museum of contemporary Art 30th anniversary November 14th. This is huge.
Pics of me in the studio and Micheal Montgomery dancing in "Man Redefined"
Hey.
Being ADHD and all everyone knows that I keep myself busy. With that said this weekend is the culmination of a lot of work.
For starters I have a silent involvement in a sketch comedy troupe called the S.H.I.T show that runs Friday and Saturday the rest of the month (started the 1st). Working with actors has been one of the best working experiences I have ever had. Not too mention I was laughing the entire time. When I did come up for air I would tell them "guys, im just a vessel” and we’d move on. Shout out to Ray and Evan for becoming the movement and surviving our “meeting” at the Pirate Ship☺
Another project that is going down this weekend is very special to me. I have had the privilege to get invited to set a piece for the Lorraine Hansbury foundation annual fundraising gala this year at the Ritz Carlton. For anyone who does not know Lorraine Hansbury is a very famous Afro-American playwright whom wrote A Raisin in The Sun, which my commission is based off of. The multi-talented Director of the Lorraine Hansbury Theatre Stanley Williams and I have had many discussions about my involvement with the theatre and how im supposed to help usher in a new audience because my work is "edgy" or "progressive". Not too big on those description of my work because that puts me out of the status quo. However I am very relieved to see an organization willing to take a chance and shake things up and do something new. I was telling Stanley that for this piece I want to have the monologue from A Raisin in The Sun be read by an actor much like spoken word. Within the context of the monologue that I have been working off of with my dancer and getting back ground insight into the minds of the characters from Stanley I noticed that having just text alone would not be enough to suffice this project. Needed to do something more so I told Stanley that I envision base, percussions and cello sneaking in and out of the background. Comparable to Mingus or cars been stuck in traffic jam blarring their horns. Only after I had completed the choreographic end with my dancer Michael Montgomery did I get in contact with Mr. David Molina a freelance music producer whom just got back from a project at Yale. Molina, Stanley and I spoke about what I had in mind for the dance so that musically speaking I will be able to set up the right tone and atmosphere for the piece to exist. We planned to meet later the following week in his studio to knock out the recording process. Originally a female actress read the monologue but it did not match what I was going for. I had Stanly read the whole entire rehearsal process and settled my movement in his deep baritone voice. Made sense to use him for the recording too. At the studio I had Stanley read a few times with some voice inflections with certain words to give it a lil more punch. I even got to do some beat boxing (my strange breath heavy attempts) and screaming falsetto that will sneak in and out the music. I’m glad that I have the trust from the director for full artistic range because I had him doing some funny lil things:) Today I looked online and the Gala is completely sold out. I will have the honor of having the opportunity to show the old mayor of SF Willie Brown and the current mayor Gavin Newsome my work and that’s pretty dope. The same night I have the same solo being performed in a different venue with other dancers/choreographers from the SF bay area. The only difference is that im having female dance the part that was originally choreographed for a man. Everyone who could not make it to the gala will have the chance to see the same piece danced and I suggest that you all go because im very proud of the work.
The end of the month I will be dancing in my 1st 20minute joint titled "MicroMachines and Dinosaurs" more on that later along with some other surprises that will be traveling me and Alex Jenkins to the east coast. All I will say about that is that it’s "NUTTY".
