My favorite solo that i have created this decade hands down belongs to Kendall Teague performing Paper Magic. His solo (3:58-4:26) incoperates every single element that i love about dance/movement. Most importantly for me the process was fun. We had a great time while making it! The transitions are clean the angles are askew. The movement is explosive and dynamic. The music with the dance just make sense. We give you level changes, strong technique and even skateboarding coordinations. Trust me its in there, but really subtle. Try and find where it is.
Finally found a video of William Forsythes ballet One Flat Thing Reproduced. Im posting another video of Forsythe talking about choreography and technology as a tool for preservation.
enjoy.
Take something away from this too. The man is brilliant.
Feeling pulled apart by horses is the final installment of Thom Yorke Tuesdays! I have posted this before but the bass line is soo funky that i had to close the year/decade off with this track.
Ever since my freshman year in college(2000) I have not jammed harder or strained harder trying to sing any other song aside from this track. Idieoteque might be one of Radioheads best songs ever simply because they decided to make a dance record and its fucking dope!
of course this is my opinion so if you disagree try going to someone else’s blog read they’re pick and piss off.
2009 is coming into the home stretch ya'll. Its been a great year i must say. I have been lucky enough to stay busy with projects ranging from concert, film, gala, installations, and even sketch comedy. I have been very fortunate to be able to work with some great artists of all genres. A big THANK YOU to all of collaborators. You know who "YOU" are!
I wanna send this off with a lil fun clip that Alex and I did in Studio G a while back. The piece is titled idig. idig is excess material that did not make it into Micro Machines and Dinosaurs because it would not have flowed with the rest of the material. I like to consider this clip a "Bside", also another fine example of me having too many artistic influences and River dance was one of them? Ultimately its about the art...... More to come next year via film, concert, web, installation, fashion, print and everywhere else we can squeeze ourselves into.
Everyone have a safe holiday season and a great New Year.
Best Hustle of the year was an obvious choice for me. Every Tuesday is Thom Yorke Tuesdays on my blog. Every Tuesday i have had a new track that he's released over the past 3 months. Thats a lot of music. I could not think of any other artist that have had turned out so much work in one year with touring, recording, performing and some leaking. Heres a break down of why Thom Yorke wins biggest Hustle of 09.
This year Mr.Thom Yorke has been a busy man. He and his band Radiohead had done a few shows in Latin America and in the UK. Later Yorke performs a solo set during the Latitude Music Festival last summer where he played songs from the Radiohead catalogue, The Eraser and a new soulful song called Present Tense. In between performing Yorke has pissed off the likes of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus telling them to not have such a huge "sense of entitlement." Next without fail Thom and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead the musical virtuoso/lead guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/resident composer at the BBC orchestra made a tribute song to the late UK war Veteran Harry Patch whom had passed earlier this year. (Patch was the oldest survivor in the UK from WW1). Jonny had composed the song using an all string Orchestra while Thom used the text from Patch during one of his interviews talking about the horror of wars. In true Radioehead fashion they recorded the track in a church. A couple weeks later the blogoshpere is lighting up with a secret leaked track from the band called These Are My Twisted Words. With no explanation where this song came from or what it was for, talks of new albums were all over the message boards. A theory that was quickly debunked by Yorke himself. (Later confirmed by Ed). With the rest of the band on hiatus Thom went on what I would call a "musical killing spree". Announcements that he had contributed a new track to the tween phenomenon New Moon of the Twilight saga had a lot of people questioning his musical integrity including myself. The song titled “Hearing Damage” is easily the best track on the album with a line up of Grizzly Bear, The Killers, Band of Skulls and tons more Indy acts. Thus no one being able to question how refined this mans taste is along with an exceptional vocal and musical talent.
Within the rest of "09" Yorke had released a vinly LP titled “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses”, sang during climate protest, re-mixing tracks for the hip-hop artists Doom and starting a new band with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nigel Godrich, the drummer from R.E.M. with the multi-instrumentalist from David Byrne.
I like to the think that Yorke is having a mid life crisis and trying to get out as much as possible. Never in my wildest dreams would i ever imagine a track of Twilight would become my favorite song of the year. Thom Yorke made pigs fly out of a cold hell and we thank him for it.
2009 marks an incredible year for me in terms of artistic revelations. 10 years in the making. Finally found my own voice and working style, which to me translates to honesty. Honesty as in not trying to be like anyone else but to delve into yourself and environment to find inspiration in between both worlds.
Working as an artists over the past few years I have not been so impressed or inspired by anyone since Alonzo King which was 8 years ago while I was still a student. Fast-forward 8 years later… I find Crystal Pite. The easiest way for me to sum the impact of her work on me would be the same comparison to hearing Jimi Hendrix play the guitar for the 1st time or see Micheal Jordan on the basketball court. "Game changers" i call them and I had that same sensation with her work. Pites usage of the classical vocab mixed with modern, isolations that one can easily see a Hip Hop suggestion mixed with a sense of humor makes her work stand out in a very over saturated pool of artists. Her work is able to cross boundaries with simplicity and ease while the work is actually very physically demanding. Everytime i show someone who has never seen work i see the same reaction everytime. Amazment. Pite is currently associate choreographer of Netherlands Dance Theatre and artistic Director of her own company Kidd Pivot where she dances as well. If you catch the oppertunity to see her work being performed i highly advise you to go and see it for yourself. Im sure the word Amazing might pop into your head.
Whoah we are heading into the end of our 1st decade of the 2000s. Scrazy!
Now that the year is closing to an end its always good to do a lil self reflection. Last year i was in the midst of a mental breakdown that i decided to blog about which can be found here. Not the best ideas tell what do you expect from someone having a mental collapse? This year is all good though. In a better place and figured my shit out.
This year im gonna do a "best of" in pop culture, art, music, dance, fashion and skateboarding. For the most part I will be the sole decider for the winners because its my blog and i can do whatever i want(which can be a problem) but certain categories i will be asking all of you out there for your opinions through my Facebook and Twitter. Ill take the votes and then post the winners.
I wanna start with the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker video competition. Hands down the best video on there is "Year of the Rat". My friend Sean Conroy is a playwright and actor not too mentiom the person who is responsible for the video. Please watch and vote for him bitches!! Trust me he will win and maybe youll see me in Aspen trying to sneak into his hotel:)
Etnies is re-releasing one of the best skate shoes of all time and my personal favorite shoe called the Etnies Sal Slim. The shoes are a new take on an old classic slimming down some of the bulk and giving the once double stiched sole a rubber side with tech innovation.
Personally im stoked on this shoe and will be eager to get me a pair of the black joints.
Not until my mid twenties did i discover that im one of two people in America who did not watch Sesame Street as a kid. Today i found this pic on Dlisted and found it to be a bit odd. As i said earlier im one of two people who did not grow up watching Sesame Street so i cant judge. Because i cant say anything about this pic i wanna ask......is this normal?
Mitie marks the 1st video that we shot using the Red Camera. The film was shot about a year ago in Dr. Bacons home studio with Garen dancing.
Make sure that you watch all the way to the end so that you can get a grasp of the genius that is Dr.Bacon. Garen is beautiful too but i dont need to point that out to anyone:)
This will be the last High quality dance video that will be seen on here by us for the rest of the year. Start tuning in to this blog in 2010. For starters we will be having new dance films screened in festivals in NYC and i will be collaborating with some new companies and artists setting my choreography on the concert stage using some dope multi-media and set designs.
take care everyone and hope that you enjoy Mietie.
I am back in the bay from the "ThanksGibbing" holiday season. Unfortunately my digital camera battery decided to die on me so i cant share pics of my trip from back east:( What i can do is share some insight of a new film that is out in selected theaters called AntiChrist. German director Lars Von Trier whom also directed Dancer in the Dark directed this new film starring Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsburg. Anyone whom is a fan of great directing, amazing performances and cinematography should watch this film. Antichrist from the opening Prologue captures your attention and does not let up. However.......the subject matter is highly disturbing. Disturbing as in FUCKED THE FUCKED UP!!! While my friends and i were watching the film my ass went to sleep during the middle of the film as defense mechanism. During another part of the film i had to walk out the theater because the scene was way more then i could handle. Im a visual person so any graphic scenes makes me feel like im going through the same thing even though it would be impossible for it to happen to me giving my anatomy but, none the less fucked up as hell. Im sure a lot of you are asking "why in the hell would i see this film if this fool went to sleep to protect himself and walked out of the theater?" The answer to that question would be the subject matter of the film is so interesting mixed with the dynamic acting and juicy plot that ends up being way more disturbing then one could ever imagine. Dont get me wrong, after i walked out i came back in after i tried dry heaving. After the film was over my friend and i were walking home and i had him feel me in the details that i missed while i sleeping and from that point i was able to sum up the actual point of the film. The following day i was telling another friend about the film with all of the new details for a good hour or so. She was enthralled by what i was telling her but still no way in hell would she see it. ( i think she saw a lil of herself in it:) here is a summary that she sent me via email on the film.
"You told a great story. That movie you watched was too damn deep... as I gathered from your description. Wanted to find out more and found this cool article since I refuse to watch it!"
On theme overall:
Antichrist pushes these questions even further by asking us to contemplate what it would mean to portray woman not as a Christ figure but as Eve, who in the Christian theological tradition has been represented as the personification of evil and bringer of death to the world.
spoiler alert: if you dont like watching people cut off theyre own va ja jays this film is not for you.
