90

These pics are from such an amazing shoot from 4 years ago and marked the first time that i ever worked with Pointe. Also this was a few months after i had fallen 25 feet from my rooftop. A fall that should have killed me but instead knocked in a couple loose bolts giving me a new attitude/motivation towards life because i should not have survived the fall so i was given a second chance.

The ballet is called 90, a part of other short ballets that i had made with Garen for a film shoot at City Ballet Studios in San Francisco shot by Dr. Bacon, marking our first ever collaboration. I remember going into the SFB studios to work with the dancers and how easy it was to work with them. They soaked in all of the info, asked questions and I set the ballet with ease. Within the 1st hour i had already choreographed, spaced and ran the 4min ballet which is kinda nuts now that i think about it. A pleasant lil surprise happened to me before the shoot where one of the dancers could not make it so Garen had me ask Muriel Maffre (whom was also in another section) to take her place so that i had an even cast of Six dancers. To my surprise she said "Yes". It was a very cool moment for me to be teaching such a mature artist and principle dancer of the San Francisco ballet a part that she would be performing in the back. She was so amazingly humble and a pleasure to work with. This was back when i was in a more classical state of mind in terms of movement and it was eye opening to watch such a mature artist take the very simple basic material and make it into all of her own and breath it new life. Ill never forgot that moment because it was so cool to me.

As i said earlier that this was our first ever collaboration with film maker Dr.Bacon and a couple months later I showed it to Danny Tidwell whom then introduced me to David Benaym who then asked if we wanted to be featured in a spread in Movmnt Magazine right beside Cedar Lake. This shoot in particular changed my life. All of a sudden i had a large body of work with such amazing dancers and come to find out a gift for choreography and bringing people into my world. I had no idea that a simple dance film project would have kick started my professional career as an artist and let me be able to work with the artist that i looked up to as a student and works be seen in the same programs/galas of other choreographers that i looked to and be featured on a blog that was on the national Iphone commercials. This is not gloating in anyway because I always question what the fuck im doing and if im any good at it or just lucky. But then luck is being ready and prepared for whatever situation comes your way so you have to keep pushing and striving for your goals. In hindsight, i never even entertained the ideas of dance films because i thought that they were whack. I guess because we never set out to make a dance films we ended up making something different which luckily was good because Im different......but good:)

Anywho. Ill shut the fuck up and let you enjoy the pics by the amazingly talented Quinn Wharton.

more later on.

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