PrazeitPoetry

Hot Rods and Poetry Contest at Auburn Good ol' Days

Just one of the many fine looking old rebuilt cars at the Auburn Good Ol' Days. I didn't get to attend as much as I wanted--have had a cold? virus? or whatever for the past three days and slept one day entire. Still one more day to go on the novel but Bob is done with the last section and now it's just my piddling along with cutting words. Bob came running down and asked "Where's the rest of it?" which made me happy, he could have been so bored he didn't want to see the end but I caught him reacting to the end. Best feedback ever. The poetry contest was fun to watch. According to the MC, it was quite tame compared to poetry slams. The town event was pretty cool -- two bands, dancing in the street according to the sign, hot dogs for sale several places, plus lots of vendors and the cars and more. Downtown Auburn is changed with the train station and had plenty of free parking near the events which helped.

Auburn Good 'ol Days

Went this morning to bring my chapbooks and anthologies to the book fair at the Auburn Good 'ol Days festival. This morning square dancers were practicing, the grills were firing up, veterans, dog training, and lots of vendor tents will set up. This afternoon and tomorrow there are readings and an open mic on both days. Looking forward to seeing more. I hope to get some attention for :

Beacons of Tomorrow : A collection of speculative fiction featuring:

"Onion Worlds" by Ray Veen, "The Ow Shop" by David Densley Thomas, "The Exchange Program" by Madeline Bay, "Race to the Summit" by Paul Lamb, Adam of Argotha by C.S. Larsen, my story "WARM, inc.", "Monkey Blood" by Terry Lindner, "The Stein Collection" by Kathryn Mattingly, "Dotting the i" by Gary Sleeth, "The Pit" by Eric Pinder, "Galen the Deathless" by Danielle Parker, "Time Off" by R. Gatwood, Custom Appraisal by Susan Mattinson, "Chalice of Evensade" by Erik Goodwyn, "Viper 3" by T. J. Starbuck, "Foliage" by F. R. Jameson, and "Deconstruction Fireflies" by Kristi Petersen and Nathan Schoonover

Almost SeaFair in Seattle

Last weekned we saw "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle. Awesome sets. It took me back to my first sight of New Orleans. The cast was equally awesome, performing an intense play with skill. It was my first time seeing it and Stanley and Blanche were memorable characters. The existence of drug abuse and insanity in society really takes an interesting turn depending on who is dealing with it. Also rather shocking was the use of "degenerate"; it hit me as a very old-fashioned and maybe even Southern term. Much fuel for thought in that play about human nature, much heavy emotion, too, but I can't say I necessarily enjoyed it.

A fun add-on to going was several of the SeaFair floats were parked outside the Opera House and several groups were practicing. We experienced more of SeaFair in preparation with the Blue Angels soaring over the West Seattle golf course. Lots of fun -- too bad I only played a 103.

Season's Greetings

 

Loss of my favorite prima ballerina and UW World Series

The photos in all the goodbye articles to Patricia Barker all tell of her lyrically beautiful dancing. She retired after many wonderful performances, many of which I attended. Yet one really needs to see a dancer in action to understand how great a dancer can be. Others do the movements, walk through the steps, do the 32 fouettes, but when Patricia Barker danced you forgot that there was a "dance" in the magic of watching her move, seamlessly and with great grace. She did for dance what writers are supposed to do for the reader--make people forget about everything but the character she portrayed.

Meanwhile, we've got our new catalog on the UW World Series at Meany Hall, lots of good performers coming.

Seattle Symphony Musically Speaking a great break

Today, we had tickets to Seattle Symphony's Musically Speaking series, one I have always enjoyed because you can get to town easily without excess traffic problems and the 2:00 start means you can dine in leisure than spend a peaceful heavenly hour or two listening to divine music.

Today, Asher Fisch conducted and provided commentary. He started out by making everyone laugh by explaining the various ways composers have dealt with executions and said it really shouldn't be something we all laughed at, which of course made everyone laugh again. His sweet rendition of Puccini's death of Tosca, followed by the orchestra adlibbing Jack the Ripper, followed by an explanation that the French made everything beautiful even guillotines, was followed by poor Egmont's execution, violins pleading for his life while the horns etc condemned him and a two note death leading into a triumphant spiritual release. Educational. His explanation of Goethe's work on Egmont fit well with what I decided the piece meant, long ago--mainly that after the long battle between melody and rhythm in the Fifth Symphony, these two elements come together triumphantly and sweetly in adagio between two.

Also seen were two pieces that could have learned Beethoven's lesson above, that a little melody really breaks up intellectual tedium however brilliantly and creatively displayed. The writer's equivalent of adding a little emotion into an intellectual debate. Beethoven's Triple Concerto featured three fine soloist, Asher Fisch on piano, Chee-Yun on violin, and Alisa Weilerstein playing a beautiful cello. This piece was followed by Stravinsky's symphony in three movements, a piece that is very modern and interesting. Overall, a lovely day.

Mad Forest, presented by the UW School of Drama

Wednesday, my husband and I attended a performance by the UW School of Drama of a play by Caryl Churchill, titled "Mad Forest". An excellent play that was superbly acted by the cast, all of which had a fairly strenous evening, many playing multiple characters. The play enacts events that occurred during the 1989 Romanian Revolution from the perspective of those that lived through the events and found their lives changed but also not changed. The theme related to the release of people from the fear they lived in during a dictatorship. The style of the play was intriguing to watch, it presented a series of dramatic moments, one after another, swapping in various story lines about a set of families joined by the love relationships of their children. It highlighted many of the racial and economic tensions that led up to the events and continued to a lesser degree afterward. The play ran from February 25-March 11. Bravo!

Chamber Dance Company at Meany Hall, UW, Seattle for three more nights

Tonight we saw a fantastic program by the Chamber Dance Company, a local modern dance company. They are performing another three nights and then again in October. The repetoire could rightly be called an introduction to a history of modern dance with pieces from 1936, 1953, 1962 and 1996.

The piece I enjoyed most was a reconstruction of Dore Hoyer's  "Affectos Humanos" set to music by Dimitri Wiatowitsch. Soloist's danced sketches on Vanity, Desire/Greed, Hate, Fear/Anxiety, and Love. The movements were dramatic, strong leg work, with much use and focus on the hands. It made for a very different look and feel to the dance that was almost Asian. The control required for the mostly slow piece showcased the dancer's abilities really well.

Center My Heart, choreographed by Doug Elkins opened the program with a Turkish slave girl look that allowed the fun of break dancing to play out to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Allah Hoo Allah Hoo". Colorful, rhythmic, the piece moved quickly and was fun to watch.

Tensile Involvement, nicknamed 'the Web', by Alvin Nikolais' choreography and music, was brilliantly staged and had the dancers working with huge wide lengths of ribbons. The effect was very dramatic, the dancing interesting but somewhat upstaged. Overall, quite a fun piece.

The last piece by Matha Graham titled "Chronicle" using excerpts "Steps in the Street" and "Prelude to Action" was wonderfully danced and could aptly be titled 1936. We saw the machine work of artists like Diego Riviera come to life in intense, rhythmic motion. The only problem with the piece was it was over far to quickly.

Ticket prices at $10 a piece made it a show not to be missed. 

Shen Wei is awesome dance company, still one more day at UW Meany Theater, Seattle

Shen Wei is an awesome dance company and still has one more performance at Meany Theater at the University of WA.

Dancer, choreographer Shen Wei is native born to China but living in the US when not traveling world wide. Trained in Chinese Opera from the age of 7, Shen Wei's dances are beautifully imaginative--eye candy for the soul.

We saw two performances tonight, one set to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" choreographed in 2003, features dancers in grey and white on a checkerboard dance floor swirled with cloud formations. I was amazed at the control the dancers showed in performing to this difficult piece of music. The ideas set off in my brain were fantastic--almost a statement on entropy, with dancers shuffling about like atoms bumping others off and yet, having their own life spin, almost like electrons or mini-whirl winds or flowing together like breezes. Fun.

Then we saw his earlier design, 2000, of "Foldings" set to music by John Taverner and Tibetan Buddhist chant, you enter a fantasy world, where red clad buddhist monks scurry up a mountain through fog and then magically turn into carp swimming in a pond and later anemones beneath the sea, but before long, two headed creatures arrive like Neptune on a snail, or old man mountains making love, and then a devilish star fish rolls past, and then the entire school of fish stare off toward where they can see out of the pond, looking longingly up and then evolve up and out.

It's a pricey  performance with tickets set at $42 each, but well worth seeing such a highly trained world class dance company. You rarely see dancers so able to articulate at every joint with strong gestures and move so seamlessly that you rarely question their ability to hold a stance or flip over. Bravo!

In a Q/A session following the performance, Shen Wei made a number of points. 1) He has an idea for a production and keeps tight control over what occurs from staging, costumes, choreography, music, even though he takes some input from dancers, etc. about their capabilities. He wants to see his vision come to life. 2) He believed it important to travel extensively and seek different ideas from nature and history and cultures world wide 3) His dancers are trained in his methods 4) He believes he's a different person since coming to the US, able to explore and learn much more extensively than he thought possible. He said in terms of dance, there was only a few tough rules in China, like having the males chest's bared during the dance--Folding was created for a Chinese dance company.

UW Dance Program Faculty Dance Concert

UW Dance Program Faculty Dance Concert

By: Sheri Fresonke Harper

Category: Opinion > Other

Read the article on Judy's Book.

Last night we attended the UW Faculty Dance Concert at the Meany Hall Studio theatre. The program provides a showcase for the faculty's choreographic skills as well as their students dance skills. It was definitely worth going, in fact, this is our second time going. This year, guest instructor Dominique Gabella choreographed a dance called "La Valse" to a piece by Sibelius, and also danced it with Betsy Cooper. Totally lovely, so much it brought tears to my eyes as it showed an elderly woman remember her youth. The other pieces were well done, too. "Parade" by Mark Haim was eerie at first and grew into a powerful statement when danced to "Don't Rain on my Parade". "No Man's Land" by Fritha Pengelly introduced me to the lovely music by PJ Harvey and neat lighting, and a changing dance landscape. "Fissures" by Jim Hansen was like the earth splitting up. "Reverb" by Jurg Koch a geometric piece where dancers plucked each other and revolved in time to Philip Glass. Neat all around. Great dancing.