Playing Catch Up

Finally have a few spare moments to bring this up to date. Friday and Saturday were nuts, very nice to have a little down time yesterday and today.

Saw Camille Brown on Friday. If you ever the chance, run don't walk to see these folks dance, they put on a helluva show. The dancers are incredible; strong, loose, so full of energy you feel it crackling all over your skin as you watch them. A beautiful mix of contemporary dance flavored with African, jazz, swing. The dancers have strong character and personality that really comes across. They have a piano player and percussionist who add some very tasty music to the mix, and the dance and the music are (refreshingly) so integral to one another it's hard to say where one ends and the other begins. This is dance that seems almost as much fun to watch as to do. It's storytelling, oral history, music and movement all swirled together with artfulness, passion and vigor.

Saturday was a bizarre marathon. We hit class hard all morning, crammed lunch, and spent the afternoon on the Inside Out stage rehearsing. In the sun. Melting. We were all pretty wrecked by the end of it. And yet somehow, everyone pulled it out. I think it went very well, considering the short time frame in which we learned the material. Definitely quite a few places in the 4 pieces we performed where I was completely faking my way through, but hey, sometimes you just have to dive on in. Or as Dianne related in a story about one of her teachers telling her; "you better sell that shit!"

Yesterday, laundry. Hanging out with Emily and Lydia, go for pizza. Lydia and I took a long nap while Emily went to the show and visited the archives. So very nice to sleep and snuggle with the Lil' One, been missing that...

We are all excited to get on it with the folks who get in today; Harold Cromer and Ray Hesselink. I am kind of hoping maybe the pace will be a little easier than last week. I would love to have some time to get with someone and make sure I have the material we have been learning in Dianne's class. Really have it. She would say "have it in your pocket." Right now I am still just getting comfortable with weight changes and there are still big gaps. And as I may have mentioned, I am completely dotty about that choreography. If that's the only thing I retain material-wise, I'll be a happy guy.

So yeah, going into week 2 feeling pretty rejuvenated, although I still feel like I would benefit greatly from a night or two of 10 solid hours of sleep.

Smooch.