Speaking of, Chuck took this pic during "Mt. Hope," when we improvised a very classy dinner event, followed by bowling and ice cream. It's not summer, per se, but it gets the mood.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
ENFJ, Etc.
Last Friday night, I tapped into white whine & spaghetti, cross-legged on the porch, with Maddy '09, Emma '10 and friend Charles. Somehow, Myers-Briggs came up, those personality tests, which I hadn't knownt to be a) so accurate or b) such fodder for hilarity. Charles' "type" matches that of (apparently) Mother Mary and St. Luke. Emma's matches Steve Urkle. Charles owns a large book called Please Understand Me that gives full explications of each of the four major types. The qualities are Extraversion v. Introversion, INtuiting v. Sensing, Thinking v. Feeling, and Judging v. Perceiving. Turns out I'm an ENFJ. In addition to the accuracy of these readings, they're actually tremendously helpful in muddling out some of the different characteristics and communication styles of my friends. I've become quite a pest: what's your Myers-Briggs type? Before you know it, I'll be accosting young ladies in bars and saying, "Hey, baby. What's your sign?" Thank goodness I'm too young to go to bars, other than dairy bars.
Speaking of, Chuck took this pic during "Mt. Hope," when we improvised a very classy dinner event, followed by bowling and ice cream. It's not summer, per se, but it gets the mood.
Speaking of, Chuck took this pic during "Mt. Hope," when we improvised a very classy dinner event, followed by bowling and ice cream. It's not summer, per se, but it gets the mood.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Teething
First night back in Williamstown (what a different kind of W-town is it now) was Friday. Drove all day to hit the coffeeshop 15 minutes before closing and dawdle through Paresky, griping about facilities. Can't be legally let into my room until Monday because of a snafu with paperwork. By snafu, I mean, facilities says: "What day do you start work?" and I answer honestly and my card can't be activated or key obtained til then. How unkept and unhoused do you want your tourguides to be?
On Night 1, though, at our shiny best, Mom and I hit MassMoCA for the Roomful of Teeth works-in-progress concert. RoT is phenomenal vocal ensemble founded and conducted by Brad Wells, who is on the Williams music department faculty. (Check them out, with full vids of last year's MassMoCA residency, here: www.roomfulofteeth.org). Briefly, the ensemble is composed of eight classically trained singers, 4 men, 4 women, who are introduced to global vocal styles (thus far, Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, and Inuit throat singing) and then work with a few young scruffy gracious composers -- all present at Friday's performance -- to create a variety of vocal pieces within the frame of 2-3 week residencies. This is a very dry way of saying, they will change the way you think about music and musical performance.
I imagine it's best to see them live: in a crowded, non-air conditioned warehouse performance space, in midsummer, in exhausted evening, they were riveting. The pure movement of the vocalization is pretty cool. Making the sounds requires full-body engagement, such that even the most sedate pieces really foregrounded breath, and each had a dramatic arc that was a pure product of sound. On top of which the compositions were across-the-board awesome (I am going to except one piece, a chant which the composer reassured the audience was "really happy," with a German text meaning "Man is God." The exclusively male cast and stomping + two-finger conducting style that accompanied this piece were unfortunately and, I pray, unintentionally, neo-Nazi). As a dancer, or perhaps more specifically, as someone who experiences music as a physical impulse, I was blown away by the choreographic possibility of the work, which I think is not incidental: among the composers is a group member who also improvises with NYU dance students. I spoke to another one of the composers after the show about a witty piece entitled "High Done No Why To" which left a series of picture stills (and movement, throws) in my head. The same guy put together the night's penultimate performance, a setting of a poem about Bear Bryant, football coach, who died 28 days into retirement. He'd suggested that he might - die - to fill his time (true story). It featured a discombobulating/awe-inspiring belt solo that wouldn't stop, with a really catchy hook: "There is no subtlety in death, it's like a hurricane, it's like Farrakhan..."
The brief Q&A that followed the show highlighted the playfulness of the group as a whole. They're occupying space in what I guess might be a new wave of collaborative performance. In the same way I hear tell or see evidence of groups like Satori (Williams/Yale alums), new theater house, Apogee, SITI Company, I'm witnessing the value of an artistry that is process and community-oriented, and that produces really exciting work because of it. Somehow the impressions I had of "the business" leaving NCSA were primarily commercial; I'm glad to be reworking that into a more human model of how you live, how above what you do, how informing what (is possible). And obviously, I'm still working on articulating this. The mulling is incidental: point is, a really exciting performance. I wanted to share it.
On Night 1, though, at our shiny best, Mom and I hit MassMoCA for the Roomful of Teeth works-in-progress concert. RoT is phenomenal vocal ensemble founded and conducted by Brad Wells, who is on the Williams music department faculty. (Check them out, with full vids of last year's MassMoCA residency, here: www.roomfulofteeth.org). Briefly, the ensemble is composed of eight classically trained singers, 4 men, 4 women, who are introduced to global vocal styles (thus far, Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, and Inuit throat singing) and then work with a few young scruffy gracious composers -- all present at Friday's performance -- to create a variety of vocal pieces within the frame of 2-3 week residencies. This is a very dry way of saying, they will change the way you think about music and musical performance.
I imagine it's best to see them live: in a crowded, non-air conditioned warehouse performance space, in midsummer, in exhausted evening, they were riveting. The pure movement of the vocalization is pretty cool. Making the sounds requires full-body engagement, such that even the most sedate pieces really foregrounded breath, and each had a dramatic arc that was a pure product of sound. On top of which the compositions were across-the-board awesome (I am going to except one piece, a chant which the composer reassured the audience was "really happy," with a German text meaning "Man is God." The exclusively male cast and stomping + two-finger conducting style that accompanied this piece were unfortunately and, I pray, unintentionally, neo-Nazi). As a dancer, or perhaps more specifically, as someone who experiences music as a physical impulse, I was blown away by the choreographic possibility of the work, which I think is not incidental: among the composers is a group member who also improvises with NYU dance students. I spoke to another one of the composers after the show about a witty piece entitled "High Done No Why To" which left a series of picture stills (and movement, throws) in my head. The same guy put together the night's penultimate performance, a setting of a poem about Bear Bryant, football coach, who died 28 days into retirement. He'd suggested that he might - die - to fill his time (true story). It featured a discombobulating/awe-inspiring belt solo that wouldn't stop, with a really catchy hook: "There is no subtlety in death, it's like a hurricane, it's like Farrakhan..."
The brief Q&A that followed the show highlighted the playfulness of the group as a whole. They're occupying space in what I guess might be a new wave of collaborative performance. In the same way I hear tell or see evidence of groups like Satori (Williams/Yale alums), new theater house, Apogee, SITI Company, I'm witnessing the value of an artistry that is process and community-oriented, and that produces really exciting work because of it. Somehow the impressions I had of "the business" leaving NCSA were primarily commercial; I'm glad to be reworking that into a more human model of how you live, how above what you do, how informing what (is possible). And obviously, I'm still working on articulating this. The mulling is incidental: point is, a really exciting performance. I wanted to share it.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Lemons and Lymes
One way life can hand you lemons is by giving you Lyme disease. In this situation, lemonade is inappropriate. Yesterday I was diagnosed with LD from a tick bite on my inner thigh. The ladies at the doctor's office were hugely intrigued by my "interesting rash!" In addition to the physician's assistant and nurse practitioner who were actually supposed to examine me, another nurse and a doctor came for the fun. I'm now on doxycyclin, which will alleviate the symptoms (muscle ache, headache, fever, fatigue) and also cause sun sensitivity. Ideally, you avoid the sun for three weeks. However, the next three weeks I'll be leading tours of Williams outdoors. Ergo the new maxim: when life gives you Lyme, buy a floppy hat.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wagon Summer
One for hopping on or off them. I'm not quite sure how I'll be using this blog, other than that I will. I'd like to start taking some pictures again, and I'm sure I will once I'm up in Maine, out in Portland, and otherwise bopping about Williamstown.
The summer schedule is full. Right now I'm at home. That's been full of unexpectedness, blessings mostly. Chelsea walked in all of a sudden and surprised me. I've seen good friends and been getting things done. I'm starting my summer reading projects, which tend generally towards theological study. I've begun Wilfred Cantwell Smith's The Meaning and End of Religion, my first serious book after the school year's end (the others were Jules Feiffer's autobio which I read to give myself a snarky but satisfying break, and his The Man in the Ceiling which again proves my point about great literature coming packed for kids). Anyway, the Smith book begins with a history of the word religio and is thus far pretty fascinating and intelligible. Eben and I are also reading N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, and I'm trying to keep up with him in Wendell Berry's Home Economics and a rereading of some Marilynne Robinson, always provocative and deeply moving.
Next week late I head back up to Williams to tourguide for three weeks. I'm living with good friends, a harp, a bunny, and a banjo (mine, restored, an 1890s Stewart that now out of Eben and Nathaniel's more competent hands will be free for my bungling - I can't wait). The plan is long days at work and no home assignments apart from a visa for France and what else I choose: more reading; some memorization of poems and scripture, to keep them indivisibly with me; writing poetry, finishing a children's book, working on a concept for a show; movies, long overdue, with various buds; working out to get ready for:
Apogee Arts in Maine! (More info about them here: ). Alison Chase, the founder (also of Pilobolus), has taken me on. I'll be dancing in a site-specific piece in a quarry (with a live steel band and giant tractor puppets), as well as living with Alison in a house on the coast and acting as her personal assistant. There will also be kayaks, a sauna, and several large trucks I'll need to learn stick shift to drive. I couldn't be more thrilled about the project, or the people I'll be working with -- it's a big show with company members, community members, and local farmers driving the tractors, all headed up by a very very nice dance-theater luminary. So I'll definitely be writing about my experience there.
Til that time, this blog may fill with ruminations or it may lie dormant. The last days of school and graduation are still keeping my thoughts, but I have to trouble through them in my own mind first.
The summer schedule is full. Right now I'm at home. That's been full of unexpectedness, blessings mostly. Chelsea walked in all of a sudden and surprised me. I've seen good friends and been getting things done. I'm starting my summer reading projects, which tend generally towards theological study. I've begun Wilfred Cantwell Smith's The Meaning and End of Religion, my first serious book after the school year's end (the others were Jules Feiffer's autobio which I read to give myself a snarky but satisfying break, and his The Man in the Ceiling which again proves my point about great literature coming packed for kids). Anyway, the Smith book begins with a history of the word religio and is thus far pretty fascinating and intelligible. Eben and I are also reading N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God, and I'm trying to keep up with him in Wendell Berry's Home Economics and a rereading of some Marilynne Robinson, always provocative and deeply moving.
Next week late I head back up to Williams to tourguide for three weeks. I'm living with good friends, a harp, a bunny, and a banjo (mine, restored, an 1890s Stewart that now out of Eben and Nathaniel's more competent hands will be free for my bungling - I can't wait). The plan is long days at work and no home assignments apart from a visa for France and what else I choose: more reading; some memorization of poems and scripture, to keep them indivisibly with me; writing poetry, finishing a children's book, working on a concept for a show; movies, long overdue, with various buds; working out to get ready for:
Apogee Arts in Maine! (More info about them here: ). Alison Chase, the founder (also of Pilobolus), has taken me on. I'll be dancing in a site-specific piece in a quarry (with a live steel band and giant tractor puppets), as well as living with Alison in a house on the coast and acting as her personal assistant. There will also be kayaks, a sauna, and several large trucks I'll need to learn stick shift to drive. I couldn't be more thrilled about the project, or the people I'll be working with -- it's a big show with company members, community members, and local farmers driving the tractors, all headed up by a very very nice dance-theater luminary. So I'll definitely be writing about my experience there.
Til that time, this blog may fill with ruminations or it may lie dormant. The last days of school and graduation are still keeping my thoughts, but I have to trouble through them in my own mind first.
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