I'm a freelance writer by day and a dancer/DJ by night. Soon I'll be a New Yorker, but I'm a Chicagoan at heart. This is my personal blog.
Posted 5 months ago
1 Notes
I rewatched “Singing in the Rain” over the holiday weekend and it remains one of my all time favorite movies. This may be my favorite dance number ever put to film. There are other big contenders, of course, but somehow this goofy little piece does something magical for me that few others do.
Posted 10 months ago
Performance from bluesShout 2012 with Angie Fadness. I’m very proud of what she and I made.
Posted 1 year ago
At its heart, tango is a simple dance. You walk. All the flicks, pivots and lunges are just dressing up two people walking together. The moments of flash are wonderful, exciting, but the dance is just as powerful in its nuances. Those are where you see the tension, the passion. The brush of fingers along a partner’s arm, one foot nudging a partner’s into a slow circle, the volumes spoken by a gaze.
Tango dancing begs for glamorous retro styling. Maybe it comes from the norms set by every famous photo of tangueros: man in a suit, woman in a tight dress, sleek hair and high heels. Maybe it’s the romanticism we overlay on both narratives; the dance of the Argentine prostitutes becomes the duet of polished sensuality and the decades of war, inequality and oppression become “the good old days.”
Maybe it’s deeper and more technical than the history. Maybe the nostalgia is part of any great tango music. Ticking, clock-like percussion marks the passage of time, both measures and years. The melodic lines ebb and flow, push and pull. Every rubato passage, one note robbing from the others, makes an aching hold tumble into a resolution. What if the note could have lasted just one more beat? What if? Isn’t that what we always ask of the past?
Tango is more than the sum of its parts. Even contemporary interpretations of the dance and music present something that looks to the past, that taps into a primal, simmering emotion that’s been kept locked away.
Posted 1 year ago
2 Notes
Only in the dance world is the question, “Do you shag?” a totally non-sexual and appropriate thing to ask. The craziest thing is that when I heard it asked at the bar last night, it took me two minutes to snicker at what a non-dancer would hear.
Posted 2 years ago
10 Notes
I have been having, as the saying goes, a terrible horrible no-good week at work. Fortunately, my wonderful and nerdy boyfriend works miracles in keeping me sane. He showed me this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZWaWrvJ7nA
I’ve watched it three times over the past 24 hours and it still makes me giggle. It also reminded me of a west coast swing clip to the same song. “Tik Tok” is such a great tune for west coast because, as my friend Jeffrey pointed out, it’s actually got some great rhythms to play with. I had a gloriously fun dance to it with a California friend during an event in Boston earlier this year. It reminded me that, despite all my work and stress about wanting to be a badass dancer, it’s okay to just cut a rug because it’s fucking fun.
The eventual goal is to be both badass and fun. I love the way Ms. Szekely follows this. She adds so much swagger and still is perfectly responsive. Bam.
Posted 2 years ago
I’ve been on the hunt for inspiration lately, in dance and in life at large. Dance-wise, everything about what the first brother throws down here is doing it for me. Fierce.
