It's been a few days since the show and I am so grateful for all who came and showed their support for dance!
I admit I haven't been blogging so much at the moment, I haven't been feeling like writing at all really.

These things happen. I want to formally thank the cast of Pretty Little Things for the pleasure and immense fun we have had while on this journey, and Melissa West-my friend and maker in dance. Much love to you.

talk soon, internets...
~M.E.

BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?!


Hee hee! I love this time-it's full of spazzy productivity for me. I am awaiting the arrival of my parents here in my little Bushwick abode, and I am so excited to see them! 
In the meantime there are techologies to wrangle and kitties to groom. 

Please check out the upcoming performances section of my website for full details about the show this Saturday! 

Hula Hoops, Apples, Lipsticks, questions and answers, 
DOGS AND CATS, LIVING TOGETHER...
MASS HYSTERIA!

You get the picture. 48 HOURS TO SHOWTIME PEOPLE!

I <3 production week. Perhaps it's the kid in me, but hot dog does everything feel kinda magical when you have a show.

The bags under your eyes from editing video until 1:30am
The crack in your foot from that move you keep rehearsing because you keep thinking "oh my goodness if I fall..."
The trips to the store for another prop you need...

but really! it's magical, I swear! I've uploaded some photos by the wonderful Adam Jason from our most recent rehearsals, feel free to browse and check out Adam's site as well! Now, I'm off to sleep...for about 10 minutes. That's showbiz, kids :)

I think that, perhaps, it's time for me to explore what I feel is the relationship of exuberance and dancing. 
I'm not sure what this actually means, as I muck about in some ideas that have come to me over the last few years of my studies. 

I made a twenty minute movie based on my desire to find dancing, find dancers, and find out if people are really still dancing in this modern life. I don't have the answers to these questions, but I do have more of a trajectory...right? Right.

This is one of those mornings I debate morning class. I have no idea how or really why it is even up for debate at the moment. But sometimes life gets in the way of our practice, our training. I recently dealt with a dropped metatarsal in my left foot that prevented me from participating in class, but I still went. I usually did the warm up, and some of the technique (what I could handle, anyway)
But I went. It gave me time to heal. I'm still healing, but I am in a more manageable place right now, in mind and body. So that means I skip class?!?!


Not really, a morning off it actually really necessary for my creative regrowth (also to my muscular regrowth. I am a sore lady dancer today) 
But with a morning off, I can take a little bit longer in my morning floor work at home, drink my coffee a little slower, update my blog a little more leisurely. It's quite nice to have a morning to oneself. 

I recommend it. However, tomorrow is back to the joy of class. 100%. Now pardon me while I go lift weights and sip coffee.

For this edition of my blog I'd like to walk you through my discovery of my tail bone using the ever present guide of the theme to Duck Tales. Please review if you are not intimate with the lyrics...

Okay got that? MIGHT SOLVE A MYSTERY OR REWRITE HISTORY: So here's the thing. It says might. MIGHT. This is not a guarantee. What I learned from Duck Tales is that they were curious and asked lots of really annoying questions. I have been a ill attending student of Barbara Mahler since 2008, and let me tell you-I ask her a ton of annoying questions. So, if you want to find your tale you have to be really really curious and totally believe that it's there. Kinda like how Dewey, Huey, & Louie knew that Uncle Scrooge had a big ole heart beneath his greedy exterior. 

This is what you need to solve the mystery, curiosity and belief.
 If you are a dancer, and you haven't found your tail, take heed! There is hope because you were totally built with a tail bone. You wouldn't be dancing without it! But to actually KNOW it and feel the suspension it can offer you and the balance and support of the down and out motions rather than the typifying over and out motions of the over trained american dancer....let me tell you-It changes your dance life.




You'll still be you, but better. More controlled, yet freer. Why is dance always so full of contradictions? I believe nothing beautiful is without contradiction, and each time I find one in dance, in the expression or the physical act, it gladdens my little dancer heart. The understanding you will have of your bodies history will expand as your spine lengthens

In class tonight, Gabriel Forestieri said, "We are all collections of every move we have ever made." 
How beautiful is that? In knowing more pointedly your past and using specific curiosity in the present you can kinda sorta maybe rewrite your body history...look I just like duck tales so stay with me here. :) 
(Also, Gabriel is teaching this month-Sundays at 6:15pm at Eden's Expressway. You should come!)

I'm pretty sure that racecars, lasers, and aeroplanes are all choreographic choices and mostly unrelated to your tail bone. But you never know...laser tails could be the next wave of human evolution.

Last night after Hee Ra's class at DNA, I got to check out the Performance Project, featuring work by Kendra Portier and Sasha Soreff (I only saw half the show because I was in class, so I'm not sure what other choreographers performed last night)

It was really great on a personal note to see two of my Hunter classmates Rachel Goldstein and Andrea Cassidy performing in Portiers work again. Rachel, Andrea, and I had the pleasure of dancing for Kendra this past academic year at Hunter College as part of the department repertory, sponsored by the Harkness in Dance Residency program. 

You can check out KP's work HERE. In fact, you really should check it out. Like now. 

The work I saw last night was all Kendra-she has such a distinct style, but it allows each dancer to really shine through as well. The atmospheric sounds and beats made me think I had happened upon this band of serious women who had tasks at hand-serious sensual tasks that were physically necessary to their lives. This is essential Kendra. Having been in her work, and having seen her previous work with Launch Movement Experiment, I can see the work oriented sincerity and the playfulness that exist in her motifs. I recommend you check out the performance project, which runs tonight and tomorrow at DNA.

SOOOO, today it's FESTIVAL!!!

This means I get to go around the corner from my house and take class in my neighborhood bar. That's right, it's bar(re) HOW COOL IS THAT?! 

I'll be all warmed up from the Contact Jam at Eden's Expressway  beginning at 1pm. I love my dancing life.

Have a super saturday peeps.

xo
m.e.

Last night Melissa West and I orchestrated a shadow movie that will be featured during the Lovers Waltz section of her upcoming work "Pretty Little Things" 

If you have NO idea what I'm talking about, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? June 18th, Melissa West is presenting her first independent show and I am the guest artist on the bill-presenting When Was the Last Time you Danced? The dance solo, not the movie. OK, so some of the movie will be in the solo, but that is ACES, BABY. I'm all over mixing the multi into the media, know what I'm sayin'?

So after a rehearsal filled with laughter and phrases like, "wait-how many steps is that REALLY?" We concluded and I was full of apple. I eat apples each rehearsal. YOU'LL HAVE TO COME TO FIND OUT WHY!!!

I returned home, printed and launched my studio campaign of Haircuts 4 Dancers. I am offering at home/studio/performance space services to dancers who are always on the GO. Literally. We do not sit still. Like ever. So for $40, I come to you and make you ready to give your all onstage and in life. Awesome, right? Contact me for an appointment!

I'm off to Ballet at Dance New Amsterdam with Hee Ra Yoo. I have taken her classes before, and I thought it was high time I got my butt over to some degages and tendus and quite lollygagging my adage. 

Here goes! Hope you have a fancy friday night, internet :)
~Mary Ellen

You should probably go.

We were sweaty in the warm and heavy city air, but we had a wonderful time with Irene's lovely presence and easy smile. I have never learned any Trisha Brown movement before today and it was challenging and very fun. I felt like I was learning a bit of my history this morning.

There is a tornado watch in NYC and New Jersey, I am at my computer diligently typing out my final edits to some applications. 
Hope the hail falls gently on your heads.

Til tomorrow,

~Mary Ellen