Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
“Waacking” is a dance style that emerged from the LGBTQ community in Los Angeles in the 1970s. It historically was danced to disco, while today it is often danced to house, and can be done to many genres of music. Waacking at first glance might remind the viewer of locking or vogue, but it has unique roots…
I had great time at the City Dance Spring 2016 Showcase last night at the Palace of Fine Arts. I saw some of my favorites dancers on stage, live for the first time, and got turned on to some new dancers I had never seen before. So of course, I fell into a YouTube hole…
A lot of diet and health tips focus on the things you should be doing to lose weight or be in better shape. Join a gym. Drink this breakfast shake every morning. Follow this G75-Z regime for 9 weeks. There's certainly good sense in a lot of that advice. But I also think it's possible…
I'm loving this solo jazz choreo by Angelique Larque, performed at Savoy Cup 2016 recently in Montpellier, France. Angelique's musicality, variety of movement, tonal changes, body control, and character are outstanding. And she perfectly embodies the song with her dance. I'm curious to know her dance background now!
Here’s a weird piece of art that I didn’t expect to encounter this weekend. I was visiting the new “Broad” contemporary art museum in Los Angeles when I came across this Andy Warhol piece on the third floor. Entitled Dance Diagram [3] [‘The Lindy Tuck-In Turn-Man’] (1962) this was part of a series of paintings Andy Warhol…
I have no idea who Daniil Nikulin is, but I’m already a huge fan. In this video Daniil performs some ridiculously creative, eccentric and breathtaking solo jazz at the Jazz Roots festival in Paris last weekend. Apparently he’s a dancer living in Moscow. I can’t even wrap my brain around all the different kinds of…
I'm starting to feel stronger doing the jazz splits, a foundational move both for vernacular jazz / tap and street dance. I've been able to do the drop part for awhile. But getting the mechanics of pulling myself up after the drop has bedeviled me until fairly recently. Here's a recent video of me practicing…
I've been thinking hard for the past month or so about this quote from the dance legend Martha Graham about staying true to your own personal voice in whatever you create. Blogger James Clear recounts a story about Agnes De Mille, another dance legend in her own right in the 1940s, who was confused and troubled…
About a six months ago, I went to a street dance performance and thought to myself, “I should do this.” It was called “Diggs Deeper,” a unique dance performance series that is now in several cities around the country. Six months later, I did it. Here’s how I got there. Diggs Deeper is a non-profit whose…
I love this video of a dance jam breaking out at the Bootlegger's Ball this Saturday that I participated in. The band is the "Bootlegger's All-stars" — a mash-up of some of our favorite swing musicians in San Francisco. They are tearing up the song "I've Found a New Baby" and us dancers are going…