The moon does fall to earth; it just keeps missing the horizon.

[flexagon]

Today was all dramatic because I found out in the morning that STREB vs. Gravity (ahem, that link has a two-minute video; go watch it) was/is in Boston this weekend; then I found out that they were all sold out, and that this was the last stop for the tour. It would be hard for me to explain to you how much I wanted to see this -- but as an acrobatic mechanical engineer, I just did. After asking much advice, getting depressed, posting on ebay, craiglist etc, I went to ICA Boston with a sign saying "Need 1 Ticket" in 72-point font. I was way early, and in fact wandered around a lot of the exhibits without paying while waiting for ticketholders to show up. One of the ushers saw my sign and said "aww! You always see people do that for Red Sox games. It's great to think that anyone would do that for Streb" -- and that was funny to me because I would never do such a dorky thing for a baseball game.

She told me to go down to the lobby since that's where anyone with too many tickets would be trying to return them. I did, and in about 2 minutes I had bought a ticket and a guy begged my sign off me so he could use it next. Squee! I was so giddy! I had really been expecting to stand there for half an hour and go home in tears.

As for Streb vs. gravity? Gravity won, but barely. Also, whoever said that violence is not the answer forgot to talk to Elizabeth Streb, whose dancers' basic move is to land flat on the floor with an audible smack. It sometimes got a little graceless.

I liked some pieces better than others -- strongly disliked one where two people were tied together and just jerked each other around, loved the giant wheel, loved the human tetherball thing, loved the one where they did the entire piece lying on the floor but projected a view from an overhead camera so that they were upright on the projected view. They got to do a lot of silly, funny, wonderful things with that one. As for the giant wheel, when they lowered the screen to reveal it, they also lifted the curtains on the glass back of the theater, and did that final act with the lights of Boston blazing in the background. Gorgeous.

Oh, and the final thing I noticed is how much more I appreciate basing these days; they do an act with people on a giant half-wheel that's rocking back and forth, and much of my attention was on the serious, attentive girl who stayed inside the half-wheel controlling it for the entire act. She was amazing and beautiful. Would I have known that before I knew what basing was? I'm still not entirely comfortable being the observer who's starting to have a clue, who even thinks occasionally about things like "quality of motion" that I still want to protest mean nothing to me.

Comments

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

i tried to compete with your two minutes tonight in handstands...no bueno!

i think i shouldn't try handstands and walking on my hands AFTER lifting hard.

[flexagon]

Heck no. I don't even do military presses in the gym anymore, because I'm doing handstands so much. Still, it's exciting to have gotten someone to try handstand holds! I will be trying to increase my own time this weekend.

[nahele-101.livejournal.com]

you've inspired me!

[nevers.livejournal.com]

aw, i'm so glad you were able to get a ticket!
streb definitely has no problem with gracelessness, and all the pratfalls really bothered me the first time i saw the company perform, although they've surprisingly grown on me a lot.

i feel pretty much the same about likes and dislikes in their rep (er, repertory :)).

the girl who's inside the wheel reminds me of charon in that piece. it's pretty fascinating. however, my catty side has to tell you that i really dislike her as a person, and that makes it hard for me to appreciate much about her.

[flexagon]

me too, me too. and, haha. my catty side just went and looked up the cast to see if i could match it up with anything your catty side has ever said. oddly, she only stood out to me in that one piece - in the others i would tend to notice either one of the smaller girls, or the one who was asian and smiled a lot (thus reminding me a lot of my dancing college friend yuying).

actually, watching streb i wanted to ask you why you have not been as drawn to streb as to lava. is it partly because streb seems to think of itself as dance (albeit extreme dance) and lava identifies as more acro/circus, or is it directly because of static trap, or other things?

i keep saying/thinking that i like things that take minimal equipment. then i see streb's giant wheel and want nothing more than to play inside it. i almost asked if i could. :b

[nevers.livejournal.com]

hehe, i don't think i ever bothered to say anything catty about her. she just seems so very PINCHED to me, and uptight, and straight, and a bit snobby, which i think comes from being uncomfortable with herself/her position in the company. she's very new in the company, which is probably why you didn't notice her anywhere else. i don't think she is in every piece yet. she's never doen anything to me, i just don't like her vibe and i guess i'm also jealous :).

the asian woman, christine, is the one who invited me to her birthday party. she's super nice and smart and i love her.

the reason i am not as drawn to streb! good question.

the main reason is that when i first saw them i thought "all they do is fall!" and i had no interest in that. i wanted to see more flying, less falling (when i mentioned to the company at the b-day party that my first reaction was "all they do is fall," their faces all fell, and i felt horrible... i would have thought they were aware of that and even embraced it...). it seemed too graceless and banging-around-ish.

as i said, i've warmed up to them a lot, but i still don't think that their movement would feel good on my body, which is a really important criteria for me. it's often not very human/organic. their technique (which doesn't always come through in their actual choreograhy) is based around a series of shapes and angles, and moving or rotating those shapes and angles through space. i think that's awesome but it's not how i want to use my body. i don't want that kind of strictness and tightness. (i think i would enjoy it as a form of training but i don't want it to be all i do).

also, the streb dancers are very much "action figures" or "action heros." they are often playful and funny but the movement is essentially about the movement, not about the relations between people. i prefer lava's approach (as a dancer/performer, not necessarily as a spectator), which gives much more weight to palpable warmth, trust, and personal relations.

i don't know elizabeth streb at all so i don't know what she's like as a choreographer and director, but she intimidates me, whereas sarah has always been very approachable and kind, so that's another reason. i have the impression that lava is much more holistic and nurturing of its members.

i also like that lava is all female. i like the queer vibe there. i like that it's the first place where i've felt a queeer identity and felt like being queer makes me fit in. i like working with women.

and finally, taking lots of classes is a prerequisite to becoming a member of either company, and the lava studio is a pleasing 20-minute walk from home whereas streb is a unpleasing subway ride of 45 minutes to an hour.

all that said, now that i am friends with or friendly with most of the streb dancers, it seems like being in that company would be a whole lot of fun, and if things weren't going so well with lava, i'd be signing up for their adult intensive week that's a precursor to upcoming auditions this spring.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

other things:
--i meant criterion, not criteria. embarassing.
--i feel like i should mention that elizabeth streb is queer and her choreography is always gender neutral and i admire these things a lot; it's not like lava is a queer space and streb is heteronormative. lava is just much more female.

[flexagon]

i thought streb was a little heteronormative. everything where people were partnered off for the whole piece (human tetherball on a pole, people tied together, men on bungee harnesses with women on the ground) involved 1 woman and 1 man (and that annoyed me). i guess it was kind of a reversal of the norm to have men flying and women basing in that bungee piece (the women sort of launched the men around, and the men even stood on the women), but i'd rather have seen the norm ignored entirely.

i don't like to read sexual ideologies into everything -- life is more than that -- but, like you, i do like to see partnered pieces that have equality between participants.

[flexagon]

As I said before in the now-deleted I'll-pick-this-up-later comment, thanks for the well thought out response.

the girl in the half wheel, hmm! in that piece a lot of what i liked was how absorbed she had to be. the audience could see her face but it was clear she was all about keeping the dancers above her safe, and not about performing, per se. i like seeing that, in anyone, when they're taken out of themselves and just doing something very absorbing but you get to watch them do it.

i'm amazed that the company doesn't know they give an "all they do is fall" impression. i didn't necessarily mind how it looked. or sometimes yes, but mostly i was just thinking it looked painful. not feeling good on the body... no... i didn't think much of their choreography looked pleasant to perform at all, except of course for the rest of it, which did! sigh.

i almost mentioned lava being all female in my list of possible reasons why you'd be more attracted to it, then thought "nah, let her say it herself if that's a factor". i still have a negative reaction to anyplace that keeps people out based on gender, which an all-female place necessarily does, but can understand the queer vibe thing. i like an all-mixed-up vibe, myself, and sort of wish everyone were 50/50 bisexual, but that's yet another story! i really want to see lava perform sometime. without my own perspective i feel unable to add much to the discussion, but knowing your perspective at least adds a little to the things i can think about. i do completely understand the difference between liking something as a spectator vs. as a performer.

i wanted to add: i'm starting to worry that i actually want to dance myself, and might be too afraid to admit it. i've taken some dance classes, and even performed a few times (in Cabaret, at a friend's wedding with the other bridesmaids, at my own wedding, figure skating) but i'm not like a lot of people who actually have talent, so i really flinch from saying i want to do a thing like that. that means being opened up to scrutiny about something (motion) that, so far, has always been a source of joy just for me. ick. why should i even think of doing that to myself?

[bluechromis.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you were able to get tix - I saw you called but didn't leave a msg, and I assumed your getting tix successfully was what that was all about.

I see what y'all are talking about in terms of the falling. It does look painful, especially if it's repetitive. Maybe it's just meant to shock...but for them to say they don't realize the impression they're giving is pretty weird.