Random Thoughts on My Fiance's Birthday

It's interesting how birthdays become less of a thing as you get older. I remember birthdays as a kid: the fight for parties, the clamoring for the right present, cake, ice cream, hoping someone will sing to you. I forgot my birthday was coming until a couple of days before, and now John's is here and he's at work, editing. He wants a quiet night at home; I feel for him.

He brought me flowers yesterday; beautiful, colorful Gerbera daisies. I should have been bringing him flowers and instead, he walked into the kitchen while I was making dinner and handed me this gigantic bouquet. I wish I could have fresh flowers in my house all the time. They are sitting on the long black table in the front window so everyone walking by can see them. They're better than plants because you don't have to keep them alive. I have an absolute brown thumb. I kill cacti. I have one Christmas cactus that's been alive for 12 years and everything else I've ever tried to grow has died a miserable death; committed floral suicide more like. Cut flowers though, they stay beautiful as long as they can, then you replace them.

So, I've been tracking the path of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which may become a hurricane by the end of the day. Thank god it's bypassing the gulf for now, but it looks like it's crashing into Miami or thereabouts. I"m so glad I'm not going to be down there for a while - I'd like to let all of the hurricanes get it out of their system before I have to spend any time in that toxic city. I hope their recovered from the predicted barrage before I start on "Samson et Dalila."

Speaking of forces of nature, I smacked our cat, Stella, today. I'm not usually corporal in punishing my cats, but she's been so vile towards Lucius lately, sneaking up on him, winding up her butt, then leaping out onto his back as he walks away. She's like a miniature Orka whale, gliding through the house, waiting to dive down on her prey, and poor Lucius runs hissing into his room every time. I want him to feel comfortable in this entire house, but she's making it very difficult. She hides behind doors and on the other side of the couch, just waiting for him to let his guard down. Aaargh, they're like little kids; the only one who's remotely well adjusted is Monty, who spends his whole day grooming his paws and sleeping.

Wish I could do that with my day.

Celebrating Dance

So it's done. My first time back on stage in over a year; the first time professionally presenting work of my own (that isn't in an opera) in three years. It's hard to take that first leap, but it felt good afterwards.

Celebrate Dance is an odd venue to present work no matter how experienced and easy going you are about performing and watching your work performed. It's loud and chaotic and the backstage area is small and filled with kids running back and forth and a backstage crew that doesn't exactly know what's going on. We had a short tech rehearsal the other day and I was still being asked questions seconds before I went on stage about whether the music or the lights come first. The stage is dirty from all of those feet tramping across it, and my spike marks were hopelessly gone by the time I got out there with my chair, but being on stage is being on stage; once you're out there it doesn't matter where you are: the adrenalin is just as high, the lights are just as blinding, and the applause feels just as good.

I stood in the wings during my duet and watched my girls amp up the energy as the piece went on. I had no idea that one of my dancers had given the other a bloody nose at the very top of the piece. They covered it well, and I was smiling by the end. I'm not sure how my piece went other than the fact that people laughed at the beginning and clapped at the end. Matt, the man doing the cameo appearance as my father, sat in a chair and read his newspaper as I danced around him, and disappeared at exactly the right time, and I crawled into the chair and feigned sleep to make the end of the piece.

The one snafu (besides the unfortunate bloody nose) was at the end of my solo when I finished and was still in silence and the lights were supposed to come down and they didn't. They stayed hot and hopelessly bright and I opened my eyes back up and realized that they weren't coming down. I made a split executive decision to stand and bow and bring out my dancers, and there we go. The lights started to come down as I stood up and popped right back up to the bow lights. No harm no foul. Our applause was terrific. It was all I needed at the end of the day.

Yesterday I got word that I could get space at the Arts and Entertainment Center to do my concert in December. Finally, stuff is beginning to happen in the direction of my own work.

Now I have time and room in my brain for wedding work.

Life Here, Life There...

The picture is of my two beautiful dancers, Kim and Molly, in a pose from the duet I'm premiering at Celebrate Dance on Sunday afternoon. The piece moved, as a choreographer, relatively quickly as soon as I realized what it was actually about. I went into the studio thinking I was making a piece about the culture of jealousy in which women are raised. I walked out realizing that I was making a piece about the relationship between me and my brother. Our minds work in strange ways; sometimes it takes moving around the space to understand what's going on inside of them. Kinesthetic revelation I guess.

The solo I'm performing is about a father/daughter relationship. I'm really into this study of familial politics and chemistry right now. Perhaps it's the time I've been away from my family. Perhaps it's this idea of starting a family of my own. I don't know, but it's permeating everything I do, everything I write. I can't seem to get away from it, even when I try.

I think it's also why I'm so frustrated with my seeming inability to find a performance space for the winter. I either get shot down or no one calls back at all. The more I work, the more I have to say, and now I feel like I have no venue in which to do it. I'm a bit shocked at myself that the urge to make my own art is so unbelievably strong. There was always a part of me who thought that I would be perfectly fine with being the assistant the rest of my life. I'm fairly positive that isn't the case now.

On the other side of the world, the Lebanese are fighting to keep their families together as they begin to rebuild, as they begin to try and understand what's happened to their lives. My brother sent a link to a series of interviews of people living in al-Khiyam, Lebanon, done by the BBC. Everyone feels differently about Hezbollah, about what's happening in their country, about Israel, but the same thing rings through for all of them: they want their families safe and their lives to be what they were. An indicative quote:

She insists she is happy, "because what they destroy we can rebuild, unlike if a friend or a relative, a father or a child, is killed".

She's lucky. We're all lucky if our friends and family stay safe and close. I can't imagine being in a place like so many Middle Eastern countries, where wondering if your loved ones are safe is a daily (hourly) concern; where you never know when you wake up if one of them will be gone forever.

Finally a Bit of Break

Both pieces are finished, the Playhouse wrapped up at the end of the week, and I am finally enjoying a week of less responsibility and running around.

I actually took time with John today to walk down to the Farmer's Market in Hillcrest, to clean house, to brush my cat and make up a menu of meals for the week. It's the little things I take for granted when I get so busy I can barely see straight. I was planning on peacefully sleeping in, but someone has recently acquired a couple of yappy dogs in our neighborhood, and they started their racket at 7:30 and continued for several hours. Why people want those noisy dogs around baffles me to no end.

My one career frustration right now is trying to find space so I can actually do a winter show. Nobody seems to want to call me back; it's an epidemic. Everyone keeps asking if my show is happening and I can't say yes until I know that I have a place to do it. I'm hoping, with a little extra time this week, that I can hit this a little harder and nail down a place to go with my time.

In current events, I'm watching the news right now and noticing that Ford is now making cars that are specially created for obese people. I'm not sure why this puts such a sour taste in my mouth, but it angers me that our society just seems to accept this lifestyle and diet that continually makes us unhealthier and unhealthier. Instead we say, "It's fine; we'll just make bigger car seats." How is that a solution, this perpetuation?

Lucius is next to me, fast asleep. I watched the Women's Gymnastics National Championship tonight without working at the same time...as much as the news and the world and the people around me can make me nuts, my life in and of itself is pretty good.

Roll Out The Barrel

I've decided that the Polka is the great equalizer. Everyone can do it, no one gets left out, and everyone ends up with a huge grin on their face by the time the music winds down. I'm having a bunch of my students at the Playhouse do a little polka pass during their showing on Thursday, and even the ones who have negligable coordination are bouncing racously across the stage in grand gestures and toothy smiles.

I've found this polka phenomenon to hold true in every theatrical forum I've yet encountered. It was, in fact, the first thing I ever choreographed for opera. I was so incredibly green, had no idea how opera worked, walked in the door and said (to all of these fairly well respected singers in their high heels and sports coats), "Okay, everybody up! We're going to Polka!" They all looked at me like I was out of my gourd . . . probably a pretty astute observation, but I pulled them out of their chairs and got them all doing "step, hop, step, step" in time and eventually they were doing the exact thing my students are doing: asking for copies of the polka music, wearing themselves out dancing, falling down with laughter.

The great thing from a theatrical choreographer's standpoint is that the basic polka step works well for a variety of peasant dances that rear their ugly head in both opera and theater. Once the actor/singer has mastered the basics, any small addition is easy to accomplish.

And any sense of kinesthetic accomplishment among my students and singing actors makes my heart swell.

On Location Once Again

The following are a few random shots from our weekend of shooting with UCSD-TV and San Diego Dance Theater. As always, it's been a joyful experience working with my fiance, and the great people he always seems to have on his team. This is why I choose to work on these sets for free, touching up people's makeup, bringing towels and water, and generally keeping the continuity of billiard balls, chair placement and wayward hoodies straight. Soon I will be making my own video short, so any time I can spend around this equipment is valuable.

The first pic is of the dancers making their way down a hallway at the San Dieguito Academy. It was so bright and sunny that day that their colors popped beautifully. That's Veronica Martin-Lamm leading the pack in red, with Victor Alonso, Grace Jun and John Diaz following right behind.



This shot is just a couple of hours ago at the San Dieguito Boys and Girls Club. Jean is taking Grace and Amir through the paces of their duet as Matt watches the angle through his camera. They were huge troopers today in a relatively warm environment. Keeping the sweat to a minimum was a real challenge.



Dr. James Ellzy leads the pack down the hallway during an actual take of the first pic. Brad Olander is led backwards, steadicam in hand. I had finally positioned myself in the right spot so that I didn't have to scramble away as they all came barreling towards me.



Peter Kreklow, our D.P. watches the dancers through the monitor down the opposite hallway, to be as far out of the camera's reach as possible.



No, John and I are not in therapy. That's the two of us after a long day of shooting on location at the San Dieguito Academy. Me being the photographer, I think that may be one of the only photos of me on set.

Why It's Better To Work At Home...

So the recent events have not so much rendered me fearful of flying but prematurely exhausted at the thought of six hours in an arid cabin without water, book or laptop. So many have said that the days of carry-on luggage are coming to an end, and I just keep thinking to myself that, no matter how much we take away, if someone really wants to take down a plane, they will figure out a way.

These flutterings about airlines now charging for water and kids having to board the plane in the UK without the safety of their favorite teddy-bear in hand seem relatively inhuman to me, despite the fact that I understand these huge reactions to try and make travel safe.

Travel has never been safe. There is always a bit of danger in leaving your roots and home and going to places unknown. It seems that terrorists are trying very hard to kill my wanderlust; they have not yet succeeded.

In a completely unrelated realm, I am happily (and busily) at work in the town where I live for the first time in a year. I am just finishing up the La Jolla Playhouse Conservatory and overlapping a bit by helping out my fiance as he shoots a dance film in conjunction with San Diego Dance Theater. The film is about AIDS awareness and is directed towards teeneagers. I am only a P.A., but pleased as punch to have very little responsibility on this project seeing as I have so many other projects going up that require me to be somehow in charge.

This was the first dance-for-camera that many of these dancers (including Jean Isaacs) have done. They were agog at the catered lunch and craft services set up by the front door. I forgot how amazed we all were during "Soul Of Saturday Night" when we first walked onto the set. Dancers aren't used to such thoughtful treatment. We really do get kicked around quite a bit. Perhaps this is why my interests are turning elsewhere; I'm sick of getting no respect for what I do.

Today I got respect solely for touching up makeup on the dancers. I love good working environments. They are truly few and far between.

Elegy

John was filming at La Jolla Chamber Society's Sumerfest tonight, so I got to go and see their "Modern Composers" concert at the North Park Theater tonight. The whole concert was a series of Asian and Asian-inspired pieces: Bright Sheng, Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, and an incredible piece by Tan Dun entitled "Elegy: Snow in June."

Like last year, when I had the opportunity to perform at Summerfest with Allyson Green during "Dancing to Beethoven," Allyson was back to put a piece of dance to one of Summerfest's concerts. This year she's doing it twice, and this was the first, swirling dancers in white, Steve Schick and his boys banging away at an incredible percussion set up, and Felix Fan, the virtuosic cellist, sitting in the middle of it all, exuding genius in all directions.

The piece was originally about an ancient Chinese execution that shouldn't have happened, a woman who was killed despite her innocence. After the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Tan Dun dedicated the piece to the students who died there, and Allyson and the musicians dedicated this performance to all victims of violence the world over.

The piece was all white, ending in all red, with video projection of lines of Chinese names filing past at different speeds. It was lovely and arresting and a gorgeous ending to a concert of strong work.

I love seeing good theater.

Empathy

I have a lot of trouble dealing with other people's pain. The reasons behind this have changed over the years I think; I've become more sensitive to the fact that other people hurt. I can't put my finger on when the change happened, but my responses to others in crisis have become harder for me to rein in or deal with. I sometimes feel it is working opposite of how it should; my skin should harden as I grow older, but in many ways I feel thinner on the outside, more susceptible to sympathies, to breaking down myself. Perhaps it's my own slow healing.

I think I had a much harder childhood than I ever let myself know or imagine. I talk to people about my experiences or see others going through what I dealt with and I realize that I was dealing with more than any teenage girl should have to take on. At the time I wanted everyone to hurt along with me; I wanted everyone to experience the same kind of pain so we could all be in some sort of club together; maybe I thought it was status quo. Maybe somewhere inside I realized my need to cry and contort and fall on the floor in a heap but couldn't break through the decorum of my psyche unless I took others down with me.

As I got older I adopted this crazy, "Get Over It!" attitude that inflitrated my relationships with everyone. I couldn't stand to be around people who wore their hearts on their sleeve, and felt that people who expressed true emotions were babies or weak or . . . I don't even know. I couldn't accept that I was still hurting and therefore couldn't allow anyone else to hurt either. Other people's pain made me uncomfortable because I didn't understand my own.

So things have changed again as I've gotten older. The last two years were such a raw, horrible healing process for so many of my transgressions, my situations, my past ills and wounds. I come out on the other side with a different view of my experiences and a different view of how women deal with their world in general.

I don't want anyone to hurt anymore. I've come to the conclusion that what I went through in various moments of my young adult life was absolutely heinous and no girl should ever have to go through any of it and how could we STILL perpetuate a world where girls grow up scared and out-of-control and angry and unable to deal with their lives. Sometimes I see girls fighting the way I did for so long and I wish I was the only one who ever held these misconceptions; who ever felt stuck and unable to reach out. There are these futile moments I've begun to have on a regular basis where I want to save everyone and know, horribly know, that I can't.

I used to get so angry at myself for breaking down, for letting anyone (including myself) see any sort of womanly humanness in my nature. I used to cry and then beat myself up for it - fight it off, steel myself against the onslaught of uncontrollable emotion.

Now I just get in my car and cry like a baby. Too many women know unneccesary pain in this world.

Passport Woes

I just spent almost $200 on a passport renewal!

$200!

I should have taken care of it earlier. I think there are a lot of things on my list right now, but stuff like this falls too easily between the cracks. I am leaving for Ireland in just under eight weeks, and the passport official told me that would be cutting it really close, so I had to double my price and pay for expedited postage.

What a huge racket. Huge, but I bit the bullet and wrote the check and had a hideous picture taken of myself and put everything in an envelope with my fingers tightly crossed that I would receive my new passport in a number of days. It will, at the very least, alleviate my fears of getting to the travel date without proper identification. Not that it was something to be fearful of, but I have become very adept at being scared of everything.

It's really gloomy and cool here today. I was happy to have the day off and ran errand after errand, meeting up with John and lunch to go look at a possible site for my dance concert in December. We'll see if that works out; so far I haven't heard from the guy and I've left several messages for him. This is the part of being a "creative" that I hate - we have to plan and work out logistics in the real world.

I'm not really into logistics. I wish I could just do my work and not worry about anything else.

The place is a great space, however. It's a big open room with clean marley floors and basic lights. They have a little sound booth and risers and chairs. Everything you need for a small show. I think most appealing to me is that the audience can be configured any way I please. I'm really into this idea of alternative performance space right now. I don't think everything always has to be set into a proscenium. Everything I'm working on right now has an intimacy and look that doesn't necessarily lend itself to the proscenium. I think by placing the audience at odd angles or spread throughout the performance area, you pull them more easily into the action.

Maybe it's my own frustration with being an observer instead of a doer lately that wants to change up the audience/performer relationship and play with perspective from everybody's view.