dance

Nrityagram: The Love of Dance

brittany — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In the film Nrityagram: The Love of Dance, a short and simple story is told. A woman finds purpose in her was life when she learns how to dance and creates an institute to instruct others. It is the story of Protima Bedi and her Nrityagram Dance Ensemble. Protima Bedi was known in India as a socialite, until she saw a Narissi Dance and came to pursue it instead. A woman who was known as an emotionally vibrant and open person, pursues a dance form that is tells the story of feelings more than anything else. Bedi’s candidness found a new outlet.

Having found her own guru and learnt the dance, Bedi decided to create an institution to train the gurus of the future. In the Indian tradition, princes and prophets would go to gurus to learn their trades—archery or spirituality. The institute Bedi created, Nrityagram, is intended as an equivalent for dance. Women and girls can go there to focus on their craft, learn from the gurus, practicing everyday unconcerned with the world outside.

In terms of form, there is not much substance to the film. I imagine that it would be useful in an instructional setting; a dance teacher doing a unit on Narissi dance may show this film before proceeding to instruct her students on the basic steps. In twenty-five introductory minutes, one learns about Bedi, the creation of Nrityagram, and Narissi in the broadest of strokes. The short snippets of dance intrigue but do not inform as none last more than a minute or two and are mostly spoken over. It is therefore hard to relate to this film or to relate this film to feminism.

That being said, first Protima Bedi is portrayed as a woman before her time; second, women’s learning of dance is explicitly compared to men seeking their gurus. In that way, this is a feminist work as it portrays women as distinct yet equal in their methods. Each seeks his or her own guru.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, March 24th 2011

Hibiki (Resonance from Far Way) (10/20/2010)

alicia — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Sankai Juku

Dance Center of Columbia College

The dancing performed by the Japanese butoh company Sankai Juku in Hibiki (Resonance from Far Away) at the Harris Theater in Chicago, Illinois, manages to invoke simultaneously everything and nothing. In choosing the word ‘everything,’ I am attempting to describe the fact that the six dancers and their choreographer execute actions that remind the viewer, possibly, of children, stones, priests, frogs, soldiers, streams, women, the wind, and a flower. By saying ‘nothing,’ I am acknowledging that the gestures and poses themselves are so controlled, so elemental, that the observer must concede that some degree of the perceived meaning or symbolism is projected.

In the beginning, lights slowly rise to reveal a sand-covered stage strewn with twelve symmetrically placed shallow glass saucers approximately a meter in diameter. Above, four glass bulbs shaped like art nouveau separating funnels steadily drip, the soundtrack either amplifying or suggesting the drops. The huddled figures of the dancers could be mistaken for driftwood or rocks, but of course unfold from their embryonic curls to entrance so completely that time itself seems somehow altered. The six tableaux directed by choreographer Ushio Amagatsu explore the very rhythms of existence—origin, end, and resurrection.

Sanjai Juku manifests conventions of butoh with the white rice powder coating, shaven heads, and simple robes of the dancers. While some versions of the school appear darkly anarchic, this dance concert is profoundly poetic and minimalistic. The performers move with such precision that their bodies come across as a series of statues with gradually changing poses placed in one location. The movement of a few can entrance so thoroughly that the remainder evaporate from the stage, unnoticed.

Amagatsu appears in a solo sequence, executing gestures like the movements of the most necessary rite of an undiscovered faith. The dancers can march through one another in crossed ranks so dense that they appear a multitude, and in the final sequence, move with such coordination that they could be mistaken for one organism. In the fourth scene—Outer Limits of Red—the dancers gather around a saucer now filled with red liquid, their lower robes augmented with red-laced bodices and dangling ear ornaments.

The laces mimic the stitches that may follow abdominal surgery, but I had to speculate—due to the corsetry and the predominance of blood-color—that this segment acknowledged something specifically feminine, but by no means consoling. At one point their hands move with cutting synchronization, first scissors, then claws. The predominantly electronic score, composed by Takashi Kako and Yoichiro Yoshikawa, mostly complements the austerity of the performance but occasionally swells with an unnecessary exuberance that might be more suited to a movie version of Hibiki.

The closing sequence resonates magnificently, a broadening aperture of light opening to silhouette the circled dancers. The following standing ovation was the longest that I have witnessed in my life, every echoing slap of palm on palm completely earned.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, November 30th 2010

Soul Leaves Her Body (10/08/2010)

brittany — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

HERE Arts Center

New York, New York

In today’s digital age, people often communicate with each other via computer and cell phone screens rather than face to face. In recent years, Here Arts Center has taken the difficult leap of transporting this contemporary feeling of being disconnected (and yet overconnected) via the coldness of technology to the theater stage through their resident artist productions. Soul Leaves Her Body is an ambitious multimedia venture that uses choreographed dance and video, creating a production that is highly visually stimulating and innovative in its implementation, albeit somewhat fragmented and confusing in its overall effect.

The concept behind Soul Leaves Her Body is derived from a thirteenth century Chinese tale, The Soul of Chi'en Nu Leaves Her Body, in which a young woman rips her soul from her body in order to pursue a destiny in the city. The work itself is split up into three stories: One set in the thirteenth century, the other two set in contemporary times. The first segment sticks to the original story line of the traditional tale, in which a young woman meets the strange man to whom she is betrothed but to whom her mother strangely refers to as “elder brother.”

Interestingly, the segment opens with a woman obviously not of Asian descent looking out on the audience proclaiming, “I am Mrs. Chang.” Later, an older Asian woman dressed in attire appropriate for thirteenth century China stares out at the audience from a video, a persona which we understand is being embodied by this much younger dancer. An image of a traditionally dressed Chinese man is also later shown on the video screen when we see the Caucasian dancer performing the role of the betrothed. The emotions the characters feel towards one another are conveyed through movement rather than dialogue, and all three performers fully embody the tone of the work in the well-choreographed dances.

For the second segment, Jennie Mary Tai Liu—who also served as the work’s co-director and choreographer—is seen in a film as Yan, floating in an anachronistic fishing boat at the shore of contemporary Hong Kong. While she peacefully drinks tea from an old fashioned tea pot, sitting in the ancient boat, she stares back at the blinding fluorescent lights on shore, trying to find the light of her friend’s apartment amidst the chaos. Her cell phone and MacBook on board prove to be her only links to the modern world she is floating in front of. Later, she and her siblings lose their mother’s apartment, leaving them the boat as their only home, floating uneasily without a sense of rootedness.

In the third segment, Yan rings a penthouse apartment to which she feels mysteriously pulled. The action then returns to the stage as Yan and her elderly relative share similar experiences as Chinese women seduced by foreign men, showing a connection between the past and the present.

Soul Leaves Her Body is a fascinating, innovative work, merging ancient texts with the disconnected, overly technological feel of modern life. However, it nonetheless feels fragmented. Audience members who do not read their programs or have some familiarity with the ancient Chinese fable may feel themselves somewhat lost at sea. Viewing this work is valuable nonetheless, as it successfully merges multiple mediums, creating a work of great visual stimulation.

Soul Leaves Her Body runs through November 23rd at Here Arts Center.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, November 12th 2010

Perfect Harmony

gwen — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Acorn Theatre

New York, New York

At the start of Perfect Harmony, a narrator tells the audience that the Acafellas, an all-male acapella singing group, have won the last eighteen high school singing competitions. What’s more, we’re told that they were the inspiration for “that show.”

Like Glee, Perfect Harmony celebrates dorkiness, this time in an elite private high school. Five male songsters—two of them grandsons of the Acafellas’ founders—are itching for their nineteenth win. The obstacle? A girl group, once called The Ladies in Red and now dubbed Lady Treble.

On the surface, the boys pooh-pooh Lady Treble’s all-out effort to triumph. “Girl groups sound tinny,” says Lassiter A. Jayson III [Robbie Collier Sublett], the Acafellas’ ostensible leader, to his mates. “Boys have a biologically fuller sound,” Simon [David Barlow] agrees.

Not surprisingly, these fighting words cement the girls’ resolve to stop the boys in their tracks. But how best to do this? Leader Melody [Dana Acheson], is a squeaky clean “good girl” who wants to emphasize the wholesome—her favorite song is “My Life Goes On in an Endless Song/How Can I Keep from Singing”—while Meghan [Kelly McCreary] wants to sex things up. New costumes, a more contemporary play list, and some risqué dance moves will ensure a win, she argues. After all, she adds, no one wants to see girls dressed “as old-fashioned mummies.”

The three remaining group members—played with abundant humor by Faryl Amadeus, Marie-France Arcilla, and Kate Morgan Chadwick—have heretofore been more comfortable taking orders than making decisions. They’re torn. Should they listen to Melody, or should they follow Meghan’s lead and develop a routine that that is bolder, sassier, and less predictable?

Yes, both male and female characters are stock roles, the “types” found in every high school, everywhere. This is not a deterrent; in fact, this recognition is what makes the play so much fun. Indeed, while the story addresses something serious—the notion that winning trumps all—it uses fifteen song and dance numbers, all of them performed faultlessly, to touch on the importance of friendship, loyalty, group-cohesion, and the ways we undermine both others and ourselves.

In addition, the injection of Botox into the vocal chords of male tenors, making them like “big, husky soprano angels,” is subtlety derided. Likewise homophobia. When JB [Jarid Faubel], the groups’ most athletic and macho member, tells the others that he kissed a boy in summer camp, it opens the door to the homoeroticism that lurks in the group’s DNA. Later, it’s part of the impetus that allows Philip Fellows V [Kobi Libii] to come out. Philip’s father, Philip Fellows IV, was initially incensed, we’re told, but he’s gotten used to the idea and now fully supports his son. The Acafellas are similarly accepting.

It’s sweet.

Perfect Harmony is light fare, charming, witty, and entertaining. Collaboratively written by playwright Grosso and a group of actors who call themselves The Essentials, the 105-minute one-act was first mounted at the 2006 Fringe Festival and had an extensive New York City run in 2008. It’s now off Broadway, with a ten-member cast that rocks the house and is laugh-out-loud funny.

That said, Perfect Harmony probably won’t make you nostalgic for the trials and tribulations of high school, but it might just have you belting out a 1980s pop song as you boogie down 42nd Street after the final curtain.

Perfect Harmony is at the Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street, through November 13. Tickets cost $49.50 and are available through Telecharge, 212.239.6200.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, November 9th 2010

Monica Droga: Indie Musician, Bollywood Star, Feminist

mandy — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interview with Monica Dogra

Gone are the times when people would migrate only to the West to find better lives. Now we witness a reversal of sorts, with NRIs going back to India to seek the same opportunities that their parents or grandparents had left India to find. Monica Dogra is one such NRI who is rocking the independent music scene in the homeland. She’s one half of what is arguably the most successful indie music band in India, Shaa’ir n Func, and is also making her film debut as one of the leads in Aamir Khan's upcoming Dhobi Ghat, directed by Kiran Rao. Here’s her exclusive interview:

Tell me a bit about your background. American born confused desi?

American born desi, definitely not confused. I was born and brought up in Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. My parents had migrated to the U.S. from India. I was always a super active performer from a really young age.

How did you get into music in the first place?

My mom is a singer as well so I grew up around Hindustani classical music, going to classical concerts when I was young. And then my parents split up when I was twelve and I was raised by my dad. He was the opposite, like, be a doctor, go to business school, etc. But I still had such a deep-rooted love for music that I couldn’t deny it.

How do you balance being American with being Indian?

I think kids today are much more aware of other cultures because of examples in the media. But we were reminded of being different every single step of the way. People would ask, “Where are you from? What’s your ethnicity? Why don’t you have a red dot on your head?” Those are things that we grew up with, even though you’d have an American accent and you were born and raised in the U.S. We would reply with, “Do you mean where are my parents from? Or where I was born?” What box should I check today? I am American, but I am also through and through Indian.

What sparked the move to India?

I just decided to go to Bombay for five days to check it out and I ended up falling in love with the city, the culture, with the monetary freedom I had there. My savings could take me so far. In those five days I was free writing for hours every day. Stuff was just pouring out of me in real time. So I went back. I just had a feeling that I needed to be there.

How did you meet Randolph and how was Shaa’ir n Func born?

In those first five days, Randolph came to a party. It was a room of twenty people with no smoking, no drinking allowed. There was a saxophonist, a bansuri player, I’m a singer and a poet. There was a girl doing interpretive dance. It was so tripped out. It felt like a scene from a movie. So Randolph walked in, he had a guitar, and he started playing. I liked his vibe a lot. Our music is a combination of influences. We do heavy doses of rock, electronic music, spoken word and funk. We call it conscious dance music.

When I went back to Bombay I bumped into him and I asked him to play with me. I wrote the record, he and I recorded it, we got a distribution deal, we were getting paid to do shows, and it all kicked off. Sometimes when you do the right thing, life is like “good job, I’ll give you this.” And that just kept happening, not without a lot of sweat and hard work though.

Most of your fans are young women, which is a surprising demographic to be so supportive of alternative music in India.

I pride myself on having such a big female following. I’m a feminist and seeing these beautiful women loving our kind of music is empowering, especially in a country where it’s not easy being a woman. Every day, before I walk out of my house in Bombay, think about how I’m going to get reacted to on the streets, “Oh I need to cover this, I need to cover my legs.” My friend got her butt grabbed in the middle of the street. Those are things that are not okay. There’s still a need for feminism. I’m going talk about how there are only ten female directors in Indian cinema because it’s true. We still need to work on that. It bothers me how feminism is a dirty word. I see myself as an empowered, intelligent, sexual female. I find intelligence to be sexy. I put that into my music and everything that I do.

Do you think there’s a divide between the mainstream film-centric world in Mumbai and the indie scene?

The indie scene is so anti-Bollywood, but I’m not like that. In order to change the system you have to change it from within. Most bands are English-speaking and completely anti-traditional anything. I’ve never seen things that way. I grew up watching Bollywood movies and for me that was my only reference point for India. Another reason for this divide is the dependence on connections. “Who’s your mom? Who’s your dad? Why should I pay attention to you?” That kind of vibe is off-putting. But things are changing, more rapidly now than ever before.

That brings us to your film debut. Tell us about Dhobi Ghat and working with Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao.

It came out of nowhere. Kiran saw me in a magazine and wanted me to audition. I was touring at the time in London. When I got an email from her production house I was like “Thanks, but that’s okay.” They emailed me a couple of times. So out of curiosity, I auditioned. For my second screen test they said, “You have to come tomorrow but we just wanted to give you a heads up that you have to do your screen test with Aamir Khan!” Deep breath. Freaking out. I prepared as much as I could. I walked in, he introduced himself and then said, “Let’s begin” without giving me the chance to be struck by his star presence. The reading went well. I got the role the very next day.

What was it like working with the Kiran and Aamir duo?

Kiran is such an amazing woman. She’s so talented, so beautiful and truly unique. There’s no one like her in the industry. Aamir Khan is such a normal guy with such normal desires. I admire him because he uses his star power and does something with it. He is the only one who is really doing it and doing it well. The film has turned out beautiful and I can’t wait for it to be released.

What do you see in your future? And the future of indie music in India?

There’s a powerhouse of talent in India, a huge range. It’s my firm belief that if people are given the platform to get their talents out there, the arts scene would seriously just explode in ways that we’ve never imagined. Shaa’ir n Func is three albums old and our audience is constantly growing. We’ve done shows all over India and hopefully we’ll make more music and reach out to more people. Actually, the real goal is to write a song that I wouldn’t mind playing twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I want to write that song.

As a NRI who’s returned to the homeland, do you see India as your land of opportunity?

It’s odd that both my mom and dad struggled to provide me with the opportunity to grow up in the U.S. and have access to everything, and then I would have to go back to India to emancipate myself, to feel comfortable with who I am. India has become my land of opportunity because I made it that. I created my opportunities. I was willing to give up a lot of things to achieve my dreams. India, for me, has a kind of freedom that the U.S. lacks. I love that chaos, I needed that chaos. And it has helped me thrive.

Cross-posted from The NRI

Written by: Pulkit Datta, November 6th 2010

El Espiritu De La Salsa (The Spirit of Salsa)

brittany — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Directed by Tim Sternberg, Francisco Bell

HBO Films

I love to dance, but I am not gifted with quick feet. As a teen, this made me a hesitant and awkward dance student. Thankfully, when I discovered African dance, it changed my outlook in many positive ways. In the first year, my intimate class included a grandmother in her seventies and her teenage granddaughter. By creating art through movement together, we also created community and bonds similar to an extended family. It was empowering to know the class would be about feeling the music and loving the movement, about celebrating the pure power of music to move and connect humans, not about self-criticism. Sure enough, under the guidance of a gifted teacher, my feet eventually found the rhythm.

In many ways, El Espiritu De La Salsa embodies the spirit of what I experienced in African dance. This HBO documentary shows salsa dance as an art form with tremendous power to transform lives. In this film, ten amateur dancers train for their first performance, under the guidance of Tomas Guerrero of the Santo Rico Dance Company, founded in 1995. These dancers come from all walks of life to a dance studio in New York’s Spanish Harlem, to study, sweat, and sow seeds of positive change in their lives.

During the film viewers see glimpses of six salsa classes, the conflicts that arise, and the advice dancers receive from Guerrero. In between, there are shots of dancers practicing—while waiting for the light to change, on a park stage, in their apartments. Very brief biographical scenes of the dancers are interspersed. They are enough for the viewer to see the diversity of the dancers: a multiracial group including an emergency room doctor, bodega owner, NYPD lieutenant, commodities trader, retired teachers, single parent, man with chronic fatigue, building contractor, caterer. However, with less than an hour of film and so many individuals to include, we do not get to know any of the dancers beyond a glimpse.

Each dancer shares their reasons for studying salsa. Several people hope to meet friends or find romance, while for others, stress release is the biggest draw. Watching Dr. Michelle Quash race from the emergency room in Brooklyn uptown to East Harlem for class, the importance of salsa in her life becomes very clear. In fact, viewers who think they have no time to take classes might find inspiration in her example.

The film notes that Guerrero “is determined to prove that anyone can dance salsa—and they can,” and this theme recurs during several of the dance classes. The viewer gets a taste of Guerrero’s teaching style. In one session in which the students were feeling stressed an uninspired, he asks the dancers to reach inside and recall a time when they overcame a challenge. He offers reminders to smile, but also, as any excellent trainer would, he can be demanding. I was surprised that the film does not provide much background about Guerrero. We get to know him only through his interactions with students, and a very few observations directed at the camera.

The film’s soundtrack features notable salseros including Tito Puente, Eddie Santiago, Ismael Rivera, and Héctor Lavoe, as well as original music by Daniel Freiberg and sounds from contemporary artists. I presume that the film title is Spanish as a way to honor the roots of the salsa music, from Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands where enslaved Africans had contributed their instruments and rhythms.

For me, the film could be credited a success if one viewer, drawn to dance but hesitant, would walk into a dance studio and take the risk. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone, leaving ego at the door, and exploring irresistible Afro-Cuban beats could lead to an adventure on the dance floor.

El Espiritu De La Salsa (The Spirit of Salsa) premieres on HBO tonight

Written by: Lisa Rand, September 20th 2010

Aphrodite

admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Kylie Minogue

Parlophone

Who can hate Kylie? She’s an Aussie superstar in Europe, Britain’s most beloved celebrity, and a global gay icon. She survived several decades in the entertainment business, even flourished there, and perhaps most impressively, also beat breast cancer. After she finished chemo in 2006, she headed back to the studio. Her second album since then, and her eleventh studio album, Aphrodite is an ethereal blend of her pop sensibilities and down-tempo club jams.

Minogue’s strength has forever been in singles, and Aphrodite doesn’t contain anything as strong as classic hits like “I Could Be So Lucky” or “Can't Get You Out of My Head.” That said, it’s a fine album of danceable pop enthusiasm and is peppered with themes of personal liberation and freedom on the dance floor.

Opening track and first radio single “All The Lovers” is a bittersweet tribute to a current love. Breathy and infused with raw sexuality, she sings, “All the lovers/That have come before/They don’t compare/To you.” While not yet a single, I’d be surprised if the title track doesn’t get some airplay. One of the more catchy songs about how Minogue is “original, a golden girl,” it relies on her standard charming rhymes like “kiss me/miss me,” and I imagine more than a few anxious DJs will seek this one out for club remixes.

“Get Outta My Way” is both about personal empowerment and kicking no-good dudes to the curb. In typical tough gal Kylie fashion, she keeps repeating, “Now I showed you what I’m made of.

This album won’t change your life, but it could liven up a party, a long drive, or a jog around the lake. My slightly Eurotrashy self will definitely be keeping this in rotation this summer.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 1st 2010

Flesh Tone

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Kelis

Interscope Records, Will.i.am Music Group

Kelis has always been brazen, unapologetically growling her way onto the music scene in 1999 with the single “Caught Out There,” a vicious tale of heartbreak and revenge. Since then, she's gone on to release four more albums, achieving her greatest success in 2003, with the now-infamous braggadocio of the song “Milkshake.” With her latest release, Flesh Tone, Kelis makes what could be her boldest—and also blandest—career move yet, reinventing herself as a dance diva.

Flesh Tone is Kelis' first album of new material in four years, since the 2006 release Kelis Was Here. It's also important to note that this is Kelis' first album since the birth of her first child (a son named Knight) and the dissolution of her marriage to Knight's dad, hip-hop legend Nas. It could seem logical, then, that the nine songs comprising Flesh Tone gel together to result in the kind of life-affirming album that a lot of female artists release after such major events; think Madonna's Ray of Light. But no matter what phase, Madonna has pretty much always been entrenched in the dance-pop genre. For Kelis, such a transformation seems a little jarring and, sadly, a lot opportunistic.

With The Neptunes at the helm, her first two albums (1999's Kaleidoscope and 2001's Wanderland) were bass-heavy, chock full of oddball blip-bloops, and, lyrically speaking, often inclined toward the extraterrestrial. Yet even after she completely parted ways with the successful producing duo to release Kelis Was Here, there were still hints of wailing ferocious rock in her hip-hop mix. With Flesh Tone, Kelis makes a bold step, trying to stay relevant by shifting from the sound of her earlier career into more radio-friendly dance pop. In doing so, ironically, she sounds like another dime-a-dozen throwaway commercial diva.

The album is a success in that Kelis' usage of spacey imagery, with which she's been toying for years, has coalesced into an album-length idea, instead of sporadic song themes popping up in between other different tracks. Flesh Tone is much more unified than her previous releases. She is growing and all of her parts are coming together into a more cohesive whole. “22nd Century” serves as a good example.

I consider the second half of the album to be much better than the first. The lyrics are personal, more intimate than the hollow dance music that clogs up the first half. “Brave” and “Song For The Baby” most closely addresses Kelis' personal issues. Another excellent track is “Acapella.” As one of the strongest tracks on the album, it was a solid single choice, conveying an endearing sentimentality with the chorus: “Before you, my whole life was a cappella/now our symphony's the only song to sing.” Its amazing beat also makes it a great track for cutting loose at a nightclub.

At the end of the day, I simply cannot make up my mind on Flesh Tone. The girl who just wants to get crazy-sweaty on the dance floor can't get enough of it. The girl who has loyalties to the Kelis she's known and loved for so long has a hard time reconciling this new manifestation of one of her beloved pop stars, because I question the motives and worry that it's all one big sellout move.

Maybe it's cynicism talking. Or maybe, to paraphrase comedian Maria Bamford, I'm just paralyzed with the hope that Kelis was above all this nonsense. Then again, maybe Kelis was just as bored with her signature sound as many of us were enamored of it—which is why we got Flesh Tone.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, July 28th 2010

Leading Ladies

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:58:00 +0000

Directed by Erika Randall Beahm, Daniel Beahm

It may seem quite an impossibility, but the film Leading Ladies is, simply put, a quietly revolutionary dance musical. While most dance musicals (think Dirty Dancing, Save the Last Dance) center on the boy-meets-girl heterosexual love match, Leading Ladies is a beautifully wrought girl-meets-girl story. It is simultaneously a dance musical, coming-of-age story, and coming-out narrative. The power of the film comes from its ability to maintain the generic conventions of the story while completely rejecting the hetero-normativity that is typically the narrative thrust of the genre. What’s perhaps even more amazing is that Leading Ladies succeeds at thwarting convention within a conventional structure while simultaneously being a whole lot of damn fun. Lesser films would sink under such weight.

Helmed by first-time directors Erika Randall Beahm and Daniel Beahm, this joyous film tells the story of the Campari women. The matriarch of the family is ballroom-dancing stage mom Sheri, played by Latin and Ballroom Champion Melanie LaPatin. Sheri has two daughters: like-minded drama queen and dancing champion Tasi (Shannon Lea Smith), and Toni (Laurel Vail), Tasi’s practice partner and the wallflower of the family. The film centers on Toni’s relationships, particularly with the emotionally volatile Tasi, and an unexpected romantic attachment to Mona (Nicole Dionne), a bubbly and outgoing woman Toni meets at a dance club. While LaPatin’s acting is a bit stiff, Smith’s neurotic and self-obsessed Tasi is played to high-pitched perfection. Vail might be the real star of this film, however, as she says more with her eyes than many actors can express with a word. She artfully plays the Ugly Duckling, the quiet witness to familial squabbles and the glue that keeps the Camparis together.

Leading Ladies has an ebb-and-flow, alternating between slow and quietly stirring scenes and vibrant, fast-paced dance numbers (most notably a hysterical and boisterous number set in a grocery store). The heart of this film beats loudly and quickly, and it leaves the viewer invigorated and deeply moved. To learn more about her hopes for the film, its generative process, and the ideological concerns that lead to its creation, I recently spoke with co-director Erika Randall Beahm.

Beahm co-wrote the film with Jennifer Bechtel, a friend and LGBT youth advocate in Champaign, Illinois, and Bechtel was struggling to find mainstream films that spoke to the young gay community. As Bechtel and Beahm perceived it, most gay and lesbian cinema tends towards violence or explicitness, while mainstream cinema features gay characters as “the sidekick.” Beahm and Bechtel thus sought to create a “family-centered gay and lesbian film for the mainstream market.” Their hope is that Leading Ladies provides gay youth with a positive portrayal of gay romantic love and thus “open a dialogue within themselves” and perhaps between gay youth and their families.

The film eschews aggressive and explicit representations of gay love for a romantic and “joyful falling in love which... straight kids get to experience in movies all the time.” Indeed, Leading Ladies treats its same-sex couple as any movie musicals’ heterosexual pairing: they meet, they dance, they fall in love. The romance is beautifully articulated through an artful juxtaposition of two dance sequences. Toni and Mona’s meeting is shot like a typical dance movie sequence—bright lights, loud music, and overhead shots looking down on the dancers. This film could be Dirty Dancing, if it weren’t for the same-sex couples dancing on stage and in the audience. Indeed, this is the goal of the film: to illustrate that dance (and by extension, romance and love) is the same for same-sex couples as it is for heterosexual partners. Toni leads Mona through a raucous, enthusiastic dance, and as convention dictates, the two find love while dancing. In a beautiful inversion of this sequence, we next find Toni in Mona’s lush apartment, where the more romantically experienced Mona takes the lead in the dance of romance. The lovers’ embrace is gorgeously shot in sensual blush tones and shadow.

For choreographer and dancer Beahm and youth musical programmer Bechtel, dance served as an obvious choice of backdrop for the love story. Beahm choreographed the film’s dances with Melanie LaPatin and Benji Schwimmer, the former So You Think You Can Dance! winner who also plays Toni’s best friend in the film. For Beahm, dance has an inherently transformative power: “There’s this kind of kinesthesia with dance that gets people to literally be moved on a physical level, and I believe also on an emotional and intellectual level.” The love scene between Mona and Toni, for example, is highly choreographed to match the non-diegetic music; Beahm suggests that this emphasis on “energy shifts… and the musicality” of the scene helps the spectator “lose sight of this being a gendered duet, and it just becomes two people moving together, falling in love.”

By emphasizing the movement and musicality of the scene, then, Beahm hopes to ease the fear of spectators who are uncomfortable with same-sex coupling and perhaps open a space for internal dialogue within the spectator: “For people who might have a hard time seeing two women... make out, it becomes this kind of transference of two bodies going through these really emotional and tender but also choreographed spaces, and so gender becomes less important.” By shifting the spectator’s focus from gender distinction to the movement of the body the film illustrates how little gender matters and how love—like dance—is a universal language. Thus the film utilizes dance to open up a space for shifting “people out of the fear they may feel if they’re watching from an outside perspective.”

Though the idea of dance as a catalyst to ideological and personal transformation may seem unusual, Beahm is quick to point out that dance has often added a “queer element” to the movie musical. In West Side Story, for example, the spectator sees groups of men “snapping and skipping” and yet the dance isn’t “sexualized, it’s charged and it’s activated.” Dancing is particularly subversive in moments of unison dancing, she suggests, when members of both sexes dance the same movements, suggesting a unity of the sexes and the democratization of the body. Leading Ladies takes this democratization one step further, rejecting the hetero-normative ballroom dance structure of male lead and female follow and replacing it with same-sex couplings. In doing so, Beahm simultaneously feeds off of the democratizing nature of dance while rejecting the rules of a dance form that reinforces gendered performance.

It is the inherent queerness in dance that Beahm finds so appealing and in tune with her views on feminism. For her, dance and feminism are “compatible” because they are both “hard to pin down” terms; their “slipperiness” as terms allows them to create spaces for dialogue and questioning. She likes her feminism to work “from the inside out,” enjoying the notion of becoming part of a system, and breaking it down from within. This is why her personal mantra is the cheeky suggestion to “wear pearls to the country club and then talk dirty.” Ultimately, Leading Ladies represents a filmic expression of this mantra—by placing non-conventional characters within a conventional generic structure, the film wears its pearls but then lets out a glorious, enthusiastic expletive as it sits down to dinner. Swearing has never been so much fun.

Written by: Joanna Chlebus, July 15th 2010

Afghan Star

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Havana Marking

Zeitgeist Films

One of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers, have a lyric in one of their songs claiming, “May you never be embarrassed to sing.” Since viewing Havana Marking’s documentary, Afghan Star, this lyric has been on repeat in my brain, reminding me, as Afghan Star aptly illustrates, if embarrassment is all that we have to risk, then we are risking very little. In her feature length directorial debut, Marking journeys into recently independent Afghanistan to explore the newly created television program Afghan Star. Following four contestants as they compete for the $5,000 prize, Marking exposes the inspiring and passionate citizens of a country shrouded by war, violence, and tyranny.

The film opens with a close-up of two little boys. One, whose face and eyes appear to have been violently damaged, sings sweetly into the camera and when he finishes the other states simply “If there was no singing the world would be silent.” From this point on Afghan Star weaves a complicated narrative that instigates dialogue about the power of having a voice, and the ideologies that determine what voices are heard and by who.

In 1996, the Taliban rule in Afghanistan created a ban on music, dancing, and singing. The ban was lifted in 2004, but as history has taught us all too well, a change in politics doesn’t always result in changing people. Most of those interviewed in the film, from the show’s producers to townspeople, equate singing with freedom; however, the concept of freedom is abstract and intangible. It is defined within the boundaries of Afghan politics and Islamic religion, leaving little room for the inclusion of Western liberties and autonomous behavior.

This is most evident in the subtle, yet disturbing, fulfillment of traditional gender roles. Both of the male contestants whom Marking chooses to focus on are met with great hope and respect by their communities. But when interviewing the families and supporters of the female contestants the responses are overwhelmingly concerned and fearful, or rife with ulterior motives. As the male contestants campaign openly in public and receive adoration from fans, the women are hidden by their burqas, unable to be recognized.

The contradiction is striking, yet the women are complicit and seemingly unaware of their alienation. However, the most drastic display of sexism occurs when Setara, one of the two female finalists and by far the most dynamic of all the contestants, is eliminated. While performing her final song, Setara “dances” on stage while also allowing her head scarf to fall revealing her hair. The result is scorn from her fellow competitors, eviction from her apartment and death threats so fierce and overwhelming, she fears returning to her hometown.

For those of us in the West, Afghan Star presents a thoughtful exploration of the life we so often take for granted: freedom of speech, the privilege of choice, and the unnecessary luxury of television and its star-making programs. But, above all, this film is a riveting reminder of the power, freedom and endless possibilities we hold in our voice and that no matter how we may use it, we must never be embarrassed to sing.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, May 30th 2010

Bad City

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Saadi

Paper Garden Records

Saadi is in love with music. It's fun to guess where the loops and tracks come from on their debut album, Bad City. Their influences are far-ranging, and combine '70s dance, '80s synth, choir vocals, and traditional Arabic music.

The title track is a solid dance anthem. The song's companion remix is particularly hot, too. It evokes a busy cityscape inflected with tribal beats.

"Birds" reminds me of Blondie dancing to a slower tempo around her heart of glass. In "Pollen-Seeking Bees," I think the DJ stumbled upon an endearing piano piece and wanted to put it to use somehow. If this album is a dance party, then "Pollen-Seeking Bees" is the book-reading wallflower refusing beer at said party.

The final track is a cover of Bob Dylan's "Daddy You've Been On My Mind." This is not just another sober guest on this album, but a surprisingly somber one as well. This song is filled with choir vocals and heartfelt sentiment. Saadi's vocals seem to be pleading, eulogistic, or possibly both.

It is unclear who "Daddy" is to Saadi. Maybe it's her father, or a nickname for some other (presumably male) person in her life. I'm leaning towards it being her father, because she references to "the language of my father" in the title track. Regardless, Saadi's unique take on this often revisited classic made me feel both moved and empathetic.

Bad City is not a bad album. It's well mixed with interesting sources, floating vocals, and an overall smooth disposition. However, they're difficult to pigeonhole into a particular genre due to the diversity and disparateness of their influences and sound. Sometimes they make me want to dance; at other times, I ruminate with their hymns. I don't think Saadi wants to be limited by category or genre, although they do give the impression that they're still exploring their signature sound.

Written by: Jacquie Piasta, May 2nd 2010

Gotta Dance

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Directed by Dori Berinstein

Dramatic Forces

Gotta Dance opens with a scene of an energetic NBA game, with all the halftime mascot antics and acrobatic dance routines we’ve come to expect. But the New Jersey Nets are trying out something different this year. We see the feet of a group learning a dance routine, with the instructor telling them not to slap their butts because it’s a family show, and there’s one thing that makes this new hip-hop dance troupe different from any we’ve seen before: they are all over sixty years old.

We come to know the members of the team as they learn fairly complicated routines and tackle their insecurities being a dance group comprised of senior citizens. They’re not professional dancers; they are just people who love to dance, and want to share that love with each other and with audiences. It’s affirming to see people, who many would not expect to succeed at such an undertaking, tackle their insecurities and pull off the routine wonderfully. The sheer athleticism it takes to do the routines is really astonishing. As someone a fraction of most of these people’s ages, I doubt I could do the routines half as well. Plus, seeing someone’s grandma brush her shoulders off and raise the roof to Jay-Z’s “Show Me What You Got” is quite a sight.

But Gotta Dance isn’t just entertaining for the adorable factor. Betsy, stage name Betty, was already in a hip-hop dance class before joining the squad, and commends hip-hop as “for the masses.” She says she learned how to cut loose through the music and just dance. Betsy even brings hip-hop to a group of children in order to teach them about self-esteem and not putting each other down. Seeing old ladies teaching young kids hip-hop dance steps is cute, but it also says something about how we can use pop culture as a way to reach across generations and find common ground.

Even though, at first, the group members might prefer the cha-cha, they get pure joy out of letting go and just dancing. That joy is really infectious, and the confidence the members of the group, and even their teachers, gain through the experience is inspiring to see. As the elderly population in the United States steadily grows in number, Gotta Dance stands as a document of how this population is becoming involved in what’s thought of as youth culture. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, something that’s rare in today's films.

Written by: Dana Reinoos, April 4th 2010

The Theory of Tides

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By The Theory of Tides

Oceans and tides have served as artistic muses for centuries, and I was curious to listen to music inspired by a scientific theory that explains "the dynamics of fluidity, the pull of bodies in motion, the ebb and flow of attraction." Upon first and second listen, The Theory of Tides didn’t grab me, but the third time around was a charm, and I found myself appreciating the music more.

Lead singer Mirana has the kind of voice that can sound almost dissonant at times, but it suits The Theory of Tides' style of music, which has the feel of urban techno pop. The first track, “Unsure,” is probably my favorite lyrically, as I find the words repeating in my head hours later. In the chorus of the song Mirana asks, “When did I become so unsure, of you, of me, of everything?” The question is posed against a backdrop of pulsating electronic sound. Another favorite track is “Corner” because of its sophisticated, jazzy, Latin quality that serves Mirana’s voice well.

On “Elated,” the vocals have a sultry, chanteuse-like quality that wouldn’t be out of place in a French cabaret, but the electro-pop background is straight out of the twenty-first century. This may not be my favorite album, but I play it on days when I feel slightly out of sorts and disconnected from my surroundings. It's music that matches my mood.

Written by: Gita Tewari, March 14th 2010

Second Annual International Body Music Festival (12/5/2009)

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Herbst Theater

San Francisco, California

Body Music is an inherently populist art form. You just need a body, your hands, your feet, your mouth, the ground, a sense of rhythm, or any of these elements in any combination. Body Music has been around forever, created and passed down through generations of people from all parts of the world, and often serves as an expression of freedom in the face of oppression.

The Herbst Theater, on the other hand, is a fancy schmancy theater decorated in ornate European style, whose very architecture denotes class and spectacle. The mostly white, well-dressed audience reinforced the feeling of formality fostered by the space, but the performers at the second annual International Body Music Festival attempted to break down that divide.

Saturday night's show opened with the Manuia Polynesian Review, a San Francisco-based dance troupe that performed high-energy traditional Polynesian dance based on activities like slapping mosquitos and paddling canoes. Festival founder Keith Terry then took the stage and led the audience in call-and-response rhythms and vocalizations that highlighted the best possibilities of audience participation—true engagement on a physical and energetic level that creates a shared experience, breaking down the “fourth wall.”

My friend Joe responded to the intricate rhythms of Parisian dancer and percussionist LeeLa Petronio, affirming her with a loud “yeah.” She looked in our direction and said “yeah?” which was kind of hot, and seemed to encourage others in the audience to interact and participate. It was sweet to feel the audience loosen up a little, and entertaining to hear the middle aged white men around me busting out with their “mm”s and “ow yeah”s.

One of the most popular performers of the night was Kenny Muhammed, the “human orchestra” from New York. An amazing beatboxer capable of doing seemingly thousands of different things at the same time, watching his facial muscles twitching in syncopated coordination was entertainment in itself. I also deeply enjoyed the music of Bouchaib Abdel Hadi Ensemble with Amine Mohammed, Susu Pampanin and Faisal Zadan. This was the only act that included instruments other than the body—drums and an oud—accentuated with layered clapping rhythms, and occasional barefoot stomping and clapping from the lead musician.

I have a preference for loud, solid rhythms as opposed to quirky shuffling ones, so it's not surprising that I found Step Afrika! to be one of the most compelling performances of the night. Part military drill, part hip hop, part African dance, stepping as an art form originated in African American fraternities in the early 1900's. It grew out of circles where men would sing together, but after World War II it evolved into lines that mirrored military formations. The director of Step Afrika! discovered similarities in African gum boot dance, which originated with diamond miners in South Africa who found that their rubber boots, filled up with water and sweat, made interesting sounds when they stomped.

Step Afrika!'s first piece had them dressed as diamond miners in gum boots (galoshes), speaking with South African accents, practicing their moves when the boss wasn't looking. The stomping, slapping rhythms are joyful, defiant, and LOUD—I found myself wondering how their boss wouldn't notice. A minute or so into the dance, a whistle blows and the boss enters. Played by the most light-skinned member of the troupe, at first I read him as a white man. It was thought-provoking that they chose to put him in the role of the boss, highlighting racial stratification rather than adopting a color-blind approach.

After Step Afrika! left the stage, a woman from the balcony yelled “your auntie loves you, Makeda!” and emcee Linda Tillery said “I think I know you, do we go to church together?” It was funny and sweet, and I was grateful for the presence of African American community in the space.

I found last year's venue, Theater Artaud, to be much more accessible, creating a more unified feeling among the audience and performers. I am happy for the organizers that they were able to grow into a larger space, but I wonder if the sacrifice of intimacy was worth it. There are plans for a 2010 tour of US cities, and next winter the IBMF will be produced in another part of the world, which feels like an authentic way of living up to the “International” part of their name.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, March 7th 2010

Hung Like A Horse

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By All Leather

Dim Mak Records

Members of The Locust and Some Girls make up the edgy electro-punk industrial outfit All Leather, mixing angelic screeching over electro beats and spastic hardcore pummeling, which are all packed tight into ten glorious minutes of the Hung Like a Horse EP. All Leather consists of guitarist Nathan Joyner, Jung Sing on drums, and Justin Pearson doing vocals. They collectively rail against all that is decent with dirty synths and lyrics to match. Indulging in their playful hedonism, Hung Like a Horse isn’t as much decadent as it is audibly interesting. There is a pounding undercurrent that consents to headbanging while allowing itself to delightfully canoodle with the bouncy elements of electro-dance.

Colorful song titles will relay the story before even hitting play. The music itself almost garners more cred by combining earnest raw energy with their unfettered sense of humor. “As The Hog Pisseth” opens the record with a sledgehammer of metronome beats dripping in “Miller-Lite fantasies,” as the amusing lyrics suggest. Next up, “We’re Skrewed.” Pearson punches the lyrics hard enough to match the intensity of Sing’s beats. Drums and lyrics work in tandem throughout like a diabolic tag team as Pearson belts, “Civilization… vs none.” The kinetic “I Don’t Hate Fags, God Does” has you dancing in place amongst the hippest of hipsters, while gleefully throwing elbows left and right, reveling in the thrash curveball thrown. “Audios mi Amoebas” works the industrial magic with pulsating white noise. The aggressive fusion builds and accelerates until the very last note.

Post-punk bliss, albeit thrashy and brash, Hung Like a Horse works on many levels. It delivers the goods if you appreciate heavy spastic rock made interesting and fun, thanks to spirited electronic dance grooves. The EP gets to the point pretty quick, clamps down hard, and draws a little blood between minutes six and seven. They know how to replace the pop with the sludge all while staying true to the raucous energy that defines it.

Written by: Cat Veit, December 8th 2009