PICA: TBA

That's P-town lingo for Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and its Time Based Art Festival. My main rag, the Willamette Week, refered to the TBA as "high art," and quoted one of its patrons as "going to TBA to be educated," rather than entertained. Well, I went for both reasons- call me enthusiastic.

Antony & the Johnsons were scheduled to play one night only, and I had a festival pass that would get me in. If only it weren't for the rave reviews in several newspaper journals that appeared just that week. I was a REAL fan, damnit. Oh the man's voice is eerily beautiful. I really wanted to see him. There seems to be this mysteriously meaningful connection between the music, and the person who is making it. So I just wanted to get that, but it was totally packed and I got there late. TBA was as stimulating as it was heartbreaking (e.g. no one to share it with). You didn't come here to only listen to complaints.

It occurs to me that contemporary dance, as opposed to "modern" dance (which apparently is a specific form of 20th century dance), is still exploding. From all the performances I have witnessed over the past year, I can't pull together a common purpose or "thing" that dance is all about. While one idea seems to unite them, it's almost not worth expressing: whatever goes, is what goes. Whatever purpose for which a choreographer wishes to use dance, he/she may. It's liberating for me to think that I can personally decide what I want dance to be about, and that audiences/the world might possibly accept that. Go Lynn. There's also this "I just felt like it" sense to the motivation behind specific movement choices. The better choreographers, in my opinion, do not rely on literalist, mime-inspired movement (i.e. sorrow looks like _this_). A movement doesn't mean anything definate. Instead, what I think they might rely on, which I personally find satisfying, is their responses to daily movement. Daily movements are not boring, when infused with intention, or technique, or beauty. Such movement can arise from anything that we are already doing. So, it might go like this: I am walking around my apartment, when I suddenly bring a more graceful than average quality to the swing of my arms. I begin to feel something new about my movement, and play with that and see how far i can take it. Then, I take those movement phrases into a studio, decontextualizing them, and voila, I have a dance that kinda makes intuitive sense to my audience, kinda doesn't. Because of this, dances today can look extremely idiosyncratic because they are composed primarily by individuals finding their personal response to the world around them.

Am I still making sense?

I still really like ballet. I actually have been daydreaming about getting onto pointe shoes. Jen, how long will that take? (Jen is my ballet superhero rolemodel).

OoOPs! Hopefully no one thinks I am trying to turn my journal into a blog/soapbox, or whatever. This is just what's going on with me. I hope I can keep in better touch with friends this way.