Not Anonymous

I went to a K's Choice concert with friends last night.

Third row centre. Fuck yeah.

My friend ordered the tickets two months ago, as it was an acoustic and sit down concert, it felt very intimate and close - despite the hundreds of other people in the audience with me.

K's Choice have been a favourite of mine for a while now, well since the last time they were in Israel really! I "discovered" them on Buffy, even though I'd heard their songs on the radio and seen them on MTV (so innocent and young... I need to acquire Daria somehow.)

I won't go into detail, but suffice to say, because my life has been kicking my and mine's collective asses lately, I needed this concert like burning.

Because K's Choice's songs, bar none, are poignant and this being an acoustic event... well, my friends very much agreed that I was dehydrated by the end. I know, big deal, I cry all the time, it's something to note when I don't cry. I was emotionally drained and cried out - there were a few songs that had me bawling and I really had to control my breathing to not outright sob. But there you have it.

But I think I'm warranted at this point in my life to be really weepy all the time.

After the amazing concert we went to a cafe right next to the theatre and had French toast at midnight. I love having breakfast before bedtime.

And despite the fact that my laptop's screen decided to die and I cried myself to sleep - waking up and seeing the screen working as though last night never happened cheered me up greatly.

I still feel like I've been sucker-punched over and over again, and just as emotionally drained by last night, but I guess having a good thing happen (along with the birth of my nephew, who I think about whenever I want to have a do-over of the January) amidst all the bad stuff can be a good thing.

Well, not really. Just, second day of the Semester and I wonder if I'm going to make it.

I managed to create, without meaning to, a Sunday course schedule in which I have seminar called "Hysteria and Paranoia in the 19th century novel", followed by a course named "The Poetics of Trauma" and I finish off with "Between the Tragic and the Tragedy: A critical theory".

Totally unintentional I swear.

Hilarious, I know.

Once again, my past academic failings have come back to haunt me and I'm taking intro to Sociology and woe I am to read "The Communist Manifesto", again. And Emil Durkheim, again.
I do, however, have the same TA I had last year for Anthropology and that makes me happy as I really enjoyed his exercises.

Tomorrow should be more relaxed, still, an 8:30 class *headdesk*

I met up with roga yesterday and today and I had really fun talking to her, I may sign up for Yuletide.

Speaking of fannishness!

Two creative women on my f-list, rm who I have been reading for a while now and mithrigil who I've started reading recently, are making a musical!
And we get to help them!
You can do so by going to the Kickstarter page of Dogboy and Justine, a new musical about life, love and head injuries.

I'm super excited about this project, because I love off-beat musical theatre and I have a yen for stories of marginalised bodies and sexualities, so when you have a show about dominatrices and nueroatypical brains and minds, this gets the thumbs up.

Not to mention that it's by two women about women.

It's awesome!

rm commented and added a few details about the project, FYI:

In case your readers are curious, the show is 5W, 3M in its current configuration. All the women except one may be cast as any age/race/ethnicity/size (the other has to fit with one of the male characters a certain way). I would also be happy to cast transwomen in any of the roles, and we are also open to women living with disabilities -- although some would fit with the nature of the characters better than others and would not be a plot point.

The 3M may also be cast any any race/ethnicity/size, although age is a specific factor in the casting for at least two of them. While we don't know if it will be possible, we're open to casting neurologically atypical character with a actor living with a relevant disability.

And we have a lesbian romance b-plot!

It's a really affirming show that totally isn't about equality, but because of its setting, lets us really try to provide opportunities for actors who aren't always easy to cast in mainstream theater. The catch? We're determined to make this relatively mainstream theater, without compromise, because we believe that people want to see people like themselves on stage.

Last night was a cultural outing with the family. My sister, sib-in-law, dad and I piled into the car and went to see Mikhail Baryshnikov dance.

Yes. That Baryshnikov.
I find it horrifying that some of my friends said "Oh, that guy from Sex and the City.
*cringe*

Any way.

It was a lovely evening of a joint production of the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Suzanna Dellal Centre featuring Three Solos and a Duet.

Baryshnikov is a beautiful, beautiful man. This is the first time I've ever seen him live. I've seen him dance a few times on television and I have to admit that his nose flared up my fetish.

Seeing him, albeit from a distance, was amazing. It wasn't a classical performance, seeing as the production centres are modern ballet and dance centres, but Baryshnikov is all classical - not a hard line, every movement was a work of art.

He had a dance partner for two of the dances (yeah, one of the Solo's was a pseudo-duet), Ana Laguna, who is a modern ballet dancer and she was superb as well, but their different styles didn't mesh that well, despite the amazing chemistry between them - only during their synchronised movements did I feel that they really communicated, other times, they seemed to be props and tools for each other - which looked great, but you know... more craft than art, compared to when they each danced alone.

The first dance (we all broke into applause when he came on stage), Valse-Fantasie. was a lovely plotty dance to the music of... "Valse-Fantasie" by Mikhail Glinka, about a guy who falls in love with a girl, the love is unrequited, he leaves the country, comes back after a few years and discovers he doesn't love the girl any more.
Baryhshnikov danced the best in this, he was totally in his element and it showed, I couldn't possibly begin to describe what it looked like.

The second dance, Solo For Two (excerpt), with the music of Arvo Part (fur Alina, for Arinushka, Spiegal im Speigal), which was mainly Ana Laguna being very dramatic and sensual. It was a mourning tale, what with the shoes and erotic hip movements. I enjoyed it immensely.

My sister, who is a dancer, didn't like it. She said it was too obvious. I don't know, maybe I'm a sucker for Drama. Also, I don't grok dance very well, it looks pretty! I'm a very unsophisticated viewer when it comes to dance, I'm afraid.

The third dance (and my personal favourite), Years Later, with the music of Philip Glass, Melodies for Saxophones Nos. 10, 2, 13 and 12, was a very self aware piece and incorporated video footage of Baryshnikov himself and he dance along with himself! In total synch! It was fantastic.
It was also quite sad, as the title suggests, it was a bit of a retrospect of himself, because besides videos of himself as he is now (which he danced to), there was old old footage of himself as a young dancer when he leaped so high and so wide. The lighting was designed in those moments to create a silhouette of Baryshnikov which was displayed on the movie screen and as his young self leaped, he looked on and held the small of his back as though it ached.

The man is 62, after all.

It also gave me a hankering for Philip Glass.

The last dance, Place, with the music of Flaskkvartetten, was the proper duet between Baryshnikov and Laguna and it was a lovely dialogue of styles. As mentioned above, their synchronised moves were brilliant, but during the actual dances together they were as much props to each as the table of stage was and I wonder how much of that was deliberate, as the dance was that of frustration and of different styles of creating space and doing things in that space - so maybe I wasn't so off the mark.

I haven't managed to convey one little bit the brilliance of this performance. I loved it, felt privileged being able to see it and my hands were read from the clapping. We just wanted him to dance some more. Alas, not even a standing ovation could do that.

Selfishly, I'm glad the impending cultural boycott hasn't stopped me from enjoying this evening.

I just got back from the Cameri production of Fiddler on the Roof - Hebrew, obviously.

Friends, readers and lurkers... it was fucking. Amazing. Awesome. מהמם. אדיר. Unbelievable.

It was mind blowing. Couldn't have been better if they'd tried.

I'm just... in awe at how well done it was, my hands are still hurting from the amount of clapping I put them through.

Not only was the acting amazing, the choreography was fresh and updated, the singing was amazing.

I was in row eleven on the floor, so I had the perfect view (minus a giant head that happened to belong to the person sitting in front of me... grrr) and didn't miss a thing.

I'm so happy my sister had an extra ticket for me (and at the last minute for my mother): Leigh, thank you very, very much!

Here's a taste of what I saw this evening - This is a video of the Cameri performance from June 8th 2008:

( The quintessential FOTR song! )

I just got back from the live performance of "Once more with feeling" at the "Tzavta" hall at London Mini-store.
While the show itself was good (a broader review tomorrow when I can concentrate), it is not okay that they started it an hour behind schedule, it pissed me off and ade me rush to the bus.

I do not enjoy running in Tel-Aviv in the middle of the night.