Halfland Underground:: dance

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Frame Rates

Marina Kanno and Giacomo Bevilaqua from Staatsballett Berlin perform several jumps captured in slow motion at 1000 frames per second.

So, working on Halfland brings a great deal of realization and insight with it. One of the things that is occurring is the sense of life itself being very much like a frame-by-frame animation. It's dawning slowly on me that the only difference between life, animation, and dreams is the "Frame Rate". How many slices of action we can perceive. Too out-there of an idea for you? well, that's why it's posted on the underground.

Case in point. The super slow mo camera technology experiments that are emerging from all over the world are capturing human imagination, I think for a reason. If you watch this captivating, sublimely beautiful clip of young dancers jumping, you may notice how when the 1,000 frames per second kicks in, it begins to imitate or emulate our own mind's ability to see. It becomes nearly a god's eye view (be sure to catch it on YouTube directly after it's all buffered for the effect). I feel that we often see this way in our own dreams. Do you?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Finest Dances I've Seen: To be as God

It may or may not be germane to Halfland per se, but Paul found these two Korean dance clips on YouTube that are among the finest examples of dance as art I've seen. The first was from a couple years back of the stunning dancer Min Young Park and we love her entire presence throughout her piece, even the way she commands the stage as she walks onto it. All the way through.

The next is a sublime young male dancer named Sun-Chon HAN who, it seems, has been inspired by the previous performance and taken the genre/style higher still. He makes a leap at the 2:39 mark that, if one is at all in touch with their heart in that moment, will move the viewer to tears with its total ecstatic abandon.

There is something profound at work in these pieces. Something at the core of dance as an artform. They both seem to be not just merely dancing to music, nor performing it.

To dance is to become the music. Not to dance to it. Not to perform it. But in reality to become the vibratory expression itself. To be as God.

Words of Inspiration

Love the Genomicon coined term for modern, independent, non-corporate backed, movie making "Open-Sourcery! HA!

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
--Henry Miller

“Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege even to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it.”
--Tasha Tudor

“I've written in awful enough situations that I know that the quality of the prose doesn't depend on the circumstance in which it is composed. I don't believe the muse visits you. I believe that you visit the muse. If you wait for that "perfect moment" you're not going to be very productive.”
--Michael Lewis

Excerpts from interview with artist Julie Taymor:

Interviewer: “A double magic: you see the puppet and the puppeteer together. In that universe, God is visible.”

JT: “The most successful stuff is the stuff I've done my whole life, which didn't cost anything... It's always the true expression of creativity that moves us... The fact that as a spectator you're very aware of the human being with the things strapped on, and you see the straps linking the actor to the stilts, that there's no attempt to mask the stilts and make them animal-like shapes--that's why people cry.

“At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. ”
--Rachel Naomi Remen

“When you understand how to love one thing—then you also understand how best to love everything.”
--Novalis

“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”
--Miguel de Cervantes

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”
--(John) Calvin Coolidge

“This is not a day for asking questions, not a day on any calendar. This day is conscious of itself. This day is a lover, bread, and gentleness, more manifest than saying can say.”

“My ideas are my maps.”
--Tavi

“No matter how slow the film,
Spirit always stands still long enough
for the photographer It has chosen.”

--Author Unknown

“In my dream, the Angel shrugged
and said, 'If we fail this time,
it will be a failure of imagination.'
And then she placed the world gently
in the palm of my hand.”

--Erica Jong

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Start by doing the necessary,
Next do the possible,
Suddenly you're doing the impossible.”

--St. Francis of Assisi

My Twitter Poems

Soft paleness of a yellow moon glowing like a window's lantern in a distant neighbor's home.

Felt like a little baby early this morning, sleeping on couch watching myself breathe in & out, grateful for life once again.

Blood red full moon rising, inflated in lens of air. Troposphere aura gives way to higher ether of gold.

Kind day, with her delicate gradual light shading the night sky so gently, is careful not to wake his heavy sleep too quickly.

Rain light is sharply washing the faces of all houses in my view with angular pale yellow, now gone.

I like the quiet moments of the morning, as the dim white lightens the sky gently as the birds begin to stir. Their ringing hushed against the marbled veins of gray. The world asleep. Only I and the Sun's rolling aspect are awakened. To think this landscape into being.

Burgeoning young buds of youth flowering into maturity. A magical moment of metamorphosis, when young blooms become.

Don't come around here this time of night, Moon. Looking in my window with your half closed eye won't make me forgive you. You are too late.

My world stops when bad pain comes. Projects left hanging, promises go undone. Feeling like a chewed up piece of gum, dry, flavorless, gray.

Blushing backlit morning fog shading a pre-dawn sky in delicate washes of pink, now pale cream. Silhouetted trees dark & grey, still hushed.

You are late. Did you stop along the way to see your new friend & try on all her clothes? They don't suit you, Moon. Take off that gray veil.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Frame Rates

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Finest Dances I've Seen: To be as God

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Words of Inspiration

My Twitter Poems

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