Freitag, 11. Juli 2008
Mittwoch, 9. Juli 2008
essay
Write something about this course
I wonder if this is an instruction to an assignment? I feel reminded of my first ‘modern dance’ class with this former Graham dancer. It was the first day of a weeklong workshop and as an introduction he gave a melody to the pianist; he just hummed it, told us to listen to the music and follow it with our movements. I was dumbstruck. Being a classically educated dancer, learning with a hardcore Vaganova teacher, I was never asked before to do something like this. I was always given my exercise and then I worked my butt off to get it right and to be remotely graceful executing the steps. And now this teacher asked me to just dance. I was horrified. The room was full with these fantastic modern dancers who were slimmer, more graceful, more flexible, more of everything than I was as a dancer at that time. I was intimidated to no end. I was there to broaden my horizon as a dancer, technically. I was there to learn something new and yet I was scarred senseless of this new ‘free impro’ thing. Eventually everybody in the studio began to move to the music. I did not really dance; I moved trying to piece together old choreographies I had learned over the years so it would fit to the music. Surprisingly enough nobody really cared about what I was doing and I only tried not to crash into someone else. And I, myself, did not really notice what everybody else was doing. During these scary five minutes of ‘free impro’ I learned that dance is not always about the correct steps and getting them perfectly right. Sometimes it really is just about dancing. I learned so much during this one week and it changed the way I am as a dancer. During this workshop, I learned how to really dance and how to truly utilise my body to express emotions; but also how to just dance without needing to express anything at all. This one week still influences the way I teach ballet today and how I work on myself, as a dancer, a student and in everyday life.
So what did I learned in this class so far? I learned that ethnic African art always has an application. It was not made to be pretty and stand around and get dusty. It was made to be used. Not like western art that was made to be pretty without any real use. I love industrial designers like Alvar Aalto or the legendary founders of marimekko Armi and Viljo Ratia. They produced beautiful things that are used in everyday life. One could say that today’s designers and African artists have far more things in common than one would presume at first glance. Their art is used in one way or another and it is part of people’s lives. Wherein lays the sense of a picture that hangs somewhere on a wall? It is pretty and it might tell a story but it is not really of any use. It of course can have a personal meaning to someone but it cannot be practically utilised.
All the art objects we have seen in class had a function and a meaning. They became important to the people because they used them. Nowadays the cultic meaning behind objects has disappeared and other meanings have become substitutes for that like the phrases ‘form follows function’ by Louis Sullivan. Although art object became more abstract and in a symbolic way meaningless people incorporate these everyday art objects into their own lives and into their own art. You make a conscious decision buying a set of Panton chairs paying 200 Euro for one chair in order to use them. Design lovers do worship these art objects and some will go as far as calling their love of design a substitute religion.
What else did I learned in this course? Maybe that one should always be happy in his life and that moving on the ‘not so beaten paths’ can be freeing and inspirational. I learned that growing up, no matter whether you are a teen or a young adult is never easy and that some people will never really grow up. I learned that experiences of our childhood will always influence who we are in later life, no matter whether we like that fact or not. I learned that I am not the short story kind of girl. I tend to read and immediately forget them. Like someone you meet during a party and cannot remember the name the next morning although you discussed everything you are during that one night. I need to spend some time with a story in order to really connect to it. I need to get to know the characters a lot better to feel with them and to remember them. What an awful character trait for a literature student. It is awfully ignorant but this is a part of me I am afraid.
Finally this course made me realise that I should write more. It took me two days to write this and I am not satisfied at all with what I wrote. It is just some thoughts squeezed together on two pages. And to make things worse the grammar is beyond bad and I needed to look up the word ‘Verwendung’ in a German-English dictionary.
At least I managed to incorporate my two biggest passions in this little essay: dance and design.
Sonntag, 6. Juli 2008
Weihnachtsballett
Weiß ich aber trotzdem schon mal ein kleiner Vorboten Weihnachtspost. Ich werde also zu Weihnachten mal wieder auf einer Bühne stehen und zwar im Ballett "La fille mal gardee" aufgeführt vom ASC Ballett im Deutschen Theater Göttingen.
Dieses Wochenende habe ich damit verbracht in Ballettsaalen zu sein und eine neue Rolle zu lernen. Eigentlich sollte ich eine Freundin tanzen, aber da ich es in den letzten Wochen nie zum Training geschaft habe und ich somit nie mitproben konnte bin ich jetzt umbesetzt worden.
Ich tanze jetzt die Rolle des Alain! Alain ist der total verplante und verpeielte 'Zukünftige' von Lise, dem fille mal gardee. Und die Rolle ist einfach nur lustig. Ich darf mich nach allen Regeln der Kunst auf der Bühne daneben benehmen ... Leute ärgern und ganz viel Blödsinn machen. Find ich einfach nur toll, weil die Freundinnen wirklich einfach nur langweilig sind.
Wir halten fest: hier in Göttingen bekommt man eine Hauptrolle, wenn man permanent nicht zum Training erscheint ... find ich gut!
Und für die Visualisierung noch ein kleines Filmchen von Youtube ... ich werd nicht genau diese Choreographie tanzen, aber ich bekommt in dem Solo auf jeden Fall einen ganz guten Einblick in die Figur ...
Freitag, 4. Juli 2008
Fahrräder und Kleinstädte
Letzten Donnerstag hat sich nach der Arbeit mein Kettenschloß verabschiedet und nach viel hin und her und der Feststellung, dass nicht alle Fahrradwerkstätte kundenfreundlich sind, ist mein Fahrrad dann in die Reperatur gegangen, um das Tretlager auszutauschen.
Ich hatte nun also das Vergüngen 7 lange Tage lang ohne Fahrrad in dieser Stadt zu leben. Ich bin schätzungsweise 4h lang irgendwo hin gelaufen (allein der Weg auf Arbeit war immer 30 min eine Strecke) und konnte mir das Fitnessstudio wirklich sparen. In Berlin ist es doch eigentlich total normal, dass man überall hin läuft. Und im großen B macht es mir auch überhaupt nichts aus ... komischer Weise. Hier in Gö ist es aber eigentlich nur nervig und anstrengend. Ständig trift man irgendjemand mit dem man schnattern kann/muss und dadurch kommt man noch nicht mal dazu in Ruhe Musik zu hören ... was ja irgendwie Sinn und Zweck ist, wenn man irgendwo hin läuft.
Ich bin jedenfalls froh, dass mein Fahrrad wieder gesund und bei mir ist!
