Two new truths

Two truths learned this week
1. Not playing games is itself a game.

Twitter has been quite the fascinating open book for peering into the male and female psyche. I constantly see posts like, "girls, stop playing games, we don't want to chase you" or "i'm sick of all these games" or even in my own song from a few years ago i wrote, "I'm so tired of the games, i don't know if i'm the knight or the pawn or the queen."(pronounced "quayne" to rhyme of course). But seriously, how can anyone NOT play games? Even if a person is direct to their friends or their romantic subjects of interest, that in itself is a strategy. A strategy of confidence. A strategy of going after what is wanted. The truth it, it's impossible to tell if a person is being "forward" as a "game", or if he/she is just naturally confident. I psyche myself up all the time to be brave and say/do things that I feel are necessary, but am I comfortable doing it? Am i just a good actor?My spectrum of shyness varies, depending on the person, the situation, the year--being able to control that is admirable but impossible. Even to just "be yourself" is in some ways a complete game--i dont mean to say that one should be anything but natural or open about their actions and intentions (I wish I could "lie" better sometimes, and I think that my "natural" ability to blush on cue does the speaking for me most times), but there is a great spectrum of appropriateness on all sides; if you are in tune with your surroundings and other people's feelings, then you are going to adapt/force/rebel against/continue with what you intend to do in some way. Everything is a game in some way, because we are constantly negotiating what we think will happen, what we want to happen, how we feel, what we notice, and everyone around us is doing the same thing. Honesty?-- Well, that's perhaps the important kernal to question in this mess.

and maybe--if you are like me-- faced in that moment of confrontation or of going "after" what you want, you think precisely all of the things that I just wrote... overanalyzing in the millisecond that you have available to you.. and then you freeze, unable to say or do a damn thing. I know this freeze quite well. The eternal freeze of information overload.


2. ultimate balance is being confident enough to share an honest opinion and humble enough to consider changing one's mind. (thx Ari Joseph for this insight.)

I think that this in itself is easy to understand, honest, and to the point. Thanks Ari Joseph.

Goodbye Darling

Goodbye darling
Twas a good run
Sweetened blush for everyone
Goodbye cheery chum next door,
Tiptoe tiger out to roar.

Picking Flowers

I picked a flower today.

Sheetal Gandhi and Human Nature

Article written for Sheetal Gandhi, recipient of a C.O.L.A grant.(for individual LA artists) This will be published on the COLA website .
(photo above right by CedarBough Saeji):
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I remember first meeting Sheetal Gandhi in 2006. “My name is Sheetal,” she said, projecting her voice smoothly and melodically from her petite frame. “Sheetal...As in, Lethal Sheetal” she added, and those of us around her smiled immediately. Her performances are just like this—graceful, honest, and colorful, with a mischievous penchant for playful contradiction. I sat down five years later to talk to her about performance, inspirations, and arriving at her latest project, Human Nature.

Gandhi is a multi-style dancer, multi-disciplinary choreographer, theatrical character-shifter and rhythmic vocalist. On stage these hyphenated phrases disappear and she becomes much more simply, a Storyteller. At her performances, I often find myself fighting the urge to fold my legs in my seat like I did when I was a child—cross-legged and eagerly gazing up towards the book that my teacher was reading aloud. This magical excitement is what Gandhi loves to capture and share with her audience. Through virtuosic movement isolations, charging rhythms, effervescent texts, and richly vocalized melodies, her tales tug at the heart-strings, tickle the funny bone, and evoke a sense of the terrifyingly familiar. In the end—and you may hope that it does not arrive—you will have followed her narrative through many of your senses.

Gandhi’s artistic story is one that weaves together variation just like her characters on stage. From a young age Gandhi was immersed in classical music and theater but found that the dancing body could encompass many kinds of communicative power, leading her to study choreography at UC Irvine and UCLA. Along the way, she has danced across cultural borders, incorporating the rhythms she has learned from studying abroad in Ghana, training in Kathak (a classical dance from Northern India,) and from frequent visits to the hometowns of her parents in Mumbai and Gujarat. As Gandhi listed some of her choreographic accomplishments, she paused when remembering her time with Cirque du Soleil. “Cirque taught me that performance could be transformative, and I never forgot that sense of magic that it could bring to an audience.” And transforming is exactly what she mastered in her most recent work entitled, Bahu-Beti-Biwi (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife)—a one-woman-show that she has been touring since its acclaimed debut in 2008. Although solo work is a relatively new trademark for Gandhi, the result of a “risky self-challenge” in graduate school, it has enabled her to sew many of her performance skills together in ways that were only possible alone. “Lethal Sheetal” is not afraid of risk-taking.

When I asked Gandhi about her upcoming project, Human Nature, she pointed to a kelly-green book that was framed in her living room. I gasped! It was The Giving Tree by renowned whimsical storyteller Shel Silverstein—the story about a boy, a tree, and the limits of love and sacrifice. “That has been my favorite book for some time!” I said. Gandhi smiled, explaining that reactions just like mine—inscribed with childhood nostalgia and deep emotional impact—were what interested her. Along with celebrating the book’s timeless relevance, Gandhi posed some questions at the heart of her project. Why do people give? What do we expect in return? Are women more prone to self-sacrifice than men? What will happen when we live in a world where nature cannot give selflessly anymore? The inner child, woman, and human in me simultaneously had her attention as she exposed some of her own vulnerable observations about sacrifice, family, and American entitlement.

Gandhi struggled to begin a new project after the success of Bahu-Beti-Biwi, but found new motivation by challenging herself with a completely new choreographic process. She will integrate multimedia and video installation within her recreation of Silverstein’s story. “I’ve always been critical about incorporating technology for the sake of technology” she admits. “So I’m taking a big risk… by trying to surpass what I myself critique, and by testing the limits of my imagination.” And she continued to explain that she is fascinated by the unique ways in which technology can help tell a story. Human Nature, will therefore culminate in many layers of give-and-take, including her performance between body and technology.

Sheetal Gandhi is a stunning performer, with a colorful physical, visual, linguistic, humanistic, and musical palate. As her story unfolds, be warned: you may want to sit cross-legged like you did as a child as the magic unfolds. Not to worry, you will not be the only one.




By Sara Stranovsky

Off the Map

I have no time to write songs.
But looking outside, and trying to push out some nostalgia creepin up from heart to head just came out in a rapid-fire song. FOr the first time I actually think i might let the song speak for itself, so I'm going to past the lyrics here. We all have corners, secret spots, and a small space that's just ours.

----
OFF THE MAP

There is this corner
I know it well
It’s my corner but I won’t tell
Where it is, because it’s my corner.
And it’s off the map.

There is this corner
The pavement is cracked
With a little ole scoop missin
from impact
of somethin heavy-hearted and strong
It’s mine and it’s off the map.


There’s this corner
Where there’s always a weed,
or a moping beetle or dropped birdseed
And it’s comforting to stand right there
Just there, off the map.

When you stand right there
On this small corner
Where the brick, and dandelions meet
You’ll know you’ve found it with a force through your feet,
On my corner, off the map

there’s this corner
I know it well,
It’s findable if you’re not lookin,
And when you find it you will know with a zap,
Because you’ll be off the map.

Theirs is this corner
I know it well
It’s my corner but I won’t tell
Where it is, because it’s my corner
And it’s off the map.

Dog Town? Hollyweird.

I found myself assisting these dogs in a film today. Funny story...

A close dancer-friend of mine relayed my name to her film friend, because he needed someone to help swiftly "fly" lap-dogs in a green screen. Or at least that's why I thought i was going to do. Turns out I mostly helped assist with the crew on set, moving soccer nets, holding these amazing dogs, and I didn' tget a chance to "fly" them in the green screen... still, funny how our paths cross sometimes.

[more to write, will fill in the blanks soon]

Check out Patrick Scott's films and work. He's fantastic. http://www.heypscott.com/

falling poems

The cavaquinho story continued today. (see earlier entries in 2010 and 2008).

Out of an old book fell two items that I had thought I had lost! (My clumsy hands knocked over the book, but my dancer tendencies swiftly enabled me to catch it with ease. I suppose things even out that way a lot.)

one: a love poem written hilariously, with such performative zest in Louis Baptista's instrument-making studio, by his friend. This guy was aggressive, forward, obnoxious, always eager to get some kind of laughing response.. but in the form of rhyming (rather cheesy) poems. What a delight to find years later, whopping a huge smile on my face during a time of glum.

Two: hand-written chords to learn on my cavaquinho, slightly puzzling since i don't really think of things in terms of "do re mi fa so" etc, but altogether moved by the grace of these little drawings. Maybe i'll finally learn a few more chords.

Falling poems, falling little drawings.