This American Life Comes to the Stage
May 20, 2012
Ira Glass and OK Go at This American Life LIVE on May 10th, photo by Evan Namerow
How do you take a radio show – one filled with beloved storytellers and writers whose voices we know but whose faces we rarely see – and turn it into an exciting visual experience? Add aspects that you simply can’t do on radio, like dance, an interactive music experience, animation, and other visual effects. On May 10th, I attended a live taping and screening of This American Life LIVE at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The auditorium was buzzing with anticipation, and the fact that the show was being broadcast in movie theaters across the US and Canada made it even more thrilling.
I could write pages on all the wonderful aspects of the program, which was hosted by the delightfully charming and occasionally giddy with excitement Ira Glass. Comedian Tig Notaro made the audience roar with laughter, David Sedaris was frightening in clown make-up as he whined (understandably) about waiting in line for coffee, and the band OK Go brought some pleasing tunes to the stage and a musical experiment that relied on a smartphone app. It sort of worked, but was nonetheless fun.
David Rakoff at This American Life LIVE, photo by Adrianne Mathiowetz
Since this is a blog dedicated to dance, I’d like to highlight the dance contributions to the show. Ira Glass introduced Monica Bill Barnes & Company, a NYC-based group that he recently saw and thought would be a good addition to the show. He was right. In an excerpt from their 2009 work Another Parade, Anna Bass and Monica Bill Barnes mock everyday experiences, like someone lifting weights at the gym or strutting their stuff for attention, to James Brown’s Get Up (I Feel Like Being) a Sex Machine. And although this wasn’t my first time seeing the piece, its humor still resonated.
The other performance, which came as more of a surprise, was from David Rakoff, who is better known for his writing. At the microphone, he talked about how cancer affected his life – and his left arm, which he can no longer use – along with his background in dance. He mentioned walking “across the street” as a college student to take dance classes (referring to the studios at Barnard, across from Columbia). Quite suddenly, he left the microphone and broke into movement. He lunged, arched his back, and had full command of his body. He moved with grace. It was one of the more powerful moments in the show – and one that couldn’t be appreciated on radio.
Thank you, This American Life, for bringing the show to the stage. It was funny, touching, sad, powerful, thoughtful, and downright smart. Please do so again soon.
Good Advice from Ira Glass
August 30, 2011
I came across the above video of This American Life‘s Ira Glass talking about what makes a good story. As I listened to him explain the common scenario where a budding report has “killer taste” but might be making work that is “kind of crappy”, it became clear that his advice to continue making a lot of work applies to all creative individuals. The fall dance season is approaching, and with that comes an incredible amount of programming that features both emerging and established choreographers and dancers. As I read press releases with artists’ bios and the descriptions of their work, it’s refreshing to take a step back and consider the years and endless amounts of time that they devote to their craft. Even the ones who we – the public and the press – consider to have “made it” and be at the top of their game are still creating work to find “that special thing” (Ira’s words) that they want it to have. Hopefully they can look back at their old work and laugh at themselves the way Ira does at the end of this video.
Masters of Modern Dance: Exclusive Discount Offer
August 10, 2011
FORA.tv has partnered with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions to present Masters of Modern Dance, a video series featuring in-depth interviews and rehearsal footage with five leading male choreographers: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bill T. Jones, Trey McIntyre, Mark Morris, and Paul Taylor. Each video in the series is 30 to 55 minutes long and includes exclusive behind the scenes footage of the choreographers, rehearsals, and performances. Some excerpts from the series are available on FORA.tv’s site for free (see below), but to watch the full series requires purchase. Fortunately, FORA.tv has created a special discount offer for Dancing Perfectly Free readers!
You can get 20% off the entire series by doing the following:
1. Visit Masters of Modern Dance at Fora.tv
2. Click on the “BUY ALL NOW” button under the red offer box.
3. Join FORA.tv (FREE) or log in if already a member.
4. At checkout, enter coupon code: DPF20 and click “Apply”
5. Enjoy the series! The programs are available for 60 days after purchase. Limit one coupon per person.
Below are links to the free clips:
Trey McIntyre: Rehearsal Excerpt
Trey McIntyre Dance Company Steals Hearts in Heartland
Bill T. Jones: Rehearsal Excerpt
Bill T. Jones: Bringing Art to an Evolving Audience
Mikhail Baryshnikov: Rehearsal Excerpt
Baryshnikov on Opening the Baryshnikov Arts Center
Paul Taylor: Rehearsal Excerpt
Paul Taylor Puts Dancers’ Morale Above Choreography
MoMA’s PopRally and “Talk to Me” Exhibit
July 29, 2011
Guests playing Copenhagen Game Collective's B.U.T.T.O.N (Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) at MoMA's PopRally on July 27, 2011
On Wednesday night, MoMA’s PopRally transformed the museum into an interactive video game party. All games featured in the sold out event, called Arcade, were selected by Kill Screen and inspired by MoMA’s newest exhibit, Talk to Me: Design and Communication between People and Objects.
In addition to allowing visitors to walk through the exhibit – which is dizzying in size and includes some mind-boggling projects, all with QR codes and interactive features – the event displayed large-scale video games on several floors and in the Sculpture Garden. One of the games, Limbo, created by the Danish independent game studio Playdead, was hauntingly beautiful, described in the program as creating a world that is “reminiscent of both a Tim Burton fantasy and Ed Ruscha’s work from the 1990s.” Watch Limbo’s trailer below, and head to MoMA to see Talk to Me, on display through November 7th. Make sure to bring your smartphone to take advantage of all of the exhibit’s interactive features. As the New York Times review put it, Talk to Me is “made for the texting, tweeting, social-networking, app-downloading, smartphone-wielding museum goer.”
OK Go, Pilobolus, and Google Team Up
July 28, 2011
This is fun: the dance company Pilobolus and band OK Go have joined forces with Google to create All is Not Lost – an HTML5 music collaboration that allows viewers to embed a message of their own in the music video and have the band and dancers show the message through movement. Read more about it on Google’s blog, and definitely try out a message for All is Not Lost. After you watch it, you can share it with friends or save it in the global gallery.
