intellectual properties

First Breath-Last Breath – SF World Premiere

butoh contains all of the things that i usually avoid.  group activities. games. rituals. prayerformance. contact dance with other humans.  separately, in other contexts, i do not often engage in these things.  but the philosophy, the intention, and the aesthetic of butoh makes these activities therapeutic for me, like yoga.  extreme mindfulness.  patience.  stillness. giving your all with every breath, every movement.  putting it all out there, especially the things you might not want to show.

i had no idea what this was when i first met Anastazia in 2006.  our first interactions were fashion related, as she was making and selling costumes when she first moved to SF. but time went by and she moved her focus back to her primary art, performance, and i moved with her.

and now this weekend we are in the midst of the largest production in SF to date – First Breath – Last Breath: a full theatre production, all our own, sharing the bill with no one else, 90-100 minutes on stage.

this cast is really amazing – seasoned butoh dancers, aerialists, a contortionist, an opera singer, sets by SF artist Shrine, and the live music with is incredibly unique and beautiful. i feel so lucky to be a part.

the title refers to the cycle, and cycles, of life, but it is also personally very fitting for me right now. BadUnklSista was my first real breath as a non-fashion-performance artist on a stage, and due to life shifts, this is likely going to be my last performance for a long while.

shows are tonight @ 7:00pm, tomorrow at 2:00pm and 7:00pm.

reviews so far: SF Examiner + SF Chronicle 4/26

“about the liminal spaces between the defining moments of our lives.”

sunday’s rabbithole

yesterday was a strange day. well, most days are strange, but sometimes it seems more acute.

.::.

as noted, my chronic pain has flared up again, now for over a month with little relief.  so i’m not sleeping well, taking various pills and trying all the therapies again and trying to walk the line with my yoga/workouts between doing nothing and overextending, both of which are bad. friday night we went out dancing and i danced as hard as i could while trying not to hurt myself (not *too* ecstatic), and i felt great when i went to bed, but woke up saturday morning feeling tired and broken, and the pouring rain did nothing to lift my spirits.

.::.

1. the little match stick girl

sunday morning jay got up before dawn and went to tahoe, which was only a couple of hours after i had finally fallen asleep. i tossed and turned until i needed to get up to go to see my friend Anastazia’s performance with the SF Lyric Opera in a production of The Little Match Stick Girl Passion at ODC.

The Little Match stick girl is a story by Hans Christian Andersen (1845) about an abused child who dies in the snow trying to sell matchsticks on New Year’s Eve. it’s a puritanical tale about the homeless, and it is heavy. i had planned on going Saturday night, but i was already feeling terrible on saturday and seeing such a thing sounded like a bad idea. and, as it is a reverent morality story, i thought it was more appropriate for a Sunday afternoon.

the piece was minimalist, with a choir of 4 singers (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) singing the David Lang vocal arrangement of the story, a cappella besides a few percussive instruments, and Anastazia, all in white, embodying the child. i have seen and performed with Staz many times, and had also read her description of her preparations to take on this role, which were personal and intense, and so on top of the subject matter, my personal connection to the performance as deep. the haunting vocal arrangement, the visceral embodiment of a scared dying child by my friend – by the end of it, i was full of tears.

and then the producer came out, also trying hard to hold back tears, and gave a short speech about how it was no accident that they chose this story to perform at this space – near 17th and Capp, a neighborhood plagued with prostitution, drugs, and homeless problems – as their return to the stage, and asked us to remember the homeless, remember the downtrodden and the dying. do not just walk by.  and then i really lost it.

in Staz’s preparation for this, she said

“I feel the role of a contemporary artist no matter the medium used is to reflect our history, personal and planetary, and offer through that reflection another way to view the present while navigating a positive affect on the future.”

this production definitely achieved that goal.

the combination of this emotional intensity, my body pain, my fatigue – i was a mess.  i could barely talk to my friends who were there, and i didn’t stick around to mingle.

.::.

2. the litterer

after some deep breaths back out in the sunshine for a bit, i met up with reagan, and we had a respite for a while, and then since it was a sunny day i decided to take a long walk from the mission through mid-market to powell street to get back on the train.  at 9th and market/civic center, the man standing in front of me waiting for the walk sign threw his emptied single-serving liquor bottle into the intersection.  oh how i hate flippant littering!! it took some restraint not to say anything, but i wasn’t just going to let it go by either. so right when the walk sign came on, i stepped directly in front of him, swooped down and picked up the bottle mid-stride and then kept walking directly to the waste receptacle on the other side of the street and plopped it in.  i never looked back behind me, i never made contact, so i don’t know if he saw me, but if nothing else the other people in the crosswalk did.

this decision to not confront the litterer was a departure for me, as i usually do speak up to people like that because i think letting it slide reinforces the behavior. sometimes they really are ashamed “oh, sorry i wasn’t thinking” but sometimes they are defensive “who the fuck are you?!”

but last weekend, on March 17, i took a 1-day women’s personal safety course at Bernal Yoga, as i often find myself either confronting people, or being confronted, on the street and on the train and in clubs/at parties.  and it was taught that your first priority is to de-escalate any situation, even if it means saying sorry when you’re not in the wrong, and definitely never provoking people. so i decided there to not provoke the situation, but in the few seconds before we crossed the street figured a way to make my point without ever interacting or making eye contact with the person, and that was to step in front of him and pick up the litter and keep walking.

.::.

3. the misogynist

a short time later, unfortunately, i had a much more intense situation in which to practice de-escalation.  as i boarded the train home at Powell street, *immediately*, and without any provocation whatsoever, not even eye contact, a guy on the train started talking at me, loudly and aggressively, from a few seats away. “who the fuck you think you are, girl?  why you dressed like that?” it was so obtuse that at first i didn’t even realize he was talking to me. his companion tried to calm him down with “come on, man, don’t say things like that. chill out” but the guy kept at it. “who you think you are? so what you got sunglasses? i got sunglasses too, BITCH” and his companion got up and moved down the train, telling him to “shut up, man, you can’t talk to people like that”.

then the guy broke into song to the tune of “i’m sexy and i know it” except that he sang “i’m a rapist and i know it”.  WTF. the entire train could hear this.  he was loud. i sat unmoving, looking forward from behind my sunglasses, wanting DESPERATELY to say FUCK YOU DUDE but instead deciding to get up and get off at the next stop.  the companion kept asking him to stop, but the guy kept it up and i could hear him still yelling things at me as i stepped off the train.

in retrospect i am glad i didn’t say anything to the angry misogynist, except that i wish i would’ve said a very direct Thank You before exiting the train to the companion friend, who at least wasn’t just letting it slide (positive reinforcement).

i wish this was an isolated incident, but it’s not. i deal with street harassment at least 50% of the time that i leave my house alone, and that is unfortunately not an exaggeration. it’s usually not as aggro as that dude, more like the guy 5 minutes earlier before i got on the train that leered and swerved uncomfortably toward me and said “hola rubia……..” as i walked by on the street.  but that guy is why i took the self-defense class, because while nothing serious has happened yet, with this rate of incident, i’m scared that it will. SIGH.

in the vein of the recent “shit X people say to Y people” meme, there is a “Shit Men Say to Men Who Say Shit to Women on the Street” PSA video for International Anti-Street Harassment Week. if you have a friend who does this to women, make him watch it.

.::.

after all that, i needed a beer. so jay picked me up at west oakland and we went to the Trappist and had a couple nice dark microbrews.

another rabbithole complete.

doorway at 19th and Mission, taken yesterday

recent photos: 2/11 and 2/14

wearing a Tamo Designs dress and at the Opel Productions 10 Year Anniversary party fashion show – 2/11/14 @ Mezzanine. the print on that dress is *so awesome.* her stuff really is gorgeous, hand crafted, soft, sleek and beautiful.

backstage with Shelby Autumn at LoveSick5

backstage with Alexandria Von Bromssen, the star and creator of LoveSick

here is a whole beautiful set of LoveSick photos by C&M photography.  i won’t repost them here, but  i think this one is the keeper.

fantasy life 2012

it seems a local team did something and sports fever is taking over again. cool, i guess? < shrug> . i was thinking about this, how some people are really into being BIG FANS and things like fantasy sports or phantasy phish where you create (and try to manifest?) the best possible team/game/event EVAR.  i’m more into Fantasy Life, and this morning i feel so grateful that i have so many other people not only playing along with me, but into making it FANTASY REALITY, from #occupy to fashion to fitness to art to music to education to policy to travel to procreation.  dreaming ain’t good if you don’t try to make it real, and if we play it right it looks like RealLife 2012 is going to be an epic win. GO TEAM! you know who you are.

music rec: superhuman happiness

as seen in NYC: this may or may not be your thing:

Superhuman Happiness

Superhuman Happiness was founded in 2008 to seek joy and love through shared rhythm and melody, composed and improvised. To pursue a happiness greater than that of an individual. They have one CD, Stuart Bogie’s Superhuman Happiness – Fall Down Seven Time Stand Up Eight, and two 45 records entitled GMYL/Hounds and Human Happiness (Electric Cowbell). Members are known for their work with Antibalas…, the Sway Machinery, TV on the Radio, Battle Apples, The Phenomonal Handclap Band, Caural, The Roots, Nicole Atkins, King Expressors, Minerva Lions, Passion Pit, Celebration, Holly Miranda, Iron and Wine, Foals and the inimitable MC Chris. The band regularly rehearses, composes, and records together, engaging in various improvisatory musical games currently being compiled for implementation in widespread applications.

today

t

so this happened

photo by zoë hong

10/31/11

Dear Friends:

some relationships naturally fade, some hold steady, some flourish with time. some require “work”, and some don’t.  sometimes it doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen someone in two years. Sometimes it does. i say this because i have had reconnection/clarification conversations with a couple of friends recently and wonder if i should reach out to more people.

someone i care dearly for recently told me that despite the fact i told her i think about her all the time (and told her so), she feels like i don’t actually take the time to see her or make direct contact (not social networking) and don’t invite her to all the things i’m doing, so she didn’t quite know where our friendship stood.

all i can say is that i think of people i love often. i do, and i try to be mindful and i do little things like send notes and gifts at random times. some of the people i feel psychologically and spiritually closest to i don’t see for 2 or 3 months. or years. but i think of them all the time. but our lives are scattered, busy, full of odd schedules, and i keep a personal schedule that sometimes conflicts with social schedules. i will skip a dinner party if it means i won’t get to go to yoga that week. maybe sometimes my priorities are not what others think they should be. and yes, some of the things i do are not open to everyone, and so it’s true that maybe you were not invited to that one thing.

but i will also say that phones and email work two ways. it’s actually kind of amazing to me sometimes that with all my hundreds of friends (not “friends”, but Friends), my phone will go 2 days, 3 days without a single beep to annouce a call or text message if i don’t instigate contact first. i email people and they don’t write back (i’m very big into personal, private email. the art of letter writing! ). it happens. but i almost never ignore a friend when they contact me. if i do, it’s a rare mistake.

so i guess what i’m saying is that if you think we used to be friends but you feel that somehow we’ve fallen out, or maybe i did do something specific that turned you off, if you want to, please call, text or email me. i’m sure we can reconnect.

love~

::SMILEY MAN::

Brendan & Amy #1, originally uploaded by wtbzl

movement studies

last night we went to see our (awesome!!!) friend Mary Franck’s conceptual-performance piece, Permutae.

i had so many millions of things to say while sitting in that dark theatre,  and now i barely recall all of the places my mind went.

i don’t know why i resist loving conceptual art so much.  i think it’s because i can’t actually articulate why, and so when, afterward, i say “i absolutely loved it” and someone asks “why?” i feel suddenly unprepared, embarrassed to explain.  why do bodies moving absurdly through abstract scapes to nonmelodic sounds cause my self to dissolve?  the body as vocabulary, skin as an instrument: this speaks to me.

all i know is that not long after the performance started i realized that almost my entire body was moving also, while most of the rest of the audience sat still, the man next to me fully asleep.  not only do i enjoy watching, i uncontrollably want to be doing what they are doing.

i have an artist ticket to burning man this year, from doing butoh with BadUnklSista for BRAF and such.  it makes me feel odd as i still do not describe or consider myself an artist. but i think that i might do a solo butoh piece somewhere on the playa.  i will not tell anyone when or where.