NEWSLETTER: quem não vai já morreu

JUMP UP!! Hold da Line! Mexe mexe!!!

It is Carnaval time around the globe!!! The feast before the the famine, it is totally appropriate that both the stimulus package and Californians record-breaking late budget were both just signed. I could not help but laugh at the odd coincidence. The other "odd coincidence" happened this week, in a newspaper. It is likely by now that you have heard about and even seen the political cartoon that the NY Post ran ostensibly about the animal actor that skipped his Xanax, went berserk and mauled a woman in Florida, except the cartoon showed two white police officers standing over the shot and bleeding chimp saying "I guess we have to find someone else to write the next stimulus package." Wow. That would've been funny if on the previous page they had not covered the actual signer of the stimulus package, Barack Obama, and oh yeah, we had not had the last 400 years of brutal white supremacist images. Yeah, then that would have been fuuuuuuuneeeeeee! Wooo! But this is the feast before the famine, and I am sure that after the current uproar, it will be a while before Murdock and his buddies try something this extravagantly racist. I was all ready to just skip over this, I mean, I have a hard time getting behind anything Al Sharpton is running, until I watched my son suffer through 24 hours of very subtle racist decisions that were practically subliminal. Like I said last week, we have to keep the love up, and high! Not just for the kids, but for ourselves. We all deserve a world free of ignorance and lazy comedians. Everyone has to step up their game. Taking racism to new highs always turns out to be the quick road to annihilation, rush that it is. So your assignment as we approach Fat Tuesday is to find the wonderful, put a beat to it and jam in the streets of our political commons aka the Internet (how did that happen) and Old World Stylee, challenge the opposing Crewe to "dance off" for right of way. Don't just shake your head, or dash off a letter to the editor, or sign the petition that Color of Change is running. Get out there on the blogs and videos where the racists doth gather, and don't reason, just bring your wonderful for about 10 minutes, then crank up some carnival tunes and shake it. Yes, this is counterintuitive. Engage. right now there is a veritable feast of events laid out on the table before us.

Afrolicious. Afrologia. Afrodelic. Afropoesia. Afrologica. How big is your 'fro?
Fractal, improvisational, polemical, but always moving with spirit and in service to lifting us all up!
That's the Logic of the Afro--sign up, read up, be up--you can move mountains, now make it beautiful


BLOWIN BACK DA 'FRO right now is my need to support my son (little man took some hits to the ego) versus my desire to head out to the Inland Empire and find some wonderful. But there is that fiery feel of chaos that I loved of Carnaval engulfing the city's soles. Hot feet and hearts pounding as one...

TONIGHT
3587 Main Street (at corner of 6th downtown - former jazz club), Riverside, CA, map
You Belong To Me, Part 1
Ursuala Rucker with James Luna in downtown Riverside. I could not figure this out, but Jennfer Doyle is the answer. Ursula Rucker is amazing. That show starts shortly. Spend the night and catch the panel the next day with Rucker, Luna and performance artist Ron Athey. Then Athey performs on Saturday night.


PERFORMANCE LAB, ARTS 166
900 University Avenue, Riverside CA
decaDANCE: 10th Annual Graduate Student Dance Concert
Friday, February 20 & Saturday 21 @ 8 PM, Sunday 22 @ 3 PM Cruise out to see our MFA's and PhD candidates perform/create works about topics you thought you understood: you may think you know, but you have no idea...and you'll be entertained. Really. This is a zany crew. Carol Abizaid, Duanzi Cheng, Melissa Hudson, Hye Won Hwang, Adanna Jones, Ann Mazzocca, Tim Rubel, Hannah Schwadron, Asheley Smith, and Prema Thiagarajan


REDCAT
International Children's Film Festival
Saturday, February 21st, Noon, through March 8; $5/ticket/program
WHOAH!!! This thing is huge! And while it appears cheap, it is not if you love movies and have kids. There are several programs per day, each for $5. There is no festival pass that I can see. But I guess, most kids could only handle 80 minutes at a stretch anyway. It is a bargain compared to commercial screen prices, half to be exact. I'm just being greedy! Rise and Shine looks like my fav. And I might have to wait until March 7th to see it, being fiscally responsible and all. Go to the website and check out the offerings, they are too numerous to mention here. But the "added value" is that CAARS is producing the live events part, so expect lots of wild big fun outside of the screenings. The festivities include interactive jump-roping, balloons, snacks, REDCAT tattoos, photos and fun.



FARMERS' MARKET
3rd Street @ Fairfax
Mardis Gras Festivities
Friday, February 20, 6:30 - 10 PM; Saturday February 21, 12 PM - 9:30 PM; Sunday February 22, 12-7:30 PM; and Fat Tuesday, 24 February, 6 -8 PM
Laissez les bom temps roulez! Something for everyone at good times during the day. It's free, but you will spend lots of money if you don't eat before you go! Parking is a hassle, so take a bus or park in the garage for the adjacent mall, which is not cheap. The cajun cooking joint, however, is not to be missed. You gotta at least have some chicory et beignets. Great fun for kids.


PASADENA CIVIC AUDITORIUM, map
300 E Green St, Pasadena, CA 91101 Pasadena Dance Festival Saturday, February 21, 11 AM, 1:30 PM, 4 PM showcases; professional stage 8 PM, workshop all day; $40 festival pass; $25 for evening show; $25 day pass no show. Online pre-sales are done, so you just have to show up, but there is no way you will be disappointed! Not only are there master classes from great instructors (hello, Lula Washington is giving a master class at the end of the day), but there is a lecture series geared towards the professional dancer. Check out Cedar Sinai's "Dance Therapy" presentation at 3 PM. Do not miss Antics Dance at the professional showcase.


HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM
6215 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
THE 9th ANNUAL BRAZILIAN CARNAVAL 2009
Saturday, February 21, 8 PM
Viver Brasil. Katia Moraes. Live feed from Brasil. No need to say much more. Get your samba all the way on, in different candences, tempo, and sotaques! The pricing é um pouco complicado: The Hollywood Palladium Brazilian Carnaval 2009 is for all ages. Advance tickets are $38 for general admission and $55 for reserved table seating and $65 for VIP seating, plus group discounts are available by calling (818) 566-1111. Purchase General Admission and Reserved Table tickets by calling (818) 566-1111 or visit www.BrazilianNites.com or www.livenation.com/venue/hollywood-palladium-tickets or www.wantickets.com Tickets, if available, will be sold on the day of the event at the Hollywood Palladium from 4:00 pm on for $48 general admission, $65 reserved table seat and $75 VIP table seats, cash only at the door. Parking on site is available for a fee.



MURPHY RECITAL HALL, LMU, map
1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA
Dance is Social Action 2009: Memory, Performance, and the Holocaust
Sunday February 22, 3 PM; $15 general / $5 students & seniors
A Fundraiser for the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center Library in Kigali, Rwanda. Performance, dialogue and fundraising, the event features Kristen


ZANZIBAR
1301 5th Street, Santa Monica, CA, map
Big Fatty
February 24th, 8-10pm, $10
For those of you on the West Side who can't bring themselves to drive to Hollywood, or, if you are looking for the value menu of carnival events, then this is for you. I can't believe that it is only for 2 hours! Maybe that was a typo? But Vida Vierra and Swing Brasil are gonna throw down for you with a bevvy of guests in this global festival of the Fat. Arrive early as it always sells out.


HIGWAYS
1651 18th St., Santa Monica, CA
DreamAwake, "Simple Matters"
Friday + Saturday, February 27 + 28 @8.30pm; $20/$15
Bring on the clowns! A weekend of intelligent slapstick (don't believe me, google Dick Van Dyke or Jerry Lewis) meant to save you from your own spiraling confusion and posible despair over the state of things these days. I think I needed this in pill form today.

Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater, UCLA
120 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA New Works: Angela Jordan’s “Trio” and “Don” ; Michael Sakamoto presents “Vestiges of Creation” Saturday, February 28, 8pm FREE I am very excited to view these two throwing down! I have had the pleasure of watching Sakamoto a few times and i have to tell you that you cannot miss him. I have danced around with Angela Jordan and her explosive power and wit is worth checking out. Hope to see you there.




WORKSHOPS & ON-GOING CLASSES
Dance Bank hosts Rae Blum at Metabolic studio for her workshop F i e l d. Why is it written like that? This workshop helps you locate yourself in the spaces that exist between resonance and presence, solidity and ephemerality, expanse and restriction. Don't miss it. Saturdays 11 - 1 for the next three Saturdays. Shall we once again list all the travel programs being offered? Yes we should and we'll add

Contratiempo, Cuba. This is an annual if not twice annual trip to Cuba for this hot dance company.


so yo:
this episode of the newsletter did not hit the in-boxes due to muscular issues. I was rather sad that I could not get the shoulder and hip to agree with the deadline; there was something deeper in the muscles than just an insistent spasm. As the weekend wore on, and I found myself in the bed trying allow myself the space to have the muscles release, I could not stop seeing the cartoon image of the chimp, the cops, the blood, the not so witty remarks...I could not stop thinking about the actual dead animal, the mauled woman, the distraught friend/pet mommy...Now to be clear, I own one of those bodies that is always on the verge--of being bountifully healthful or collapsed in a non-mobile heap--so a series of things can stack up my spine and set me down real fast. But this one creeped, which gave me time to think about it. What really is at play here? I had the gut feeling that other things were amiss than a crazed editorial cartoon. A few days later a mayor was busted for emailing another cartoon with a field of watermelon planted in the White House front lawn. Yet, 64%. 64% approval rating. That's hard to touch directly, but perhaps easy to destbilize if the subconscious can be redirected, mobilized through a lifetime immersed in racist images and words, often without awareness at the level of immersion. An attempt to create an undertow is taking place. Rather than offer actual intelligent fiscally conservative recommendations, news media outlets--in print and on-line--have resorted to scandalous behavior. I actually saw an article entitled "Hope is a Four Letter Word" about the economic package/bailout. Yes it is. It is a powerful word, and that 64% still has it, but would like an opportunity to engage and shift the dialogue away from "bailout" to "stabilize." From "catch," to "launch." My body had to take me off-line so that i could "feelize" this reality: the far right is misreading the discontent with the financial situation as discontent with Obama's decisions and equating those decisions with blackness as a failed consciousness. But they are mistaken. The far right is not accustomed to active, productive dissention and in return active, if not a bit parsed response in kind. So lift up the O!! And lift yourself up. Don't rage or despair. We got this.