NEWSLETTER: step on the one

A BEAUTIFUL evening to you! This weekend in Los Angeles is sopping wet with ... sweat! Dance sweat that is. You must plot your trajectory so that you can catch a bit of it all. yes, that is a lot of money to drop in one weekend, but everyone gets a tax refund, right? Okay. I happen to be one of those people that almost always gets a tax refund (except when I am living in NY), but I am always incensed by the marketing that occurs trying to pry my dollars out of my hand to consume random stuff, just cause I got some dollars! This year, it was a wee different with creditors trying to dump me, even though I pay regularly, cause I am not a big money borrower. I got pay off offers that were almost as panicked as I was when I clicked "submit" the other night at the end of my TurboTax session. During review, I had questions tossed at me for my Schedule C that I had never ever heard...It should not be this complicated to have your own business, especially if your business is dance-related. Of all the arts, dance is the most difficult to monetize and likely has the highest amount of hidden costs. You have your home office but you drive to a studio where you pay rent to give a class where you "earn" money (I can hear all the dance teachers laughing right now). You can write off your mileage, part of your car value, car service etc, etc. How many of you do that? You are flown out to dance with someone, but you are doing "work for hire." You incur costs beyond the per diem (if one is offered) which you might not be able to write off since you were being told explicitly what to do and needed supervision and and andARGGGHHHH! Meltdown. Tax code needs some work. It especially needs to get a true distinction between high concert dance companies and dance laborers. Americans for the Arts are meeting soon, and I bet they will spend their time trying to get money out of the government, rather than investigate ways that money is extracted from performance-based artists at rates that are unfair given the amount of ongoing investment required to run "the business." And while everyone likes to complain about their tax rate, witness the tea parties today, our rate of taxation is the lowest it's ever been in history. What gives? Why do we all feel cheated? because we are in large part not investing that money in each other, but rather into systems to manage us. We gotta change this! Could you imagine being able to select what you want your tax owed to go to? The same way we are up in arms about the bailouts, we should just as actively be about identifying and initiating a shift in how taxes are assessed, collected then distributed. I KNOW we'd all feel a lot better and have more cash to go out to enjoy each other. Vibe on that. Focus. Now step on the good foot and Manifest it.

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 THE FRO this week is dance programming on almost every stage in town, with two major shows (or as they have called them "queer dance week) that look like NYC imports but are actually local. I'm also astounded and grateful to find myself curating three dance events, one of them, I am seeding to our collective unconsciousness to go viral in time for Int'l Dance Day. Now let's figure out how to get from the west side to downtown then to Hollywood and maybe to mid city for class.


HIGHWAYS
MEG WOLFE /SHOW BOX presents TENDER / Sharon Sherman's DEMOLITION BOY
April 17 - 19
Fri + Sat 8:30pm
Sun 7:00pm $20/$15
OPENS TONIGHT!
I will see you there in just a bit! My pick. (This was an extraordinary night of gritty, intelligent and surprising performances. Here is where queer releases the self-referential and turns its body-intelligence on the brutality of the everyday in overdeveloped society, with tongue firmly in cheek , or against cheek, or between cheeks. Ahem. This show was not only enjoyable to watch--even its more grotesque exchanges-- it was scathing social commentary that was well placed and designed. I really liked how focused each piece was: Sherman's on the rating, valuing and judging of art and bodies and Wolfe's+Barnett's on the physicality of relationships. The dancing was full-on dancing when necessary with only the occasional nod to a postmodern pedestrian palette. And that is as it should be. These dancers do not live in a walkable village and what is an everyday movement now seems like science fiction when compared to "high" Judson Church antics. I hope that the show can find its way on tour.)



REDCAT, map
April 15-17, 2009 The Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series
Dance by Neil Greenberg presents Really Queer Dance with Harps
Thurs 4.16.09 8:30 pm $25 $20 $12 Fri 4.17.09 8:30 pm $25 $20 $12
SOLD OUT! I went and saw it last night. I loved the Coda, but was kinda sad that the men and women did not dance together more: they were truly inspired when they did. As it turns out, that section was a bit of an inside joke between Greenberg and his dancers to finally give the audience what they wanted. Oh well. I thought that section was lush and still smart. The harpists would make Sun Ra proud. I had no idea that a harp could make all those sounds! Flavorpill's pick.


UNKNOWN THEATRE, map & parking
1110 Seward Street, Los Angeles
Mongrels by Samantha Giron Dance Project
Thursday April 16th, 2009 - Sunday April 26th, 2009; Th - Sat @ 8 PM & Sundays @ 6 PM; $18 advance on-line sale, $25 at the door
OPENS TONIGHT
A stripped-down and tripped out investigation of LA's electronica club scene, Mongrels seeks to get the rabid beasts off the street and onto the stage, but don't be surprised if they have filled all the seats in this small house. Lucky for you, it's a two-weekend run. Grover Dale's pick.


UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater, map
120 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA
Saturday Apr 18, 8 PM; Sunday, April 19, 2pm. $10/ $8 call (310) 825-2101 or online
CUP of JAVA
I am so over the title of this show, but the dancing will be without parallel. If you are looking for solid dance drama performed with the music and not in spite of it, this is your type of show. Seven of the most highly regarded performers of Java will take the stage with Gamelan, puppetry and dance; giving a level of enticement to "spectacle."


Next week is gonna be BUSY! If you know of a special Dance Week event, hit me up on Face Book so I can list it.



BPS at the BREWERY
618B Moulton, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company presents Value System
Thursday April 23 - Friday 24th @ 8 PM, Saturday April 26 @ 5 PM; $20/$25
Okay, so just off the title of the piece, I am so THERE. Plus, PLUS, have you checked them out?! It is likely you have seen a number of these work-horse dancers laboring in the pieces of choreographers all over town. If anybody was gonna make a piece about the economy, this would be the crew; they know it intimately. When they come together, they tend to go for it. So Imma finally get my butt to one of their shows. You should, too, if you have not. MUST GO.


114 W. 5th Street (b/w Spring & Main), map
IT’S (A)LIVE: BRAVE LIVE ARTS FROM LOS ANGELES
Friday April 24 7pm – 10pm; no tix info but i do beleive that donations are welcomed at the door, plan for $15
Stakes a very big claim in their press release: "is an amalgamation of artists who claim, write and redefine the real, constructed and imagined territories of Los Angeles. The body, gender, race, sex(ualities), history and play are examined and celebrated through dance, movement, literature, storytelling and music." Curated by Dino Dico, what I most like about the promise of this group show is that it is situated in the history of Downtown LA performance scene. So this is uber alternative, kiddies. Go check out part of the luminous darkside. Artists include: RICARDO A. BRACHO : BUTCHLALIS DE PANOCHTITLAN : HEATHER CASSILS : SIR HEFFINGTON & THE FINGERED DANCERS : ICY LYTES : BIANCA OBLIVION : DORIAN WOOD


BEATROCK STORE & GALLERY, map
4158 Norse Way, Long Beach, CA
Because Your Mama Said So: Group ArtShow dedicated to Mr. T
Sat Apr 25 2pm – 11pm, Opening reception, exhibit through
Alfie Numeric can throwdown y'all and this will be quite the jam. Yes, "Mr. T, dammit!" If you are in your 30's, okay, maybe 40s, you know you were lovin you some Mr. T on the A-Team. Come on now, don't try and front! I had to drop it 80s style just then, sorry. Ahem. Mr. T., crazy lookin character that he was, would always tell us kids "Don't be a fool, stay in school!" And so, I did. Cause if that's what lookin foolish was like, I was definitely staying in me some school! Alfie Numeric and massive crew celebrate this giant icon with a day long series of events, and of course, a commerative t-shirt. For more information, please contact Dave Araquel at dave@beatrock.com or Alfie Ebojo at alfie@alfienumeric.com

REDCAT
Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project
the break/s: a mixtape for stage
Wednesday, April 22 - Saturday April 25 @ 8:30 PM, Sunday April 26 @ 3 PM; W - F $25/12; Sat & Sun $30/16.
Now last week I lost my mind about this, and I will once again: THIS IS THE BIG BLOWOUT COMB. Taking HIP Hop theatre to a whole 'nother plane, Bamuthi imagines the stage as masterblaster boom box. MUST GO. I will be there. Connect with me on Twitter to figure out the day.

So I got a lovely call from the Dance Ninja which got me in to see this show on Wednesday. OMG! Fantastic craftsmanship, excellent use of projection and lighting, inspired use of live and canned sound, and the turntabelist? Forget about it! Now, having said all that, after I stood to give bruh his standing ovation, I did start to wonder at all the rferences in the piece that reminded me of other pieces I had seen before...Alright, well, that's hip hop right? Everything is in the mix, sampled, segued, otherwise shapeshifted and repurposed; no big whoop. But I liked the way thet Rennie Harris used Prince's lyrics in Rome & Jewels better than Bamuthi's remix. Then I realized that he never quite answered his own questions, which is all fine and good, but why were they asked, since they were rather polemical most of them? And women...dude's still working on his thang with women. So why did we never hear from his mother? Were his questions now ringing as the eternal quesitons of Hip Hop? The irriducible prime numbers at its core? And that was a long time to watch somebody work through their fantastic, yet personaly troubling life, even though it was wonderfully directed. But dammit if it was not BEAUTIFUL! SO yeah, he was pullin on them white liberal heartstrings to tug the dollars right out of their pockets with some of the most negroidal stereotypes around while playin at the edge of antiracist thought, but he did it with the utmost skill. It was mesmerizing. You should go, but maybe if you do, could you please ask him what the hell is "post hip hop any damn way"? Thanks.



WHEW!! Loving U!
Liked to lost my mind and kinda sat on this one! Actually, weird weird things happened in my Twitter account as I discovered just how little imagination remians among a good swath of people when it comes to the possibilities of the internet. When did we become Ferangiis? You know, that Star Trek "race of aliens" that only live to profit and profit to live? Yuck. Oh yeah, the thrice weekly 140 mile commute (that's 420 for those counting) is taking its toll; seven more weeks to go. I am throwin this newsletter up on the blog and even shipping it out. Yes I have some nerve! But then I am posting a fresh one TODAY, albeit with some of the same stuff, but with a special dance week section. I am feeling a big shift, change, push, lurch into a vision of collaboration. As the picture becomes clearer, I'll share it with you. Intersectional, ambition, collaborative, expansive, loving...yeah yeah yeah. All of that and a bag of dehydrated collard chips (yes, those really are good).

in love,
-Anna