Why I don't Care About Miley Cyrus

In a word: redux.

There are only so many times you can watch poorly rehearsed, choreographed works and get all lathered up about them. By now we should recognize that this type of "performance" is a 21st century technique. Ragged edges, ridiculous juxtapositions, racially erratic/erotic signals deployed by a media brand that should "know better" is not about ignorance or even malevolence. It's about dollars and attention theft.

Stop leaving your attention gate open.

Go make some wonderful. Get your publicist, or get your friends together and retain a publicist TOGETHER. Take some courses on SkillShare or MightyBell on crafting a marketing plan then use it.  Get your mailing list together and set aside some duckets for Facebook ads or fourwalling a theATER. Run a crowdfunding campaign. There is a boutique market for everyone. And yes, it is a shame that huge swaths of the United States are populated by people who do not live near any person of African descent, but that is not true of MOST of the rest of the world. Besides, would that actually make much of a difference?

So before you loose your mind up in here about perpetuating this that and the other, redirect your energy and go make some good shit. Bomb the internet with awesomeness. Get your page views up and the momentum will shift in your direction. That's what these ladies are doin.

Big Freedia (in red), the Queen of Bounce and Maestra of Twerk

Until then, stop worrying about Miley n'em. They are doin' what they do. You do you.

Related articles

• Twitter Reacts To Miley Cyrus' VMA Performance and Its Not Good
• Exclusive: Big Freedia, "Duffy" — This is How You Twerk
• Queen of Bounce Big Freedia Unimpressed With Miley's Twerk Attempts
• Big Freedia to Miley Cyrus: That's Not Twerking

Mentoring at SXSW 2012

I am pleased to announce that I will be a mentor at SXSW this year! I'm excited to bring my special brand of coaching to the conference. I look forward to meeting some incredible people!

http://austin2012.sched.org/speaker/annabeatricescott

Iemanjá's Footprints

It's customary in Brasil to head to the ocean for New Year's Eve to thank the Mother of Fishes, Iemanjá for all that she did to help keep your family coherent, cohesive and flourishing. All about the family, by extension, she is also about community and nation building. Iemanjá's dance moves like the tide coming in and out. With hands outstretched like a fan or foam on the waves, Iemanjá stitches together story or dissolves obstacles, drop by drop. She is one of energies that drives the Dancing Oracle since she also represents seven layers of knowledge, from that which we can easily see on the surface to Unknown mysteries which typically only "sensate" in our muscles, yearning for descriptive words.

Last night, I was walking the shore in Venice Beach, practically blinded by fog, steered toward the ocean only by sound. Shapes appeared and disappeared in the fog, but we kept moving forward, certain of our next steps only when they were required of us. Objects took on other tasks before their true nature became known, but this did not frustrate; it delighted. Our intention did not waiver, it became play. May 2012 bring you delicious discoveries already on your path as you answer your calling. Axé!

Choreographing Writing

Often scholarly types get hung up at the outline. This link is to a very useful list of things to do to create a book to build a personal brand. I find this interesting because being identified as a scholars is and has always been beholden to personal branding. We had a corner on that market and never named it!

Go read this article. Full of useful ideas, the author, Roger Parker, makes a point to help you create your own process.

If you have ever struggled with getting your next piece of writing out there, remember to let go of the outline once it is done. "Save Time Turning Ideas Into Profitable, Brand-Building Books" is for people who never thought they could write a book, but have in fact generated hundreds of pages of worksheets and speeches. Our problem as academic-types is that we come through a culture of hazing bent on convincing us that our singular voice is possibly already wrong before it is heard! Rest assured, your topic would not have chosen you if you were wrong for it!

The process of obtaining approval and certification to then write makes it very hard to turn around and write! Once you get going, there is no one to give you permission anymore. So what is the tendency? To go back to the outline, rework it, remap the project and bug your advisor again to approve it. Of course, it will be hard to get their approval again, because they have moved on to the next task. A tepid response from an advisor about the next, greatest outline usually creates panic and generates a third outline...and less of a response from an advisor now fearing that you will never start to actually write. Your newly refined outline is not the problem, your need for closure is.

When I worked as a professor, I would assign art therapy projects for students who were particularly stuck in the need for approval. This article by Roger Park lists some of my favorite ways to choreograph your thoughts so that the graphos literally leaps out of you. The biggest idea? Get back on the floor; leave your computer alone. Use tactile devices to organize your thoughts, not lists and lists. Once you can feel it, see it and interact with it, you will hear your project's logic and serve it the resources it needs.

Silfredo La'O paints through dancing. His solo is literal choreographing, experimenting with traditional movement from Santería, itself, soul writing through dance.

Like a great solo, you will know when a move is not "true" to the momentum of the moment that preceded it. In order to get the solo to work, to garner belief in its reality, you became an expert in it by playing, poking, falling, failing, releasing, breaking it, beginning again and playing some more. You want the solo to convey its meaning and support you as a choreographer or dancer. What if you wrote from the same place?

What if you were clear that you were creating a personal brand? The thing about branding is that you have to get the stuff out there more quickly than we are accustomed to in scholarship. But what if you could get your writing project out there without looking for the next qualifying exam, certificate, scathing review? Do not let go of outlining, but switch instead to planning, to mapping. This subtle shift will help you get some gestural healing going so that your project can support your voice and you, its truth.

Anna B. Scott holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies, worked as a professor for almost ten years, makes dance theater, and writes on all types of topics.  If you are really stuck or under duress of a deadline, a writing coach maybe right for you. Contact the Dancing Oracle for support. Remember, it is your passion.

Das Racists and Video Dance History

Get More: Das Racist, Music, More Music Videos

Can you name all the Michael Jackson music videos cited in this new one?

There is likely some insane inside joke here about earning 1M just by saying "Michael Jackson," but I find using pastiche as a mode of production, not just presentation, quite interesting. Das Racists are definitely "overedumacated" traffickers in histrionics and assorted tomfoolery, yet, the collisions they create in their lyrics and videos causes somatic dissonance, which ain't supposed to happen. Throw the corpo-real something, it will calculate, right? Well, apparently, fact is not only stranger than fiction, but is fiction.

Live Action Adverts

Increasingly, the dance flash mob is casted, and professionally choreographed. Perhaps T-Mobile's series in 2007 did it best, literally cramming a train station full of dancers who rocked out so hard, their infectious enthusiasm spread to passersby who picked up snippets of the choreo and joined in. Lately, however, the drive to control the message of the flash mob has generated a fourth wall in semi-public, but mostly private consumerists spaces.

The latest effort of Beyoncé to take over the world through hairography and pumps comes not from her Goldeness Herself, rather from a "flash mob" created for Target to celebrate the launch of her album at the retail chain, or given the date, her team's nomination for an MTV Music Video Award for best Choreography. This video has very high production quality and most strikingly, has a storyline, just like a regular advertisement would. Give it a look:



As you can see, the crowd is forced out of their space, their routine for shopping, not because they want to watch necessarily, but because the producer realized that the best place to stage the mob was by the registers, which became the backstage for the waves of dance crews. Displacing the shopper does not turn them into an audience member. In fact, it could be argued that this particular iteration of flash mob is not the "gift" we have come to enjoy from large scale group choreography. Done in tiny teams each with exceptionally virtuositic timing (seriously, who would pick up these moves in a few moments other than another professional dancer), matching costumes meant to harmonize with the other brand in the room--Target--this flash mob for Beyoncé is foisted upon the shoppers. There is no negotiation of space, the music pumped overhead tells them they are in a different space, and the cameraman definitely cut down their ability to move across the aisle to the check out lines.

This is not a dance flash mob: it is an advertisement that disrupts the main show just like a regular one. The only difference? This ad does not pay dancers residuals, stalks the viewer, blocking the exits, and unfortunately, the bathroom.

To Dance is To Calculate

Science Fiction writer, math coach, and former ballerina Catherine Asaro discusses how Western classical dance is an obvious form of physics. She goes on to talk about the math of classical music as well. All very rooted in"The Great Western Traditions," this interview still works to show how the division between art, science, and math is a false one that breeds gender bias and forecloses innovation.

This clip is an excerpt of a 20 minute interview for the Big Think. You may watch the entire video on their site.

Choice Time: Why Being Able To Choose Stops Action in its Tracks

From a corporeal perspective, this type of alienation returns as an excess of gesticulation, of disordered patterns seeking amelioration through organized communal release. The indecisive nature of modern society is best resolved through the ordered patterning of group choreography, as delineated in the above video. However, from a pure choreography perspective, we can then understand the decline of modern dance (which rewards singular works that are not easily performed by just anyone) and the rise of the dance flash mob (which by its very nature obviates choice and requires literal lockstep adherence in order for the performance to be a success) as yet another symptom of the Ideology of Choice embedded in Capitalism. Moreover, this "decision" to participate in a flash mob, already requiring that one does not fully think for ones self and absolves one's responsibility through the rubric of "play," feels like "true" action, and thus terminates while mimicking real social action. Perhaps we can think about the incredible array of dance competition TV shows as an attempt to harness the result of the angst of choice while generating even more, and therefore more ways to capitalize on this emotion/sensation of lack of actual social action.

Dance and Value: roots in the drum

This week in Afrologica (where most of my blogging has been taking place for 2010), we are investigating how value is created in dance as well as hot spots to take dance that are embedded in a drum culture. I thought it would be interesting to start by looking at the Danza Contemporanea De Cuba, as they exist as an arts entity that is highly prized in a country where dance arts are vibrant and often part of several distinct drum cultures. It is also a state organ, and therefore a highly curated presentation of "Cubanismo;" one could even argue that their repertory could be considered as much censorship as it is curatorial audacity: arts placed in a primary position to drive and augment governmental policy. Intriguing.

Digital Media and Learning Conference

This is a quick note about a conference where I will perform in a few hours! The MacArthur Foundation is supporting the Digital Media and Learning Hub at UC Irvine to host its first conference on the topic. Registration was closed once they hit the 400 attendee mark!  That is great, and yet, kinda terrible, because there does not appear to be a streaming alternative.

Well, I am working on one.

Just for Texterritory, of course.  Sheron Wray, performance architect and her co-conspirator Fleeta Siegel are (re)launching the platform tonight, Thursday February 18 @ 8:30 PM.  I play a new character for the series, Lily Anna deForce. This is proving to be a rather hard hitting installment to the journey of Grace, a legal secretary just looking for love, via your cell phone suggestions;->

Register your cell phone NOW to participate in the show: TEXT UCI to 72648

To find out more about this SMS-induced peformance, please check out
http://www.sheronwray.com   and
http://www.texterritory.com

To maybe see a bit of the show remotely, look for my Ustream feed:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/texterritory-dml

We don't have an extra body yet, so  cannot promise that the feed will go live. I think I will get that solved shortly. You can follow the conference feed on Twitter by searching #dml2010.

See you soon, or at least chat/text with you...

Pandora's Box or Aunt Kizzy in the Kitchen? Avatar, an illicit memoir

In Second Life, I am homeless. Not only am I homeless, but I am trapped on some wild island with creatures similar to the ones I just saw in 3D in the film, Avatar. And this island was designed and is populated by Germans, who all have very intensely colored bodies and costumes.  I am dressed in flare jeans and baby doll dress top. I was asked if I was African, in German of course. That was about 2 years ago. I have not been back since.

It was not just the fact that the processor speed required to go 'in-world' was more than I was willing to dedicate--I cannot run any other programs when I am moving about the islands as Doctoradancer Congrejo--it was the supremely intense feeling of being dispossessed, of having no home site, nor base. Try as I might, I could not set a base and successfully return to it. To have a home, one needed to purchase it with Lindens, converted from dollars. That island was part of a treasure hunt for a fundraiser for the MS Foundation. I never found what I was looking for there, and since the island that was set as my anchor to that island disappeared when the game ended, I was trapped. In my mind at least.

I got into Second Life when I thought that I would not walk again. It was a logical, albeit technophilia-driven conclusion: if I could not dance with actual legs, my avatar could continue to make work and dance like a fiend. If only I could code!

So it was with great shock that I watched the first 7 minutes of Avatar.

I felt pressed in and dispossessed, like the main character Sully who was given no space to grieve, who watched flames lick a box that eerily reminded me of a warehouse Inworld where one could get free gear, clothing and even genitalia that was no longer wanted. Left over flesh. Left over life. A second chance. A Second Life.

And one that is very clearly not new.

Avatar the movie was achingly long, and literally painted with broad strokes and colors. I went because I had forgotten that this Cameron epic was to be based on Second Life; my son was thinking of a cute AirBender and really wanted to see it. We were both surprised: he pleasantly and I, well, I might need a bit of therapy.

This film danced all through my Double Consciousness. Erased, replaced and e-raced my triple Otherness. It threw my corpo-reality into disarticulated bits of capital and pimped my subalterity. I got worked.

Mainly, it made me sad in many, if not all, of my bodies. Brenda Dixon-Gottschild recently published a book on the terrain of the black dancer's body.


As I watched the CGI animation of the aliens, I could not help but notice those very familiar, hyper trained, lithe black jazz ballet bodies. I also knew for a fact that these were precisely the corpo-realities getting a once over because Lula Washington Dance Theatre had issued a press release about their work on the film. As gorgeous (and mystifying) as those bodies were, we never actually get to see them dance.

The audience was instead treated to 'negroid' as extraterrestrial. More than a few people have commented that really, this was "Dance With Aliens" or 'Pocohontas in the Space,"   but there were also deep rivers of Magical Negrophilia, homages to Conjuration, offerings to Bambara fractal math systems and I just heard a rumor that the language of Igbo was spoken directly (but likely only deeply borrowed). Africaninity is alien. 

Neytiri played by Zoë Saldana

CCH Pounder, Mo'at

Laz Alonso, Tsu'tey



SO alien in fact, contemporary bodies, practices and languages can be sourced to create an 'authentic' Other against the ultimate 'Military Industrial Complex Capitalist.' The Na'vi are an amalgamation of every First Nation person on the planet Earth that any European invasion has ever killed and/or displaced. There were the artificial "war whoops" from the Plains 'Injuns' made popular by Spaghetti Westerns. Then there were the chants of 'pygmies', the ulations of "Persians," the prayer trees and sacred groves of "Salt Water Negroes," the lethal athleticism of "Oceanic" and "Polynesian" people, the loin cloths of the "Indios" of Brazil--it does not matter that there are HUNDREDS of specific ethnic groups amassed under these degrading headings. That was the point. It was shorthand, undergirded by a soundtrack that did the same sonically. It was as if we were watching a recurring nightmare/sex fantasy of a greedy white pirate. Maybe we were. Set in such stark terms, Avatar then also played to the flip side, "empowering" subjugated people in the audience with their own racial justice fantasy. Notice who gets to carry the submachine guns, though.

Mostly messaging, and not much of a storytelling venture, Avatar glosses over some very important issues, takes them for granted; primary among them, the need to leave the Earth in search of resources. And what the hell was that resource for? Again, that's the point. Full of hints to actual conflagrations here on earth (in this case, the Congo where a precious mud delivers the minerals needed to make our cell phone casings lightweight and drives an unrelenting 'civil' war), Avatar is absolutely disingenuous and uninventive: one could profitably think of it as a "Down To Earth" (Chris Rock's 2001 remake of the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait) meets any Steven Segal film.

With this incredible shorthand, it is very easy for any white person in the audience to absolve themselves through the redemption of their personal Other. It is also very simple to fall into believing that thought and decision making are the true aliens. The hero Jack Sulley, played by Sam Worthington is selected by the Na'vi because his head is not so cluttered that his heart cannot be understood. While there is likely an entire paper there about the mind/body split and New Age Spirituality, I found myself getting queasy at the other side of this conclusion: the Na'vi, though seemingly rife with a sophisticated and equitable social structure, well-studied in botany, pharmacopeia and blessed with /designed for The Uplink (made me think about Ghost in the Shell when they linked those "ponytails" together) were too simple to deal with complex ideas, sentence structures and social habits.

I will now exhale.

Further complicating the missing storyline is the presence of very gifted physical actors, 'ghosting' in via their CGI renditions. I've written on the dilemma of motion capture and choreography at flowtv.org, developing a method for locating where the performance lies: in the capture, in the execution, in the choreography in the dancing, in the habits of the actor. Given the parameters of a world called 'Pandora,' and the heavy story already connected to said name in our contemporary moment, I found Lula Washington's choreography fitting: it seemed to signal just that moment of contact with the Divine, the nexus where body-owner slides out of the way of body-rider for the Uplink. But, I have always found that attempt in her work a bit forced, as if she is just re-enacting a version she read in a novel that was based on some ethnographic notes written 50 years earlier. 

Left to right, Lula Washington (choreographer of AVATAR), Christa Oliver (who danced in the film), AVATAR Writer/Director James Cameron, and Tamica Washington-Miller, who became a regular member of the Stunt/Motion Capture crew. Picture was taken at the private premiere for the cast and crew of AVATAR.


Lula's choreography, however, achingly reaches out of those scenes where it appears, yearning to be felt. It traverses the rituals that she choreographed and emanates in every frame where a Na'vi "body" appears. She worked on the film in 2007 and 2008, creating "body language for the indigenous people in the movie, AVATAR and used dancers in her company to provide motion for the Na Vi people […]." (Newsletter: "Lula Washington - Kwanzaa, AVATAR &; More." December 29, 2009) It is in the gait of the extras, in the lope of the creatures, in the stance of listeners, in the expansion and contraction of rib cages and nostrils, gills and wings. There is a black ache in the corpo-reality of this film that lends some credence to it. Magical Negro indeed. Cameron should fully fund Lula for allowing her company to be the body models for the captures. How ironic that the narrative insisted on "I see you" as the Na'vi phrase of honor/acknowledgment.

My avatar in Second Life is on a mystical island that looks a lot like Pandora. It is assumed to be African, my avatar that is. She has very large boobs, unlike me, because I could not figure out how to independently design them: the boob, hair color and facial angles came as an intro set. My skin color is close to my own, and here is where I look too much like a novice. When I walk or fly around, I constantly bump into people, it is hard to orient in that flat, yet 3D space. I am lost there, among some invented new natives who have likely tired of my carcass standing there on a hill with its head down, awaiting connection. As Sully's actual body lay in the trailer dying in the jungle of his dreams, I realized I was grabbing my own knees, remembering that feeling of floundering with only half the body able to rise against gravity. Then I remembered the elation of flying in my avatar while my actual ice cold feet awaited some sort of signal from any neuropeptide and the joy of 'running into' a student on an island, the delight of 'dancing.'

If only my super magical Negro Avatar had jumped through the looking glass to pick me up off the floor, and "seen" me…

How does Shakira "have it all?"

From her pies descalzos (bare feet) to those hips that don’t lie, Shakira has undoubtedly become a global phenomenon. A bit of pride emerges knowing that she hails from my mother’s home town of Barranquilla, Colombia. I learned all of her songs by heart back in 1996 when anyone and everyone in Colombia (and even Latin America) wondered where there love/heart was… ¿dónde estás corázon? … only to let out a sigh of relief knowing that he/she would eventually reply, ‘estoy aqui.’

When she began to dance more confidently in her performances and videos I was intrigued. Had her transition from pop-rockera in Latin America to ‘sexy Latina’ in the US commissioned her hips to begin moving and enticing? She quickly affirmed her body’s technical and aesthetic prowess by claiming that her hips didn’t lie. But it wasn’t until I saw her dancing bullerengue (a Colombian folkloric dance about female fertility) surrounded by representations of Barranquilla's carnivalesque revelry and dressed in white, skirts raised, hips pulsing side to side, that I knew I was in love (it's about 2:30 minutes into the Hips Don't Lie video)

Shakira - Hips Don't Lie
Uploaded by Ryuuko. - Explore more music videos.

Her hips continued to enthrall me when they were paired with Beyoncé’s. Here was a pairing of skin and sinew, of hips and hair that was almost too hot to handle. But, Shakira’s hips were never always this lithe or limber. In her early career and videos, her jet-black hair lay perfectly straightened down her back while her hips usually hid behind a guitar, a guitar that she has ceased to play as she became more mainstream, thereby replacing the curves of the guitar with her own. I wonder about the power of foreign, othered, and sinewy hips in the global marketplace. How did her hips break free and harness her inner she-wolf? She has admitted to studying Middle Eastern dance and somewhere there exist lonely dance studio spaces with steamed mirrors, longing for her undulating body to be reflected back onto them.

Beyonce Shakira Beautiful liar
Uploaded by igrecman. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

A newly techniqued body, disciplined in the art of hip-notism with hip vocabularies coming from Colombian cumbia and bullerengue, Middle Eastern "belly dance", and Brazilian samba accompanied her wavy blond hair and the hippie-rocker image which emerged as Shakira “crossed-over.” The juxtaposition between ripped jeans and harem-style hips drove the MTV crowd crazy. That’s right, Shakira, show them what hips can do!!

SHAKIRA Live - Objection
Uploaded by Caro69. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Many hip-circles, figure eights, samba hip shimmies, and undulations initiated from the pelvis later, Shakira winds up sharing recording studio space with Lil Wayne and Timbaland to create the track “Give It Up To Me.” Here is where I shall pause, catch my breath and stretch for a moment.

Shakira ft. Lil Wayne - Give It Up To Me Official MusicVideo
Uploaded by OPTIK_URBAN_RECORDS. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

The video articulates a global citizenship for Shakira, a sonic and kinetic environment where access to the world is “given up to her.” Here, she metaphorically moves from the “third world” (her native Colombia) through the “first” (US hip hop culture) and back to the “third” (Asia), hips swinging in time to the infectious Timbaland beats that are visualized by the pounding woofers in the background. Lil Wayne is almost an accessory (or assistant) to her desire to have it all, his presence in the video merely to appreciate how “her hips swing like nunchuks.” Even his gaze shifts to her hips sways and at one point she waves him away coyly, dismissing his compliments, but even more so, dismissing her need for his presence. What I find troubling about this video is how the black bodies, Lil Wayne’s and then the dancing black girl chorus, literally labor in order to render Shakira’s global citizenship. Yes, she can have it all (records, money, fame, dancing ability, trademarked hip moves, money for her charity back home in Colombia) as long as there are other bodies around that will do the signifying and racializing labor for her. For example, a dancing black girl chorus (because I am reading Jayna Brown’s amazing book, Babylon Girls, this is the term that is in my mind at the moment) first appear in shadow; they are strong, muscular bodies frozen in poses, looking ready to pounce. She-wolves indeed. Initially, they are de-racialized because we cannot completely identify skin color but, at the same time the sonic environment along with the dance vocabularies used immediately racializes them. They are finally perceived as “black” when the lights turn on, and even more so by Shakira’s body. Her pale, blond appearance next to these deep cocoa brown women only intensifies Shakira’s incursion into “whiteness.” An exotic “whiteness” to be sure, her body capable of moving those hips, legs, torso and arms in ways not immediately associated with a white dancing body aesthetic. She is strategically placed in the center further highlighting her own highlighted body as it enacts black expressive gestures stemming from juba, step-dancing, and hip hop with militaristic precision.

Later in the video, the skyline of Hong Kong signifies Shakira’s global travels as she moves from the US (where I situate hip-hop in this analysis) to South and East Asia. Computerized Ganesh arms appear behind hers while her fingertips adorned with Thai gold and gesturing in an amalgam of bharata natyam and Thai arm movements seem to conjure the global capitalist marketplace that has indeed embraced her as a commodity worth consuming in the first world, or the third, or any other that exists in between.

Allusions to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” video and choreography appear, yet the choreography in “Give it up to me” seems relatively easier to pick up and master for those willing to practice, learn and embody the moves. While the chorus repeats “you can have it all, anything you want, you can make it yours, anything you want in the world” like a self help daily affirmation, I think about how Shakira has utilized her celebrity status and the cultural and economic capital that comes with that, to start an educational children’s charity in Colombia called Pies Descalzos Foundation. Rather than make a value statement or judgment on this kind of philanthropic endeavor, I want to consider how the rendering of a third world woman’s body into a first world commodity (through Shakira’s own self-exoticization and fetishization) enables “charitable” circulations of capital. What is at stake in terms of the processes through which such capital is gained? What types of bodies are used, valued or created in order for such processes to occur and what does that say about how consumerism and capitalism operate? To conclude with not really a conclusion in this instance, I just want to state that the trademarking of truthful, ample, yet nimble hips by Shakira has allowed her to assume some power over the world with an army of poised black women hands on swinging hips, ready to attack.

Bouncing Bundles of Beyoncé or Beyoncé brings the bottle

All the Single Ladies is one weird song. It has to have the weirdest dance break I have heard in a long time. I mean, weird. The dance break, aka, the bridge, is usually that transitional moment in a song where you, the listener, are swept up and transported to another key, or even meter: your limbic system is commandeered, synaesthesia is induced (this music is hot, what a sweet riff, etc), and off you go into the sublime. Well, if they are a great performer that is. If they are not, you likely will yawn and think, "oh yeah, here comes the big chord change, still didn't save it," or if it's poppy RB, "this bridge is better than the rest of the song, but it still ain't happening." That transition becomes predictable, hackneyed, embarrassing. When it's good, like, Whitney Houston back in the day good, you get chicken skin on your arms, you burst into tears without knowing why, you loose your breath, you wanna spin around in a circle holding your heart.

Well, Beyoncé did not achieve that at all with this song, but she managed something else:











What is it with the diapered set that this song moves them so? I would like to go back to that awkward bridge and rethink it for what it is: the song kernel. Yes, maybe the song marshals such strong, quick and easy infatuations from babies because it is all dance break with a wee bit of verse. All up in the limbic system, this vapid call and response ditty simply drives impulse through repetition, never allowing synaesthesia to occur. Rather, it seems to me, that it allows practice to occur. DO it over and over and over; it is literally pre-mastered. If I were a toddler trying to get my walk on, I would feel mighty good grooving the biped-way after one chorus. What do think? What's Beyoncé's special sauce?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g
(embedding disabled)

(as I am reviewing the video, my 4 year old is right now, mastering the choreo as she sees it for the first time. not kidding. she completely stopped moving at that "bridge")

'Suda el Jamon' - Latin America Nike Campaign

I was first introduced to this advert by a student in my Dance, Politics and Identity class and would like to share it with all of you.



As someone who has several family members who have gone 'under the knife,' I like the subversive potential of the message, especially for the bourgeois Latin American culture that it was initially geared towards, yet the you-tube commentary (as well as my student's paper) point to the fact that these dancer bodies do not necessarily have to worry about corporeal enhancement because they are already physically fit and adhere to aesthetic ideals. Nevertheless, dancer bodies have to work and sweat, they don't automatically exist as 'beautiful' or 'ideal.' Cultural labor (the actual labeling, setting up and rendering of the aesthetic ideal), and physical labor (dancing/working out 6 days a week, every week) operate in the rendering. So, I leave you with the video. Let the commentary, conversations, analysis, and dance theory begin.

Nike Women Ad

Dance Day 2009

Hey there! SO my dance partners slept through Act 1! I'm in Riverside now, gearing up to challenge the parking lot. Spent the drive in thinking of ways to just make dance a daily gift to commuters. Am I a bit too excited? Yes. Yes I am.

Here is a message about the day from the International Dance Council-UNESCO, of which I am a member.

Official Message for Dance Day
29 April 2009

The future of dance lies where there are persons who do not dance.

These belong to two categories: those who simply did not learn, and those who think that they are not able to dance. They represent the greatest challenge for the dance teacher's profession.

In line with UNESCO's struggle against prejudice and discrimination, we are trying to expand the boundaries of dance and to change the current perception of what a dancer is.
Dance performances are not necessarily exhibitions of extreme physicality, accurate precision, or bursting emotion - they can be celebrations of interaction between performers. We can enrich dance concerts with dancers, singers, actors, narrators, mimes, acrobats etc., of all ages and all degrees of ability.

Bringing the 'excluded' into dance is a moral duty, but also opens a great door in times of economic crisis and unemployment. In every country there are millions of persons with physical or mental disabilities. We believe they are ready to dance.

They will create jobs to thousands of dance teachers. They can be assisted by the Ministry of Health, whose budget is many times bigger than that of the Ministry of Culture.
Integrating marginalized persons into the practice of dance is as important as integrating them into the workforce.

CID holds to the philosophy that everyone can dance.

Dance Day 2009 is dedicated to inclusive dance. Let us include all members of society into our classes and our performances.



Prof. Alkis Raftis
President of the International Dance Council CID
UNESCO, Paris

Transition Town?

This morning, I went out to dump my trash. The bag had been nipped a bit by the possum who thinks he's my roommate, or perhaps cousin. The sun was shining, everyone was already up, planning for just how they were going to get to the beach in the next 30 minutes before the rest of LA arrived to our little village. It was perfect Venice: slight breeze, lots of chirping birds, wind in the palms, jasmine still smelling sweet...I unlock the back gate and step into the alley where we keep our cans. There was a perfectly coiffed and dressed older woman--at least in her 70s and OMG are those pearls--going through my trash.

And she was my neighbor from down the street, half a block over.

Did I freeze? I think I went to speak, but likely I frowned. A frown is my default "processing" face. It is rare that I don't turn up the data, so usually the frown becomes a blank look, then a smile. But this morning, I think, at about just the same moment I recognized her, she recognized me, too. And not to be outdone, lest this situation be any more awkward, she said, "Oh, hello" as I was turning to get back into the gate quick before I burst into tears. I said hello back. It took the edge off.

Now, I am not trying to be judgmental here, I used to keep my bottles myself and then take them into a center to get my money back. Here in California, when you buy any beverage, a user fee is levied against the container. If you recycle at a designated center you get your cash back. If you recycle someone else's recycling, you get their cash back and hence, an instant profit. Being the thoroughly mismanaged state government that it is, California requires you to report any income you have earned from recycling cans and bottles. Can't let those scoff laws get the best of us! I no longer recycle my own bottles because it took so long to get an amount that was worth wasting the gas to drive it somewhere, that my landlord was getting annoyed. I also managed to pay off my car, so I no longer needed that extra bit of spending money at the end of each month (public university assistant prof, what can I say). Over Christmas 2008, I decided that I would gift my bottles to the roving community that moved through the alley ways.

I had no idea that my neighbor was among them.

It is likely that this was perhaps her first go at it. Typically, people who pull recycling out of the blue bins are quasi professional: they have shopping carts, large durable plastic bags, even tongs or extended arm grabbers. Lately, they have been in Broncos, vans, and clanky old Toyota trucks. She had none of that, in fact, she was in the black cans, pulling out plastic bags, likely to get into the blue bin. She picked a good day; usually the pros wait until right before trash day or in the middle of the week to come through. I was going to bring out the recycling after the trash, but I could not bring myself to go back out.

There is a bit of a tradition in Venice combing through things set out in the alley. Our spaces tend to be a bit smaller (unless a recent McMansion), so people just set out the old item in the alley, knowing that someone will come by and get it, for free. Yes, we have to pay to have our large trash hauled, so it is a great ecosystem we've got going. However, actually getting into the actual can is not all that neighborly. Everything has its etiquette I suppose. To see her in our trash set off alarms upon alarms. I thought that maybe she did not know that she should look in the blue bin and not the black bin. Then I thought, maybe she is hungry, with four kids in the complex we likely throw out a good bit of edible food because we don't want to deal with the drama of getting it eaten a second day. I wondered if she was perhaps being malicious, simply tearing open the trash bags to encourage maggots and other pests (she kinda doesn't enjoy the large number of children running around the neighborhood). Finally, I settled on: I don't want to know.

I have been slowly reading an article in this month's Whole Life Times called "Life after Oil." Written by Rachel Dowd, the article describes a new movement called Transition Town, that is an effort to get ready for the end oil availability as we know it. Shifting from a culture of consumption to a culture of permanence is the ultimate goal. What makes this particular eco-flash-in-the-pan relentlessly possible (and perhaps entirely impossible), is the fact that it treats our reliance on oil-based economy as an addiction. It is a fascinating concept. As someone who is thoroughly into reducing her carbon footprint, cheers for local currency, delights in community gardens, I think this is a very good idea. But dang it, we are at the end of something else first. In the moment when all my research and enlightened magazine reading should have served me, I kinda acted like a co-dependent at best, or another junkie at worst. "Why is she in our trash? I don't want to know I don't want to know I don't want to know."

But honestly, I did want to know. I want to know if I should be taking her a casserole once or twice a week. I want to know if I could convince her to change her ornamental yard into an edible one. I want to know if we should have a fundraiser for her to keep her house or help repair it so she can move to an assisted living facility. Things are in transition here, but we are all secretly hoping that those who scrabble through the alley, looking for anyway to earn a living will remain the same folks, or dwindle in number. This morning, I was very quietly alerted that the transition has begun: the numbers are increasing, silently, and in terrifying ways.

Planning for the end of oil is a great idea. The communities that will be created will be more balanced, part of the larger eco-sysetm in each microclimate where these towns will exist. They will be full of art and collaboration will be the norm. But if we don't hurry up and acknowledge that we are already transitioning out of money itself, it will be impossible to come together to do anything other than scrabble over the cans of the few who still have the luxury of having trash.

Calling All Jesters/Gestures for Anatomy Riot #31

Calling all edge-riders, mad scientists, explorers and instigators: ANATOMY RIOT #31 approaches. The A-Team (Arianne Hoffmann & Anna B. Scott) is looking for new works, old bits, recent drafts, and ancient ideas for a May, 11th 2009 night of performance.

With low-tech, do-it-yourself spirit in an easygoing setting, Anatomy Riot is an ongoing (almost) monthly dance/performance series, curated by choreographer Meg Wolfe & guest curators. AR started in October 2005; since that time, 230 artists and counting have performed at Anatomy Riot. AR encourages creative exploration and provides a platform for local artists to share what’s new and what’s in the works.

Send us a brief description of your work and a way to to contact you by April 15. We have space for 7- 9 acts, no longer than 8 minutes each. This is low-tech, high intensity danced-based art making at its rowdiest (best?). Check out Anatomy Riot’s pages in FaceBook and MySpace. Post us a private message there or contact afrologic@gmail.com

Obamanating, Dance, Power

It was often remarked how unusual the 2008 Presidential campaign was in the United States for the simple fact that the candidates not only made sure to make the rounds of the news talk shows, but they also made the rounds of daytime talk shows and late night television. All of this amounted to, in fact, self-mockery in many cases, often, as int he case of Obama, to give a better sense of the like-every-body-else-ness of a man who holds degrees from some of the top schools in the nation, with excellent grades no less. In this installment of my investigation of the kinesthetic conjuring around/through Obama, I will look at the impersonator. For those late night appearances could be read as self-impersonation, but they were definitely moments that allowed for a "thicker" study of Obama's kinestethic palette.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Barack Obama Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Funny Political Videos

Important Things With Demetri Martin
More Funny Videos

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=189761&title=barack-obama

a late breaking appearance, Obama clearly has figured out how to do snarky and still look cool

We can think about Obama "markin'" himself in the vernacular (imitating with a slight bit of dramatas to draw attention to an otherwise indistinguishable affect upon which the actor relies to convey meaning) and also in the denotation of "mark," and "to mark," in all its meanings in the dictionary. Really. From the online Merriam Webster for "mark/noun":
1: a boundary land
2 a (1): a conspicuous object serving as a guide for travelers (2): something (as a line, notch, or fixed object) designed to record position b: one of the bits of leather or colored bunting placed on a sounding line at intervals c: target d: the starting line or position in a track event e (1): goal , object (2): an object of attack, ridicule, or abuse ; specifically : a victim or prospective victim of a swindle (3): the point under discussion (4): condition of being correct or accurate mark> f: a standard of performance, quality, or condition : norm mark lately>
3 a (1): sign , indication mark of his esteem> (2): an impression (as a scratch, scar, or stain) made on something (3): a distinguishing trait or quality : characteristic marks of an educated person> b: a symbol used for identification or indication of ownership c: a cross made in place of a signature d (1): trademark (2)capitalized —used with a numeral to designate a particular model of a weapon or machine <Mark II> e: a written or printed symbol (as a comma or colon) f: postmark g: a symbol used to represent a teacher's estimate of a student's work or conduct ; especially : grade h: a figure registering a point or level reached or achieved mark in the first period of play> ; especially : record
4 a: attention , notice mark> b: importance , distinction mark> c: a lasting or strong impression d: an assessment of merits : rating marks for honesty>

Okay, maybe Obama is not a postmark, but he did use the song "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder, so then again...The point I hope I have made here is that delivering a particular corpo-reality for a specific time slot, audience, and network, is no small feat. What Obama was successful in doing is creating a string of impersonations that gave the effect of proximity to the viewer following him; especially if that viewer were not a television viewer, but rather a clipwatcher on YouTube.








Some of the videos I have posted in this series of Barack Obama are cataloged on his channel on YouTube. This is significant. These "microplays" and "instant dances" were available 24/7 as on-demand instant replay, unfolding an unusual character, one that certainly never makes it to the curtain call as a clear hero: the mulatto man. Where the tragedy of a female torn between her two races is a much gone-over story layered over celebrity products like Dorothy Dandridge, Lorraine Hansberry, and Mariah Carey (yes I know that only Mariah is a real one..for more on that read Melissa Blanco's dissertation, Ochuness...), you would be hard pressed to think about a story or movie from the US where the main character "mixed race" and a man. Jean Toomer's Cane, perhaps, and then certain sequences from Roots. Leave comments if you have others. All this to point out that Obama's kinestheic awareness does not cohere around a stereotype.

That might be overstatement.

But for now, I'll leave it there and we can look at ways that others took Obama's forays into self-impersonation and made their own.

Dance, Power, Obamamania

Having written these quick perspectives on dance practice and the figure of Obama, I realized that I should look at the man himself dancing. He did a lot of it. It reminds me of that quote, "if I can't dance in your revolution, then I don't want to be a part of it..." often attributed to Emma Goldman.



Obama the man seemd to be having a genuinely good time spreading his message wherever he went. His forays into ass shaking, rather than cause a good deal of laughing, were met with geniune delight and response in kind. We can think about his hips, and those cute little fists up by the shoulders, relaying information that he could not otherwise say without sounding cocky and/or crazy: "I am winning and I know it. I am joyful in this knowledge and I invite you to join me in this feeling."



Obama is that guy who starts dancing across the dance floor when his song comes on in search of a partner, moving his head and hips while professionally scanning the room until he finds YOU.



Obviously, a lot of people decided he would be a great dance partner, just enough awkardness to make his moves accesible and endearing; locked on the beat, though, so you can't get lost in the melissima or polyrhythm. It's in his dancing that all of his points of origins could be said to coalesce, revealing a man with many options, not one beholden to "blood memories."

In dance scholarship we frequently trace, or at least attempt to, the history of a dance move, discover who it "Really" belongs to, when it was first performed/staged/recorded/taught, etc. This act is usually futile, since most popular dances evolve mightily form their point of origin, other dances that seem to circulate mostly as religious implements tend to turn up at house parties with different music, poeple travel, artists, travel and then so do the dances. The provenance of a dance is quite an elusive thing.

Similarly, stamping a racial identity onto a series of floor patterns, torso isolations (or not), spine positions and arm swings can also be exhausting, and in the end, ten years down the line, really not the point of the dance anyway. These days, I prefer to think about dances, popular dances, as a series of networked corpo-realities that mark a specific location, pattern of practice and set of material conditions (that includes access to television and/or robust internet connections). To me, Obama's hips, facial expression, feet, arms, and hands reveal not so much ancestry as travel, accomodation, adoptation...code switching.



Given that we all now find ourselves immersed in codes, digital, indexical and corporeal--the ease with which Obama can allow in his body several codes to co-exist without resolving them is on the one hand, "funny," but on the other, "cool." This not to be confused or conflated with the "cool" that he exudes when getting out of a car, or putting on his jacket, lighting up a cigarette, kicking up his feet. No that cool is almost a picture perfect study in 1950s bebop elegance. The cool that I am referncing is the, "that's ok like that. I like it cause it is itself" type of cool that so many of us use instead of saying, "alright," "ok," or even "yes." Obama's dancing is cool cause, well yeah, I could do that. That's cool.

A little hip there, a lot of teeth here, and soon, Obama's dancing helped create a delirium, a mass need to move with him; effortlessly, in one's own contradictions.

Obama, Dance, Power II

The choreostories we inscribe on ourselves to celebrate great passages can often seem obscure if we think of the passage has having only a two-dimensional force: here to there. The election of Barack Obama, plural entity that he is, presents an opportunity for us to rethink the ways in which dance stories are not so much marking a singular transition as they are multiplexing the various elements that combine to give rise to "a moment." Such is the case with the video below.



The residents of this Japanese town live literally in Obama. Pause for a minute. The name that we have been rhyming with "Osama" and collectively amazed at the similarities also turns out to be a place, but in a region of the world far removed from the Middle East conflict and Barack Obama's father's homeland of Kenya. Nope this is even sweeter, since Barack Obama, here I will call him Barry, since Barry is from the Pacific Islands known as Hawai'i, a place with a very large Japanese ex-pat community. Japanese tourists favor the islands of Hawai'i as a destination. It should come as no surprise, and yet it does, that the dance that the people of Obama, Japan would pick to celebrate Obama the man would be the hula, since he is, Hawai'ian.

The choreostory they crafted tells of his journey to the white house, making him an epic hero. Never mind that culturally he is not illili, nor through heritage. his heartspace, the place where he goes to recharge is in Honolulu. Therfore, to welcome the hero into his new palace, the dance of that most reminds him of home should be done.

For all of this, what Asian-Americans were interested in seemed to be missing from his campaign. Odd since he grew up in a Pan-Asian environment. Reading his name as the flight from that childhood to a more African one only to discover later in life that it takes him instantaneously back into "oceania," I am struck by the inability to escape his metanarrative of being/belonging to everyone.



o
ba
ma

In his name, are root words, primordial: air, father, mother. That's my hoodoo kickin in with a dash of Afrocentrism. But I do think that I'm not too far off. This chant that Barry picked for a name...can't help but want to dance to it, for it and in it. Talk about Conjure!

The dancers in the video also desire something Other than Barry: they are very skilled in the dance so they did not just up and decide to do hula a few weeks ago. Like salsa in Tokyo, there seems to be a proficiency here verging on a transposition of self. In all of this, how does the man which inhabits the mantra/greeting/chant transform through each hip swirl, kick and spin?


(C)Anna Beatrice Scott