then there are blackbirds

It's reading week, which should really have no effect on my schedule, but post-defense me was more of a zombie than anticipated. Oops?

In lieu of actual content, have an earworm! This music video has been confusing me since I found it - guns? pills? also why the grudge against blueberries? - but strictly musically speaking, the song has been prodding my dance-play muse from the second I heard it in a coffee shop about two weeks ago. Definitely adding this to my practice playlist with S (we're practicing!!! on Friday!!! SO HAPPY OMG).

rydra_wong asked what I've been doing with dance lately. Mostly the answer to this is zouk, and I'm happy to say that my practice-partner and I are coming off hiatus next week! Before our break we were working on spins, counterweight, and balance moves, which are all areas I tend to find challenging, so I'm looking forward to getting back to those. There are three things that really make a dance for me: partner connection, spatial awareness, and musicality. Luckily, S and I share all three! We have a fantastic connection which has only solidified since I moved here, so that's not something we have to fine-tune much; and he's always looking at where he's going and where he's leading me, since he has a safety-first attitude towards dance. Similarly, we share an intense musicality that allows us to play so much with every song, which is really the quality that turns "yay dancing with this person is awesome!" to "DANCING WITH THIS PERSON IS LIKE FLYING AND ALSO MY NEW FAVORITE THING, HELLO NEW DANCE CRUSH!" What I mean by musicality is a really subtle and detail-oriented kind of ear for music (I developed mine through years of classical music lessons as a kid; I'm not sure how S trained his). I've noticed that most leaders fall into one of two categories: those who listen for the melody of a given song, and those who listen for the beat. S is one of the few people I know who pick up on and play with absolutely everything, which is why he's one of my favorite leads ever. :D

The other thing I've been doing is only zouk-adjacent, though I definitely think of it as a kind of cross-training, haha. Last summer, I started doing contact improv practices with a few zouk ladies, and it's really opened up my body awareness and sensitivity. Thanks to years of ballroom, I have a long-established habit of falling into learned patterns of movement that I've never quite lost. This is all very well and good for choreography/competition/performance purposes, but it's a problem when I'm dancing zouk in a social setting because zouk is super improvisational in nature. You can't do improv well if your muscle memory operates like an autofill/autocorrect! Contact improv helps to correct this issue because it literally doesn't have any preprogrammed movement; it breaks me out of default muscle memory and thinking ahead and focuses my consciousness on what's happening in the moment. I've said before that A:TLA's "wait and listen" description of earthbending captures the essence of what it is to follow in dance. Contact improv is helping me to achieve that state faster and without having to dance-marathon my way out of my head the way I've done at congress parties before. This, too, is a work in progress for me, but even with the few months of weekly practices we've done, I've noticed a distinct improvement!

+ I've been avoiding Rachel Dolezal bullshit beyond headlines and friends' snarky commentary. It makes my head explode, and right now I don't have the energy to deal with rage or the processing power for comments beyond "wow, dat entitlement doe." Thankfully, life has been full of shiny and emotionally restorative distractions lately!

+ Had an awesome weekend in sort-of-upstate NY with dance friends, cooking, exploring rivers and waterfalls, and generally relaxing. ♥ I need more of this kind of time this summer.

+ Loving the music video for The New International Sound Pt. II by GENER8ION and M.I.A.! ( cut for embed )

+ Upcoming dance weekend!! *\o/* So excited to see everyone from out of town again, hooray :D

+ Also planning to take a day or two (sometime next week or so?) for a mini writing blitz- I miss writing fic. Toss me some prompts, please? Any fandom is fine, though I'm feeling a bit biased towards A:TLA and HP at the moment and I can't guarantee that I'll fill everything.

littlebutfierce asked for something about how I got started in dance, maybe things I've learned along the way or how my relationship to it has changed or what I get out of it. Obviously this is a lot of topics smashed into one, but I will do my best! xD For those of you who don't feel like reading a lot of dance-babble, the short form of what I get out of dance can be more or less encapsulated by Daft Punk: if that song doesn't give you an instant hit of the kind of euphoria that I call dance-high, I doubt that anything I have to say could describe it for you.

( For those of you who want the long version, here it is: )

I... am going to stop here before I continue to feels-babble everywhere, haha, but if you're curious about anything or want more specifics, feel free to ask!

homg this heat I cannot take it! I feel so weaksauce this year; I could withstand last summer after China/Taiwan, but it seems that going to parts Scandinavian had the opposite effect. ;________;

Instead of whining about how much I feel like a useless puddle at the moment, here are some things you guys might be interested in:

» 观音山/Buddha Mountain, which is about three friends who move in with a retired Chinese opera singer. I don't really know how to explain or describe this movie, but I watched it on the flight home and found it pretty touching (if a little slow-moving). I really like things that explore friendships and chosen-family themes, and I also have more appreciation for slice-of-life stuff these days. You can watch the trailer on youtube here, and Film Asia has a longer/more spoilery synopsis here; I would also say that the movie may be triggering for ( spoilerish territory? )

» How She Move, which- nota bene- I only caught the second half of, and it's a dance movie, but it stars Rutina Wesley! And it's an all-POC cast! And it's step dancing, which I loooooove to watch. (Well, okay, I will watch pretty much any type of dance with a *_____* face, but still- step! It's awesome guys.)

» ephemere: Schoolbook. This gave me such shivers. &hearts &hearts

» Stop Trying to 'Save' Africa, an awesome essay by Uzodinma Iweala (special note for those of you whom I owe certain items of post! ;D This was actually reprinted in the ARS 11 exhibition book, alas that I couldn't justify 38 euros for its purchase).

» One quick signal-boost, via la_vie_noire: Panic on the streets of London

Also, I watched Center Stage (or most of it, I think I missed about 15 minutes somewhere towards the end?) during an extended brain-lapse phase last night and basically, ZOE SALDANA I HEART YOU WHY ARE YOU NOT THE PROTAGONIST. Also also, catching up on the beginning of SYTYCD S6 was one of the best TV decisions I've made recently. *sparkly hearts*

I tried to separate these out but got overwhelmed by categorization; therefore, another haphazard mess! Trigger warnings apply to some of the following. ( cut for A LOT )

Have been writing bits and pieces of various fandom commitments in between reading and procrastinatory internet dabbling and epic photo uploading, but still haven't actually finished any of them. *headdesk* So, uh, links! A lot of them.

+ ( fuck you ever so: )

+ ( requisite followup of shiny: )

Okay, distraction time over, back to the grind.

eta; also, shana tova to those who are celebrating! HELLO, I FAIL AT LIFE. /o\

+ Women's figure skating last night was epic, and also, exploding with awesome Asian women- Mao Asada! Miki Ando! Mirai Nagasu! Kim Yu-Na! &hearts &hearts &hearts ( pretties~ ) Rachael Flatt was adorbs as well, but I was infinitely less excited about her after watching all that amazingface, heh. I cannot wait for tomorrow, basically! *____*

+ Nurturing the artist, an amazing interview with dancer/choreographer/dramatist Lee Su-Feh (via someone on the network):

Part of why we dance is that so much of dance is about shared code. In a shared culture, dance transmits the cultural code. The logic of the dancing body, the rhythms, the manners — the things transmitted through the dances are [found] in that society. But if you take that dance to another culture, those codes don’t make sense. So the dance becomes decoration and it’s just pretty. If it’s just pretty, it becomes an object — you can buy it, you can toss it away. And fundamentally, I don’t think that’s what dance is for but for the most part, that’s what dance has become.

So when we live in a multicultural and diverse world, without a shared mythology, how do we connect to our bodies? How do we address the question of dance? Yet, I think we all need to feel each other’s bodies, to have a fuller understanding of each other. Understanding is not just intellectual. There’s a whole body intelligence that I feel is missing in our efforts to live together.

+ avendya's posted Disability Blog Carnival #63: Relationships over at disability. Things to check out!

WHO'S WATCHING SYTYCD TONIGHT????

( 1. HELLO SAME SEX BALLROOM COUPLE! &hearts )

so last night, i had an icon-spaz. :D :D WARNING: SUPREMELY IMAGE-HEAVY.

( icons for you: )

( dance icons for me! & source images )