Marathon Girl

Oh, did I ever tell y'all that I happened to be walking through Central Park during the NYC Marathon (shows you how tuned into athletics I am...)?  Yup, I stumbled upon the 24 mile marker.  After Googling how many miles are in a marathon (26!  But don't laugh at me, I truly know nothing about sports except for UGA football), I realized that my location was super cool (so many people cheering!), and tried to get closer to take some paparazzi photos.  Then a policeman noticed me creeping towards the fence, and chased me away.  Oh, what an exciting life I lead.

-Lida

Da po-po, realizing I was thiclose to hopping the fence... not.

NatPort Goes Psycho

Greetings.  We are attempting to cowrite our very first post (not counting on the 3 sentences Chelsea "cowrote" on the first Swan Lake review).  We will try to describe to y'all (Lida)/you all (Chelsea) what happened in the two hours of Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.

This will be our second swan-related posting.  We apparently like swans.

Also, spoiler alert.  Do not read if you haven't seen the movie yet but are planning to.

I, Lida, did not sleep last night.  I, Lida, had a night of strug.
I, Chelsea, slept soundly.  I, Chelsea, haz manly courage.

There is dancing.  There is a lot of molestation (Chelsea thinks it wasn't molestation... she says "It happens all the time in the dance world!!!!!").  There is vivid lesbian sex.  There are knees snapping backwards, nail files stabbed repeatedly into Winona Ryder's face, scary looking, over-involved stage moms with unnatural painting fetishes, and a way-too-skinny Natalie Portman.  There are creepy red demon swan eyes and creepy red demon swan scratches.  There are lots of mirrors with minds of their own.  There is an old dude jacking off on the subway.

MIRRORS GONE CRAZY!!!

So NatPort is a ballerina having a mental breakdown.  We don't really feel like doing a comprehensive summary, so just Google that shit.  Or watch the trailer, in case you've been living under a rock and haven't stalked it.

Here's how I, Lida, can summarize the experience: when the film was over and the credits started, the theater was dead silent.  No one stood up to leave, and as I scanned the audience I realized everyone was just in awe (or scared shitless).  Then people slowly got up and almost silently filed out of the theater.

I, Chelsea, who haz manly courage, can summarize the experience as such: my hand was cramping because Lida was holding it too hard (and sweating, which I, Lida, dispute).

It was fab.  Fabulous in the most-terrifying-thing-Lida's-ever-seen kind of way whereas Chelsea thought it was totes more thrilling than actually scary.

Chelsea:  I was super excited to see this movie.  I really wanted it to be another Center Stage, a dancer's go-to movie, but it was something completely different, and I liked it a lot more.  The trailer made it out to look like a Hollywood-ized movie, but it was much more real.  The way the camera moved as she walked down the sidewalk or through Lincoln Center, the bouncing in sync, made the movie a lot more and thrilling and kept me literally at the edge of my seat, waiting for something to pop out from the shadows.  Plus the theater we saw it in was just creepy.  I thought it was incredible how NatPort crammed 15+ years of ballet training into about one year.  Though some of her movement wasn't entirely convincing (maybe I'm being too critical as a ballet dancer who has seen some incredible dancing), her effort and acting was truly commendable.  The fact that she trimmed her body to portray lean calf muscles, dropped shoulders, and exposed clavicle was kick-ass.  Props NatPort.  It was an amazingly thrilling movie that paired the psychological difficulties of the world of classical ballet with entertaining movie drama.  The only part that really freaked me out was when she pulled the hangnail.  Grody.

Lida:  ... I still can't really say anything.  I really want to dislike it, because I am so traumatized by the movie (granted, I also hate horror/thriller movies), but I was fascinated.  Vincent Cassel as the rapey ballet director was incredible and added some (relative) human stability to the otherwise mentally out of control characters -- a fabulous constant.  Conversely, Barbara Hershey as NatPort's jealous and washed up ex-ballerina mom was truly evil: she simultaneously parodied, praised, and destroyed NatPort, all while looking mad scary.  And kudos to Darren Aronofsky for making even the most mundane things, such as washing one's hands or walking down the street or taking a ballet class (no more dancing for me), a huge psychological fiasco.  Hands down scariest moment: Winona Ryder stabbing herself repeatedly in the face with a nail file while screaming "I'M NOT PERFECT! I'M NOT PERFECT!"

Overall:  We recommend seeing it.  Lida thinks it's a one-time viewing experience, but Chelsea would see it again.  Bring a friend, get ready to cover your eyes at parts (or throughout the whole movie, like Lida), and be prepared for lots of blood and goose(swan?) bumps.

Tryna see some clips (although they aren't the best ones): http://www.movieweb.com/news/NE8kjL75vgbzag

-Lida and Chelsea

Alcohol and Chinese Cooking

Meet Serhiy Zhadan, the "most popular poet of the post-independence generation in Ukraine."  I attended his poetry reading last night (only his 3rd in the United States) at the Harriman Institute, and, granted I'm a little biased being Ukrainian myself, I'm so glad I did.

To be honest, before coming to the reading I had no idea who he was.  Although I'm Ukrainian, I don't spend extensive time in the Motherland, so I'm not up on my Ukie "who's hot and who's not," and I'm even less up to date on popular contemporary Ukrainian poets (contemporary poets in general aren't #1 on my radar...).  But word on the street (uh, in my Ukrainian class) was that he was going to be awesome, and so I went.

(For those who want a full, comprehensive image on who this guy is: Biography!  And interview!  And a summary of some works!)

He was mad smart.  He was mad funny.  He was smart in a funny way, and funny in a smart way.  As the panelist asked him questions, his responses were not only informative answers, but were also humorous fun facts (when asked who his band, "Dogs in Space," would like to tour with, Gogol Bordello was the answer, and it was said with absolutely no hesitation).

Let's get a little serious, here: his poems are bleak.  They embody the dismal voice of 21st century Ukraine, left traumatized by the culture-depleting influence of the Soviet Union.  He speaks of alcoholism, drug trafficking, and pill-induced suicide.  As he was reading his poetry T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock kept coming to mind -- both Eliot and Zhadan use countless, seemingly unrelated images in a single poem to convey a very specific message.  And as random as the images are, they work, and we understand exactly what the author is trying to say.  Incredible.

But he isn't afraid to shed a little light on his dreary repertoire: a novel of his may involve a gypsy stripper in a gay bar, he wrote a play about Elvis Presley for a pregnant actress, and during an untranslated poem section (untranslated because the rhymes would make zero sense in English), he literally rapped about "300 Chinese going to Budapest."  I never thought Ukrainian slam-poetry-meets-rap would make me a fan of postmodern Ukrainian poetry, but hey, shit happens.

(Zhadan in the midst of some epic rapping.)

I could only find one (translated) poem of his online.  It was the first one he read last night, and it's entitiled Chinese Cooking: 
http://ukraine.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=5644

I also want to include one of my favorite poems of his, entitled Alcohol (translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps):

ALCOHOL

The green river water

slows in warm bends

fish zeppelins

scatter the plankton

and tired bird catchers

attempt to catch

every word.

Hold on to

the brightly colored rags and scotch tape

that bind the slashed wrists

of these heroic times.

One day you will turn off this radio,

you'll get used to her,

to her breathing

and, dressed in your T-shirt,

she'll bring you water in the middle of the night.

On the terrace the left-over cups of tea

are filling up with rain water

and cigarette butts,

you and I share a cold

you and I share long conversations --

you don't notice the morning rain

you go to sleep late

and you wake up late

I write poems about how I love

this woman, and I invent

newer and newer words

to avoid

telling her.

The thing I loved most about him is that he gives a damn.  He gives a damn about what he's feeling, and what others are feeling, and what Ukraine is feeling.  But he doesn't come outright and say "Look, I'm unhappy, and this isn't going as it should."  His emotions, the emotions that are currently gathering an cult-like following and taking Ukraine by storm, come from his current cultural environment, from cigarette butts and gay bars and Chinese cooking.  And that modernity and present-focused viewpoint is what is going to make a difference.  It already is.  

-Lida

P.S.  Again, apologies for the sucky (and slightly creepy) camera phone photos.

Elmo

After my show tonight, (The Barnard Project at Dance Theater Workshop--review by Lida, hopefully, to come later (then I'll review her show, Late Night!)), my parents and I went to a restaurant around the corner from Dance Theater Workshop.  DTW, or DT-dubs as I've started calling it, is in the always trendy, artsy neighborhood of Chelsea.  My mom, with her long, red, suede coat, my dad in his suit and tie work attire, and I, with a face full of stage makeup, hair in a bun, long, puffy coat, and red Jansport backpack, walked into elmo, a bar/restaurant on the corner of 7th and 19th.  First, notice the name of the restaurant "elmo".  Not Elmo, or Elmo Restaurant, just lowercase elmo.  It would only be trendier if it were something like "elmo.".  We walked through velvet curtains that blocked the doorway and saw the scene.

 

There was a bar on the left side, tables in front, and booths all along the sides and back.  A large Christmas tree with white lights and red bows stood in the middle.  The swanky style was not the most interesting part, the thing that made me feel like a suburban teen out to a dinner with her parents the most were the people inside elmo.  Everyone was beyond fabulous.  Groups of men with perfectly coiffed hair, blazers, martinis in hand, all laughing and chatting, kissing each other on the cheek.  I could tell it was the spot for Chelsea residents on any given night.  The bar was packed with women in high heeled boots, dresses and chunky scarves and guys with spikey hair and wayfarer glasses.  The hostess, while very nice and accommodating, stuck us in a booth in the very back of the restaurant.  We totally cramped elmo's style.  There was techno music blaring and dim lighting.  The food, on the other hand was very good.  Nothing incredibly exciting, but very good American cuisine.  I had grilled chicken which was perfect for my protein-craving, post performance appetite, my mom had Kobe beef burgers which were delish, and my dad had tuna (I think?) which he said was perfectly fine.  We could tell that not many people were there for the food itself.  They were there to see and be seen by all of Chelsea's most fabulous people.
Best part of the elmo restaurant experience, for all you MTV viewers out there, we were sitting there eating and another waiter comes over and says very nicely "how is everything?" I look up, and it was, I'm like 99% sure, Ryan from all those Real World/Road Rules challenges...

I didn't say anything but texted a couple fellow Challenge watchers and they thought it was cool, yes I know I'm super lame for watching those, but they're actually incredibly entertaining.

In all, a great show followed by dinner with parents discussing the show and a mini D-list celeb sighting amongst some of NYC's most fabulous, flamboyant and funky.  -Chelsea
http://www.elmorestaurant.com/
http://www.dancetheaterworkshop.org/barnard
(A little shameless self-promoting, hehe)

A Lil' Bit of Cher

This one kind of speaks for itself.  Found this at a subway station (can't remember which one).  The artist wrote "moustaches" on every person featured in a poster, like the Fairy Jobmother lady and Megamind.  I love me some witty graffiti.

-Lida

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrnold!

SOOO this week has been mad busy, hence the photo posts without much writing.

The week hasn't ended, so here's another photo:

We stumbled on this somewhere in Chelsea, right next to a jungle gym park.  It's totally old-school Nickelodeon (mixed with multiculturalism-promoting shorts).  Definitely Hey Arnold!, maybe with a little Wild Thornberrys.  Definitely too quirky for Doug or Rugrats.

He could definitely be Helga Pataki's awkward, sheltered brother.

In case, after seeing this photo, you are totally in a cartoon throwback mood (like I was), I'll leave you with full episodes of Hey Arnold!

No need to thank me.

You're welcome.

-Lida

**UPDATE: I was randomly on a street art website, and I saw this same wall staring at me (same art, different picture, obviously).  Turns out, this "Gigante" was a collaboration by artists Os Gemeos and Futura2000.  Here's Unurth's description of the wall: http://unurth.com/566419/Os-G-meos-Futura-NYC

Spotted

Who: Big Bird
What: Dancing, Scaring Little Children
Where: Columbus Circle
Why: ...

-Lida

Fun Find

A casual game of Quidditch going on in Riverside Park (11/6/10).

-Lida

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX8Om3JsOgw

I am a huge fan of jam sessions.  My friends back home are all magically and incredibly musically gifted.  I, despite being a pretty hardcore music lover, am not.  I've tried piano, I've tried violin, I've tried guitar, and I bought a banjo (which is laying on the floor in my bedroom back in DC), but every venture has been catastrophic.  So whenever my prodigious friends have any sort of desire to do something musical, I wholeheartedly support them, preferably if it means I get to listen in.

I am now a huge fan of four-man, 1956, Memphis jam sessions.

Tonight, I saw Million Dollar Quartet.

Damn.  In case I wasn't enough of a Johnny Cash/Elvis Presley/Jerry Lee Lewis/Carl Perkins fan before, this musical took me through the roof.

Million Dollar Quartet documents the most kick-ass jam session in history, involving the aforementioned musicians, taking place on Dec. 4, 1956, at the Sun Records recording studio, Memphis, TN.  The story line isn't riveting -- there's some conflict over Johnny Baby signing a contract with Columbia Records, and there's some boo-hoo from Car-Car about being neglected by Sun Records head honcho Sam Phillips, Elvis is emo and confused, and there's some inter-group conflict because Jerry Lee is so damn rascally.  But who cares.  I didn't buy a ticket to this show because of the story.  I came because I knew I'd love the music.  And I did.

Blue Suede Shoes, Sixteen Tons, Long Tall Sally, Folsom Prison Blues, My Babe (a song Carl Perkins stole from another one of my favorite musicians, Little Walter), Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, That's All Right... they literally sing every song you want them to sing.  And they're not faking it, either.  Not only are they singing and acting in a particular historic character (characters that are like, astronomically famous), but they're also playing their respective instruments.  I'll break it down:  Johnny Cash held and played his guitar like Johnny Baby.  Elvis had what I can only describe as a raging case of Restless Leg (total lower body) Syndrome.  Car-Car had blue suede shoes and a rockin' hairdo.  And my boy Jerry Lee played the meanest piano I've ever heard.

(Note: Hunter Foster played Sam Phillips.  Hunter Foster is awesome.  I've seen him in both The Producers and Little Shop of Horrors.  But something with him in this didn't click for me.  Every time he tried to speak with his faux Southern accent [a guitar is now a GEE-pause-tarrrrrr], all I could think was Seymour-Krelborn-Seymour-Krelborn-Seymour-Krelborn...)

Hands down the best actor (and character) in the show was Levi Kreis' Jerry Lee Lewis.  And oh, he won a Tony award for his portrayal.  So bam.

The show keeps getting better and better, until you think it can't possibly get more awesome.  But then it does.  The cast take its bow, and the characters leave.  OH SIKE.  They come back on again, and the set pulls away to reveal a rock-and-roll stage, and glitter, Liberace-like tuxedo jackets (how Mamma Mia! of them) descend from the sky.  The characters dress.  Car-Car (in a sparkly blue), Johnny Baby (in Johnny Cash black), and Elvis (in banana yellow?!  I expected better, Elvis) do another solo song.  They leave again.  DID THE SHOW JUST END WITHOUT A FINAL JERRY LEE SONG?  OH SIKE AGAIN.  Jerry Lee starts Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On.  Jerry Lee gets so intense that he rips off his (red sequined) jacket, jumps on the top of his upright piano, and plays it backwards.  The creepy standing bass player lays on his instrument while playing.  Car-Car climbs on top of the bass while blasting out a guitar solo.  Johnny Cash stays cool.  Elvis still has Restless Leg Syndrome.

I was sitting there, clapping my hands and singing along to the songs, completely unaware that this was just a staging of an event, not the actual event.

Who cares?

This was my jam session fantasy.  Thanks, boys.

-Lida

(The Million Dollar Quartet.  Photo taken by Sam Phillips.  Dec. 4th, 1956.  Memphis, TN.)

Swan Lake vs. Ballet

So last Wednesday, Kate invited us to go see Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake with her (THANKS KATE LOVE YA).  Since Chelsea and I are both dancers, we = super excited.  But kind of nervous, since this version of Swan Lake is commonly known as the "all male" version.  Could be very, very weird.  Or could be cool.

Cool.  Definitely cool.  Here's why:

1. STANDARD BALLET: Everything is supposed to look easy.  SWAN LAKE: Strug city.  But a good kind of strug.

In this ballet (and I don't even know if this was ballet.  It was like, contemporary-ballet-bird-nakedness), the dancers didn't try to hide anything.  Allow me to explain.  The male swans were naked, save for their feathery swan pants and ghostly white makeup covering their whole body.  (See photo below.  Abs, y'all.)

Okay, well, I guess they were just shirtless.  But that means that when they started sweating, you saw it.  You might find that gross. Maybe it is.  But at the same time, if you see how much the dancers are sweating, you see how much effort they are putting into it.  I'm not saying the dancing looked laborious, because it didn't.  I'm saying, for the first time, despite being a dancer almost my whole life, I saw how truly physical dancing is.  I came out of the ballet with a huge amount of respect for the sheer athleticism of the swans.  And that's pretty damn cool.  Art, culture, and the Olympics.

2. STANDARD BALLET: Suspend your disbelief, please.  SWAN LAKE: Don't suspend your disbelief.  In fact, we won't let you.


Whenever I see a ballet production (which, granted, isn't that often), the thing that throws me off most is how, when the music gets a little mezzo-piano, or, if the composer is really going crazy, even pianissimo, you can hear EVERYTHING.  I mean everything, from the clacking thumps of pointe shoes hitting the floor (a sound I weirdly love) to the panting of the dancers.  This could have really thrown me out of my "classy NYC ballet attendee" character I was reppin' that night.  (Chelsea even said I looked like I was going "to the baaaahhhlett."  Outfit win.)  But OH NO.  In Swan Lake, I experienced one of the most bizarrely awesome things -- ballet dancers, breathing in unison.  And not just breathing, but using their inhalation dynamically.  The music would get a little soft, and suddenly, you'd hear the corps of swans deeply breathing in through their nose, then exhaling on a "HUH!" sound, a sound which corresponded with some kind of powerful choreography.  And they'd do this, over and over again, putting emphasis on different movements and signaling emotional changes.  Best of all, you don't have to suspend your disbelief -- you can't not (double negative) believe that in front of you, on stage, is a gang (Flock?  Gaggle?  I'm gonna Google it.  Oh shit.  A group of swans is called "a Whiteness."  A whiteness of swans.  I can't make that up) of mean, badass swans.  The group breathing thing works.

3. STANDARD BALLET: Phenomenal dancers.  SWAN LAKE:  This guy.

Ladies and gentleman who haven't seen Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, meet Richard Winsor.  He was The Swan.  THE Swan.  To explain how killer he was, I have to try to explain the swan movements.  There was a lot of arm-folding-over-the-head-with-broken-wrists posing, back-contortion-akin-to-the-yoga-pose-"cobra" lunging, bird-getting-a-better-view-of-something head flicking, and Michael-Jackson-esque full leg flicking.  Not your typical adagio or grand allegro movement.  It could have been catastrophically weird -- you noticed the bizarreness when some of the corps dancers had little solos (a memorable vignette: a male dancer wearing a costume I can only describe as Peter Pan's lederhosen [complete with fake moustache -- how trendy hipster] dancing with five overly dramatic butterfly fairies).  And yet, every time Richard Winsor flicked his head, Chelsea and I were like, "Aight."  And every time he did an attitude with the arms-folding-over-head-with-broken-wrists pose, we were like, "I see you."  And the fact that he was an imaginary (or not...plot?!?!?!) swan preying on a little boy Prince didn't cause any alarm.  We believed everything he did.  Not only did we believe him, he nailed the dancing.  I've never seen a pose like the one in the picture above look so freaking powerful.  And he's out there doing a pax de deux with another EQUALLY STRONG male dancer (the Prince), and he's lifting him like the Prince is just another 100lb. ballerina.  You know, nbd, typical Richard Winsor.

And, on top of Richard Winsor's sheer hardcore swan masculinity, in the second half of the show he comes on as The Stranger at the royal ball.  And by "Stranger" I mean tall, dark, leather-pants-wearing, cigarette-smoking-on-stage, doing-four-shots-in-a-row, hooking-up-with-all-the-ladies-including-the-Queen Stranger.  Obviously.

His Stranger had the leather pants of Ukrainian pop singer Vitaliy Kozlovsky (who I met in person... and danced onstage with), the rich guy SLASH badass attitude of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, and the I-can-bang-anybody attitude of a lovechild between Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark (a little too comical for The Stranger) and Bradley Cooper's bro from The Hangover.  And The Stranger goes out there and does some pelvic thrusts around stage and is simultaneously dancing with every single woman in the show and isjust possibly the most badass mofo ever to hit the ballet stage.  That's all I'm gonna say.

Don't be alarmed.  If you're undergoing sensory overload, that's what's supposed to be happening.  That's happening in the theater every single night Swan Lake goes on.  The show ends, and you don't quite know what hit you.  It's draining.  But, dammit, it's so worth it.  

-Lida 

    (and Chelsea helped write until "Could be very, very weird."  Joint writing fail.)