Category: music & dance

Some lo-res (sorry, that’s all that circumstances would afford that night) screen grab from some attempts to do video of Marina and her dance troupe.

[rDay 388 – Saturday]

So Saturday evening we take off across the mountain pass to Pendleton, where Marina’s touring ballroom dance troupe is performing. This small group of dancers has been touring around the western U.S. for the past six months, and now are within an hour’s drive.   And our own HD (Honorary Daughter) Marina is part of their professional ranks.

The program consists of two parts. The first is a mock “Dancing with the Stars” thing, done to support local charities, complete with judges and local Pendleton area celebrities — community business people, politicians, educators, etc. — who each spent five days training with one of the troupe’s dancers in preparation for Saturday night’s competition. Marina’s partner was Randy, a painter, musician and community activist.

See the attached PDF for a rundown on the local Pendleton competitors and their professional partners from the dance group (including Marina, featured on the last page of the document).

The second part of the program — taking place after the intermission in which the audience voted for the dancing couple of their choice and selected their favorite charity — was a full-on, blistering performance by the dance troupe of several numbers representing a wide range of dance styles and interpretations. This was an incredible, high-energy, explosive display that, frankly, took me by surprise. I guess I was expecting something along the lines of dance events and productions that we’ve seen in the past by both local and visiting artists to our high school and college venues. In my mind, this was easily equal to anything you might see in film or tv productions. The dancing and the energy and the precision almost blew us out of our seats. Just …. wow. And Marina was such a dazzler. We always knew her as a great dancer through school, but now as a pro, she has grown to perform at utterly amazing levels. I’m hoping that she continues this career path.

Let’s hope some YouTube or Vimeo videos emerge of this stuff. But, in the meantime, here are a few stills I was able to feebly capture from the balcony.

This one is really for Ivi.

My earlier mention of Buckminster Fuller started the memory mill chugging again, as I began to recall how the Bucky photo session came about. It was because I got a call one day from my friend, P.T., who was deeply involved in the so-called human potential movement (or however that wave was being characterized) and who was working as an assistant to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of “On Death and Dying” and a leading internationally-known researcher into that subject who famously described the five stages of grief. My friend — this was sometime in the mid- or late 1970s –told me that Kubler-Ross would be speaking at an upcoming event — the World Cooperation Council, if I have the name right– that I should attend, that Findhorn people as well as my “hero” Fuller would also be speaking, and that she could probably arrange to get me a press pass.

So it happens that my friend P.T. was an utterly obsessed dancer (she started taking ballet lessons, in a class of youngsters, at age 30, for example, because her parents would not allow her ballet lessons when she had been a young child and she suddenly realized at that late date that she could still give it a whirl; she also was already a formidable interpretative jazz dancer at that point, even as she was pursuing her doctorate in cancer research).  And she had told me that Kubler-Ross had once expressed the regret that she had not spent enough time in her life … dancing! This led me today to try to find the exact quote (from sources like this and this), and I finally found something close on Wikipedia:

In Switzerland I was educated in line with the basic premise: work work work. You are only a valuable human being if you work. This is utterly wrong. Half working, half dancing – that is the right mixture. I myself have danced and played too little.

In our latest Seattle communique from Ivi (Sunday evening?), she mentioned that she was planning on several upcoming dance nights for the next week, including doing one of her new favorites, Bachata.  Here is a vid to help us (me, namely) to understand what this is about.

Hope Ivi is watching; this is aimed at her …

First, a great find by friend JamesA:

Then, another something I stumbled upon:

Friend JamesA brings this to our attention …

Swing Dancers vs. Street Dancers @ Montreal Swing Riot 2015 from Alain Wong on Vimeo.

Tonight EOU hosts a jazz recital celebrating Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.   The local jazz heavyweights, led by Matt Cooper, performed.  We learn that Matt has published a book on the life and music of Duke Ellington, further solidifying his reputation in the majors.  Matt’s performance was dazzling, and Greg’s was to knock you out.  This is the first time that I have heard Luke work out on the analog … I mean acoustic, string bass.  We’ve come to expect great stuff from him on his electric instruments with just about every musical genre, and he sounded great tonight.

(not pictured: Peter Wordelman, trumpet)

P.S.  After the concert, I was able to grab an informal portrait of Luke with his mother, Jean, as she engaged me in conversation.  But we won’t publish until Jean gets first look.

Hamburg-based classical quartet Salut Salon performs their signature comedic “instrumental acrobatics” in the performance entitled “Wettstreit zu viert.”  (Four in Competition?)

Even more:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz2ljLqQ4cE&list=RDBKezUd_xw20&index=0