Saturday, October 23, 2010

Dancing with Tomchess



Nür is the name of the duet I have brewing with Tomchess, who plays both Oud and Ney. Filmed by Elizabeth Line last April at Shen Tao studios... lost, rediscovered, uploaded. I'm still dancing, just finished a brilliant Butoh workshop with Imre Thormann, waking up at the crack of dawn to have at least 30 minutes if not two hours to myself to move as I please. Soon it will all come together for another project. And maybe TC and I will get a gig - anybody need some pretty dance and music for their holiday party?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Sunday School at Burning Man



My seventh day of dancing revelry at Burning Man, my body moving despite myself. My normal morning venue for dancing was transformed: instead of the contact jam at center circle there was a gospel choir. I set out to explore and chanced upon the Dragon car at the Red Lightening camp, where I proceeded to dance for a couple of beautiful hours. The wind and sun were moderate, the mood was high. More on Burning Man soon, me thinks...

Friday, August 27, 2010

IS IT OVER YET?

I should do a proper write up of this project, I will, but now I'm about to fly: to Burning Man, to a new studio, to a new geography in my spirit. So I wanted to get what I have done out and make space for new material. There are maybe three or four dresses left, and I may leave it at that. Coming soon: Burning Man videos!

Dress A Month, August 23: Flashback Flashforward



Got this one from my neighbor in mid July... Good story about the Saturday night performance, more soon.

Dress A Month! July 1: Fire Fly



Dress number 50, and kind of the end of the project... This is the FireFly dress... more words soon.

Dress A Day, Day 49: Please Hear my Prayers



Got this dress at the '05 costume sale. Wore it many times, but most memorably to my sister's super orthodox Jewish wedding in December of 2008, where I danced like a demon. Maybe that's why it still has an air of religious fervor about it... but here my supplications and prayers are to my own spirit, and it's many helpers. I'm writing this in the last days of August, so I can say now: my prayers were answered.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 48: Spring is Over


Wednesday, June 23

Another dress purchased at Goodwill to play dress-up in. It has lots of bright yellow flowers but a high collar and long skirt that make it perfect for playing the conservative strings of the soul. And I am moving in the direction of conservative and conservation after a Spring of frenzied flight and fabulous fantasy. It is time to get grounded and work. Funny then that after this dance I took three days off this project. Or not funny: practical in the way of conservation. You see my period came, as did a lunar eclipse and a cascade of matters to do with inner work and business work that needed my attending. So I directed my energies where I saw they were needed most. Now I can dance again.

First Break: Tuesday, June 22

Allowed myself a day off. So much is happening. I did post a longer version of the solstice dance on youtube, though, to make up for the missing minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpY-Ga0-zLI

Dress A Day, Day 47: Serenading the Solstice


Monday, June 21

Summer Solstice, at the Monday night Open Movement Jam. The lights are low because natural light is still streaming in when I arrive at 8:30PM. I am earlier than usual, it is quiet and there is a mood of reverie and introspection in the room. Good for me, I can dance my sadness and give my prayers for equilibrium a vessel to move into the world through. I love this dress but it always opens in the back. It looks like a big polka dotted red apron that you tie around. Jim, who runs the jam, said it was his favorite dress yet and that it made him think of my shtetl past - did I have a shtetl past, he asks? I do Jim, indeed I do. I come from many kinds of shtetls, ones my father's family may have lived in in past centuries, and ones that live on inside of me and my family. I am making my way out of the shtetl, you who are watching and reading are observing my journey.

Dress A Day, Day 46: A Bed in Boston


Sunday, June 20

This dress is one I am falling in love with. It is actually a skirt, transformed into a dress with a belt. That is how the designer at the recent African Market at BAM convinced me to buy it. It wasn't cheap, but my aunt Esti had put money in my hand to buy a dress with and the designer pointed out how practical it was for travel given that it was two outfits in one, so I let myself buy it. I tried on a few, the prints were so gorgeous, but the two sales women nodded so vigorously when I put the orange one up that I had to take it. Some people still remember me from my Berkeley days as the orange girl, so maybe my past is still with me. I bought it the day after my aunt Esti left and now here I am, at my aunt Esti's house in Boston, at the end of a long day of travel and family visits, exploring the haunted past and looking towards the future.

I want to be good and serious and playful too. I want to be in the light and in my skin and I want to jump and fall and land softly. Amen.

Dress A Day, Day 45: Boundary Building


Saturday, June 19

I bought this dress last year, right around this time, for way too cheap in one of those stores on Fulton St. that makes you remember that sweat shops are still alive and well in the world. But I needed a new dress at that time, one for a special occasion, a Fourth of July party. In fact it was my goodbye party, where I bid farewell to my amazingly gorgeous rooftop garden and the life in the apartment I shared for two and a half years with the ex. On this particular June night independence was on my mind and I meditated on that theme as I biked through dark streets to a party in Bushwick. I didn't bring my camera with me, so it wasn't until I got home that I filmed this dance, but perhaps that gave me time to contemplate the lesson at hand. You see, this year I am learning that independence is not just about freedom, it is about knowing my boundaries and how to guard them. To be free without boundaries is to be open territory for invasion.

Dress A Day, Day 44: Let Loose


Friday, June 18

A break from the lover, a breaking point in my relationship to myself, a break with my past. I'm letting loose with my favorite dancing partner, soul sister and my frequent savior, Diana Quiñonez Rivera at the Leftist Lounge fundraising party in Brooklyn. She is filming for a moment, then she will dance again. I am dancing because I need to, and the dress makes me feel like dancing. It is a dancing dress, made by Deha for dancers, bought at Daffy's sometime in the last two years.

Dress A Day, Day 43: Ancestral Bind


Thursday, June 17

An antique Moroccan dress given to me by my aunt Hana, I think. How personal am I supposed to get on a public blog? Let it be known that I am working through baggage that I do believe has been passed down to me through many generations of bound women. I am face to face with that bind in my relationship to myself, to a lover and to my work. I am pushing up against my limits, sad, tired and yet determined to break free.

Dress A Day, Day 42: Kitchen Couture


Wed, June16

My mother gave me this dress almost two decades ago, a silky french dress with what today might be a super hip cut but one that I could never quite figure out. It's like a house wife's couture costume. And there I am in the kitchen, where I'm spending a lot of time these days thanks to my candida diet, trying to shake off the rage and frustration that is pulsing through me.

Dress A Day, Day 41: Duet at Solo Bar


Tuesday, June 15

I wore this super sexy dress to the not so super sexy Solo Bar on Cortelyou in Brooklyn because I was down to the super sexy dresses and the costume dresses. I bought this one at the Goodwill on Fulton St. and this was my first time wearing it. I often buy dresses thinking: this is a good dress to dance, that is, perform in. But the opportunities to perform are not many these days, so at least it made it on to a short video. My dancing partner is a mean skanker in his late 60's or 70's. Nobody dances at Solo Bar, so this was quite an occasion and he was thrilled to have a partner and I was thrilled to dance with him and at the end of this thrilling night I was completely wiped and the shit hit the fan the next day. I guess I was really stirring things up. That's Audrey Crabtree filming us. She is an amazing performer and a lovely lady.

Dress A Day, Day 40: Mechanical Me


Mon, June 14

Days have passed since I uploaded videos. I am a different person these days, in a different place and that is not a bad thing. By this particular night I was itching to break out of the old me, to break through to new territory. It was coming, the break, it was already happening, in fact. I put on this way too tight dress which I acquired at the clothing swap that took place in my studio in March (www.forceandflow.com, SWAN Flight event). I took it out of obligation to take something and because it fit me, I felt ridiculous holding my breath to zip myself into it, squashing my already not so voluptuous breasts. And maybe this is also a comment on how I felt about the dress dances at this point: they had been going on for so long, and my life had gotten so incredibly busy that the daily (mostly nightly) dances had begun to feel like a mechanical obligation.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 39:



Sunday, June 13

There I was, finished uploading and writing up the past dances, having answered emails, put away laundry and practiced piano, ready to do the next dance. I put on a pretty black dress I had been thinking about yesterday but wasn't feeling up to, started to put the yoga balls away in order to clear the space and boom, the rack fixture came crashing down. Nothing to do but pull the ladder out and start drilling new holes into the wall (sorry neighbors!) Up the ladder with a power tool in a pretty black dress, I knew this was meant to be: I will dance with the drill, a dramatic dance about my glamorous life as a dancer, teacher, businesswoman cum handyman. And I will have fun, must need have fun or why else do this.

The dress comes from Goodwill on Fulton St., a post-breakup purchase, another good reason to roar in it.

Reflections



9:37PM. Just caught up on ten days of dress uploads and have yet to film one tonight. This is the point in the marathon where the questions, Why? and How much longer? keep coming up. Not sure about the latter - maybe two more weeks to go. As for the former, I will share these reasons with you: because I am learning so much about myself and my dance, watching myself dance in my own costumes every day. And maybe, just maybe, if I persevere, I will have a breakthrough and myself and my dance will transform. It's just around the corner...

Dress A Day, Day 38: Darkened Traverse



Saturday, June 12

I was traversing darker territories in my psyche this night. I put on a black dress, handed down to me by my mother or an aunt three or seven years ago, not so sure, and tucked myself under the piano. I am sure I didn't do the dress or myself justice, but I never do when I'm feeling self-conscious. At least I took it for a swing.

Dress A Day, Day 37: Heiroglyphics



Friday, June 11

A woolen Moroccan dress purchased at the Yafo flea market some years ago. I collect beautifully embroidered things, and this one is one of my treasures. I had forgotten about this one when the nights still justified some wool, so I took the Friday night breeze as an opportunity to don it. It reminds me of my Sumerian past lives.

Dress A Day, Day 36: Perch



Thursday, June 10

A fun one, a dress to play in. Got it at Daffy's a year ago on a requisite shopping trip with my mother, who was on a brief visit. Got photographed in it earlier this same day by Michal, an Israeli photographer doing portraits of Israeli artists in Brooklyn. Some days are more fun than others.

Dress A Day, Day 35: Making Faces



Wednesday, June 9

I bought this dress at Goodwill in Santa Barbara when I came from Israel for my brother's graduation, circa 2001. That was a difficult trip, family relations so strained and everyone putting a face on. Maybe being around my family filled me with the desire to be a good girl, the kind that could make it all right: it is a good girl dress, a Banana Republic dress, the kind my Palo Alto high school classmates may have worn but not I. It is a costume, I put it on and all those put on faces come right out.

Dress A Day, Day 34: Witch Dress



Tuesday, June 8

This is one of those dresses I took from my mother's closet back around high school and have worn so rarely. It is sheer and delicate and at 17 I thought it more a costume than an outfit: it was my witch dress. Maybe it still is.

Dress A Day, Day 33: Flock



Monday, June 7

At the jam, late, after most have left, with a dress my aunt Esti bought for me just a week earlier at the African market at BAM. We're flying, Julie and I. It has been all about flying for a few days now, but flying is really so much more fun in a flock.

Dress A Day, Day 32: Flower Power II



Sunday, June 6

I got this dress from my friend and former neighbor, Christina May, just before she moved to San Diego to join a dance company out there whose name I can't recall. The cotton fabric is so thin and soft and wonderful to wear. It's a Sunday dress for sure, one I put on when I want to do a little hiding and relaxing.

Dress A Day, Day 31: Black Bird Lands



Saturday, June 5

The dress is a very simple one left behind by Catherine Hoffmann two summers ago. It's just a little too low cut for me, but flexible so flexible and fun to dance in. I put the gorgeous Japanese silk top over to hide the escaping breasts from the public eye. Then I went to Tompkins park for a free Haitian dance class and performance. Back at the pad it was still so hot, and what with the fan blowing through my hair, the flowing top fluttering like wings the Haitian movements still in my body, I felt like flying. But after two dance classes and a day full of teaching and treating, the dance ended up being about landing.

Dress A Day, Day 30: Land of Loose and Silly



See Monday, May 17 for the story of the purchase of this dress. I regretted this purchase. I never wore the dress, maybe three times... until the day I filmed this video, and suddenly I didn't want to take it off. Go figure. It hangs loosely, the top button keeps unbuttoning itself, the cut is silly really, even more so because of the seriousness of the army fatigue fabric. This was the perfect night to let myself go there, to the land of loose and silly.

Dress A Day, Day 29: Pent Up Desire



Thursday, June 3

I love this dress, it is precious to me. It was given to me by my aunt, who bought it as a vintage dress sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. It is most likely from the 40's or 50's, the kind of dress a nice young lady might wear, full of detail and a cut that reveals just enough of the figure to keep things proper and yet light up curiosity. Did the woman who originally wore this dress ever dance under red lights? There is pent up desire in its seems, I swear it.

Dress A Day, Day 28: Push Pull Kick Play



Wednesday, June 2

Ah, you see, these are long days for me, and this dress has a long history of long days. It's my everything dress, I love to work and play in it, so much more comfortable than wearing pants. It's handmade, vintage no doubt, purchased in Berkeley circa 1996.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

What, is it over?


Nope. There are dress dances happening every day, you just don't see them yet (those of you who may be peeking in). I have excuses: today I taught four classes, had two private clients, a three hour rehearsal, at least two hours of office work, and 35 minutes of piano practice. Right now I'm filling the bath with very hot water, and when I get out I'll put on a dress and dance. But you see why it might be difficult after all that to also upload, write up and publish. I will publish all by Sunday, I hope. And I'll have you know that I expect this to last all the way through June, if not longer.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 27: I Dream of Ghana



Tuesday, June 1

This dress came into my possession about an hour before I recorded the dance. My friend Amihay, recently returned from Ghana, brought it for me as a gift: wow. I am dreaming of Africa these days, and not just because of the time spent at the African market at BAM this past weekend. It's calling me, and soon enough I'll answer.

Dress A Day, Day 26: Kouzin or Collapse



Monday, May 31

Music by Monvelyno Alexis, who is invisible in the background, playing DJ while I lie splayed on the floor in this picnic dress. All of a sudden I get up, put the camera in place and start spinning. That's how it happened. The name of the song is Kouzin, which is also the name of a Voodoo spirit. It must have been Kouzin himself who scraped me off the floor, where I lay collapsed and immobile, and sent me whirling through the room.

The dress is one I picked up at the famed costume sale of 2004. I call it my picnic dress because clearly that's where one is supposed to wear this kind of dress, and where I do indeed wear it when a picnic arises. There had been no picnic on this day, but I was as relaxed on my floor as I would have been on the grass, staring up at my thoughts like passing clouds. And all of a sudden I was the wind.

Dress A Day, Day 25: Secret Journey



Sunday, May 30

It's not a mistake, or yes it is, but I'm aware the video is only two seconds long: maybe this was one dance or one day that wasn't meant to be recorded... I'm at the Dance Africa Festival at BAM. Diana is filming, or at least we are under the impression that she is, but the camera chose not to record this particular moment for some reason. This dance came at the end of a long day of roaming and bodywork giving and bead buying. Exhausted, I walked my bike and Diana away from the drum circle and toward the subway stop on Fulton St. On the way, we chanced upon the most sublime of all sights: three master Kora players, joined by my friend Kevin the Mbira player and a flute player, in a parking lot around the corner from the main strip. Now no amount of exhaustion could stop me from appreciating this sight and these sounds, so I took off my sandals and danced barefoot on the warm asphalt. I danced and danced and the more I danced the more the musicians played. People stopped to watch and listen and I danced on as if this was the most natural thing for me to do. At some point I realized that Diana was long gone and the sun was on its way too so I made mine: it was with heavy legs and a light heart that I biked home. The next morning I knew something in my dancing had changed, opened up, transformed, taken flight. Maybe that's why it was out of reach of the camera...

The dress is one I bought in Israel a few years ago with the familiar intention of purchasing something that has no practical value (too short, too tight, too wacky) and which I then proceeded to wear in the coming summers as if it were the little black dress that goes with everything. Funny how that happens.

Dress A Day, Day 24: Come Closer



Saturday, May 29

At the Brooklyn Marriott, late at night, having put my mother and my aunt to bed. I am in one of my favorite dresses: it reminds me of military wear but the cut is so hip and sexy that it camouflages the combat written into it's essence. This night was a night for being hip and sexy and camouflaged: enough said. As close as I may have been, to those who saw me I was far away... and then there were the moments in which I came closer to have a good look.

The dress is one I bought in Belgium, during my residency at the Nadine arts center in 2004. I had been roaming a three square block radius of Brussels for the three weeks of the residency, purchasing little more than groceries and chocolate, so when it was over and I found myself a few blocks further into downtown, I thought it appropriate to buy this dress, which called to me from across the street.

Dress A Day, Day 23: Red Rising



Friday, May 28

There is anger and frustration in the story of the acquisition of this dress. It was bought for me by my mother on one of her visits to New York, early in my stay here. It was a rainy day and I was not particularly happy to find myself in a department store on the Upper East Side. She bought herself a skirt of the same style and color, which eventually ended up in my closet too. I never wore the dress until about a year ago. Even now I wear it rarely, but I don't throw it away. Maybe it reveals a side of me I don't like to see, but with which I must stay in dialogue.

Dress A Day, Day 22: Shake Off the Office



Thursday, May 27

That's my office you see there, and that's me, in a little blue dress, playing grown up late at night (otherwise known as trying to keep up with all the maddening office work required of an independent business woman and artist). Grown ups are overworked, they spend too much time in their heads, on their butts, in front of computers. They need to shake it off. This dress makes me feel young enough to do just that: get up and shake and roll and slam the computer shut. I bought it in London, picked it out of a pile of second hand clothes at the Curry Lane market. It's the only dress I bought in London, where I was far more of a serious grown up than I am these days and free days for roaming and buying pretty things were so very rare.

Dress A Day, Day 21: Peel and Serve



Wednesday, May 26

Sometimes a girl just needs to dance. And dance, and dance again. I did four takes of this dress dance, determined to peel off the layers that were covering the essence of this woman in this dress. Earlier in the day, I flew through Brooklyn on my bike in it, the wind peeling the dress from my thighs and revealing bare skin to the world. I was not shy or flattered or upset by the stares and shouts, maybe I was baring my legs to the world in place of a public speech to proclaim my growing strength. But nightfall in the studio revealed my vulnerability, and a sense of doubt and dissatisfaction played itself out as I kept going back to record another round of dance (see two more takes on my youtube channel).

Don't remember exactly where I got this one: was it Israel or San Francisco? Wore it rarely, but always with Pina Bausch's Nelken on my mind. Rediscovered it in Israel just this past January, in a bag that had traveled from Tel Aviv to Haifa to Sderot to Tel Aviv again over the course of six years while it waited to reunite with me. I fell in love with it again, or maybe for the first time, and so I have my aunts to thank for safekeeping it all these years.

Dress A Day, Day 20: Guide



Tuesday, May 25

Epic journeys always involve elf-like creatures that guide the protagonist from one world to the next, don't they?

A Himalayan sweater dress purchased at the Yafo flea market in Israel to be worn in the Catskills, where I lived and worked at the time with an experimental theater company. Elves seem rather bland compared to some of the characters I encountered up there.

Dress A Day, Day 19: Graduation Ceremony



Monday, May 24

At the jam, in a quiet back room with a big sign on the door: Theater Department. Today is my anniversary: it was this Monday in May last year that I packed my things and moved into my new life. But more than an anniversary, a graduation! I am bigger now, I feel it today, more ready to play than ever.

The dress is from Berkeley, a second hand purchase from Telegraph Ave. bought in my freshman year when I was meticulous about wearing at least a little bit of orange every day. It's hand made and was once a lot longer, I imagine, but not in my time. The fabric is a horrible polyester which is fine for Berkeley where the days are mostly pleasant, but not for the sweat pit that is Tel Aviv. I wore it so much in college that I couldn't part with it when I moved to Israel, so it sat in storage for almost four years until my mother announced that it was her turn to move to Israel and I, recently arrived to New York, trekked to California to sort through the few boxes I left behind. While away, my Brooklyn apartment was broken into for the second time in the two short months I had lived there and maybe that's a different story except that it's part of what I've graduated from: that time in my life in which my private space was broken into and burglarized repeatedly. Amen.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 18: Defiance



Sunday, May 23

Oh this one. I do believe I've had it since my Berkeley days (mid 90's), got it at one of the second hand shops on Telegraph Ave right around the time I started dancing seriously. I've worn it a lot or hardly at all at various points, almost always with jeans underneath. It's watched me shift shapes countless times - physically, geographically and metaphysically - and has managed to defy the closet pogroms that tend to accompany said shifts. If I saw it on a store rack today I don't know that I'd take a second look, but on my body it is a secret talisman, a reminder of my own defiance that has kept me dancing all these years.

Dress A Day, Day 17: Prayer



Saturday, May 22

Another French dress given to me by Julie Criniere before her move to Israel. As soon as I put it on in the waning light of this Saturday evening, I knew I had to paint my eyes with eyeshadow and sprinkle the floor with petals. It is so delicate, with a sheer floral top that floats over the fitted satin slip: as innocent and sexual as a flower in full bloom... me too, please. It's the kind of dress I would think to wear to a ceremony such as a wedding or a holiday, and that is what this dance is. Or rather, it is a prayer.

Dress A Day, Day 16: Resisting the Corner



Friday, May 21

A recent acquisition, sold to me as a "tunic". It's dress status can be debated, I admit, as I wouldn't dare to wear it without leggings, not even for the video. I bought it new, rather late in the evening, after a particularly trying day on my recent trip to Israel. Its purchase was an act of resistance against the role I was being cornered into playing that day. The pattern reminded me of my childhood dresses but the cut revealed my adult figure - perfect for the alchemical transformation I was in search of.

Dress A Day, Day 15: Revealing Me



Thursday, May 20

This dress is a little bit of everything, and somehow more me than I ever expected. It is a French dress, given to me by my student Julie Criniere - a beautiful French woman who was born in the Middle East and grew up in South America - upon her move to Israel with her husband and two beautiful boys (have I mentioned how much I love Brooklyn?!).

When I first put it on, I wasn't convinced - something about the cut was so... classic. But the fabric is so delicious, a soft tricot with just enough stretch to give what could otherwise be a rigid pattern some serious swing. And it felt so good on my body that I started to wear it almost immediately.

In fact, this is perhaps the first dance in which it is me wearing the dress and not the dress wearing me. Or maybe what I mean is that dancing in this particular dress I am somehow, finally, revealed: if last night I was barely veiled, tonight I naked for a moment, pleated dress and all.

Dress A Day, Day 14: Barely Veiled



Wednesday, May 19

I've never worn this one before, maybe I never will again. I found it at the giveaway box at Earthdance last Fall, during my Artward Bound residency. I loved the print and the feel of the fabric, and it actually came with that pretty pink tie, which must either be for the hair or the neck because it sure don't fit 'round the waist. I do believe it is a nightgown, sheer and sexy, but who wears such things to sleep?

I chose to wear it on this night because in truth I felt naked, just barely veiled. I even thought to try to wear it to bed, but it was already making its way off at the end of the dance, which was perhaps the point: I was ready to unveil, if only just a little bit at a time.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 13: Transformation



Tuesday, May 18

Of all my dresses, this is the one I have owned the longest. In fact, it's been in the family for over four decades. I claimed it as my own out of my mother's closet in high school, but I never dared wear it until college - it was so short and the fabric was so delicate! For years I wasn't really sure I could live up to it, and so it only ventured into the world on a very rare occasion. The fact that it sits on me so comfortably today is a testament to my transformation through dance, and this is a dance about transformation.

Dress A Day, Day 12: Wave Patterns



Monday, May 17

At the jam again, with a dress I love to get sweaty in. This is, I believe, the first dress in this project that I can say I bought new at a store. It happened like this: on a stormy Thursday night in early June of 2006, lightning hit Brooklyn and my hard drive was fried through the electrical outlet. This being the day before the last Ask the Robot that I produced, a multimedia performance/installation/video/art event on the Frying Pan on the Chelsea Piers, I was in a bit of jam. The next day I trekked to the Apple store in SoHo, and was met by a line which was followed by a wait and I was short on time and patience which was only making the situation more stressful. So I got myself out of the store and on to Broadway, where I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I only bought sexy clothes that part of me thought I would never wear, short shorts and tight dresses - I refused to buy anything practical.

That night on the Frying Pan, an early 20th century lighthouse boat docked on the Hudson River, I felt for the first time in a long time that the world outside was mirroring the one inside. There I was, in the belly of a rusted boat, surrounded by sounds and visions at once foreign and strange and yet familiar, for they were there by my invitation. We were all of us in constant motion, rocking to and fro as the waves of the river crashed into the boat over and over and over again.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 11: Grass Fed



Sunday, May 16

Earlier in the day I was accused of matching my dress to my toe nail polish, but clearly it was to this later scene at Prospect Park that my intuition must have tuned into when I pulled it out of my closet on Sunday morning. We are just South of the drum circle, where our contact improvising ways were deemed unwelcome. That's AJ Block of the Didge Project on didgeridoo, and it was to his circle that we migrated when asked to stop our dancing ways at the larger circle.

This dress is coming apart at the seems from so much wear, and it lost its last remaining and often replaced button during my dancing revelries this past Sunday. It's just so comfortable and yet never fails to get a smile or a nod, maybe because of its brilliant colors. I got it from my sister who got it from her friend Jessica Hawk back when my sister still wore short sleeved dresses: seven or eight years ago, that is.

Dress A Day, Day 10: International Rhythm



Saturday, May 15

Oh, this lovely lovely dress: I've tried to rid myself of it so many times and am so glad for my failure. It's been across the globe with me, in my closet and in my suitcases for at least 14 years now. But it's much older than that. I think my mother gave it to me, after carrying it around herself for years and years. It's a French cut dress made of Japanese silk print fabric on an Israeli woman dancing to Haitian rhythms in Brooklyn.

It was a lovely occasion to wear it to, the Remembering Haiti fundraiser at the Cee Flat in Greenpoint. You don't see them in the frame, but Jasmine Burems and Mandi Gor are inspiring my dance, and of course the band is pumping it with life. That's Monvelyno Alexis on guitar and voice, Chico Boyer on bass, Michael Vitali on drums and Nataliya Zaytseva on keyboard.

Dress A Day, Day 9: Mercy Martha



Friday, May 14

On this particular Friday night I came back from rolling on a tarp covered pile of gravel in Greenpoint with my partner in sublime, Erin Ellen Kelly, and was called to this dress, which reminded me at the moment of my Martha Graham past. I giggled at the thought of following my dumpster yard gyrations with a dress that my orthodox sister would approve of and some movement that an academic would have a category for. But when I put it on and started moving it was Dominque Mercy, my favorite Pina Bausch dancer that called to me from within. We all danced together: Ophra, Dominique, Martha, the dress.

I got this one at my first ever clothing swap, in early 2004, soon after arriving in NYC. Actually, I missed the clothing swap but ended up at Rae's house a couple of days after the event and dug through the gynormous pile of rejected clothing, in total awe of the very possibility of so many clothes being thrown out. I found enough clothes to create a new wardrobe for myself for the next two years, and for a moment was so grateful for the local culture of excess, which made the shoestring I was living on that much prettier.

Dress A Day, Day 8: Beyond



Thursday, May 13

So much to say about this dress, so little of it in words. It is from Afghanistan, and comes to my closet via the amazing costume sale that happened in NY in 2004. We lined around the block and waited for hours to fill a paper bag purchased for $20 with whatever pleased our fancy. It is the dress I wear for my solo, Beyond, which has been both the wind and the wings that have carried my work the past couple of years. I love it. Methinks it loves me too.

Catherine Hoffmann (see Dress #2) wrote in suggesting I might try letting my dresses stand on their own a bit more and not cover them in curtains and the like, and so inspired this first wide shot.

Dress A Day, Day 7: Purple Fire



Wednesday, May 12

A sweater dress, purchased this past Fall at the Goodwill on Fulton St. I was thrilled to find out it was a fire that has recently shut my beloved Goodwill down and not gentrification. This dress is full of desire, fiery desire, bought at a time when my desire was returning to me after a blind stroll through the wrong relationship and the heartbreak that ensued. It was necessary and gratifying to wear it without leggings underneath for the first and probably the last time.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 6: Exorcism



Tuesday, May 11

It's cold out. Too cold for this far into May. But a chance to wear this woolen dress, which I found on the street: Dean St., just across from my side of Bedford. I wore it for my flight to Israel in January, and when my luggage was inevitably lost I found myself roaming the streets of Tel Aviv in it for three days. But tonight's dance was from the dress's time before me, I'm sure of it - no amount of laundering can wash certain things out, but maybe a dance can.

Dress A Day, Day 5: Jammin'



Monday, May 10

This is only the second time I've worn this dress: once to the nude beach on Fire Island with Laura, where I promptly took it and everything else off; and this second time to the Monday night movement jam, where I am a regular, if such a word can be used for anything to do with this gathering. I wore the hat as a declaration: I Am in Costume. And because it matched nicely and kept me warm. The dance is more about being in a dress at the jam on a cold May night than about the dress per se, but in my mind the dress is a plain one, to be worn at home and to sweaty places like the beach and dance jams. Like tofu, a dress like tofu, that can take on whatever flavors in stews in. It was deposited in my bag during my recent visit to Israel by one of my suppliers, aka an aunt or mother or sister.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 4: Veiled



Sunday, May 9

Wild winds call me to the window. Someone is watching as I veil and unveil. This dress of Indian make, bought in the holy city of Tzfat in Israel, takes me to places where self-righteousness has no home.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Dress A Day, Day 3: Stories to Tell



Saturday, May 8

This is one of those dresses that has traveled with me across three continents and back. It was given to me by one of my aunts and I assume it is Moroccan, perhaps even a family heirloom, vintage no doubt, maybe even antique. Good for a good story, if nothing else.

Dress A Day, Day 2: The Blues



Friday, May 7

Got the blues today, wore a dress given to me two summers ago by my fiery sister in spirit, Catherine Hoffman (of Molly and Me, molly-and-me.com).

Dress A Day, Day 1: Flower Power



Thursday, May 6

The first day and first dress in the Dress-a-Day project, not to mention the first time I wore this particular dress, which was given to me by my aunt on my recent visit to Israel this past January. Later this same night I wore the dress to Vox Pop where my new friend Romell was sure that the floral print had seeped into my very soul and that I looked like a flower myself.

Practical Guide to a Dress A Day

I will film a short dance in a different dress of mine every day of this warm season. I started on Thursday, May 6th, and I can't be bothered to count all my dresses, so I don't know when I'll finish.

The dances are short, two minutes or less, and are filmed in one take. Any editing involves setting an in and out point, mainly for the sake of not wasting your time watching me turn the camera on and off.

Whenever possible, I will include some information about the dress and how it ended up in my closet.

This is an art project and an exercise and a research project all in one. I am curious to see the different me's that live through these dresses, and I am eager to learn to let myself live. I don't plan which dress to wear, or what time of day to wear it or what or how to dance in it. A moment arrives, something comes to mind - in the good moments it comes directly to my senses - and I follow it.

Your comments are welcome, you who are out there.

Prelude to a Dress A Day

My Studio is my palace. Measuring less than 350 square feet, it is classroom and bedroom and treatment room and living room and most of all a laboratory for my spirit. The antique Emerson cabinet grand stands where a bed might have rested up against the wall, and for a year now (we celebrate the anniversary of our independence in less than three weeks) I have spoken of ridding myself of it by any means necessary. Oh, I have tried! It is as heavy and awkward as the relationship that brought it into my life. I know not how to play it and it is merely a mediocre surface for my drifting papers and artifacts, yet it is a beautiful instrument and who am I to destroy a source of music for the sake of a mattress? I am not, not one of those.

Then love and a lover came into my life, filled it with music so sweet and a desire to sing and play. In a moment I knew the piano had to stay, and with the help of my love and my lover I would learn to play it, would love to play at learning it. The mattress could continue living in the closet, why not, but now that the imagination was not working so hard at erasing the presence of the piano, the need for proper shelves could no longer be denied. I need some good shelves, I announced to myself and a few dear ones. Days later Elizabeth arrived in the evening to borrow a costume and mentioned a bookshelf standing on the corner of my very own block. Shoes on and a short march and we two are in front of a beautiful sight to behold: a gorgeous wooden bookshelf measuring exactly the right size to fit in the left-most window alcove. Exactly is perhaps an understatement, this fit is a marvel best enjoyed with the naked eye.

And so began the second round of Spring cleaning for the season. Bookshelf organizing led to the creation of a jewelry display case, refrigerator scrubbing, dust bunny collecting, bathroom shelf mounting, and of course, closet cleaning. It is always a good idea to clean and clear my closet out, considering that half of it is occupied by said mattress. Just over a month ago I celebrated my closet clearing with a clothing swap, and this more recent sweep took with it a few more items. But not a single dress was thrown out. It is a marvel how many dresses I keep, and how I keep them all in the tiny space of my closet is a miracle, but as with the piano, I could not be convinced to throw a single one out.

Why? Whatfor? The practical one, the one who loves to throw shit out, spoke up: when will you wear all these dresses, Ophra? you would have to wear a dress a day for the entire season to get through them all. The wily one, increasingly adept at negotiating between the heart and the mind, smiled. Then that's what we'll do, darling, we'll wear a dress a day! And the lover chimed in: oh yes, but we'll not only wear them, we'll dance them! The practical one, recently softened by frequent smiles and multiple orgasms, agreed. But not without setting a few terms: let them be short dances, recorded on the flip camera and so easily uploaded, and better get the whiny one on board, because this is going to require some keyboard greasing and eye frying on the bright screen if we're going to share our pleasure with the world.

My keyboard is greasy now (I blame the popcorn), and my eyes are fried. The whiny one, relatively calm tonight after having had her fitful spotlight for the past two days, reminds us that we are all tired. Time to upload the videos.

Enjoy.

Fast Forward


Dear Blog,

I have neglected you, forsaken you even. But I did not forget you, and here I am, over a year later with a lifetime's worth of transformation to account for my cocooning. The threads of my life are silky - strong and warm and beautiful, at once practical and decadent. And I, I am a butterfly in flight, in love again after heartbreak and mindbreak and gutbreak, revealing the fabric of space as I ride the gusts, showing off my colors and landing only to commune with that which is in bloom.

And there is continuity after all: the last post, that fateful bus ride to Chiang Mai, was the start of the unfolding of the rest of my life. No time to retrace the steps, the winds will carry the scents and memories of these past months far into the future, and they will weave their way into the stories to come.

Now there is a project to launch, a dance to fall into, a love and laughter of life to embrace us and bring us together again.

Yours,
Ophra