FIESTA MEXICANA

Back at the Dia de los Muertos party at the Contemporary Art Museum. The exhibits featured work by Latino artists, like this one of a Los Angeles Chicano-style low rider decorated with cultural themes. A perfect backdrop for the dancer.                  

ST. LOU FRINGE - DREAMSCAPE

Dreamscape was performed by seven women, in small groups or ensemble, with flowing, emotionally evocative gestures. They sometimes appeared distressed, sometimes gracefully beautiful. The program description says that Dreamscape is about what we experience while we are dreaming and how those dreams affect us in our waking hours.            

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - HEY! WE'RE WORKING HERE

I've mentioned before that I don't much get dance. I'm not putting it down, I'm just physically graceless. I could barely shuffle my feet across the floor at my and my daughter's weddings. So when I shoot a performance like this for the Fringe I'm thinking about images and F stops. Others decide on the meaning.

This performance was called Hey! We're Working Here. The ticketing website has this description: "How do a lifetime of memories, thoughts, and associations influence the choices we make each day? Watch dancers and musicians explore each other's choices as they work to create a piece in real time based on audience input." Okay, if you say so. Unfortunately, I have no information about the dance company.

I've been wanting to mix in some other material with these performances but have been thwarted. There is a major Japanese festival at our botanical garden over Labor Day weekend. We went over yesterday morning and found that the third most distant overflow parking lot was full. There was rain in the forecast for the afternoon so we bailed and went to brunch. Turned out we guessed right. A lot of people got very wet.             

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - SCORPIO SEASON

Disclaimer: I know little about dance. I have a decent sense of rhythm but it's in my ears and brain, not in my body. I am physically graceless.

So a performance like Scorpio Season baffles me a little. I do better making images of it than appreciating the art itself. The group is called The Collected Few Project but I have no further information. If someone can give me more details I'll update this.          

STRENGTH AND BALANCE

These young performers at Circus Flora had what you might call a dance-acrobatics routine. They were terrific. I can only wonder about how many hours of practice and exercise it would take to learn to do this.             

CHINA IN ST. LOUIS

The rain moved away and left us with a cool, cloudy and dry Sunday. A big crowd turned out for the resumption of the Chinese cultural festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden. There was one spectacular performance after another. Still, I wonder how many people across our sprawling suburbs and exurbs are unaware of the riches we have on offer.         

HEADS UP

More images from Circus Flora. A young man with what I assume is a deliberately wacky hairdo avoids a club on the nose. In the middle, a multi-talented woman entertains the crowd with an electric violin while entwined in cords high above the floor. Below, the same dancer-acrobats we saw yesterday strike a pose that reminds me of a scene from Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.                

Dances of India

To finish this series, an ensemble performance by the group we saw yesterday. The organization is Dances of India, which has promoted the art in St. Louis for 41 years. Every movement and gesture has a meaning. Hard to follow for someone who is not part of the culture but nonetheless beautiful.        

Perennial Growth

Sorry for no post yesterday. &%^$@* work got in the way of my photo editing. 

Anyway, the next show up is Perennial Growth, one of the most interesting at the festival. No words, just dance and gesture set to an original score. It was hard for me to get the meaning but then, as usual, I was paying attention to images. Apparently scientists create a super-plant, which proceeds, with its kin, to quash humanity and take over the world. The goal might be to save the planet. Or something like that. It was quite beautiful. I'm more concerned, though, with artificial intelligence systems gaining the ability to learn and recursively self-improve. If that happens it will be, as they say, a whole new ball game. 

I edited way too many pictures for a single blog post. All of them will be on FB shortly.     

Maurice and Maurice

The selection of restaurants at the Taste of Downtown St. Louis may have been weak but the entertainment was pretty good. There was a father and son dance team, Maurice, Senior, and Maurice, Junior. The DJ was playing hip hop. That's not exactly my style - we just finished our 40th season as subscribers to Opera Theatre of St Louis - but the moves were great. My back and knees can't do this.        

Madeleine Monday

Of course, my favorite moppet went along on the trip to the art museum. There was a string quartet playing in a corner of the great hall. She decided to perform an interpretive dance to some Vivaldi piece. I don't know which the crowd found more entertaining.

Later in the visit, she decided to strike poses in front of Degas' ballerina. This mood lasted into the evening. As we usually do on Saturday night, we listened to the St. Louis Symphony broadcast on the radio. All on her own, she danced through pretty much all of Schumann's first symphony. She slept late on Sunday morning.    

 

Palms Out, Palms Up

More of the same, but pretty good ones. I need a break. Going to a conference in Seattle next week, though. I'm supposed to work but there's so much to shoot in that city . . .  

Traffic Cop

Well, that's what these pictures make me think of. Probably not a good uniform out amidst the exhaust pipes but, if this were their job, they would still be obeyed. Japanese people are, above all else, respectful and polite. We've walked around in Tokyo traffic and everyone keeps their cool.            

Peppermint Sticks

The first of the Japanese dances involved walking in a circle while clacking these candy cane sticks in many rhythmic patterns. Not exactly a get up and boogie number but fun to hear and watch.             

Street Portraits At The Hispanic Festival

Faces on the dance floor. Everybody's smiling. I doubt I would. I can't dance to save my life. Just plain clumsy. 

It occurs to me that there is one kind of dance where no one ever smiles: tango. It's deadly serious and has an entirely different attitude..        

Pick Your Art

Okay, mix and match. The woman in the center was doing some kind of free form posing or dancing or whatever you want to call it on a tarpaulin covered with fresh paint. Her body became part of the canvas. Didn't do much for me. The one on the right is daubing super-bright color on a canvas, something of an abstract expressionist style. I don't feel capable of judging this kind of art but I know when I like it (and I like Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko and Franz Kline).

The man on the left is something else. We saw him at the 2015 fringe and I wish I had a note of his name. He is a tap dancer but more than just that. He is something extraordinary and seemed to be in a trance. I'd like to do a whole post about him and I got a lot of pix. All I need is a chance to edit. So little time, so much to do.          

Tiny Dancer

Another group of African dancers at the Festival of Nations. I wish I had kept my program so I could identify who's who.

Only of interest to Americans: I'm editing pix and writing this Thursday night while watching the Cardinals game. They are thwacking lowly Milwaukee. If you like baseball (and I really do), it's nice to live in the city with this year's best team. We are hoping for a trans-Missouri World Series against Kansas City, which has the best record in the American League.                     

Eyes, Hands, Smiles

More of the African dance group we had two days ago. What joie de vivre.