RAWdance Chronicles

It's Official

2009-06-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

Okay it's time for us to accept that we're simply not natural bloggers. Or that if we are (I compose fragments in my head all the time but they disappear before they ever make it to the screen), we're just too overloaded to do it right. So for now we're embarking on a smaller scale version: Facebook.

Yes, as some of you may know, we've had a Facebook group for a while now. But FB groups leave a lot to be desired and we still like the idea of sharing thoughts/process/shows/photos/etc. So we just created a page (look up "Raw Dance" on Facebook). It's still a far cry from the perfect answer, but it means we can write one-sentence updates without feeling like blog failures, longer ramblings when we have time, and even sentence fragments on those days when we're too far gone for anything else.

Any future blogs or bloglike thoughts will be linked from Facebook, so check us out and become a friend if you want to follow along. If you don't want to deal with FB, please let us know and we'll figure out a way to include you on our lists without you having to open an account.

See you on the other side.
Wendy

Primetime Morning

2009-01-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Yay to being back in the world of wifi...

As promised... check out Channel News Asia for info on Primetime Morning, Channel News Asia's Singaporean morning show. The interview will air sometime this morning -- thanks to everyone there for making it easy!

Today is a long theater day, but more news and pics coming after we open tonight!

Good Morning Singapore

2008-12-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, as some of you facebookers have seen, we're going to be guests on a Singaporean morning show. Given that this will come after a two day flight and many more days of work, we promise to post the link if and only if we deem it not totally humiliating. :) One week and counting!

HAPPY 2009 TO ALL!!!
xoxo,
RAW

Fringe

2008-12-29T17:19:00.000-08:00

www.singaporefringe.com - where we'll be in two weeks.

And if you make it that far, no "virgin" does not relate to the piece we're presenting or RAWdance in any way. That's how the festival designates that the performance is appropriate for all audiences, including those new to the fringe (meaning it's not exclusively for semiotics-obsessed, alterna art freaks, though we love you too). How accurate their sight-unseen assessment is remains to be determined, but we'll take it.

Open relationships

2008-12-29T07:43:00.000-08:00

So for those of you who've been paying attention, yes it's been a little while since we've blogged. With work this overwhelming, taking those extra few minutes to write about it and put it in the public sphere has been the last thing either of us could handle. Yet the whole idea behind this blog was to open up our process and some of the mystique behind contemporary dance. It's these same challenges that we've been facing (both administrative and creative ones) that we wanted to share in the first place.

We've been talking a lot lately about new ways to tap into the online community to share what it is we do with people inside and especially outside the dance world. We haven't figured it out yet (though by all means send us your ideas are welcome), but as we go back to basics, it seems like blogging is the first step. So as of today, we're renewing our commitment to share - not just the easy stuff, but also some of our challenges and questions we don't have answers to yet.

Expect more in the near future. And if we lapse, feel free to kick our butts. :)
xoxo,
RAW

Still Going...

2008-08-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Coming up in two weeks- the CONCEPT series: 3, our informal and intimate salon of contemporary dance. For this installation, we've got four more lovely and talented guest artists: Todd Eckert, Deep Waters Dance Theater (Amara Tabor-Smith), Aura Fischbeck Dance, and Maxine Moerman Dancetheatre.

On our end, we're having fun bringing back un[covered], the first piece we made for WestWave three years ago and a snippet from Scripting Intimacies (also from 2005). Also on the program will be excerpts from our newest work-in-progress Fallout, which will have its full premiere at the Singapore Fringe Festival in January, and which we showed the beginnings of at our recent home season.

For those of you who've been following our emails and blog entires, you'll know it's been a long, busy summer for the company. Yes, we're tired. Very very tired. But it's also been exciting to revisit so many of the works that we were proud of and that very few people got to see the first time around and to concurrently work on a new piece that has involved choreographic departures and risks.

More thoughts and details coming soon. After at least a few big mugs of coffee... :)

Happy Hour...or 3

2008-08-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

We're back in town after taking a couple of days post-show to visit our respective families back east, but before we fully settle into work mode, we're taking a chance to celebrate and relax while back in SF. If you are around Thursday night, swing by, grab a drink....

Happy Hour with RAWdance
Thursday, August 14, 6-9pm
El Rio Bar
3158 Mission Street (at Cesar Chavez), SF
Suggested Donation: $5-$5,000,000 N.O.T.A.
Money raised will go towards our upcoming tour to the East coast and our first international gig in Singapore. Expect mini performances, some great raffle prizes, and music to dance the week away. Well drinks and pints are $3 and if you want to keep the party going, entry to El Rio's Thursday night BraziLive is free for RAWdance guests.

Thanks

2008-07-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks leading up to a new production can be overwhelming. The exhilarating if energy consuming act of shaping a new work and delving deeper into rep, somehow staying on top of all the administrative, marketing, and technical tasks that have to happen before a show, meeting the sheer physical demands of constant full-out rehearsals, and being present enough to act as cheerleader and motivator for tired dancers who are giving it their all along with you... let's just say that we're very very tired.

Thank you so much to those of you out there who've helped these last few weeks in ways you may not even know. To dancers who give us mind, body, and soul, collaborators we can rely on, friends, family, and students who've offered every kind of support, funders who believe in new art, and our local cafe servers who have large cups of coffee waiting before we even have to order — we couldn't do it without you!

Heating Up Union Square

2008-07-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos by Benjamin Hale of yesterday's Union Square performance. Ryan posted a video clip of "Schematic Process" below, so I picked a few from "ties that bound", one of four works in our upcoming home season at CounterPULSE on July 31-Aug. 2. There were so many good ones it was hard to choose — thanks so much Ben and everyone who came out to see the show!

The fog rolling in was not on the program...

Survived the Concrete

2008-07-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

We survived the concrete and the cold! I definitely spoke a little too soon in my last posting — I'm thankful that it wasn't raining, but as we watched the fog roll in, we felt the temperature drop. Despite the chill however, it was a great success and lots of fun full of a great mix supportive old friends and strangers passing by. With viewers even peering down from Macy's and neighboring hotels, we were both reminded of how satisfying it is to bring work to the center of the city.

Ben (Hale, caught in action in the video below) took some amazing photos again this year and Wendy will post them soon. But in the meantime, check out this clip from Schematic Process, double-casted just for this performance.

Yikes

2008-07-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

After a late night live chat throw down with Comcast, a last minute costume switch to emergency plan B, and less sleep than we'd like to admit, we're ready to hit Union Square in just a few hours. We're quite thankful for the wonderful weather today, which will hope will motivate people to step outdoors and catch the show. Check out the Examiner, p.3 for a pic from last year's performance.

Jewels in the Square

2008-06-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

Caitlin, one of our dancers, was poking through her computer files the other day and came across a stash of photos her boyfriend, and loyal RAWdance supporter, Benjamin Hale had taken of the company last year when we performed CheckBox for the Jewels in the Square series in Union Square. As we get ready to perform there again in two weeks (see details below), we thought it'd be fun to share a few of our favorites from last year.

Our favorite part of this show (aside from the dancing of course) was the grid of neon green tape we laid out to mark off the "stage". Passersby were so fascinated by dancers taping the ground that they stayed to watch the show. This year we're thinking red...

This piece was a fun blend of rigidly straight lines (above) and utter chaos (left).

Corey, Melissa, and Tessa (in the foreground on the right in this photo) performed this piece with us and were amazing. We miss you guys!

Despite the concrete, it's so much fun performing in a neighborhood where shoppers, tourists, and business people don't expect to see dance. However conditions can be tricky. Only an hour apart, the first run (left) almost blinded us, while we froze in the second (right). Fingers crossed for this July 16!

Don't miss...
Jewels in the Square presents: "Sneak Peek"
Time: Wednesday July 16, 6pm & 7pm
Venue: Union Square Park, SF
Tickets: Free!
Additional Info:www.unionsquarepark.us and
www.rawdance.org/upcomingevents.html
RAWdance returns to the outdoor downtown Jewels in the Square series, bringing highlights from our upcoming home season at CounterPULSE as well as a few surprises. Once again, we will again take over Union Square, in the bustle of the city's commercial heart- lifting, snaking, throwing, turning, and sweating. "Sneak Peek" will also showcase excerpts by several CONCEPT series artists, past and future, including ahdanco, Aura Fischbeck Dance, and Maxine Moerman Dancetheater.

Don't Fence Me In

2008-06-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's always an interesting task to define a look for a new piece. Since most of us don't have the Opera's budget to have full sets built and live animals on stage, each new work poses the challenge of selecting a set of objects or making a backdrop that helps define the world in which the dance takes place. Last year we had fun ripping up and knotting together our old curtains (Scarlett O'Hara eat your heart out) to create a web which we suspended as a backdrop for ties that bound, studies. For Per-Verses and Drained, a friend built us sturdy wooden cubes that just happen to double as storage units at home.

Today we ordered part of the set for our newest work Fallout, which is a take on the nuclear family and fear. The piece is slated to premiere in Singapore next January, so the set not only has to perform on stage, but also has to fit in a suitcase and stay under airlines' ever shrinking weight limits. Amazon came through with flying colors. Now if we could just find the right armchair at the IKEA in Singapore...

Glamorous

2008-06-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

For all those out there who think dance is glamorous, this one's for you. Our six-member company currently has one fractured right wrist, three left knee problems, one chronic right knee issue, and some displaced cervical vertebrae. None of it happened in our rehearsals thankfully but we are still an entertaining sight, braced up and bandaged while we rehearse into the night.

On the plus side, I'm definitely on the mend, recovering from a small fracture in my right wrist. Mobility is improved and outside of rehearsal, I'm sans brace. In rehearsal however, the hard plastic is a risk for anyone who comes near me. Take a look at Wendy's leg after we spent a rehearsal revisiting partnering work from the ties that bound, studies. Like we said, glamour....

Choreographer or pastry chef?

2008-06-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

RAWdance has been incredibly lucky to work with photographer extraordinaire, RJ Muna for the last couple of years. A few weeks ago we had another photo shoot and although we always plan them beforehand, we never really know what's going to happen until we're in front of the camera. This year was certainly no disappointment, involving a long string of fake pearls (seen here), Ryan dousing me with water, and Justin (who works with RJ) stepping into one of the shots as our "diva photographer".

The highlight came after the shot however, when we were looking at the proofs and decided that the shot to the left (originally set on the ground), looked like warped bride and groom figures on a wedding cake and that we needed a cake to complete the photo.

So for the sake of artistic fulfillment, we researched bakeries (including plastic and/or borrowing options, but found none) and wound up ordering a small cake from Noe Valley Bread Co. If we had to get a real cake, it might as well be a good one. Only when I picked it up to bring it to RJ to shoot, it wasn't decorated nearly enough on the sides. So RJ swooped me up in his car and we went hunting for other options. Through the Mission, around Potrero, nada. In the end, Safeway came through with insta-icing and a plastic piping container. Let's just say it's been a while since I've gone Martha on a cake, but since we wanted it to look a little messy, it fit the bill.

RJ got the shot. We got the cake. We ate the cake. Chocolate with raspberry whipped cream and a white chocolate buttercream. Mmmmm. Maybe the next shoot will need ice cream...

Welcome

2008-05-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to RAWdance's new blog! We've been talking for a long time about starting one to chronicle the day to day activities of the company and share some of what goes into creating our work. The bigger the company grows and the more experiences we have, the more we realize that our lives are... well, atypical.

What did you do today, one asks. More and more we have answers like:

- (sample day 1) We spent all afternoon dying 20 ace bandages charcoal gray in a big stew pot, followed by a couple of hours of scrubbing that pot and the dirtied stove.

- (sample day 2) After working on a press release all morning, we shopped around for a vintage couture dress, flattering black underwear (male and female), a garter belt and stockings, sock garters (never found those), dress socks, and a small braided area rug. When the right dress never turned up, we bought many yards of slate colored satin and a 1930's pattern. Went home. Made dinner. And made a dress.

- (sample day 3) Using 6 rolls of fluorescent green gaffers tape, we made a gigantic grid in SF's Union Square Park. Then we performed. But really it was all about the green tape.

The strange thing is, these events are normal for our day to day. So here's to blogging as a way to offer a glimpse into the creative, tiring, exciting, and bizarre workings of a small contemporary dance company. Thanks for joining us!