GENIUS! Incredibly Talented Dancer in AMAZING Tap Number!

I have no words! The kid is amazing, and defies gravity. The joie de vivre, the grace, the class. . . This number is actually a tribute to the Nicholas Brothers, and Lauren gets all the moves right. You can hear Grandma raving in the background. 

💥HIP HOP SPECTACULAR: Lauren Owns the Stage!💥

More incredible dancing from Lauren and crew!

💗Erica Dances her Heart Out!💗

                                               The amazing Erica Gunning.

Grandpa, get DOWN!

       Grandpa, get DOWN!

BHANGRA!

Rave!

And I would walk 500 miles

It took me a while to track this down. There's a story behind it. I first heard the song at the end of a movie called Benny and Joon. Though I had mixed feelings about the movie (in spite of Johnny Depp's shabby cuteness as a sort of faux silent movie mime), the song grabbed me, as how could it not? It's that kind of song.

But I didn't hear it much at all until a couple weeks ago, when I was at a dance recital. Well, all right, my granddaughter's dance recital. And this was the music to one of the dances, and for some reason, slam. Right in the gut. I just cried and blubbered through the whole thing.

I'm not sure what it is. I originally thought the singer was a woman. I know almost nothing about this group. I don't know if I want to compare this version with the original, or not.

Oh, all right.

Tappin' with Santa

Caitlin, amazing, at the Christmas dance recital (on the right side in the first two shots). Keeps tugging at me, because of course I remember her getting born, and everything after that. Now that she's officially a teenager, Grandma's not cool any more - not that she ever was! - so the unpopularity which dogged me all my life, and which I had seemingly beaten for a while, has caught up with me again. It was ever thus; I must get used to it. 

Meantime, she just killed it! She kicked ass, though tap was not always her strong suit. The founder of the dance company, the legendary Miss Charmaine, tactfully asked her if they could work together individually for a while, and "something" happened - she just caught fire. Now she wants to move on to hiphop (or hip-hop or hip hop or however you spell it). I've seen her do hiphop, and she's great, a natural. It's a much harder form of dance than you would think, with a ton of choreography. One must be both loose and precise. Oh never mind, she'll figure it out. Way to go, Caitlin!

My congratulatory PicMix glitz animation for Caitlin.

Smokin' in Sicily

The dancer is a Sicilian woman named Elisa Parrinello. I can't find much about her on the 'net. There are a few more videos of poor quality, badly shot. Maybe I will encounter her again?

Miss Chatelaine and other illusions

Would you have a little trouble believing this is k. d. lang? I do. It's from her infamous Ingenue album, which still ranks as (I think) the best of its kind (as if there is anyone else in that category).

Here she looks like an unusually attractive man in drag, or maybe a transsexual. She always did have aspects of beauty that she played on, like great cheekbones and a smile like the sunny slopes of her native Alberta. She could flip back and forth from exotically androgynous to just plain butch.

Here she reminds me, bizarrely, of January Jones in Mad Men, girl-next-door with a bit of sultry glamour thrown in. She could almost pass as Audrey Hepburn's aunt.

And here she is playing Loretta Young, probably the only time she has ever worn a prom dress.

Now comes the hard part. Here is k. d. performing the same song, Miss Chatelaine, a few years ago in Dublin. The raucous crowd sings along with her as she camps it up in a baggy white suit that really does resemble Wayne Newton's pajamas. 

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Turn, turn, kick, kick!  k. d. has always danced during her songs - if you can call her boisterous knee-lifting and uninhibited little-kid-on-the-playground twirls dancing. But here she looks like a whole thundering herd. It's unfortunate.

I don't like to see great performers become parodies of themselves. All that thudding around barely resembles the girlish whirling-dervish moves of fifteen years ago. We don't expect time to stand still, but couldn't someone (for God's sake) dress her once in a while, or at least show her a video of herself? Beyond the screams and catcalls from the audience, I was deeply dismayed to hear that she wasn't singing very well. She was flat. This was something I hoped I'd never hear.

OK. So maybe she's Wayne Newton's. . . great-nephew?

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Grandma's little bunheads: another triumph!

Could there be anything sweeter in  life. . . 

. . . than being a backstage Grandma to two little bunheads. . . 

. . . fresh from their triumphant return to the stage in the Mellado Dance Recital!

Jazz, tap, ballet, they did it all, they did us proud. . . 

. . . and they even kept their eyes open under a pound of makeup. . . 

(though we couldn't get shots of them in costume cuz they have to take them off right after the show. . . )

So what else is there to say?

YAY!

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Wind and fire and. . . Debussy

 

 

there is no translation

for streams of pure meaning

and pure fire

like motion

and speed

who made thee

my steed

 

the language of motion

the swiftness

that casts all words

into fire

consumed

by the moment

 

 

I dreamed of horses

crashing in surf

each shining in color

slick-wet

as with birth and the sea

I ache to see

 

 

 

 

the shell of words we live in

is prison

we die inside it

die to creation

the way life creates itself

 

second by second

 

Rain dance

First heard about these guys on ABC's Nightline. It's a new phenomenon (or not-so-new, growing organically out of break dancing, mime, Michael Jackson's moonwalk, and Shields and Yarnell's robot routine) called turf dancing, with sudden, spectacular leaps and jumps and flips. This was also called the rain video, in memory of Rich D, of whom I know almost nothing. This is a phenomenon of Oakland, California, for reasons unknown. A "how do they do that?" sort of thang.