Lighted Rooms day 18 july 13

Rebecca Hall / Bear River

Oh how we danced...!  And then we got all dressed in black.

Wo/men in black

 How we sang.... 3 Little Maids are We.  G & S must be spinning in their graves.  Layne did his best to control the mayhem... Here's a short clip:     G & S, eat your hearts out!

John, John, not the #%^(! horse!

George at rest

Wayne takes notes

Nat and Pamela paying close attention

Lighted Rooms Day 17 July 12

Some of us  wore black, some of us didn't.  We ran through the dance pieces and then Layne worked on the 'kissing' section with Terry, Pamela, Susan, George, and Wayne.  This led to some stories about children and morphed into where we grew up, how we met our partners, what our parents did...all sorts of fascinating stuff.

No stills, but a short clip of Randy giving notes on Slow and then our rousing finale, Limericks:
Slow goes sloooowly
Limericks

Lighted Rooms Day 16 July 11

GFCH on a gorgeous clear sunny day after a dark, drizzly, cold morning!  Today's rehearsal had a few holes; some of us were absent.  Pam had the impossible task of keeping us focused on the dance sections.... then Layne took over, working with Grace, Nat, and Phil, while the rest of us ran away.

Calm in the eye of the storm

So a couple of video clips, and my blocking diagram for Limericks:
The diagonal from Old Fools:  Diagonal    Followed by Slow: Slow (sorta)

Lighted Rooms / day 15 / july 7

Phil arrived with a limerick on the word 'spile'  (a small wooden peg or spigot for stopping a cask or tapping a tree.) Here it is:  Phil's spile

Randy took us through the choreography again, trying to imprint in our heads:
 Bits & Pieces
Limericks we love
And then it was Layne's turn to weave it together, adding a chorus here and a movement there.

Teague, our summer student, acts as prompter guy, sound guy, round when you need him guy.

Lighted Rooms day 14 July 5 Putting it all together

Bear River, Rebekah Hall.

We found out that Sissiboo has super-octane iced coffee.  What a buzz!  In the meantime, Randy and Layne have been working on making the movement and words into a seamless piece... Tim had an idea for a promo shot; feet moving in a blur across a lighted room.  Here's my version of George's happy day-glo feet in slomo:  Happy feet

After we told our stories and Layne helped us with some blocking, he asked us to tell a different story.  What was your first experience of dance?  What was the first documentary you saw?  Getting us out of a story 'rut'.

Listening

Now comes the fun:  Tim shooting our feet galloping around the room.
 

Lighted Rooms/ day 13/ july 4

Sometimes those lighted rooms feel pretty empty... look at this clip from the Old Fools:
Old Fools oops

Pamela leads Repulsive Monkeys

Guys' Over part

Randy is trying to get us to count in Leonard Cohen's Slow:  there are 7 eight counts, with a couple of 6 counts stuck in there.  We're trying, really, we are!

Where are we? (thanks, Tim!)

 Terry and Susan got to wave their arms around a lot.  Here's the link to the Nowlen video (minus arm waving): Nowlen again, and again, and again...

900 Project Day 12 July 3

GFHC on a gray morning of Canada Day weekend.  We have a new name for the piece:  Lighted Rooms, from Philip Larkin's Old Fools.  Randy takes us through the dance pieces and then turns us over to Layne.   He is good at getting us to push our envelopes and laugh while we do it1 

George's wasabe green runners are the subject of much shoe envy.

Phil noodles at the piano, Pamela listens.

Now Phil tells the story of Pansy,her transformation, and his subsequent melt-down.

Tim and the beauty inherent in a can opener

Terry has her caterpillar kiss and living trees.

Pamela smokes and kisses little Stevie Peever under the porta-classroom.

Grace, in HER turquoise Ford 4-cylinder long bed truck, trying to catch up with the oblivious Freeman on the big move north.

I have video snippets of some of our stories; but decided not to post them yet.