I just watched the pilot of a new Sundance channel show called “Be Good Johnny Weir” and I loved it. It tells the story of a 11-year-old boy from Pennsylvania who completely falls in love with figure skating after seing figure skating star Oksana Baiul win an Olympic gold medal 1994 and who himself after a lot of ups and downs finally becomes one of best figure skaters in the world. BGJW shows that Weir is not the typical figure skating professional that has been trained to win since his childhood. He has made the decision to become a professional himself and it’s really interesting to see how hard he sometimes struggles with this decision, especially because he seems to be way too clever and reflected for this whole business. For all of you who can’t watch the show (legally): here are some of my favourite Weir moments so far.
Olof Dreijer of The Knife, Matthew Sims aka Mt. Sims and Janine Rostron aka Planningtorock have worked together on the soundtrack of “Tomorrow, In A Year”, an opera about Charles Darwin and his evolution theory which was brought on stage by the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma (I already posted a clip of the piece here). As far as I know the soundtrack is going to be released tomorrow and can be prelistened to on The Knife’s webpage.
You wanted all journalists that are going to interview today to read the transcript of your roundtable conversation about the way this whole project started and on what ideas your soundtrack to Hotel Pro Forma’s Darwin opera is based. But something that still isn’t really clear to me is how you actually interacted with the other ones involved in the project. For example: At what stage was the stage performance when they asked you to make the music?
Olof Dreijer: It started the same for all people involved in the project. In the beginning Hotel Pro Forma gave us a loose framework for the piece. It was a long list of literature and they also told us that the play was supposed to feature three singers, six dancers and that it should focuse on biology and geology. We also did some research by going to museums wit them, we went to the Nature history museum and the geology museum for example.
MV is a electro-jazz quintet from Quebec which releases its music for free on the internet (misteurvalaire.com). And they seem to be pretty skilled swimmers. Thanks for the link, Jonathan!
The italian guy in the first video stops talking at 0:30. Thanks Todd & Martin for introducing me to Mr Berkeley! Another one of his stunning choreographies here.
The gorgeous video to the new Junior Boys song “Bits and Pieces” features Twista, Vixen and Snoopy, three dancers of the Canadian Voguing collective “House Of Monroe”. That group was formend in 2006 and since then seems to have a huge influence on the ballroom scene in Toronto (I think they even may have been the ones who have established it). You find a lot of other videos featuring their dancers if you search for House of Monroe on Youtube. (via produzentin)
Let’s stick to the hunky guys. This is a nice video by a Swedish band called El Perro Del Mar. I love these kinds of shows artistic dous. Via Knut/ BigStereo.
The following video delivers some nice insights into “Tomorrow, in one year”, an electro-opera that’s supposed to show the world seen through the eyes of Charles Darwin. The “play” or whatever you want to call it is a co-production between a really good Danish dance/performance group called Hotel From Forma (which brought it onstage) and pop-duo The Knife (who wrote the music for it), and it looks as weird and exciting as I thought. It’s a pity they’re going to only show it a few times in the next few months. You can check out the tour dates here.
All I can tell you about the following collection of shaky hunky dance videos is that they where taken at a beachfront leisure complex in Bahia, Brazil, which hosts a four-day long New Year’s Eve party and a three-day Carnival celebration. Seems like the videos were taken during one of these events. But the actual context stays a mystery to me. Mabye it’s some kind of a dance contest. Any Portuguese speaking people out there? The source of the first one of these videos ist the great Lady Bunny Blog.
Seems like the Italians of the eighties were big fans of revue-like pop performances. So after Stefania Roltolo and Heather Parisi this time I proudly present Raffaela Carra with her very own interpretation of “Eclipse of the heart”. I love the dramatic break in the middle. And her english. (Again) via House of Vader.
