Cycropia Aerial Dance had a gig last night in Milwaukee at an old warehouse space repurposed for gala events. I should say that a part of the space is renovated. Plenty of it still looks like a 150-year old warehouse. Our "changing area" this time was a basement hallway - a finished hallway - but a hallway nonetheless. Ambient temperature was mid-60's (F). Not great for standing around in a skin-tight lightweight costume just before you are going to want your muscles warm and supple. While we were all getting ready, I took a wander with my camera. A few steps from our changing area was ...
Nice, huh? In the same general vicinity was a different hallway, this one a bit less creepy.
As is typical, my eye soon went to the details. There was much dust and dirt in this part of the building, and I needed to keep myself looking show worthy, so I did not delve too deeply.
Lots of dust and dirt, rust and peeling paint. Working from the assumption that the entire building probably looked a lot like this when it was renovated, it is pretty amazing how far they have taken the parts that are being used, and the vast potential of the remaining space is interesting. I suspect that as their successes build, they will continue to build out and clean up more and more of the building. It should be really interesting to see what it looks like in another decade.
And here you thought my performance life was all glitter and fancy makeup!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Behind the scene at last night's performance
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Spring Has (Finally) Sprung!
At long last, there are definite signs that spring has finally arrived in Madison. A friend and I went downtown to the Farmer's Market - it was opening day - and also took a spin down State Street. There was a bustling if not huge crowd out and about. When we got to the halfway point from wehre we parked at my photo studio (viewer discretion is advised), we headed down St. for a bit of shopping and coffee as well as sight-seeing for our Arkansas-based friend. At the top of State on the Capitol lawn was the surest sign of spring:
Yep, laying in the grass basking in the sun! Ahh!
As we headed down the street, we realized it was "Busking For Books weekend too. It is an event designed to raise awareness of, and money for, adult illiteracy. There were bands or musicians on every corner...like all four corners of every intersection. At one point we found our friend Daithi (who had just run the Boston Marathon - yikes!) doing what he loves - making music.
It was good to see him there.
And finally, it would not be spring in Wisconsin (at least since the Wisconsin Uprising two years ago) without protesters at the Capitol. In this case the protest was about a Federal issus - drones - rather than state, but nevertheless, it was strangely comforting.
We will get more snow and icky weather before winter completely lets go, but it was wonderful to have a beautiful day with no real agenda and a friend with whom to share it. It felt really good.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Teaser Day and Yard Work
Last weekend was a beauty of a spring weekend. Warm. Sunny. Of course that meant a bit of yard and garden work. Funny how that never really seems like a chore on the first such day. After I uncovered the patio furniture I even enjoyed a beer out in the yard. Ahhh!
Nala the cat was outside with us, finally getting a chance to really have full run of the yard. When I opened the shed to grab a shovel and greet the two motorcycles stored therein, Nala was immediately curious and had to check the place out. For some time she stood watch over the yard and the bikes.
The tiny pond I have in the back yard has a pump-powered waterfall, but since it freezes solid, I pull the pump for the winter. Consequently the pond becomes essentially a huge vat of maple leaf tea steeping for 4 months. It smells pretty fetid come spring. Getting it ready for spring is not really a pleasant task. I muck out a lot of the leaves with a rake, but since the water is still around 40 degrees (F), I do not drain it and thoroughly clean it. That comes later. For now I just scoop it, then install the pump and let it aerate. Gets a little whiffy for a while. Still, it is good to hear the splishing of the water.
The rest of this week has been rain, rain, rain, and dropping temperatures. Still, there is no escaping the inevitable bloom of spring. Finally!
Saturday, April 6, 2013
More Potpourri Because I Have Not Been Shooting Much
I have been out of pocket for a few months. Starting a (stressful) new job in January was a big part of it. I also co-directed, choreographed for, and danced in an aerial dance performance that ended last weekend. Add in a few photo shoots and you have a life pretty devoid of housework, tax preparation, or general leisure time. My camera has been more idle than any time in the past decade. Today's post is a bit of potpourri, no theme, just pics I enjoyed that never got shared. Enjoy!
First up is a funny/fun one of me at a wedding gig at which we performed. They had an '80's hair band playing, so we worked our costuming to play with that. I am certain this is the first time my hair has been back-combed!
Next is a fun shot of a local performer who was playing at a wedding I shot. He knew when the camera was around!
This third one was a fun vantage point of a handful of dancers. They did not know I was above, and I loved the swirling swing-influenced dance this couple was doing. They danced well, and well together. Fun!
And one last shot, this one of my lovely wife. She had been my helper at an event shoot that night and towards the end of a long day took some time out to enjoy the music. Ahh, love!
Hopefully now that my schedule has lightened up, I will have more time with my camera. And to the fans who are asking, yes, I will post new pics to my DeviantArt page too. If you are curious about that - it is generally work to racy to post at this blog - there is a link on the left sidebar of the eyeDance blog page.
Happy spring!
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Post-Show Panic
In the week following a show, it always seems like a week of almost-panic each evening. I have these phantom rehearsal urges where I find myself sitting still, perhaps on the couch, and all of a sudden I have a dreadful feeling that I should be at rehearsal. It is a bit unnerving for a few days. Fortunately (?) this week after the show, I still have a ton of work to do to get the budget numbers crunched and ready to present to the rest of the Collective next Monday. So, while I will miss rehearsing, I still have my head in the game. Here are a few more pics of having body in the game. Not me, of course, since I took these pics, but still enjoyable to share.
That one is a really nice shot of Ken and Luv on the "tipppy lyra". And here is another.
Here is another rather dramatic image from the first piece in the show, with a more conventionally hung lyra.
There are more to come, so check again!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Much More
I don't think I have ever gone six weeks without a post. Life has been full. The new job was an intense level of stress, and is only now beginning to feel manageable. Add to that directing an aerial dance show that closed this weekend, with all the administrative, choreographic, and dance performance requirements, and you see why I might have been a bit too busy for casual photography and blogging. Life was reduced to the essentials: Work, rehearse, and sleep. Everything else became optional.
But now I have a few pics from our dress rehearsal last Thursday to share. I didn't take photos of all the pieces because I was in two, plus a transition dance, as well as being one of the go-to people for questions. The piece in these photos was one I choreographed but did not perform. It was a new experience for me to stand outside the work and shape it, but not dance it. It was challenging, and I learned that I have no particular talent for choreography. It is a skill I will simply have to learn. The dancers learned some really challenging material to make this piece work, and I thank them for it. The title of the piece was "Much More".
So as you look at this photo, imagine getting to this shape: Upside down, one foot below your head, a hand on the pole on either side of that leg, and the other leg out in split. It really boggles the mind.
Now imagine hanging on to a vertical pole that is rotating (it's suspended from the ceiling with a swivel), upside down and in splits, using nothing but your thigh and armpit. Got that? Now have another dancer standing on your legs, leaning back and giving a ta-da pose.
The raison d'être of the piece was to have the dancers moving back and forth between two close poles. A great idea, though one that requires a high degree of skill and strength. We got there, but it was a fight the whole time.
The piece came off well and the audience approved. That is all I can ask for. I am satisfied with my freshman effort at that choreographic experience.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Warming the Bones - Physically and Metaphorically
Since early 2008 my employment has been less well defined than at any point since pre-college. I left a 19-year run with a company just before it did what it said it was not going to do (leave Madison). I opted then to open eyeDance Studio Photography (LINK - Not Safe For Work) and had a tenuous connection to income for the next three years as I built that business. In January of 2012 I stumbled into another day job, a contract ing, rent-to-own position doing software quality assurance for a company that closed its Madison office 8 months later. Three months later I chose a job that I think will be a good choice, though it too is a 3-month contract, try-before-you-buy and there is no guarantee of an actual job offer (though the outlook is favorable). Clearly the idea of permanent employment has gone the way of the dodo bird.
Living with intermittent income means minding the money much more carefully. We are in good shape financially, so there was never worry of missing a meal, but it did mean we pretty much ceased non-essential spending. No fun, new things. No new (or used) motorcycles came or went, magazine subscriptions were cancelled, books and movies came from the library instead of the bookstore or Blockbuster. No Netflix, no upgrades to the DSL line. Nothing non-essential.
Two weeks ago I said "Screw it!" and moved a half dozen ugly vendor-provided coffee cups out of the cupboard and went to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art's gift shop and bought what they sell as a tea service that I use for coffee. I loved the stark simplicity and the clean lines. It is from PO: Collection The set appears to be discontinued, but can be seen here. (LINK)
It felt pretty good to splurge a little bit. I have never been very promising as a monk, and moderation was killing me. It is true there are still no plans to go wild and spend a bunch of money, at least not until this job is "permanent", but this little treat has been a sign of a financial springtime. A little celebration of imagined security.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Go Team Daffodil!
Back in mid-January I noticed, and commented on, a surprisingly early sprouting of the daffodils in my yard. The next day we got seven inches of snow, and it has been, well, wintery here ever since. We have had several more snowfalls and freezing rain. Today was one of those days were the temperature remained below freezing, but lots of insolation had the day feeling warmer than it was and warming up concrete and such. I wondered again about the daffys, so I grabbed my camera and went to take a look.
Yep, still there, raring to go!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Steampunk Motorcycle
Yesterday I wrote a bit about the state of the art of custom motorcycle design. I was disparaging of builds that resulted in trailer queens; bikes that would never be ridden, or were so unlikely that riding would be problematic. At the peak of the Orange County Choppers madness, I would look in amazement/amusement at the used bike ads and see 1-2 year old custom built motorcycles with original build costs of $40,000 and up, languish at $12-15,000. There is little market for custom built bikes. They are too much a personal vision, either of the builder or the owner.
But sometimes the art is more than a radicalization or naked-woman art on the tank. On this bike, the builder wanted a functional bike that had aspects of the steampunk genre about it.
I think the builder did a fine job. The bike is hugely custom and yet I can easily imagine throwing a leg over it and going for a ride. I loved the effort to incorporate the oil filter in a highly visible and truly thematic way!
While the seat is probably not something you would want to ride on for 500 miles id does seem like something you could ride on for more than a run to the store for smokes.
And not a naked woman in sight on the bike. Though to be in keeping, any such woman would have needed to be represented in neo-Victorian garb anyway. Better to stick with base metals, eh?
Monday, February 11, 2013
Motorcycles!
Reena and I went to the International Motorcycle Expo in Chicago this weekend with a couple of other riding buddies. It is a fun way to spend a day, even if it does mean 4-1/2 hours in the car to spend 4-5 hours at the expo. It is an opportunity to see all the new makes and models, and find all the gear you might be looking for (or wanting to investigate to buy locally) in one place. Among the things on display are custom bikes, generally not in a defined class, but representative of what is going on in the custom scene in general. For a decade or so it was all about cruisers, Harley-ish sorts of bikes all stretched and slammed and completely useless for actual riding. They reached such a point where I just called such trailer queens (never, ever going to be ridden) "butt jewelry". Those days faded along with Orange County Choppers (thankfully), and now the focus seems to have shifted to making sport bikes impractical.
Nothing like taking a brilliant motorcycle like a Suzuki GSXR-1000 and working hard to turn it into an ill-handling beast that is only interesting to ride in straight lines!
The other up-and-coming trend seems to be cafe racers, and that one I am happy about. At least with that sort of custom, the goal is all about form and function. It also frequently involves small displacement engines making the whole thing more affordable. Here are a couple of fun examples.
A venerable Yamaha SR500, sold here from 1978-1982:
I have some more, and will make a detailed post about someone's steam punk inspired build tomorrow.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
International Folk Fair
Today is the day I finally offer some of the photographs from the actual International Folk Fair. I have sort of offered all of the related pictures in the last couple of posts, images of the things going on around the fair. It is hard to capture all the buzzing energy of the crowd. Attendees vary from casual drop ins to those who are there because it is their idea of a perfect day. I fall somewhere in the middle of that range.
The first performance I saw was the alpenhorns. They create such a sonorous tone, and these guys did a fine job of showing off their skill.
In passing I caught the Mannerchor, the (primarily) German heritage mens choir. They were down a floor from where I was in the rotunda, and I was going up two mofe floors so I listened for a few minutes and grabbed this shot.
The kung fu school at which I used to train - Zhong Yi - had a mixed age group perform a traditional lion dance to bring good luck. I think there were six lions. I guessed poorly about where would be the best vantage point to get good photos, but I liked how this one turned out. My location really called for a wide angle lens, but alas, I did not have one.
There are a few more that I might get out here yet. I knew that life was too busy to blast away a couple of hundred photos (and then edit) so I was more parsimonious this time out. They say that with age comes wisdom. *grin*
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Promises, Promises
In sort of an offhand, backing into it sort of way, these are photographs from the International Folk Fair last weekend. They are in and around the venue. As I said, there is much atthat event that qualifies as eye candy, and not all of it is people-related.
The above is part of the old Capitol Theater, which remains intact though remarkably well hidden inside the austerity of the Overture Center. Below is one of the sculptures in the building; this one being in the main rotunda lobby. It never fails to put a smile on my face when I see it.
And finally for this small set, a photo looking up into the rotunda itself.
Thanks for dropping by. I'll have some photos of the fair soon, I promise!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Snowy State Street
I spent the day at the annual International Folk Fair today as is my habit. It is a treat of visual eye candy everywhere you look. The attendees are multi-culti as is the very nature of the event. It reminds me that Madison in not plain vanilla. I have a bunch of pics to share, but they are going to have to wait.
It snowed today, and while I was out and about on State Street, I shot this and liked it enough to share.
Enjoy!
