Dd Contributor Leah Gerstenlauer
1. ART: Performance or visual? What place does art have in your life?
Both. Performance and visual art require and inspire different types of energy, and I love to soak up each type on a regular basis. If I could see at least one live performance every week, I’d be like a kid with a chocolate-laced candy cane. My state of mind and movement quality alter markedly after I see a performance–whether dance, drama, or some amalgamation of the two–and the only comparable high is actually performing myself.
The Met Museum is my favorite place to hang out with the classics, and jaunts through summer street fairs are a great way to stumble upon more contemporary creativity. I’m also a fan of antique shop trolling when I’m not afraid to lose track of time.
2. CRAFT: Knit or Crochet or Other? What is your craftiest project to date?
I was definitely craftier as a child than I am today. My mom and I used to make absolutely EVERYTHING: catnip toys, birthday cakes, Halloween costumes–you name it, we tried it. Nowadays, my most monumental craft project is a prolonged attempt to un-halter a halter-neck leotard. Somehow, the finish date for that task keeps moving to tomorrow.
3. DESIGN: Classical or modern? What designer or architect inspires you the
most?
In general, classical design feels more inviting to me than modern. That said, a modern designer occasionally nails an innovative visual or spatial concept that takes my breath away (see Antonio Gaudi’s fascinating Dali-esque constructions in Barcelona).
4. FOOD: Salty or sweet? Do you know how to make your favorite dish?
I like salty and sweet–sometimes, I like them together! But, oddly enough, my current food obsession is the rather blandly flavored Icelandic yogurt made by Siggi’s. It’s sweetened with agave nectar and tastes very much like tart nothing. I can’t explain.
I don’t really have a favorite dish, but my favorite thing to make is strawberry jam, using hand-picked strawberries and way too much sugar. The entire process (especially the picking) is fun, and it tastes so good…
5. THOUGHT: Fiction or Nonfiction? What form does the bulk of your own reading and/or writing take?
When I read, I gravitate towards fiction of all kinds. That said, I’ll never turn down a reading suggestion from a good friend, even if said friend has an inexplicable fascination with books on endangered water fowl or the eating habits of dead presidents.
Most of my adult writing has been academic and business-related, thus far. But I’d love to reclaim the uninhibited, fantastical narrative style I owned as a child. Wish me luck.
6. FUN: Where in the world do you want to go or be stranded? What five things would be in your bag?
I actually have a huge fear of being stranded, so one of the items in my bag would be the key to a plane!
What? I can’t have one of those?
Alright, then. Leave me in Fiji, if you must. In my bag, I’ll have a well-stocked solar-powered iPod (Local Natives, Beirut, Yes, the Beatles, everything Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Debussy ever wrote… I could go on), a copy of the complete works of J.D. Salinger (fear conquering requires a little levity), sunglasses (I practically live in them), a really big sketch pad and pen (see how I slipped that extra item in there?), and toothpaste (I hate morning mouth, no matter where I am).
The carriage of some arms shouted “thwack” in their decisive blows to the air, while other others preferred to call out “bam” with an elbow or answer “kapow” with the flick of a wrist. Alonzo King is as concerned with port de bras as he is with the lower half of the body. This was in evidence two Fridays ago at the Joyce Theater as the men of LINES Ballet exhibited this toothsome tendency to unfurl and contract the upper limbs as expertly as the women. There was a collective inaudible hum produced when their appendages felt out a movement phrase with the articulation of many antennae creatures in unknown territory. From the first entrance, the dancers drew the audience in as they probed their world from the inside out.
At its best, King’s choreography felt improvisational. The dancers began in Resin as jazz musicians riffing on themes, taking turns soloing, and playfully crossing the stage in same sex duets that sparked with spontaneity. Yujin Kim and Kara Wilkes created obstacles for one another to jump through and Keelan Whitmore and David Harvey tumbled over one another in two duets that had the excitement of fearless contact improvisation. Tremendous extensions in highly articulated phrase work showed off the given instruments of all: bodies that could turn any cynical atheist into a true believer. Arguable the longest and most distracting of legs belonged to Courtney Henry. (She looks a little green now against the backdrop of seasoned artists in the company, but with legs reaching for the rafters there really can’t be limits to her potential.) I have not been so distracted by a pair of gams since encountering Gus Solomons Jr. biking down Second Ave.
Keelan Whitmore
At its worst, King’s choreography over lorded with a homogenous tone of self-serious beauty. By the end of Resin, it verged on gratuitous. I longed for any imperfection or silly interlude to break up the monotony of awe. Maybe even an out-of-turn, sidelong glance? Or unwarranted stillness? Which brought me to question–was there something shiny on the floor? The dancers explored solos, duets, and group sections with eyes focused downward, presumably in fierce concentration, as if they had headphones on, creating a fourth wall of invisible bricks between them and the audience. The same inward focus that had attracted me in the beginning grew old and walked the line of self-indulgence.
Luckily, these were the first world, potentially personal, problems forced upon the critic in a glare due to a simple lack of available imperfections. My fingers were crossed during Sheherazade when the sheer humanity of the pas de deux between Kara Wilkes and David Harvey, as Sheherazade and Shahryar respectively, saved us from the esoteric abyss. This was the moment when the dancers’ performance united with King’s rhetoric. I finally brushed up against the corner of his ” ‘thought structures’ which are created by the manipulation of energies inherent in matter, through laws that govern shapes and movement directions of everything that exists.” The magnanimity of this ten-minute marathon duet was created by Wilkes truly embodying the forces underlying the narrative; allowing her struggle, his violence, their love, and pure exhaustion to flow freely through her attuned body. The couple even went so far as to run at each other, throwing themselves into a simultaneously aggressive and pathetic chest butt in the air. By the third hit, they melted more than rebounding out of it. It was worth the price of admission to behold these two artists as they transcended their own limits. The audience was finally involved. We became their witnesses.
The idea of starting a book club has been kicking around Dd for awhile, but usually gets pushed down the road due to our collectively busy schedules. However, when I was reading Stephanie’s latest post about summer reading, I realized I had just received one of her book picks in the mail for my own summer reading pile. In light of this coincidence, I am happy to announce our first Dd book club!
THE BOOK The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)
THE AUTHOR Alex Ross (music critic for The New Yorker, a huge inspiration to the editors of Dd who hope one day to write about dance they way he writes about music, and fellow blogger)
“The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a voyage into the labyrinth of modern music, which remains an obscure world for most people. While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.
The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.”
THE PLAN You have the next two weeks to secure the book. I have broken it down into a 9-week reading schedule of roughly 50-80 pages a week. At the beginning of each week I will post a reminder of what is on tap. At end of each week we will post our thoughts on the chapter, pose some questions to those of you who chose to go on this adventure with us, and gladly receive your thoughts.
June 10-16 Chapters 1 and 2
June 17-23 Chapter 3
June 24-30 Chapters 4 and 5
July 1-7 Chapters 6 and 7
July 8-14 Chapter 8
July 15-21 Chapters 9 and 10
July 22-28 Chapter 11
July 29- Aug 4 Chapters 12 and 13
August 5- 11 Chapters 14 and 15
Whether you are still dancing or choreographing or teaching or writing or gardening or building a business or working a nine-five, join us in learning more about the music that moves and inspires us and is so important to the history of our own subculture. Feel free to post any questions below or email me at hello@diydancer.com
This summer’s beach reading is about to get amped up!
As of today, I have turned in my final essay and officially completed the first installment of LEAP’s Critical Perspectives courses–known to my fellow LEAPers as CP I. This has several implications; the first being that I now must get back in touch with the right-side of my brain for a summer of algebraic equations and the Pathagorean theorem, the second is that I am finally ready to tackle my summer reading list. I’ve been dreaming about these literary goodies for months now, but haven’t been able to indulge in any of them because I had to prioritize my required academic reading.
Here’s a few of the books on my list:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: My first LEAP class introduced me to Franzen’s dry, subtle humor. His combination of wit and societal commentary amused me. The Corrections is a tale of a dysfunctional family, trying to have a holly jolly Christmas
- Sara’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. This one is a recommendation from my mom, who knows I have an affinity for literature pertaining to World War II. The novel follows an American journalist’s investigation into the travesties of the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup in Paris.
- Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville. While I wasn’t a fan of Billy Budd, I’ve decided to give Melville one more go.
- Both O’ Pioneers and My Antonia by Willa Cather. I was so moved by her novel The Professor’s House and, ultimately, want to read all of her novels. But these two were specifically recommended to me.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. This is book 3 of the Millennium Triology and I have no shame in saying that I thoroughly enjoy this pop culture phenomenon and already read the first two books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.
- Home by Toni Morrison. Her subject matter is never for the faint of heart, but Morrison is an astounding writer and a riveting storyteller. She motivates and inspires me to work on my own craft. Home is her newest novel.
- The Rest is Noise by The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross. Currently, I’m working my way through his second book, a collection of essays called Listen to This. Covering everything from Mozart, to Bjork, to the various genres of music in China, to Bob Dylan, Ross’s writing and insight continuously blows my mind.
Phew, I have my work cut out for me this summer. Happy reading everyone!
For those who know me well, it’s no secret I’m a huge fan of rings. It’s also no secret I have a horrible habit of taking them off, twisting them between my fingers, and dropping them. But, ultimately, there’s nothing I love more than layering those bad boys on every finger I possibly can. Even with my already large ring collection, I’m always on the hunt for new additions. Rings are pretty much like shoes and purses; you can never have enough and you have to keep changing them up every once in a while to make life interesting!
Here’s some rings I’m currently fawning over…
1. YSL Arty Gold Plated Glass Ring – $290
2. Madewell Arrow Ring – $18.00
3. All Saints Lava Ring – $40.00
4. Chan Luu Rangoli Armor Ring – $228.00
5. All Saints Encrypt Ring – $110.00
6. Asos Wrapped Claw Ring – $20.87
7. Asos Wrapped Coil Ring – $10.44
8. All Saints Stitch Ring – $30.00
9. All Saints Jaldhara Ring – $155.00
10. Todd Lynn for Asos Lion Snake Ring – $83.50
11. All Saints Tresori Cocktail Ring – $55.00
I’m about to celebrate the second anniversary of my move to New York from Kansas City, and I am amazed how quickly time has flown by. I moved to NYC in order to pursue musical theater and, fortunately, I’ve had some success in this desired arena. However, what I wasn’t ready for is the infrequency with which the theater gigs can roll around at times. I had to do serious soul searching to finally accept that…no, I don’t completely suck in this profession, but yes, there are a lot of people who also don’t completely suck in this profession. There are simply going to be dry spells.
The realization of this fact wasn’t good enough for me. I’m 31 years old and, while that isn’t old at all, currently theatrical trends are gearing toward younger actors and dancers. You have to serve your time often before casting directors get to know you and you begin to make a name for yourself. Here was my dilemma. Like anyone, I want it now. Sooner rather than later. I can’t dance forever, and I don’t want to just be a dancer. Thereby, I decided to try an experiment. Using my history as a clown, I decided to create a character. Not a traditional clown mind you, but something that could be recognizable–something people could relate to. I began to “brand” myself.
I’d like for you to meet Jim. Using true experiences from my life, I began to create a story and, then turned it into a film project. I learned about writing a script for camera, including story-boarding, which is drawing sketches of each camera shot. I had two close friends direct me and control the filming aspects. I gained permission to use a location for the film, and I gathered some amazing volunteers to act in the film with me. My favorite part of the experience was learning to cut and edit the movie. It is amazing how much it takes for such a short piece! The final product came together when another dear friend composed the soundtrack and laid it perfectly over the film. To my surprise, within just a couple of days of its release on YouTube, it had several hundred views.
Who knows if this will indeed serve the purpose to get my face and name out there and help me book shows easier. The lesson I continued to learn is that as artists our destiny is to keep moving and keep trying. We are creative people, thus we need to create something. I am excited to see where this new character will bring me, but, most importantly, I have a renewed sense of self worth and a much needed reminder that my life didn’t end when I stepped off the stage with the Kansas City Ballet two years ago. Oh no! It’s just revving up!
Check out “Jim at the Gym” on YouTube.
Sorry I’ve been MIA lately. I’ve been growing a baby – an excuse I’ll use liberally now, because I will not be able to use it much longer!
Not long ago I was with a couple of friends reminiscing about the wounds they incurred from the social stress of jr. high life. Though, it’s really more accurate to say that they were reminiscing, because I really couldn’t relate. Want to know what I remember about my thirteenth and fourteenth year of life? Wanting, with my whole being, to be cast as Clara – Clara in the Nutcracker. It was an I-could-die-happy kind of wanting. Some girls wanted their first kiss; I wanted center stage.
me as a little dancer
Of course, this is why we are called bun-heads. While other tweens worried about where they fit in at school and who’d gone to what base with whom, my world was thirty-five miles away at Long Beach Ballet. While other girls were praying for cleavage, I was thinking up ways to remain under the five-foot-one audition line. I thought ballet would forever be my world.
As a fifteen-year-old summer student at Boston Ballet, I attended a seminar describing other careers in the ballet world besides performing. I listened as they told us about the people who worked in wardrobe, lighting, and sound, about those who choreographed, and those who taught – it was bone-chilling stuff! I couldn’t imagine the misery of being involved in dance but not dancing, so I made a little agreement with myself: If I don’t make it as a dancer, I will instead do something completely other than dance. I will never do any of the things they are suggesting, and I especially will never teach!
I lived by that pact until about two years ago. Of course, far more motivating than the pact I’d made at fifteen, was the severe doubt I experienced when, during my quarter-life crisis, I reflected on whether or not a childhood and adolescence devoted to ballet had been good for me. Generally I felt like dance was responsible for lots of good things in my youth, but lots of pain as an adult. At twenty-three I left dance, hoping to never look back, hoping to find my ‘completely other’ calling and start a fresh life.
I am not a Luddite. I love using machines, gadgets, toys of technology, old and new, always have, and so I found myself resenting the position I was in when gifted with the coveted ipad (it is an old one, sans camera). I don’t subscribe to many magazines, and those I do–mainly Harper’s--are too stuffy and unsexy in a literary way to have an ipad version. At the time, I remained uninterested in reading e-versions of books. Typing on it was awkward at best, insufferable at worst, like playing Pachelbel’s Canon on a child’s Fischer Price piano, and did not make answering emails or general writing an appetizing venture. If I wanted to watch a movie, I would rather do it on our large flatscreen television so my Netflix app was not much of a draw. Any tasks that seemed to suit it, also suited my smaller and already-attached-to-my-hip iphone. These are the twelve steps I took to recover my wonder of that peculiarly seductive and simultaneously unnecessary tablet of dreams.
1. I bought a stylus and began using Adobe Ideas app to draw quick costume sketches. Pen in hand, I was also now able to use it to take notes in apps like Penultimate, where I keep separate project and/or class notebooks, and Note Taker HD, which I use for individual documents filed away in project folders.
2. I got the Martha Stewart Cookies app. Skip this step if you are not a recovering Martha Stewart Living addict.
3. Next, I took on the New York Magazine app. Though I enjoy the paper copy, it lives in the magazine bin in the bathroom. The app is a great resource for finishing longer articles, like this great profile of Dr. Cornell West, without disturbing the rest of the household’s reading habits.
4. Then I fell in love with NY Magazine’s fashion app, The Cut, which features an impressive library of runway shows and where you are able to search by season, style, label, material, and so on. It is amazing until I realized it was not possible to download a photo for future reference on a mood board or in costume design meeting.
5. Which brought me back to using regular old Safari to browse the regular old version of The Cut and trying to “Pin It” to my Pinterest boards. This also proved to be a dead end because there was some long-winded java script something that needed to happen in order to make the “Pin It” button save to the bookmarks tab. Luckily, I finally found a cheap and quick fix in the Pin On app. Voile. Now I have to no excuse not to update my lackluster boards.
6. This was followed by a move to a new apartment where my boyfriend and I promptly filled all the available wall space with bookshelves. Since there is very little free space, I instituted a new rule for myself: I will only buy “important” fiction and non-fiction books and must-have art books. When the flavor-of-the-month nonfiction book comes around, such as Imagine: How Creativity Works, I will buy the Kindle version. I downloaded the free Kindle app as well as the Amazon app. This new rule has opened up a whole new world for me as far as using the ipad as a reading device. (But I will still support the printing industry, I swear!) The problem of reading this pulp nonfiction in the bath remains…..
Paying homage to my dear friend Kim over these last few entries has been one of the biggest joys of my life. Now, with a bit of sadness, I complete the series with a final article; this past weekend, I had the privilege to travel back to Kansas City and bid Kim farewell as Kansas City Ballet’s longest reigning ballerina.
This is not meant to be a dance critique, but it would be a crime if I didn’t spend at least a few sentences stating how amazed I was by the company and their growth over the last two years–since I parted ways with KCB. The performance was a stunning evening of Balanchine’s Serenade, Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, Martins’ Les Gentilhommes and Bolender’s Souvenirs, showcasing the KCB dancers’ virtuosity and artistry. I had the privilege of seeing two performances with two different casts, both of which danced brilliantly. Bravo!
As the “Russian Girl” in Serenade, Kim dazzled with her precise footwork, suspended ballon, and classical grace. As the “Vamp” in Souvenirs, she brought the house down with her comedic, man-eating ferociousness, taunting and teasing both her partner and the audience with every perfectly timed and calculated move she made.
However, the true story I want to share is not what happened on stage during her performance, but what happened after. Kim was given a true ballerina send-off. As the stage cleared and she took her final bow, the entire roster of company dancers placed a bouquet of flowers at her feet. They were followed by several former KCB dancers–including myself–who had the honor of working in the studio and onstage with Kim, as well as past and current board presidents, the artistic and executive staff, and, most notably, her family. Tenderly, she embraced each and every person. As she locked eyes with me, I saw even more confidence than I had ever seen in her. There seemed to be a calm, prideful sense of satisfaction that can only come when one has completed the most amazing journey of their life.
With the release of Bess Kargman’s new documentary First Position, an expose of the competitive ballet circuit, I’ve noticed an interesting influx of conversation around the future direction of this crazy art form we all know and love too well. While I still haven’t seen the film, and therefore cannot comment on how it represents the future of ballet, the snippets of dialogue I’ve picked up does make me curious about how the next generation of eager, young dancers are nurtured and the means they take to transition into the professional realm. Is ballet becoming a display of pyrotechnics, in which the only way to join the ranks of company life is to be able to do bravura tricks?
I don’t know if I could compete with what some of the budding ballerinas are doing these days because I was never a trickster–except for hopping on point, go figure. While the physical challenge of ballet was always a source of enjoyment, my true motivation for pursuing this career was a sheer love of it. If we try to define dance merely by the technique of it can the artistry still exist?
All of this internal dialogue took me back to last June when I had the chance to see the workshop performance of the School of American Ballet (SAB). The students showcased impressive technique: spot on balances, fearless pirouettes, and effortless ballon–but I sensed a lack of joy. Were these teenagers exposed only to the physicality of dance? What about the rich history and an appreciation for the art form?
I promise I am going somewhere with all of this rhetoric.
As professionals, it’s important for us to take note of these aspiring dancers. This week, Ballet Academy East 
(BAE), a prominent ballet school on the Upper East Side, holds its annual Pre-Professional division spring performances from Thursday, May 18 to Saturday, May 20 at the John Jay College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater. BAE’s bright pupils will show New Yorkers their passon and dedication, performing in Balanchine’s Walpurgisnacht Ballet, the pas de trios from Paquita, and original works by Laszlo Berdo, Stacy Caddell, Richard Cook, and Jenna Lavin. It’s rare that I take the opportunity to see student productions, but I am starting to see the value in stepping outside my typical show repertoire and supporting these youngsters…after all, I was in their position once upon a time.
For more information on BAE’s Pre-Professional Spring Show or information on tickets, check out our Dd NYC Performance Calendar.