Wen Wei Wang – This is a trailer, but oh the concept is so compelling!
Wen Wei Dance’s work reflects a multiplicity of dance and social experiences. Each creation is influenced by a natural evolution of personal identity, and strives to reflect the underlying experience of social, cultural and personal development. Wen Wei Dance creates startling and provocative performance works of a distinctive trans-cultural sensibility. With an original and highly individual style, Artistic Director Wen Wei Wang fuses precise and subtle choreography with stunning visual design and music, turning each work into a rich and unique world.
Art is the most direct and visceral way of speaking to people across boarders, and barriers. Art motivates, art empowers, art creates news ways of thinking.
As part of Eve Ensler’s – the Tony Award author of the Vagina Monologues [http://www.eveensler.org] – global campaign One Billion Rising to end the violence against women and girls, musicians, choregraphers, visual artists, poets, writers are rising up on February 14th, 2013.
“One in three women on the planet
will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.
One billion women violated is an atrocity.
One billion women dancing is a revolution.”
The Official Trailer from India’s biggest film studio, UTV Motion Pictures, and renowned choreographer & director, Remo D’souza comes India’s first dance film in 3D — a spectacular entertainer that proves yet again that if you dare to dream, impossible is nothing!
In Cinemas: Feb 2013
Lead Cast: Prabhudeva, Salman Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Dharmesh Yelande, Lauren Gottlieb
Directed & Choreographed By: Remo D’souza
Produced By: Ronnie Screwvala & Siddharth Roy Kapur
India’s Daughter:
Published on Dec 31, 2012
A Spoken Word tribute, and a plea for India’s Daughters. Written, recorded and produced on one sleepless night, Dec 30, 2012.
Written, composed and arranged by Anuj Rastogi.
(c) Copyright Anuj Rastogi (Omnesia Records) 2012
‘Amanat’s Reprise’
Tonight, as I tuck her into her crib for the night
I stare down at her, under the waning moonlight
As on all other such evenings, I kiss her goodnight and wish away any fright
That she may feel while asleep, or awake
With all my might_ I wish I could make it all go away
Every crime, every curse,
Every danger, every hearse
That carries away the bodies of souls departed
Or in tonight’s case, the soul of a country that needs to be restarted
A country, raped by a mother’s own sons, brothers, and fathers
A country that has failed every one of its daughters
Tonight is the first night that I’ve wondered, maybe even wished,
What Mother India could’ve been had her sons instead been drowned in a dish
Had families cursed their misfortune for having a boy
And looked in envy at their neighbors unbridled joy
Celebrating their good fortune for having a daughter;
Perhaps our sons should’ve been lead away to slaughter,
One-by-one before they should plunder, or chance an act of such moral blunder
For centuries Mother India has been MOTHER INDIA,
And like Jocasta, violated by Oedipus every fort night,
Raping his own mother, cloaked in the illusion of non-existent virtue
Dear sons, why am I left feeling I must now curse you?
A land that venerates the Goddess, dresses her scantily and then
Insists she be modest
A land that elevates women to positions of political status
Lies naked and wounded, questioning her chastice
This land rides on her back to procreate and drive economic progress
And then questions her character should she dare to step out in a dress
This land so fertile for its women, lies morally barren of more than a few men who value what is within.
Rape is an act of imposed power
But it is not simply caused when a beast deflowers
It is one spoke, but one extension
Of a social ill that few dare to mention
In our dowries, in our words
We do nothing but seek to curb
The spirit of the truly free woman
WE ARE the problem
Men rape women.
Women rape women.
Mother’s In-Law rape women
Protectors of law rape women.
Politicians rape women.
Film makers rape women.
Ancient Traditions rape women.
Modern police stations rape women.
Silence rapes women.
Speaking out rapes women.
Apathy rapes women.
You and me rape women.
Every minute, of every day
Somewhere in this ancient country,
Be it physical or parliamentary
A woman is raped — her spiritual dignity, once draped
In self-respect has through decades of social neglect
Been left to wither and rot, in plain sight
This is NOT the country of my moral parents
This is not the planet I want for my children
This is NOT the world I want my daughter to grow up in.
And so here I sit, 3000 miles away
Proud to be brown, but ashamed to be a man.
I am a man. A father. A son.
How do I tomorrow face my little one.
And tell her the monsters of the dark were once little boys,
Whose mothers and fathers bred a society armed with penile toys.
And when one woman dared to speak, she was shut down, or drowned in the noise,
Of a society that values its life-giving daughters less than its public poise?
As I lie here, my little girl asleep in her crib.
I am in anguish, she sleeps still, I’m torn right next to her.
When she asks me about India, What will I tell her?
Will it still be my heart’s home, full of history and culture
Or will it be truly overrun by soul-less vultures?
Perhaps this fire that burns,
Sustained and relentless, is what Amanat’s sacrifice has earned
Perhaps tonight is like every other night before it;
And every woman in Delhi will walk in fear from her brothers, the police and the state.
Or perhaps tonight is the night that we turn the tables on fate.
And embrace our shared anger, and our common hate
For the ills of our world, and the suffering of our girls.
Perhaps, tonight is THE night that through Amanat’s plight, WE can awake.
Too funny not to pass forward this new video created by and starring Chicago comedian/filmmaker Owen Weber, who plays Peanuts’ Linus Van Pelt III, the Founder of the Charlie Brown School of Dance.
:: Bangarra Dance Theatre: Bangarra’s new production Blak is on Australian national tour in 2013.
Choreographed by Artistic Director Stephen Page and emerging choreographer and company dancer Daniel Riley McKinley, Blak places culture at the heart of our existence. It reaffirms the powerful experiences of rites of passage for young Aboriginal people as they transition to adulthood. By embracing their responsiblities, these young people become a critical link in the songlines that connect our future with our ancient past.
Dancers from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance inhabited rAndom International’s acclaimed Rain Room installation in the Barbican’s Curve gallery, performing continuously evolving interventions in the Rain, with a score by contemporary composer Max Richter.
Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands – Tu Dance – left the Big Apple to start their own company in the Twin Cities, where an arts renaissance offered new chances to carve out their own niche.
Stay Tuned! We’ve registered to hold a “rising” here in Reno on this global day. Watch:
“Break the Chain” aims to raise awareness around the world about V-Day’s fastest escalating global campaign to date, ONE BILLION RISING. The ONE BILLION RISING campaign began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, V-Day’s 15th anniversary, activists, writers, thinkers, celebrities and women and men across the world will come together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women.
Produced by Eve Ensler and V-Day, directed by Tony Stroebel, written and produced by Tena Clark with music by Tena Clark and Tim Heintz, and featuring dancer and choreographer Debbie Allen.
DESH is a new full-length contemporary solo and the most personal work to date from celebrated choreographer and performer, Akram Khan. DESH meaning ‘homeland’ in Bengali, draws multiple tales of land, nation, resistance and convergence into the body and voice of one man trying to find his balance in an unstable world.
Moving between Britain and Bangladesh, Khan weaves threads of memory, experience and myth into a surreal world of surprising connection. At once intimate and epic, DESH explores fragility in the face of natural forces, and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the rhythms of labour, in dream and story, and in transformation and survival.
“Spirit: A Journey in Dance, Drums, & Song” is a music, dance and percussion spectacle combining contemporary music with the songs, chants and dances of the Native American culture. A fascinating show!
I’ve discovered 7 segments, This is the first dance in the show: “Urban Overture.”
From the imagination of choreographer/director Benjamin Millepied, we enter a world where ballet meets street dancing. L’il Buck and the New Styles Krew interpret ballet with great finesse and elegance, while staying true to their roots. Composer Nicholas Britell re-composed Bach’s Double Harpsichord Concerto B.M.V. 1060 with woodwinds, drums, electric bass, looping, and glitch FX, while maintaining the “essence” of the Bach Movement throughout to match the feeling of the dance.
I went to Sacramento this past weekend to see Amy & Shelly for Unmata’s 10th Anniversary celebration, and it was beyond all expectation – natch! of all their wonderful work though, I believe this is my favorite piece. So stunning ladies, Happy happy Anniversary!
Kyryll Fedorenko, Artur Gaspar, Oleg Zhezhel and Francisco Borgato, the Cossack dudes of Ukrainian act Kazaky, are back with a viral video entitled “last night” directed by Yevgeniy Timokhin.
We all use our body on a daily basis, and yet few of us think about our physicality the way Wayne McGregor does. He demonstrates how a choreographer communicates ideas to an audience, working with two dancers to build phrases of dance, live and unscripted, on the TEDGlobal stage.
This is the original cut of The Thief and the Cobbler. This particular version is missing some scenes but it compiled by Garrett Gilchrist as it was intended to be shown. It is so imaginative and entertaining! Enjoyed every minute.
The Thief and the Cobbler is a 1993 British animated fantasy film directed, co-written and co-produced by Canadian animator Richard Williams. The film is famous for its animation and its long, troubled history. Williams worked 28 years on the project. Beginning production in 1964, Williams intended The Thief and the Cobbler would be his masterpiece, and a milestone in the art of animation.
In 2006, a filmmaker, artist and fan of Richard Williams’ work named Garrett Gilchrist created a non-profit fan restoration of William’s workprint, named The Thief and the Cobbler: The Re-cobbled Cut (the version that appears above). Full history here.
Our nascent youth SEEDs
{Self-esteem, Empowerment,
& Education through Dance} Program is now fully underway and has a
Facebook page.
Check it out by clicking the leetle bug above, or check in on our progress over at: http://dadimaseeds.org.
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