:-:-:-:-: Oops! This link appears broken. :-:-:-:-: [el-blog-de-clay-mcdaniel]

Buckle Up, Sigur Ros Fans

November 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Pitchfork is offering, for one week only, the ability to view all 94 minutes of the recent documentary of Everyone’s Favorite Icelandic Orchestral Post-Rock Band (c)(TM) playing all over Europe and elsewhere.If you can’t get enough of slight, sun-starved men playing guitars with cello bows and so forth, enjoy the linky-mcjump-jump over to Pitchfork’s video here.

[...Or you can always just hang out on this post, imagining that you're watching the whole thing (thereby dramatically boosting this blog's average visitor time-0n-site up from the current figure of, well, let's just call it something that rounds to zero).]

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File Under *Things That Do Not Go Together*, Part Deux

November 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

On a par with a recently-noticed odd juxtaposition at my local Tully’s, this morning I overheard the following summary of today’s KUOW ‘Weekday’ show hosted by Steve Scher: “Today we will be talking about Honor Killings, which still occur around the world and even here in the U.S…   Also: Gardening!”

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The Middle of Nowhere

October 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Want to know where the middle of nowhere is? The Tristan de Cunha Island group! There’s less than 300 people who live there, sporting a grand total of 7 unique surnames. Whoa.

Funfact: If you hit the “+” button on Bing Maps, you start drilling in to the island little by little and then eventually *poof*, the island disappears and suddenly you’re back in the ocean… kind of like what it must feel like to live on Tristan de Cunha, sometimes.

 

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So glad we’re moving our company to Pioneer Square

October 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

… and that this will be my driving commute each day when I have to get in my car (as opposed to the bike, which I vastly prefer and hope to be able to use as much as possible):

Eek.

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Pacific Northwest Ballet: A Case Study in Artistic Relevance and Keeping it Exciting for New Audiences

October 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Peter Boal, if you are listening out there, you are to be commended. Since arriving at the Pacific Northwest Ballet you have done what is vital in these times: you have made the ballet relevant, enjoyable, challenging, and exciting to a whole new (younger) generation of audience members.

I attended tonight’s performance of Romeo and Juliet, and although it was by no means my first ballet performance in Seattle (I’ve been a subscriber and single-ticket-buyer on and off for the last 8 years), I was struck by a few things tonight in particular:

1) The crowd is the most diverse and youngest – on average – of any of the “high performing arts” (opera, first-run theater, symphony, ballet… am i leaving any out?) in Seattle. Plenty of hipsters, yuppies, high-schoolers, art-school-types, and still the usual retinue of parents and older ballet enthusiasts. And people are dressed well. Not formal, just looking good – like they made an effort. This, in and of itself, is kind of an achievement in this town.

2) A couple behind me in line for a drink before the performance (BTW, full bar plus wine plus microbrews plus SEVERAL champagnes by the glass = genius) remarked, sotto voce, “Look around, these are MY people!” By that they meant, I think, “the ballet is managing to attract Ballard and Cap Hill and Beacon Hill and Seward Park and…”

3) The experience is perfect for working people and night owls alike: Plenty of warnings to get to your seat, a forgiving wait until 5 or 10 minutes past showtime to allow the younger lollygaggers and cheap-parking-seekers time to get in the door and get up to their less expensive high seats.

4) The stage design, sets, choreography, and dance is current. Boal is taking some chances and incorporating challenging, modern, even racy and at times humorous dance into a traditional art form… without losing the commitment to rigor, athleticism, and beauty that people who are drawn to ballet want to see. Some of the interactions between dancers tonight was pretty racy – hands on bodies in places they wouldn’t have been 20 years ago. But chaste doesn’t bring in the 25 year olds – taking chances with the interactions between lovers, rivals, and the rest of the corps that surround the soloists does.

5) Stanley Stewart Kershaw*, the conductor of the pit, is consistently turning out top-notch symphonic music. The performance of Prokofiev’s score tonight was nearly perfect, the strings were notably strong, and the timing was spot-on. It’s obvious that he cares and that the music is there to drive the dance, rather than being merely an accompaniment or a soundtrack. And the audience gets it – the applause was among the loudest for Kershaw when he took the stage, amidst appreciative applause for the dancers themselves.

(*ed. note: I updated this post a few days after originally writing it with Mr. Kershaw’s proper given name. Sorry, Stewart, I forgot to fact check before posting the original post late at night :-).)

6) The lighting was modern and striking, as well as occasionally odd – but in a good way, in ways that drew attention to the dance AND the set design and choreography. The films and scrims on the spots from above in particular was noteworthy and cool.

7) The corps LOOKS LIKE the population of the Pacific Northwest – some younger, some older, we get to see dancers of Asian, European, African-American, Latin, and other backgrounds at the top of their game. What a pleasure to feel like we are seeing a distinctly Pacific Northwest ballet, in addition to a generally high-quality corps. This takes long-term investment in the apprenticeship and junior programs as well as the ability to attract top talent from elsewhere makes for a diverse corps. (and the retention is not to be discounted for continuity – the tenures of some of the Principal and Soloist dancers is impressive, and a testament to what must be the high regard the corps overall feels for Boal since coming on board).

8) Little things like marking in the program which dancers were recently promoted to more elevated roles in the corps, and which dancers came up through the ranks of the Pacific Northwest junior program, go a long way for people like me who actually read the program before and during the intermissions – it shows that the Ballet here wants to acknowledge and reward the commitment of their dancers and retain them. When we get to see pieces like Mopey as well as the classic Balanchine gems like Jewels danced by the same dancers over multiple seasons, sometimes years apart, it’s just great. I for one can’t wait to see Mopey again in November because I expect it will be danced by the same guy who killed it two years ago (or more) when it debuted here.

9) Your marketing department is doing all the right things to connect with new audiences through the new channels – especially online. A full commitment to social media is evident as soon as you dig into the website. Check out what the PNB is doing in all the key locations:

PNB-social-media

All in all, and in sum, the corps and the production teams are delivering great value. And the composition of the audience shows how well Boal is doing at keeping the ballet relevant to new and interested supporters here in Seattle.

Keep it up, and thanks for doing all the little things well.

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Tough Weekend for Seattle Sports

September 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A lot of “L”’s this weekend, not a lot other than the beautiful fall weather for a Seattle sports fan to enjoy:

- Seahawks L

- Sounders L

- Mariners L, L

- UW Football L

- WSU Football L

[However, as one guy in the office pointed out, Bellevue HS Football won. The future is on the shoulders of the youth of the PacNW.]

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Forget the movie, Facebook truly makes Hollywood bigtime

September 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment

with a central role in tonight’s Entourage episode.

Bonus: Dean Cain cameo. (we share an alma mater, we’re real close…)

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My Daughter is a Capitalist Genius (Part II)

September 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

As I have previously chronicled, my daughter is a capitalist genius.

Proof point numero dos:
Last weekend, my wife was greeted by my daughter who walked into the kitchen with about two dollars in change from who-knows-where. Turns out, she had been selling “ice cream” to the neighborhood passers-by from our front porch. More specifically, imaginary ice cream. So successfully that various rubes had handed over the pocket silver.
(I’ll just avoid the ethical complications with this by considering it ‘paid porch theater’…)

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Leave it to a 4 year old to capture the subtle nuances

September 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

“Daddy did you know that today ____ told me a secret and I was able to keep it a secret!”

“Hey good job. What was the secret?”

“I can’t remember. But that’s good because did you know that ‘keeping a secret’ is the same as ‘can’t remember’, because if you can’t remember then you can’t tell anybody else?”

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File Under *Things That Do Not Go Together*

August 31, 2009 · 1 Comment

Noticed in my local Tully’s coffee shop’s otherwise impeccable restroom this morning:

An ornately framed and quite stuffy small canvas painting of a landscape, rendered in a faux-pointillist semi-Impressionist style… below which scrawled in ball-point pen graffiti, simply “G.G. Allin”.

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