Seriously-- white people are really weird about pregnancy. And I say this as an official pregnant white person.
In my personal experience of unsolicited comments as a pregnant woman walking down the NYC streets, here's the breakdown:
Black people:
"Congratulations"
"You go, mama!"
Hispanic people:
"Congratulations!"
"You look great!" (from women!)
Asian people:
"Boy or girl?"
They then proceed to give me health advice.
White people:
"Does she have twins in there?"
"Any day now..." (in that "you're in for it" voice)
And many other variations on "Wow, you're huge/ready to pop (a phrase I detest!)"
Sadly, I run into more white people than anyone else.
But what I really wonder is, how are we the most numerous ethnic group in the country with this attitude? I mean, really?
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
If you still haven't heard about the April 9th salon....
Don't forget the Voodoo Sisters' Between Dimensions Salon this
Thursday, April 9th, in Alphabet City.
This will be the last monthly salon for the Voodoo Sisters! We have
had a great time and worked with a lot of excellent dancers, and
look forward to putting on more shows in the future.
Our future Between Dimensions shows will likely be less frequent
but more formal. Stay tuned to this list for the earliest
notifications!
In the meantime, come enjoy our final salon, full of excellent
performers and interesting performances. Dig our last free show!
See stuff you've never seen before-- and may never see again!
Place: Teneleven art bar, 171 Avenue C between 10th and 11th
Time: Doors open at 9:30, show starts at 9:45
Cover: none! Just show up, have a tasty drink or 2, and enjoy the
fun!
See you there!
The Voodoo Sisters
Thursday, April 9th, in Alphabet City.
This will be the last monthly salon for the Voodoo Sisters! We have
had a great time and worked with a lot of excellent dancers, and
look forward to putting on more shows in the future.
Our future Between Dimensions shows will likely be less frequent
but more formal. Stay tuned to this list for the earliest
notifications!
In the meantime, come enjoy our final salon, full of excellent
performers and interesting performances. Dig our last free show!
See stuff you've never seen before-- and may never see again!
Place: Teneleven art bar, 171 Avenue C between 10th and 11th
Time: Doors open at 9:30, show starts at 9:45
Cover: none! Just show up, have a tasty drink or 2, and enjoy the
fun!
See you there!
The Voodoo Sisters
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Horrific Movement
I'm taking a course in basic Laban Movement Analysis-- this stuff is fascinating to me as a movement teacher. It's giving me a whole new vocabulary to talk about what's missing in a choreography or performance, or what's excellent. it's also giving me a structure to speak about why some movement combinations seem "natural" or "creepy."
Useful when you teach Gothic bellydance classes.
After this second workshop (all taught by a martial artist, not a dancer-- extra interesting!), I'm starting to understand the concept of movement affinities and disaffinities better. Which makes me bounce up and down.
Basically, movement affinities are combinations of effort and direction that fit together naturally. For example, if you think of "light" as a quality of weight, the first direction that comes to mind is "up." If you think of "strong" or "heavy" as a quality of weight, you think immediately of "down."
A disaffinity is when you combine effort and direction in non-intuitive ways-- light movement down, for instance, or strong movement up. A primary use of movement disaffinities is comedy-- when your body is saying something other than what the situation seems to be calling for. Think of the uses of slow-motion falls to add comedy-- you expect quick speed, but the fall is sustained instead.
Another use of movement disaffinities is horror. When it's well done, it's the kind of creepiness that you can't place, the instinct that tells you, "Cross the street rather than walk past that guy-- something's not right." If you see someone backing away slowly from something, you know this isn't just a normal startle reaction (back/quick is the usual movement affinity). Something is wrong here.
I plan to have a lot of fun with this in future Voodoo Sisters pieces. We use plenty of disaffinities in our work already (see Vampian Lespire Cats!), but this can take it to a whole new level. Watch this troupe.
-mv
Useful when you teach Gothic bellydance classes.
After this second workshop (all taught by a martial artist, not a dancer-- extra interesting!), I'm starting to understand the concept of movement affinities and disaffinities better. Which makes me bounce up and down.
Basically, movement affinities are combinations of effort and direction that fit together naturally. For example, if you think of "light" as a quality of weight, the first direction that comes to mind is "up." If you think of "strong" or "heavy" as a quality of weight, you think immediately of "down."
A disaffinity is when you combine effort and direction in non-intuitive ways-- light movement down, for instance, or strong movement up. A primary use of movement disaffinities is comedy-- when your body is saying something other than what the situation seems to be calling for. Think of the uses of slow-motion falls to add comedy-- you expect quick speed, but the fall is sustained instead.
Another use of movement disaffinities is horror. When it's well done, it's the kind of creepiness that you can't place, the instinct that tells you, "Cross the street rather than walk past that guy-- something's not right." If you see someone backing away slowly from something, you know this isn't just a normal startle reaction (back/quick is the usual movement affinity). Something is wrong here.
I plan to have a lot of fun with this in future Voodoo Sisters pieces. We use plenty of disaffinities in our work already (see Vampian Lespire Cats!), but this can take it to a whole new level. Watch this troupe.
-mv
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Fury of Overshoes
I woke up and I'm four years old this morning. I need a nanny.
First, Lux Interior, frontman for the Cramps, one of my favorite bands ever, died.
Then I read the Joe Weil poem, "Love Poem for My Mother Clare," which recalls so exactly my grief over my deceased gothfather in its invocations that I can't stuff the loss back in the box and shoulder my adult responsibilities, like copyediting.
It's winter and the whole world is frozen and even the warm puppy snoozing on my lap can't take away the ache entirely.
This poem by Anne Sexton is what I read when I spontaneously regress.
The Fury of Overshoes
They sit in a row
outside the kindergarten,
black, red, brown, all
with those brass buckles.
Remember when you couldn't
buckle your own
overshoe
or tie your own
overshoe
or tie your own shoe
or cut your own meat
and the tears
running down like mud
because you fell off your
tricycle?
Remember, big fish,
when you couldn't swim
and simply slipped under
like a stone frog?
The world wasn't
yours.
It belonged to
the big people.
Under your bed
sat the wolf
and he made a shadow
when cars passed by
at night.
They made you give up
your nightlight
and your teddy
and your thumb.
Oh overshoes,
don't you
remember me,
pushing you up and down
in the winter snow?
Oh thumb,
I want a drink,
it is dark,
where are the big people,
when will I get there,
taking giant steps
all day,
each day
and thinking
nothing of it?
First, Lux Interior, frontman for the Cramps, one of my favorite bands ever, died.
Then I read the Joe Weil poem, "Love Poem for My Mother Clare," which recalls so exactly my grief over my deceased gothfather in its invocations that I can't stuff the loss back in the box and shoulder my adult responsibilities, like copyediting.
It's winter and the whole world is frozen and even the warm puppy snoozing on my lap can't take away the ache entirely.
This poem by Anne Sexton is what I read when I spontaneously regress.
The Fury of Overshoes
They sit in a row
outside the kindergarten,
black, red, brown, all
with those brass buckles.
Remember when you couldn't
buckle your own
overshoe
or tie your own
overshoe
or tie your own shoe
or cut your own meat
and the tears
running down like mud
because you fell off your
tricycle?
Remember, big fish,
when you couldn't swim
and simply slipped under
like a stone frog?
The world wasn't
yours.
It belonged to
the big people.
Under your bed
sat the wolf
and he made a shadow
when cars passed by
at night.
They made you give up
your nightlight
and your teddy
and your thumb.
Oh overshoes,
don't you
remember me,
pushing you up and down
in the winter snow?
Oh thumb,
I want a drink,
it is dark,
where are the big people,
when will I get there,
taking giant steps
all day,
each day
and thinking
nothing of it?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Abstinence Porn and Vampires
In an interview with USA Today, Stephen King came out and slagged Stephanie Meyers's _Twilight_ series, saying she "can't write worth a darn."
I couldn't agree more, although, in the interest of full disclosure: I'm a frustrated YA novelist. What? A tiny slice of schadenfreude never hurt anyone.
Just last night my friends and I were talking about _Twilight_ as "abstinence porn" and debating the relative merits thereof. Kenwyn said that there is a venerated place for teen romances that encourage romantic and sexy feelings but don't place demands on girls to do anything about those urges.
I think of how excited I used to get watching "The Outsiders," with all those yummy men and one delicious Diane Lane Cherry on top, and I can't help but agree.
And yet.
What I'd really love to see is the female version of "Porky's" or "American Pie." Because, y'know, girls have sex drives, too, and it's about time we celebrated that, taught our girls to pay attention to what feels good and cultivate it. Kenwyn's point was that abstinence porn is a kind of gateway drug that honors sexual feelings but in a safe way, for those girls who might not be ready to engage in sex play.
My point was that girls need media that focuses on the pleasures of their own bodies. Right now, the choices for teen female sexuality are either abstinence or objectification, and although objectification does confer a form of power when the sex object can successfully manipulate the viewer, neither is satisfying.
And I just don't buy that the anticipation of an event is better than the actual event. Idealization is not more exciting than the five senses. I love that Anne Sexton poem in which she describes God as wanting to have a body so he can come down to Earth and give it a bath now and then.
That being said, art is wonderful when it can prolong the tension between anticipation and gratification. But not for 300 pages, Ms. Meyers.
I loved Judy Blume's _Forever_ because the protagonist is responsible about sex but also wholeheartedly gets her rocks off. I can't think of too many YA novels in which there isn't some kind of consequence for the gorgeousness of sex, can you? I can't think of a single contemporary one.
In _Twilight_, the vampirism seems completely incidental to the thrust of the story. Any circumstance that would've prevented the main characters from getting together would've done just as well. Where's the blood? Where's the violence? Where's the existential agita? My newest favorite vampire novel is Scott Westerfeld's _Peeps_. It's the freshest treatment of the subject that I've seen in a long time. My second favorite is the Melissa de la Cruz _Blue Bloods_ books.
I couldn't agree more, although, in the interest of full disclosure: I'm a frustrated YA novelist. What? A tiny slice of schadenfreude never hurt anyone.
Just last night my friends and I were talking about _Twilight_ as "abstinence porn" and debating the relative merits thereof. Kenwyn said that there is a venerated place for teen romances that encourage romantic and sexy feelings but don't place demands on girls to do anything about those urges.
I think of how excited I used to get watching "The Outsiders," with all those yummy men and one delicious Diane Lane Cherry on top, and I can't help but agree.
And yet.
What I'd really love to see is the female version of "Porky's" or "American Pie." Because, y'know, girls have sex drives, too, and it's about time we celebrated that, taught our girls to pay attention to what feels good and cultivate it. Kenwyn's point was that abstinence porn is a kind of gateway drug that honors sexual feelings but in a safe way, for those girls who might not be ready to engage in sex play.
My point was that girls need media that focuses on the pleasures of their own bodies. Right now, the choices for teen female sexuality are either abstinence or objectification, and although objectification does confer a form of power when the sex object can successfully manipulate the viewer, neither is satisfying.
And I just don't buy that the anticipation of an event is better than the actual event. Idealization is not more exciting than the five senses. I love that Anne Sexton poem in which she describes God as wanting to have a body so he can come down to Earth and give it a bath now and then.
That being said, art is wonderful when it can prolong the tension between anticipation and gratification. But not for 300 pages, Ms. Meyers.
I loved Judy Blume's _Forever_ because the protagonist is responsible about sex but also wholeheartedly gets her rocks off. I can't think of too many YA novels in which there isn't some kind of consequence for the gorgeousness of sex, can you? I can't think of a single contemporary one.
In _Twilight_, the vampirism seems completely incidental to the thrust of the story. Any circumstance that would've prevented the main characters from getting together would've done just as well. Where's the blood? Where's the violence? Where's the existential agita? My newest favorite vampire novel is Scott Westerfeld's _Peeps_. It's the freshest treatment of the subject that I've seen in a long time. My second favorite is the Melissa de la Cruz _Blue Bloods_ books.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Why I do what I do
Reading the paper last week, I came across a review of the NYC City ballet's current show, "Founding Choreographers I". I'm always interested in reading reviews and criticism of dance, to see how people think about it and what they notice.
One section caught my eye: "Several members of Tuesday's cast dancers... have aspects of tension across the upper torso that rob the carriage of their necks and heads of the clarity that surely characterizes a true Robbins stylist." Later the reviewer mentions that a dancer's "head is so well-placed that its least shift registers expressively."
(I'm going to keep an eye on Alastair Macauley, the reviewer. He is paying attention to the use of the dancer's body as the tool it is for expressing emotion and story in movement.)
This is why I do what I do, why I teach like I teach.
In my class, it is of vital importance that students focus on turning their bodies into well-trained tools for expressing the emotions and stories inherent in their choreographies. A tense, clumsy, or inflexible body is hampered by these limitations, unable to rise to the peak of its art form, or to live up to the artistic vision of its choreographer.
I see lots and lots of dancers in my travels, visiting festivals and so on. The really good ones are technically AND EXPRESSIVELY stunning. And why? Because they have trained their bodies for clarity of expression as well as of movement. There is nothing in the way of their emotions-- not a clumsy hip, a tight shoulder, a weak thigh holding them back. Most of them probably don't even think about it this way-- these are the dancers we call "naturally gifted."
I believe that these natural gifts can be taught. I believe I am able to teach them, not only to my own body, but to others'. I believe I have no talent for expressing this (see the rest of this post!).
I wish I did. I know so many people who would love to dance the way I can teach them.
One section caught my eye: "Several members of Tuesday's cast dancers... have aspects of tension across the upper torso that rob the carriage of their necks and heads of the clarity that surely characterizes a true Robbins stylist." Later the reviewer mentions that a dancer's "head is so well-placed that its least shift registers expressively."
(I'm going to keep an eye on Alastair Macauley, the reviewer. He is paying attention to the use of the dancer's body as the tool it is for expressing emotion and story in movement.)
This is why I do what I do, why I teach like I teach.
In my class, it is of vital importance that students focus on turning their bodies into well-trained tools for expressing the emotions and stories inherent in their choreographies. A tense, clumsy, or inflexible body is hampered by these limitations, unable to rise to the peak of its art form, or to live up to the artistic vision of its choreographer.
I see lots and lots of dancers in my travels, visiting festivals and so on. The really good ones are technically AND EXPRESSIVELY stunning. And why? Because they have trained their bodies for clarity of expression as well as of movement. There is nothing in the way of their emotions-- not a clumsy hip, a tight shoulder, a weak thigh holding them back. Most of them probably don't even think about it this way-- these are the dancers we call "naturally gifted."
I believe that these natural gifts can be taught. I believe I am able to teach them, not only to my own body, but to others'. I believe I have no talent for expressing this (see the rest of this post!).
I wish I did. I know so many people who would love to dance the way I can teach them.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Catharsis of Terror
Yesterday one of my friends posted a Kafka quote that made me cheer: "The only thing worse than suffering is the refusal to suffer." My response was that I am pro suffering and anti-comfort, because it's the American addiction to comfort that makes us infantile and spiritually bankrupt.
Then we had quite a lively discussion about the function of suffering, with a few people chiming in that poets are overfond of suffering. Being poets, we had to clarify our definitions of suffering. Joe believes suffering is the refusal to live in your life. I'd agree with that, adding the spin that the suffering results from an *inability* to live in your life, probably because of fear, and that this is the root of the addictive behaviors that make a full, rich life impossible.
Because I am also a wiseacre, I had to admit that my notion of suffering is to be too far from a Starbucks at any given time. (See my above comment about addiction...)
We raised a few questions that I think about all the time. Joe put forth the idea that suffering is a luxury because it presupposes a lack of detachment that one could, theoretically, choose to assume. Given these parameters for suffering, I became aware again of how much Blake's idea of clean living through excess has formed my way of being in the world. All of my addictions, and the relinquishing of them, have been extremely instructive, mainly in how they allowed me to shunt my grief aside.
When my first love killed himself I was faced with an unassailable grief, and I had to either join him in the grave or find a way to live with what felt like unbearable loss.
Joe's point that making a habit or a fad of suffering can be just as detrimental as the refusal to suffer absolutely played up my conflicting emotions about the gothic subculture. On the one hand, the vocabulary of horror and terror has allowed me to grapple with issues of grief, fear, death, identity, and power in fruitful ways. On the other hand, romanticizing the shadow side of life can foster an inability to confront the crucial aspects of the shadow by providing a ready-made cache of imagery that was always meant to function as a starting point for discussion, not the solution. But this is an idea as old as Eden: that naming something tames it.
I hunger for a legitimately terrifying art. I still believe in the uses of catharsis when it comes to terror, and I don't mean the ratiocination involved in mysteries, thrillers, or forensics shows. I've heard it said that, as we age, we turn away from horror and instead work out the same issues by craving mystery stories, in which the hero is dead and the lyric event of violence has passed, and in which problemsolving done at a remove is the palliative for heightened emotions.
I still want horror movies and books that scare me, dammit. And as I age, they are getting harder and harder to come by. The last one I enjoyed was The Descent.
Fred Botting in his book _Gothic_ posits that gothic can no longer function because it has not survived the extreme inward direction of the twentieth-century's psychotherapeutic culture. All I know is that I can no longer sit still for B horror movies.
Voodoo Consort Number One and I talk about this a lot, since he is a filmmaker and loves crappy horror movies. He doesn't understand why I used to adore these films and now can't abide them. We read two books together and had a great discussion about gender identity and horror movies: _Men, Women, and Chainsaws_, and _Recreational Terror_.
Add belly dance to these thoughts about the function of gothic, and you've got a major preoccupation of the Voodoo Sisters.
Then we had quite a lively discussion about the function of suffering, with a few people chiming in that poets are overfond of suffering. Being poets, we had to clarify our definitions of suffering. Joe believes suffering is the refusal to live in your life. I'd agree with that, adding the spin that the suffering results from an *inability* to live in your life, probably because of fear, and that this is the root of the addictive behaviors that make a full, rich life impossible.
Because I am also a wiseacre, I had to admit that my notion of suffering is to be too far from a Starbucks at any given time. (See my above comment about addiction...)
We raised a few questions that I think about all the time. Joe put forth the idea that suffering is a luxury because it presupposes a lack of detachment that one could, theoretically, choose to assume. Given these parameters for suffering, I became aware again of how much Blake's idea of clean living through excess has formed my way of being in the world. All of my addictions, and the relinquishing of them, have been extremely instructive, mainly in how they allowed me to shunt my grief aside.
When my first love killed himself I was faced with an unassailable grief, and I had to either join him in the grave or find a way to live with what felt like unbearable loss.
Joe's point that making a habit or a fad of suffering can be just as detrimental as the refusal to suffer absolutely played up my conflicting emotions about the gothic subculture. On the one hand, the vocabulary of horror and terror has allowed me to grapple with issues of grief, fear, death, identity, and power in fruitful ways. On the other hand, romanticizing the shadow side of life can foster an inability to confront the crucial aspects of the shadow by providing a ready-made cache of imagery that was always meant to function as a starting point for discussion, not the solution. But this is an idea as old as Eden: that naming something tames it.
I hunger for a legitimately terrifying art. I still believe in the uses of catharsis when it comes to terror, and I don't mean the ratiocination involved in mysteries, thrillers, or forensics shows. I've heard it said that, as we age, we turn away from horror and instead work out the same issues by craving mystery stories, in which the hero is dead and the lyric event of violence has passed, and in which problemsolving done at a remove is the palliative for heightened emotions.
I still want horror movies and books that scare me, dammit. And as I age, they are getting harder and harder to come by. The last one I enjoyed was The Descent.
Fred Botting in his book _Gothic_ posits that gothic can no longer function because it has not survived the extreme inward direction of the twentieth-century's psychotherapeutic culture. All I know is that I can no longer sit still for B horror movies.
Voodoo Consort Number One and I talk about this a lot, since he is a filmmaker and loves crappy horror movies. He doesn't understand why I used to adore these films and now can't abide them. We read two books together and had a great discussion about gender identity and horror movies: _Men, Women, and Chainsaws_, and _Recreational Terror_.
Add belly dance to these thoughts about the function of gothic, and you've got a major preoccupation of the Voodoo Sisters.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monster Hybrid
Has anyone seen Underworld: Rise of the Lycans yet? I must admit, during the first two of these Underworld movies I was mostly preoccupied by Kate Beckinsale's lip gloss...and her tight pants. But by now, I'm anticipating this third installment in the series. I think it's the hybrid action that's got me interested. And werewolves are the stepchild of the monster franchise, I don't know why. There seems to be a dearth of werewolf movies. The last one I liked was Ginger Snaps.
What is there to say about monster culture that hasn't already been done, ad nauseum? I'm so over the whole zombie thing that I could cheerfully disembowel myself. Michael Jackson is going to be adapting "Thriller" for the Broadway stage. "Evil Dead" has become an off-Broadway musical. Do we need further proof that zombies have mainstreamed?
I thought zombies were over years ago, when I choreographed I Shimmied with a Zombie for Belly Horror in 2007. I did that choreography as a tribute to Voodoo Consort Number One, who has recurring nightmares of a zombie apocalypse and who, over coffee in the mornings, regales me with exit scenarios predicated on New York's eventual zombie occupation.
My abiding interest is in vampires, and I'm delighted that the groovy ghoul seems to be enjoying a return to prominence in fiction lately--the travesty of Twilight notwithstanding; don't get me started. I plan to read the Sookie Stackhouse novels soon.
Hybrid monsters are the way to go. In this post-Jungian age, we can all see the way our core archetypes blend, and a vampire-werewolf hybrid seems to humanize the vampires and make the werewolves a little more...classy? articulate? Depends on which vampire mythos you're considering. Mine is pretty much mired in the 19th-century Romantic Byron gentleman vampire, but if you are subscribing to the revenant kind that ravaged Europe before Romanticism took hold, you're thinking of vampires as much more akin to werwolves, anyway.
A quick note about Beckinsale's makeup in the movies: I'm fascinated by the understated nude lipgloss, on which the blood shines so compellingly, like blood on a baby's lips. Reminds me of Stuart Townsend's makeup in Queen of the Damned, all mauves and purples. This is a trend I've been noticing in films, that the more outre the character is supposed to be, the more unobtrusive the makeup is (think Olympia Dukakis's character--surely the most complex and liminal--in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City movies)
As someone with four planets in Scorpio, I'm coming around to the nude makeup palette because I'm down with using my appearance as a smokescreen and with blending in rather than standing out (I have my moon in Leo; I wasn't always this willing to assimilate. But living in NYC, where you can go out painted up like a gilded Statue of Liberty every day and no one spares you a glance, has cured me of my mania for looking different. Well, that and the fact that I'm staring down the cold, hard muzzle of 40.)
As an old-school goth chick who's used to using the same black kohl on eyes, cheeks, and lips, I find the new palette refreshing, particularly as I age. I can no longer get away with the bruise palette of cosmetics without looking like a drag queen that's been beat up in the Meat Packing District.
What is there to say about monster culture that hasn't already been done, ad nauseum? I'm so over the whole zombie thing that I could cheerfully disembowel myself. Michael Jackson is going to be adapting "Thriller" for the Broadway stage. "Evil Dead" has become an off-Broadway musical. Do we need further proof that zombies have mainstreamed?
I thought zombies were over years ago, when I choreographed I Shimmied with a Zombie for Belly Horror in 2007. I did that choreography as a tribute to Voodoo Consort Number One, who has recurring nightmares of a zombie apocalypse and who, over coffee in the mornings, regales me with exit scenarios predicated on New York's eventual zombie occupation.
My abiding interest is in vampires, and I'm delighted that the groovy ghoul seems to be enjoying a return to prominence in fiction lately--the travesty of Twilight notwithstanding; don't get me started. I plan to read the Sookie Stackhouse novels soon.
Hybrid monsters are the way to go. In this post-Jungian age, we can all see the way our core archetypes blend, and a vampire-werewolf hybrid seems to humanize the vampires and make the werewolves a little more...classy? articulate? Depends on which vampire mythos you're considering. Mine is pretty much mired in the 19th-century Romantic Byron gentleman vampire, but if you are subscribing to the revenant kind that ravaged Europe before Romanticism took hold, you're thinking of vampires as much more akin to werwolves, anyway.
A quick note about Beckinsale's makeup in the movies: I'm fascinated by the understated nude lipgloss, on which the blood shines so compellingly, like blood on a baby's lips. Reminds me of Stuart Townsend's makeup in Queen of the Damned, all mauves and purples. This is a trend I've been noticing in films, that the more outre the character is supposed to be, the more unobtrusive the makeup is (think Olympia Dukakis's character--surely the most complex and liminal--in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City movies)
As someone with four planets in Scorpio, I'm coming around to the nude makeup palette because I'm down with using my appearance as a smokescreen and with blending in rather than standing out (I have my moon in Leo; I wasn't always this willing to assimilate. But living in NYC, where you can go out painted up like a gilded Statue of Liberty every day and no one spares you a glance, has cured me of my mania for looking different. Well, that and the fact that I'm staring down the cold, hard muzzle of 40.)
As an old-school goth chick who's used to using the same black kohl on eyes, cheeks, and lips, I find the new palette refreshing, particularly as I age. I can no longer get away with the bruise palette of cosmetics without looking like a drag queen that's been beat up in the Meat Packing District.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Buy Voodoo Sisters Gear!
Yeah, it's the non-poet again, writing, not about beautiful thoughts, but about CRASS COMMERCIALISM!!
We've opened a CafePress store, linked to our website, and also of course, found here. I has a good time working on the graphics for this, so I hope you have a good time wearing them around.
--Melissa V.
We've opened a CafePress store, linked to our website, and also of course, found here. I has a good time working on the graphics for this, so I hope you have a good time wearing them around.
--Melissa V.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Expertly Loved, and Beautiful
This poem by Judy Grahn exemplifies the kind of creative spirit that shuns living up to others' expectations or inside of others' frameworks without a single, crucial, individual twist: In effect, what a yawn it is to have smooth poreless skin and a hardbody that ripples but may not quiver, even when in the throes of love, or dance.
Give me the margins, every time.
In the company I keep, even in the audience for the Voodoo Sisters, what I want are people who question, who risk, and especially those who weave the inescapable threads of themselves into established, sacred forms--not those who abandon form altogether. Because really, "gothic" is such an embattled term in art to begin with, as far as the literary sense, and then when you apply it to dance, Tempest's Gothic Bellydance Resource being a stellar example of lucid writing about GBD, what we're talking about is imagery transforming an ancient movement vocabulary. Just as this poem by Judy Grahn shows how spiders, those ultimate artists of the natural world, express their love in an entirely characteristic but--for the speaker of the poem--new way.
The poem's untitled, but here it is:
The most blonde woman in the world
one day threw off her skin
her hair, threw off her hair, declaring
'Whosoever chooses to love me
chooses to love a bald woman
with bleeding pores.'
Those who came then as her lovers
were small hard-bodied spiders
with dark eyes and an excellent
knowledge of weaving.
They spun her blood into long strands,
and altogether wove millions of red
webs, webs red in the afternoon sun.
'Now', she said, 'Now I am expertly loved,
and now I am beautiful."
Give me the margins, every time.
In the company I keep, even in the audience for the Voodoo Sisters, what I want are people who question, who risk, and especially those who weave the inescapable threads of themselves into established, sacred forms--not those who abandon form altogether. Because really, "gothic" is such an embattled term in art to begin with, as far as the literary sense, and then when you apply it to dance, Tempest's Gothic Bellydance Resource being a stellar example of lucid writing about GBD, what we're talking about is imagery transforming an ancient movement vocabulary. Just as this poem by Judy Grahn shows how spiders, those ultimate artists of the natural world, express their love in an entirely characteristic but--for the speaker of the poem--new way.
The poem's untitled, but here it is:
The most blonde woman in the world
one day threw off her skin
her hair, threw off her hair, declaring
'Whosoever chooses to love me
chooses to love a bald woman
with bleeding pores.'
Those who came then as her lovers
were small hard-bodied spiders
with dark eyes and an excellent
knowledge of weaving.
They spun her blood into long strands,
and altogether wove millions of red
webs, webs red in the afternoon sun.
'Now', she said, 'Now I am expertly loved,
and now I am beautiful."
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
U-G-L-Y You Ain't Got No Alibi
I've been thinking a lot about ugly. So much of what has attracted me about goth culture is the romanticizing of what is unknown, frightening, or downright unsavory. The older I get, though, the more I am of necessity and by dint of simply surviving coming to embody the Crone. I'm over 35, and my own face frightens me when I encounter it in bright sunlight at, say, eleven in the morning. The ravages of time. My teenaged self prisoned in my chest like Merlin in the tree where the sorceress Nimue put him.
This becomes an issue in photo shoots, too. With all the technology available, I could of course get rid of the eye bags I've got (in which small rodents could happily snuggle for the winter, I assure you--since I've been averaging five hours' sleep a night since I got the puppy). I choose not to. I kind of like them. They are baroque, ornate, puffy, the tarnished color of bruises on bananas. They're mine. They're the map of a life, just as my tattoos are.
Right now I'm choreographing an Alien piece, which is meant to stand for the utter joy a creature feels at being solitary and unobserved, and therefore free. The audience will get the voyeur's pleasure of spying on what a lethal predator does when she's alone and simply puttering around after waking up from a nap.
Look in the mirror. What do you see? Creatures that have their eyes in the front of their head are predators. The title of the piece of music I'm using is "Bathed in Love." I've always thought that the predator/prey relationship is one of love.
What does all this have to do with ugly? Just that I'm freelancing more at home rather than being out in the world, and I'm acutely aware of what a toll the beauty myth takes on my everyday dealings, how such nonsense as framing others' expectations saps my power. When I'm home I don't have to wear makeup, or even clothes. I don't have to bind my breasts so they look perkier.
Reminds me of when I shaved my head, and my mother-in-law asked me why I did it, and I said it was because it's so easy to be pretty, and so much more interesting to find out what's underneath the obligations to delight the eyes of other people.
The root of the word "glamour" is the same as the one for "grammar," and points to the relationship between Logos and spellcraft. The ability to put people under your spell, irrespective of what you look like. Reminds me of some of my favorite lines from Yeats: An aged man is but a paltry thing/a tattered coat upon a stick/unless soul clap its hands and louder sing/for every tatter in its mortal dress.
As youth flees from us, what recourse do we have but to develop the spirit, the mind, the heart, all brimming with the delight of a life richly and exquisitely lived from within, with awareness, plugged into the five (in my case, six) senses?
Who wants to see ugly bellydance? Isn't dance supposed to galvanize the onlooker with its beauty, strength, flexibility? Should all art be beautiful?
The movements I'm thinking of to depict this effort of carving Medusa out of rock where her own gaze has prisoned her has to do with the grace that comes from awkward.
This becomes an issue in photo shoots, too. With all the technology available, I could of course get rid of the eye bags I've got (in which small rodents could happily snuggle for the winter, I assure you--since I've been averaging five hours' sleep a night since I got the puppy). I choose not to. I kind of like them. They are baroque, ornate, puffy, the tarnished color of bruises on bananas. They're mine. They're the map of a life, just as my tattoos are.
Right now I'm choreographing an Alien piece, which is meant to stand for the utter joy a creature feels at being solitary and unobserved, and therefore free. The audience will get the voyeur's pleasure of spying on what a lethal predator does when she's alone and simply puttering around after waking up from a nap.
Look in the mirror. What do you see? Creatures that have their eyes in the front of their head are predators. The title of the piece of music I'm using is "Bathed in Love." I've always thought that the predator/prey relationship is one of love.
What does all this have to do with ugly? Just that I'm freelancing more at home rather than being out in the world, and I'm acutely aware of what a toll the beauty myth takes on my everyday dealings, how such nonsense as framing others' expectations saps my power. When I'm home I don't have to wear makeup, or even clothes. I don't have to bind my breasts so they look perkier.
Reminds me of when I shaved my head, and my mother-in-law asked me why I did it, and I said it was because it's so easy to be pretty, and so much more interesting to find out what's underneath the obligations to delight the eyes of other people.
The root of the word "glamour" is the same as the one for "grammar," and points to the relationship between Logos and spellcraft. The ability to put people under your spell, irrespective of what you look like. Reminds me of some of my favorite lines from Yeats: An aged man is but a paltry thing/a tattered coat upon a stick/unless soul clap its hands and louder sing/for every tatter in its mortal dress.
As youth flees from us, what recourse do we have but to develop the spirit, the mind, the heart, all brimming with the delight of a life richly and exquisitely lived from within, with awareness, plugged into the five (in my case, six) senses?
Who wants to see ugly bellydance? Isn't dance supposed to galvanize the onlooker with its beauty, strength, flexibility? Should all art be beautiful?
The movements I'm thinking of to depict this effort of carving Medusa out of rock where her own gaze has prisoned her has to do with the grace that comes from awkward.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Welcome Deirdre Voodoo!
The Voodoo Sisters would like to welcome Deirdre Voodoo!
An accomplished Turkish and Egyptian-style dancer, Deirdre Voodoo became a friend of the Voodoo Sisters when she became our rubber kidney supplier. It doesn't get much better than that.
See Deirdre and Melissa Voodoo in action in "The Golden Golem," below:
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Shimmy Diet
This is the time of year when weight-loss advertisements--many of them targeted to women--run rampant. Do you make resolutions for the New Year? Is one of the resolutions to drop a few pounds?
I don't make such resolutions anymore. Since I quit smoking nine years ago, I've gained and lost the same thirty pounds about five times until I just resigned myself to a certain easy-to-maintain size, on the advice of my doctor. She said, "If you have to change your whole life to be a size 2, what's the point? Gaining and losing is just as bad for your health as an 'extra' ten or twenty pounds.' "
Then one of my friends gave me an ice cream maker for Yule. I've made olive oil ice cream, which was fabulous, and today I'm going to try peanut butter chocolate caramel ice cream.
All of this adds up to what I'm calling the shimmy diet. Because, seriously? I'm attracted to women with tummies, whose generous curves bespeak a love of the table and all its sensuous promise. It's why I got into bellydance to begin with, to see delicious women shake, rattle, and roll. This is not to say that sylph-like dancers are not beautiful. They are. I simply prefer watching voluptuous women bellydance.
My shimmies are a lot easier during the wintertime, when carbohydrate-rich food ensures you can see my shimmies from space. And that's the way I like it.
If you're going to make a resolution for this new year, make it about health and not about perpetuating the beauty myth that is breaking the back of women's happiness and sexuality. Make this the year of the shimmy!
I don't make such resolutions anymore. Since I quit smoking nine years ago, I've gained and lost the same thirty pounds about five times until I just resigned myself to a certain easy-to-maintain size, on the advice of my doctor. She said, "If you have to change your whole life to be a size 2, what's the point? Gaining and losing is just as bad for your health as an 'extra' ten or twenty pounds.' "
Then one of my friends gave me an ice cream maker for Yule. I've made olive oil ice cream, which was fabulous, and today I'm going to try peanut butter chocolate caramel ice cream.
All of this adds up to what I'm calling the shimmy diet. Because, seriously? I'm attracted to women with tummies, whose generous curves bespeak a love of the table and all its sensuous promise. It's why I got into bellydance to begin with, to see delicious women shake, rattle, and roll. This is not to say that sylph-like dancers are not beautiful. They are. I simply prefer watching voluptuous women bellydance.
My shimmies are a lot easier during the wintertime, when carbohydrate-rich food ensures you can see my shimmies from space. And that's the way I like it.
If you're going to make a resolution for this new year, make it about health and not about perpetuating the beauty myth that is breaking the back of women's happiness and sexuality. Make this the year of the shimmy!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
For Beginner Bellydancers
I've had a ton of beginners asking me about what videos to use if they can't get to a real teacher.
You NEED to take a look at Autumn Ward's new DVD. Buy it direct from her so she makes some money off the project. (No, I get nothing from this. I just know how she teaches-- really, really well.)
http://www.autumnward.com/
-mv
You NEED to take a look at Autumn Ward's new DVD. Buy it direct from her so she makes some money off the project. (No, I get nothing from this. I just know how she teaches-- really, really well.)
http://www.autumnward.com/
-mv
The Voodoo Sisters Make the Bitch List!
Yes, it's true-- the Voodoo Sisters have a mention and a pic in this month's issue of Bitch magazine!
Pick it up on your local newsstand!
-mv
Pick it up on your local newsstand!
-mv
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
