Dancing Geek

So it’s Day 3 of my thing with no name and I’ve tried something a bit less obvious today.  I wanted to try using my webcam rather than my camcorder (just because I could, and because my geek side wanted to get it working under Ubuntu, which I managed by the way, but not before something like 5am.  Bleurgh, I am so over all-nighters, I don’t care if that makes me ‘old’).

There’s an idea floating around in my head (source unknown) that more constraints can lead to greater creativity.  So I decided to sit down and started playing with movement.  After trying a few things along the usual lines it just didn’t work so I started to try playing with the webcam format a bit more and came up with a mini-dance that isn’t necessarily what I’d think of first when I hear the word dance, but decided that as a work in 12 seconds (the brevity being part of the constraints and part of the attraction to my scanner brain) it could stand on its own quite happily.

Tomorrow’s?  I have no idea, I am not planning these.  I’m working on lots of my stuff by doing these.  Putting myself out there as a dancer/choreographer/internet bod/video guy, not worrying about getting it perfect, doing a little bit everyday to build momentum.  There’s probably other stuff too, but that’s all that comes to mind at 1.11 am.

My medi-journaling thing this morning?  It went well thank you (I did it again, which is  cause for celebration in itself, and yes I celebrate it by writing it in my little book of ‘Awesome things I did today becuase I’m awesome’) and was oddly quick (just 11 emotions today).  Not sure if that’s due to lack of sleep (had to get up to meet family after my geek out last night) or because I needed food first thing and then played the piano for a bit before sitting down to do my morning practice thing.  It could just be because I’m pretty calm at the moment, but where’s the drama and hypothesising and blame in that, eh?  Oh wait, are they maybe not such a good thing?

A change in plans

I had a fresh start to the week this morning. I rose early (read ‘normal’ hours for most people) and have spent the day in a generally nurturing, productive way. I spent a couple of hours this lunch time working with Havi’s Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic with the full intention of writing all about it and sharing the process with you all. However, it turned out that I went deep. Very deep. Just-looking-at-my-notes-makes-me-feel-kinda-queasy deep. So there’s been a change of plans and instead I’d like to share a different side with you that I haven’t really blogged about before.

The dancing geek likes dance

Shocking news I can imagine, but since I hardly ever write about dance I realised that I wanted to change that and had this video tucked away as a talking point. Well now seems like as good a time as any to bring it out.

This is the kind of dancing that I aspire to. The strength and physical grit required to pull off this with such an air of ease and grace is awe inducing. And to get me to gush about dance is *very* difficult; I’m a fussy dance spectator.

So, after the world’s longest introduction, allow me to give you Pilobolus’ performance at the fascinating TED conference.

Pilobolus

Awe. Magnificence. Beautiful. Power. Gentility. Synergy. Connection.

14:31 long and worth every second.