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On Friday, I took the train to Manhattan and met Emma at Grand Central. We walked over to Rockefeller Plaza, I wanted to see the big balloon ballerina by Jeff Koons. And then, we had dinner at Bar Bacon in Hell’s Kitchen. We haven’t spent time together since January and a lot have happened for the both of us. So nice to catch up with my friend.

At 8 it was time to see Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at Lincoln Center. I’ve never seen them on stage before so I was excited. The first out of three pieces was “Deep”. Lots of wonderful movements, I really enjoyed it. I did not care that much about the music though, part because it didn’t fit with what they were doing. 

The second piece, “Walking Mad”, was by Swedish Johan Inger, one of my favorite choreographers. I loved every second of it. It had an odd shift in feeling though. If it had been a full evening length piece instead of 25 minutes, maybe it had made more sense. It started off with laughter from the audience and ended extremely sad. But it was still great. And “Bolero” is music I enjoy. 

The third piece, “Revelations”, made me feel like I was in church the whole time. E had seen it once before. I liked the dance and the music was good. The last dance was super happy and got the audience in a good mood. After the applause they did the last dance again. E and I left when the second applause started. I wasn’t gonna make it to the train though, so we went for a walk down to the Times Square area. So. Much. People! Once we had left that area I got the same feeling of the city that I had my first summer in NYC. I love walking down Fifth Ave at night. 

I was back in Stamford after midnight and luckily my husband came to picked me up so I didn’t have to walk home. After an awesome afternoon/night in the city with Emma, I slept like a little baby:)

Good morning! 

Before we moved, I did a photoshoot with myself on our rooftop. After some photos, it felt good to just dance around. So above is an improvisation that I did that day in March.

My videos are usually not with music, because they keep getting deleted for copyright reasons. I respect that, but maybe it’s a bit boring for you guys? Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. However, when I improvise on different places, there’s normally no music that I dance to. I make up rhythms and create music on my own inside my head, but that’s not something you can hear of course:) 

Btw, tomorrow it’s my blogs 10 year anniversary! For the past years, I have not put much energy on my blog and I’m sorry about that. But I don’t want to give it up, because blogging can be really fun. I want to make some changes on the website and from now on put more focus on it. If you have any suggestions, thoughts, ideas, requests or whatever it might be, please comment on this post or send me an email, thisisfanny@gmail.com. 

Have a wonderful day!

/Let the video load fully before watching/

I finally went to a Martha Graham Dance Company performance!

Quality in dance performances is unfortunately not something I see that often anymore. To see this company in person was amazing. Dancers are so precise, choreographies are so well planned and the audience gets to go on a journey. This is what I love.

I went to see Program B, but last night they changed two of the four pieces. I don’t know the other pieces so I don’t care, I had just picked the evening that was best in my calendar. Anyway. The first piece, Primitive Mysteries, was an original from 1931. Very Graham. After first act out of three, a man behind me was snoring. If you’re not a dancer yourself and you don’t do your research on what the company does, then it might be hard to watch. But I thought it was great. A little long and not much going on, but the fact that this premiered in the 30s made it awesome. 
The second piece, Diversions of Angels, felt, in my opinion, a little confusing. It was an old piece as well, from 1948. The dancers where having all sort of facial expressions which distracted the piece. The movements made it very clear on the story, but two-three dancers confused me a lot. Overly happy and really angry expressions at the same time on stage. I don’t think it was supposed to be like that….? 
After the intermission they had a solo, Ekstasis (re-imagined from a piece from 1933). Omg, I loved this! The dancer, the same woman who had the main roll in the first piece, was so satisfying to watch. There was something with her and with the movements, which was awesome too, made the piece so enjoyable to watch and gave me lots of inspiration. 
The last piece, Mosaic, is brand new (premiere Feb 15, 2017). Very different from the other three pieces. More of what you see on stages these days. Lots of movements, plenty of things going on at the same time, fast and slow, details and flexible, strong bodies. Everything that I enjoy choreographing myself. These dancers can really dance. It’s wonderful to see amazing dancers on stage. 

I walked out of Joyce Theater feeling really inspired.