lotus flower

Wayne McGregor of Random Dance choreographed Radiohead's "Lotus Flower" of their new album "The King of Limbs". Enjoy this piece of marvel:

Radiohead - Lotus Flower von h0nki

thought of you

It's saturday, it's cartoon day!

Today's cartoon is an old-school 2D style one, by Ryan Woodward, titled "Thought of You". Enjoy:

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

The song is "World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies. Here's a behind the scenes, documenting the collaboration with modern dancers and choreographers.

via @fALk_g

two

French dancer Sylvie Guillem in one of the four parts of the fascinating "Push" ("Two", "Solo", "Shift", "Push").

outside

I have recently watched a wonderful 15-minute documentary about Beijing and aspects of the life of its people, titled "Outside". The director, Sérgio Cruz, explains:

"In China, culture and the arts are very closely linked to people and their lives. The street life in Beijing is a 24-hour live show full of music, dance and sports. Over a period of month residence time (September 2007), I was observing Chinese life, collecting 'road images', documenting quotidian performances (...)"

But this beautiful piece of film, that portrays the fast-paced and busy life in the noisy and continually changing city, paradoxically manages to achieve a wonderful, tranquil effect by avoiding speech, creating beautiful transitions and using an overall slow pacing.

In my view, the film doesn not necessarily focus on the city itself or people's actions (be they dancing, performing or excercising) but rather on the context of these. And he manages to give the Western eye a glimpse of the interdependency and -connectedness of people in a collectivistic cultural frame.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

100 to watch

100 to watch - Directory of Contemporary Romanian Artists

"The creative scene in Romania is one of the most vibrant and exciting in Europe. This directory was put together to illustrate what makes it so special. A listing of 100 of the most talented artists in Romania today, from conceptual art to contemporary dance, literature and theatre to music and fashion, it’s a snapshot of an entire generation – the Romanian New Wave. Every single artist between these pages is part of the reason why Romania is such an exciting place to be right now. It’s indicative of just how much talent there is in the Romanian New Wave." via please hide

polysics

Polysics are are a punk-synth-pop band (let's call it new wave) from Tokyo and they describe their style as "technicolor pogo punk" (whatever that might be, I have always hated all these labels). They are known for their flashy style and performances, as well as for their crazy videos.

Check out one of my favourite videos for the song "I My Me Mine", performed by animation dancer Mao Murakami, who often teams up with her dad for performances and use the stage name Strong Machine.

the art of popping

Meet "U-Min": a group pf Japanese poppers. Unfortunatelly they have disbanded, but not before leaving a couple of nice performances and videos of them to inspire other generations. Their style is called Japanese animation dance, and one of the best forms of locking.

entity

Wayne McGregor's latest work, Entity, explores the connection between the brain and movement.

Check out McGregor's "Random Dance" website.

Entity is the latest in a series of choreographic inquiries into the relationship between the brain and the moving body - a project which has led McGregor to work with psychologists, neuroscientists and software engineers. The piece is born of his preoccupation with the idea of 'an artificially intelligent choreographic entity' - a piece of software which can 'think' for itself and help generate movement. The relationship between this research and the performance on stage is an abstract one, but the production is studded with visual markers which define the territory.