The returned vibration
is a familiar flag
embossed with details edited
onto yesterday's framework
by diminishing prior birth.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Alexander McQueen
The work of Alexander Mcqueen is nothing short of an experience with righteous art. I have never owned one of his designs, but I can certainly say that I was and will continue to be provoked and inspired by his innovation and fearless silhouette.
Long Live McQueen, in this week's NY magazine.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
TOMORROW!!!
"...my life was recycled, my hope was renewed."
When Nature Calls
written by Josefina Lopez
Direction by Erica Cardwell
Choreography by Miriam Wasmund
Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 7pm
February 11-21
Get your tickets, here.
For more information, please visit The Impulse Initiative.
Friday, February 5, 2010
When Nature Calls
As a kid, I climbed a lot of trees. I can remember jumping to reach branches, tearing skin and clothing, and swinging up to the highest point of safety. There were times when my branch would give and release little me squirming like a fish on shore, laughing undiscouraged amongst the roots. Without hesitation, I would stand up and return to the tree to find a new place to sit.
Unfortunately the last time I climbed a tree was almost 15 years ago.
I can regard those moments as hallowed and secretive places of “outdoor worship” and consistency. Rehearsals with my all female ensemble mirrored this-- warm and smiling places of gratitude in anticipation of hard and collaborative work. I enjoyed watching these women with varying faces, backgrounds, names, and footsteps give to the movement and words through different languages. I felt welcomed by the separate awareness each performer gifted me with. Our cultural connection lies in our womanhood—our frailties, secrets, and lusts. These were our moments of silent prayer--places where we are held accountable for our beliefs.
Our text spoke of imagination and personal vision, therefore my research and inspiration primarily surrounded imagery. I explored the earnest work of contemporary and historical Latina performance artists like Astrid Hadad and Regina Jose Galindo; the melodrama and epic caricature within Pedro Almodovar’s storytelling; and the ethereal bedtime stories of winged messengers and dead giants by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This shaped itself into a specific “deity” within collaboration—aggressive, sensitive, dark, and mythic.
Through this work I found myself redefining the oxygen that nature and its trees can provide. A unique nature that varied according to character yet is founded in us all. Oxygen and breath that is too often lost, yet somehow maintained in the life of women.
Thus, validating our need for excess and clarity within irrationality.
By revisiting my tree climbing days, I am able to discover my own nature by returning to my roots.
Where do you worship?
Purchase your tickets for When Nature Calls, here.
Unfortunately the last time I climbed a tree was almost 15 years ago.
I can regard those moments as hallowed and secretive places of “outdoor worship” and consistency. Rehearsals with my all female ensemble mirrored this-- warm and smiling places of gratitude in anticipation of hard and collaborative work. I enjoyed watching these women with varying faces, backgrounds, names, and footsteps give to the movement and words through different languages. I felt welcomed by the separate awareness each performer gifted me with. Our cultural connection lies in our womanhood—our frailties, secrets, and lusts. These were our moments of silent prayer--places where we are held accountable for our beliefs.
Our text spoke of imagination and personal vision, therefore my research and inspiration primarily surrounded imagery. I explored the earnest work of contemporary and historical Latina performance artists like Astrid Hadad and Regina Jose Galindo; the melodrama and epic caricature within Pedro Almodovar’s storytelling; and the ethereal bedtime stories of winged messengers and dead giants by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This shaped itself into a specific “deity” within collaboration—aggressive, sensitive, dark, and mythic.
Through this work I found myself redefining the oxygen that nature and its trees can provide. A unique nature that varied according to character yet is founded in us all. Oxygen and breath that is too often lost, yet somehow maintained in the life of women.
Thus, validating our need for excess and clarity within irrationality.
By revisiting my tree climbing days, I am able to discover my own nature by returning to my roots.
Where do you worship?
Purchase your tickets for When Nature Calls, here.
Monday, February 1, 2010
We open in 10 days!!
The NY premiere of Josefina Lopez's
When Nature Calls at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
February 11-21
7pm
Purchase tickets, here.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
PARIS
(excerpt from vagabond:burning shoulders)
It was three years ago. My first trip to Paris without my family. It had been ten years. At 25, I was in young love, completed with rounded cheeks and a defensive drinking habit. My French was almost nonexistent as I was gladly preoccupied by my lover and letting him order my lunch and guide me around the somehow familiar city. I didn’t own a watch and my cell phone had no signal, so I rarely knew what time it was. And, I was secretly nearing the end of my Euro but absolutely LIVING with passion and without a map.
After my recent visit in the summer of 2009, I exited the city as a lonesome traveler with a specific knowledge of the city, and longing to be stranded there. I felt reunited with the anonymity that I originally encountered when I first arrived in New York. Maybe that is why young people can be so loud and attention hungry on the subway in my traumatic city. City life can be exciting and volatile for teenage eyes. Little hungry apes needing nameless shock value. Suddenly, those familiar feelings had returned for another city. After leaving last August, I felt like I had just spent an extended period of quiet time with an old friend. Those four days possessed the nuance of “first times” but also the familiarity of bookmarked friendships. Revisiting Paris’s romantic grandeur and creating my new, soft and lonely memories was extremely satisfying. A surprise considering my usual feeling is that of a mournful goodbye. It is nice to not only hope for and imagine a return to magic, but to experience it and watch its tricks. I liked tiptoeing around alone and asking strangers to take my picture. All of my journeys are completed by a moment of quiet time with myself. And, now I leave at the beginning.
I have discovered my Paris.
I think I am experiencing sincere possibility--like a gift for my hard work. My ambition.
I don’t usually like feeling like a visitor. Or I don't allow myself to. My fun began when I changed that. This makes me happy, when I let my evasive guard down and let this feeling guide me. The cab driver said on the way to my long bus ride to Barcelona that, “Sometimes time is more important than money.”
I stayed with new and cherished friends, Ikue and Lorenzo in the Paris’s Chinatown. To show my gratitude for a warm bed, friendly times, and their homemade blackberry preserves, I took the loving couple out to Chinese food. They enlightened me on the Parisian version of the “new” New York hipster - bobos. Bohemian Bourgeouis.
After dinner they took to me to a Canal where young people bring bottles of wine and stare into one another's eyes. While we were taking pictures a man excitedly ran across the street to enjoy his wine and tripped over a low chain barrier, shattering the bottle and injuring his knee on the cement sidewalk. The bottle dramatically displayed wine on the ground, almost admonishing his impulsiveness with its mark.
On my second day in Paris I ate a piece of plastic. Hard plastic that’s probably still lodged in my throat as I write this. It was deep within an apricot pastry I purchased on the Champs Elysees. That morning I had grabbed a dry pastry out of starvation near the Belleville train station before I jumped on the Metro. Then I purchased a bright nectarine at Chatelet and ate it as I walked towards the Musee d’Orsay bypassing the Louvre this time around. It was a gorgeous day, jam packed with tourists and families posing in front of the Louvre’s expansive majesty. The day felt endless influencing my thoughts on time and clocks. On this trip, I gained some sense and decided to carry a map, something that is truly hilarious for people that know me. I can go with the flow to a fault. And people watching in Paris is way more enjoyable than in New York, I can almost predict what people will say, wear. Now I want to impersonate looks, attitudes, strides.
I grabbed lunch in the Jardin du Tuilleries, possibly the first time I’d sat down and had a meal at a restaurant in over a month. Also rather unlike me…I have the tendency to treat myself to a "sacred meal" every once in awhile. As I ate, I do recall that being the exact moment that I decided to leave Europe in August. My journey would not be prolonged. Somehow the contentment in that moment, pacified all that I needed and I began to have confirming thoughts about my departure. These thoughts were slowly becoming concrete in Berlin. I was beginning to taste homesickness and at that moment, concerning my life, the decision to leave was heroic. Then I ventured down the Champs Elysees and chomped down on plastic. More confirmation, maybe?
As I walked, I experienced a bout of loneliness so powerful that I almost keeled over and wept in front of all of the families. I had to sit down and orient myself. I wanted someone with me, right at that moment.
After the Arc du Triomphe, I decided to return to Notre Dame. It is a place that I have visited with two great loves, my mother and my Frenchman of times past. After initially taking the train in the wrong direction, I made it. I walked and walked, passing the Hotel de Ville where an outdoor concert was happening with lots of friends and loved ones gathered –laughing and embracing. And then I crossed the Pont Nuoef and walked a bit to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and found the spot. The spot where I took my favorite photo of my sweetheart from almost three years prior. The photo never really came out, but the warmth from the memory is unique and shared by another. Imagery is such, that some of our most treasured moments are blurry--never fully developed, possibly unfinished.
It was three years ago. My first trip to Paris without my family. It had been ten years. At 25, I was in young love, completed with rounded cheeks and a defensive drinking habit. My French was almost nonexistent as I was gladly preoccupied by my lover and letting him order my lunch and guide me around the somehow familiar city. I didn’t own a watch and my cell phone had no signal, so I rarely knew what time it was. And, I was secretly nearing the end of my Euro but absolutely LIVING with passion and without a map.
After my recent visit in the summer of 2009, I exited the city as a lonesome traveler with a specific knowledge of the city, and longing to be stranded there. I felt reunited with the anonymity that I originally encountered when I first arrived in New York. Maybe that is why young people can be so loud and attention hungry on the subway in my traumatic city. City life can be exciting and volatile for teenage eyes. Little hungry apes needing nameless shock value. Suddenly, those familiar feelings had returned for another city. After leaving last August, I felt like I had just spent an extended period of quiet time with an old friend. Those four days possessed the nuance of “first times” but also the familiarity of bookmarked friendships. Revisiting Paris’s romantic grandeur and creating my new, soft and lonely memories was extremely satisfying. A surprise considering my usual feeling is that of a mournful goodbye. It is nice to not only hope for and imagine a return to magic, but to experience it and watch its tricks. I liked tiptoeing around alone and asking strangers to take my picture. All of my journeys are completed by a moment of quiet time with myself. And, now I leave at the beginning.
I have discovered my Paris.
I think I am experiencing sincere possibility--like a gift for my hard work. My ambition.
I don’t usually like feeling like a visitor. Or I don't allow myself to. My fun began when I changed that. This makes me happy, when I let my evasive guard down and let this feeling guide me. The cab driver said on the way to my long bus ride to Barcelona that, “Sometimes time is more important than money.”
I stayed with new and cherished friends, Ikue and Lorenzo in the Paris’s Chinatown. To show my gratitude for a warm bed, friendly times, and their homemade blackberry preserves, I took the loving couple out to Chinese food. They enlightened me on the Parisian version of the “new” New York hipster - bobos. Bohemian Bourgeouis.
After dinner they took to me to a Canal where young people bring bottles of wine and stare into one another's eyes. While we were taking pictures a man excitedly ran across the street to enjoy his wine and tripped over a low chain barrier, shattering the bottle and injuring his knee on the cement sidewalk. The bottle dramatically displayed wine on the ground, almost admonishing his impulsiveness with its mark.
On my second day in Paris I ate a piece of plastic. Hard plastic that’s probably still lodged in my throat as I write this. It was deep within an apricot pastry I purchased on the Champs Elysees. That morning I had grabbed a dry pastry out of starvation near the Belleville train station before I jumped on the Metro. Then I purchased a bright nectarine at Chatelet and ate it as I walked towards the Musee d’Orsay bypassing the Louvre this time around. It was a gorgeous day, jam packed with tourists and families posing in front of the Louvre’s expansive majesty. The day felt endless influencing my thoughts on time and clocks. On this trip, I gained some sense and decided to carry a map, something that is truly hilarious for people that know me. I can go with the flow to a fault. And people watching in Paris is way more enjoyable than in New York, I can almost predict what people will say, wear. Now I want to impersonate looks, attitudes, strides.
I grabbed lunch in the Jardin du Tuilleries, possibly the first time I’d sat down and had a meal at a restaurant in over a month. Also rather unlike me…I have the tendency to treat myself to a "sacred meal" every once in awhile. As I ate, I do recall that being the exact moment that I decided to leave Europe in August. My journey would not be prolonged. Somehow the contentment in that moment, pacified all that I needed and I began to have confirming thoughts about my departure. These thoughts were slowly becoming concrete in Berlin. I was beginning to taste homesickness and at that moment, concerning my life, the decision to leave was heroic. Then I ventured down the Champs Elysees and chomped down on plastic. More confirmation, maybe?
As I walked, I experienced a bout of loneliness so powerful that I almost keeled over and wept in front of all of the families. I had to sit down and orient myself. I wanted someone with me, right at that moment.
After the Arc du Triomphe, I decided to return to Notre Dame. It is a place that I have visited with two great loves, my mother and my Frenchman of times past. After initially taking the train in the wrong direction, I made it. I walked and walked, passing the Hotel de Ville where an outdoor concert was happening with lots of friends and loved ones gathered –laughing and embracing. And then I crossed the Pont Nuoef and walked a bit to Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and found the spot. The spot where I took my favorite photo of my sweetheart from almost three years prior. The photo never really came out, but the warmth from the memory is unique and shared by another. Imagery is such, that some of our most treasured moments are blurry--never fully developed, possibly unfinished.
 |
| From PARIS 2009 |
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
melodrama
Today felt like the longest day of my life. Obviously it wasn't, considering I've lived through worse, but it is almost feels as if I can't hold my head up.
I have reacted and victimized coworkers and friends based on my bad mood. This isn't me.
Antithetical reactions from everyone; sassy and entitled customers who have never served in any capacity in their lives (customer service, restaurant work, volunteer work, or otherwise); and, simply, work that I just can't physically handle anymore.
And, my body is telling me. I feel aged just by the habits I keep. Therefore, it's not just my heart-brain, but physically I am beat down.
I don't want to hate my life. I don't want to pick someone to murder with words because I CAN.
And I trust the stars. More than I trust myself. I base my days on what my horoscope says and then I plunge headfirst into circumstances that my horoscope revealead. I feel as if i need something to believe in, although I do feel that I do believe in a lot of transcendent experience. I do feel created...but I don't feel that I can create within these circumstances.
Tell me not to lower my standards.
Need a break.
I have reacted and victimized coworkers and friends based on my bad mood. This isn't me.
Antithetical reactions from everyone; sassy and entitled customers who have never served in any capacity in their lives (customer service, restaurant work, volunteer work, or otherwise); and, simply, work that I just can't physically handle anymore.
And, my body is telling me. I feel aged just by the habits I keep. Therefore, it's not just my heart-brain, but physically I am beat down.
I don't want to hate my life. I don't want to pick someone to murder with words because I CAN.
And I trust the stars. More than I trust myself. I base my days on what my horoscope says and then I plunge headfirst into circumstances that my horoscope revealead. I feel as if i need something to believe in, although I do feel that I do believe in a lot of transcendent experience. I do feel created...but I don't feel that I can create within these circumstances.
Tell me not to lower my standards.
Need a break.
Friday, November 6, 2009
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