Following Alexis

Fall Adjudication

alexisdelsol — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:53:51 +0000

WORK IN PROGRESS - choreography by Maree Remalia

So for those of you that know me, you know that I am not a super playful person. I sometimes take life a little too seriously; stress and worry way too much. Working on pieces like this gives me the license to play judgment free. In this picture – yes I am wearing a crown, throwing candy on the stage for other dancers to scramble, gather and throw the candy back into my bucket.

At the adjudication audition, choreographers who are interested in presenting work and participating in the Winter Concert, ACDFA, DANCEWAVE’s Kids Cafe and an artists exchange program with Movement Research. I worked with Besty Miller-Romo and Maree Remalia on choreography they presented. This was my first time “performing” on the Sullivant Theater stage and getting used to the “guts” of a different stage space takes a little time. I saw a lot of quality work being shown – I feel inspired everyday by the people I work with. I’m so lucky to be here.

Fall Quarter Informance

alexisdelsol — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:12:32 +0000

At the end of every quarter, the dance department hosts an informal showing. Dance classes show of the phrases they have learned in class and composition students present some of their studies and/or works in progress. I presented a piece that I had worked on in my Dance Theater class. It is the next step of working my audition solo into a full group piece. The people that have humored me with their skills are: Abby Zbikowski, Amanda Byars, Meredith Hurst, Eric Nordstrom, Arianna Williams and Maungsai Somboon.

MAREE

alexisdelsol — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:00:48 +0000

Saturday, November 14^th was a busy day. Despite the fact that we had tech rehearsal from 3- 5pm at BoMA, call at 8:30pm and of course, shoulder injuries, big papers due on Tuesday that no one really started – we found time for Maree Remalia. Maree is in my Dance Theater class. She is a brilliant performer and I adore her choreographic approach. That Saturday, Abby Zbikowski, Fiona Lundie, Eric Nordstrom, Rashana Smith and myself rolled into the studio ready to do whatever Maree asked. She bribed us with Twizlers. Our assignment here was to experiment with raising your arms and/or other arm gestures, looking in different directions and just saying whatever is on your mind.

BoMA Performance

alexisdelsol — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:08:07 +0000

On November 11^th, Robert Wechsler, artistic director of Palindrome presented a master class to my Dance and Technology class. Palindrome is an intermedia performance group based in Germany and New York City. It is recognized for its use of bio-sensors and motion tracking technology, which enables dancers to control music, sound, and video and lighting projections through their movements. We had the privilege to improvise and play in the studio set up for this type of technology. In sixty minutes, Mr. Wechsler and 8 students put together a 10 minute piece that was included in AUTOMATION II presentation through The Fuse Factory Electronic and Digital Arts Lab at BoMA.

Photography courtesy of Debbie Rosenfeld

What’s a QFI?

alexisdelsol — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:02:50 +0000

When I realized how long I would be off from school in December, I decided that I was going to be bored and I should find a way to be efficient with my time. Several things resonated rather deeply during my first few weeks of school. (1) A lot of my fellow students have seen a lot more historic dances than I have. The New York Public Library has a huge wing dedicated to the documentation of dance – which is about an hour away from my mom’s house, where I will be staying in December. (2) I am loving dancing everyday. I think I should continue dancing everyday while I am home. Again, my mom lives a little over an hour away from my favorite teachers and studios.

So I applied for a Quarterly Fund Initiative grant that is supported by the University to help students fund: travel to conferences, project support, membership dues to professional organizations, or summer festival tuition. I was awarded the this grant! So for the month of December I will be taking lots of class and going to see all kinds of shows all over the city. Merry Christmas! Except knee socks, what else could I possibly ask Santa for?

Dancing with Esther

alexisdelsol — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:21:41 +0000

Every dancer in the department that is interested in performing in any performance throughout year attend must attend a two-day-long audition during the first week of school. Thankfully, I was asked to perform for Olivier Tarpaga at the Drums Downtown performance in February and for Esther Baker-Tarpaga at Dance Downtown in May. Fifteen dancers have been working on Esther’s piece twice a week since the beginning of the year. As part of Esther’s process, we have been asked to make several studies. Ugly phrases, beautiful solos, angry/violent solos and funny duets just to name a few. Below is a picture of us in rehearsal.

Thumbnail

alexisdelsol — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:33:59 +0000

This a clip of me rehearsing my OSU audition solo at Harmony Pilates in Hoboken, NJ AND fading into my actual audition footage. I have decided that I would like to develop this dance into a group piece for the Spring Concert. I hate my big butt. It seriously feels like a little person that follows me everywhere. I have moments where I can embrace it (salsa dancing) but most of the time hating it because it makes me stand out. The piece is about how the dance world is notorious for trying to make dancers be people they are not. The song is “I Gotta be Me” by Sammy Davis, Jr. Its about time that I start being “thankful for being different”. Thanks, Dante.

Dance for the Camera

alexisdelsol — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:12:05 +0000

Lindsay LaPointe is a 3rd year grad student in the dance department. She is also the person that was kind enough to let me stay at her house during my audition in January. Lindsay’s final project is creating a dance for the camera entitled, “OVERSIZED”. This is a unique and creative way of choreographing. Tools that would not work for stage performance work for the camera and vice versa. You can cut and paste, edit and change music without driving your dancers crazy. There are 4 segments to this film: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Each is filmed at location where an oversized sculpture is available for dancing on and around. I was asked to dance in “BASKET”. Here we are dancing around an oversized basket of apples. We spent the day at an outdoor mall dodging shoppers and tourists and dancing around this big basket. Lucky for me the piped in mall music was all football tunes. For the first and possibly the last time, I danced to the theme for Monday Night Football. Welcome to Ohio.

60×60 Dance Collective

alexisdelsol — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:35:41 +0000

On October 3, 2009 I presented two pieces at the 60×60 Collaboration at Wall Street Night Club in Columbus, OH. This performance is a collaboration of 60 choreographic works from 60 different composers. Each pieces is 60 seconds long. The music is assigned to the choreographers. We do not get to choose.

These were my assignments:

http://audio.60×365.com/60x60_2009/29.mp3 – track 29
http://audio.60×365.com/60x60_2009/59.mp3 – track 59

Three wonderful, creative, talented and PATIENT women lent their time to be in one of my dances. Thank you to Amanda Byars, Fiona Lundie and Abby Zbikowski. Instead of doing homework, sleeping or eating (three things which have become of monumental importance to me) they chose to make a dance with me in half an hour.

Tables and bar stools circled the dance floor/performance space. Some choreographers chose to have their dancers dance on tables, behind the main performance space and up high on a tiny performance space over the bar. Below, please see the final products.

Finding Your Way Around

alexisdelsol — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:19:12 +0000

So you have a lot of courage for taking another step deeper into the mind of Alexis del Sol. Your blog tour starts here… My writing skills are under tremendous scrutiny while writing papers for my classes. So English teachers and NBC producers leave your red pen at the door. I am using this blog as an opportunity to let my hair down and be a little free with my grammar.

Here we go. We’re walking.. we’re walking… we are stopped at “About”. Here you will find out why I have decided to start this blog – aside from the fact it was an assignment for school. Next we are finding our way to the next link, “The Hypothesis”. This page is the personal statement from my application. Already, I am gritting my teeth while reading it, as there is so much I would like to change. But I would like to keep it here to reference back and forth and follow my own journey. I invite you to do the same. Finally we come to “The Results“. This is where you will buckle your seat belt and start the adventure. All of my blog entries will be posted here. If you click on the entry itself you can open it into a bigger version.

Thank you so much for your interest and willingness to join me in my experiment. Your interest and comments are an enormous source of support.