Anusara immersion

I'm in it. Three days a week, three hours a day of level one immersion with Zhenja La Rosa and Dana Covello at Vira. Wow. Wow. Wow. If I were a really dedicated blogger, I'd have virtual reams (or reams of virtual paper) about it on my blog. But I'm not actually that interested in blogging about it right now.

I am, however, loving my introduction to Rajanaka philosophy, loving getting to know this ensemble - kula, etc - with whom I'm practicing on a regular basis, and I do want to post this link:

Natarajasana, full form

beee-aaa-uuu-tiful

something to work on/with

wow.

Play!

Come party with the lovely makers of Play, a journal of plays on Tuesday night, here:

ISSUE THREE LAUNCH PARTY!
June 19, 7-9pm at New Dramatists.
424 W. 44th Street, New York.
Between 9th and 10th Aves.

Downtown playwrights sing their favorite Broadway tunes!
David Greenspan performs along with other guests.
Come toast the new issue featuring plays by Doug Bost, Lisa D'Amour & Katie Pearl, David Greenspan, Cynthia Hopkins, and Liz Meriwether. Plus souvenirs!

Wear black and gold (I don't know why - I'm doing it because Sally told me to and I'll take any excuse to costume)!

ps
American Apparel, while its inventory is virtually exploding with lame right now, does not stock gold lame wristbands. I think a trip to the fabric store may be in order!

6 am bike rides

If my camera were working, I'd have taken pictures. This morning I rode my bike home from a party in Bushwick (I wish I had known how to get to the bridge from where I was, but I was pretty tired, so I took the L into Manhattan).

5:30-6 am + Sunday + 1st Ave = magic

the fools have arrived!

If my camera weren't broken, I'd take a picture of them all sleeping on various surfaces around my house.

foolsFURY has arrived in NY and I am thrilled to play host to some of San Francisco's loveliest people and finest performers.

Please go see foolsFURY's The Devil on All Sides, opening next week at PS 122.

". . . dramatizes the inhumanity of war with stunning eloquence"
- San Francisco Chronicle

"One of the brightest stars of San Francisco's experimental theater scene"
- San Francisco Arts Monthly

A haunting love story unfolds as a Christian falls in love with a Muslim during the war in ex-Yugoslavia.

When it premiered France (2003), Le Diable en Partage was named both "Best French Play of the year" and "Theatrical Discovery of the year" by the National Critics' Syndicate. foolsfury delivers the first U.S. production of a play by fabrice melquiot, one of the most celebrated contemporary French playwrights and winner of the prestigious Prix Jean-Jacques Gauthier from Le Figaro. A spellbinding spectacle, it is a unique and startling collision of the troupe's trademark vibrant physical style and the text's remarkable blend of expressionism, poetry, fantasy, and harsh, raw reality.

Featuring: Debórah Eliezer, Stephen Jacob, Brian Livingston, Ryan O'Donnell, Nora El Samahy*, Joseph William Estlack.

This project is produced in conjunction with Alliance Française and the Cultural services of the French Consulate, and supported by significant funding from The Creative Work Fund, Etants Donnés (the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts).

* Appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity; AEA Approved Showcase

Photo credit: Wendy K Yalom
June 13 - July 1
Preview: Tuesday, June 12, at 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday - Sunday at 8:30 p.m.
$18, $15 Students, Seniors
($10 Members)

"American Theater's Failure of Nerve"

Thanks, Malachy, for drawing my attention to this article in the LA Weekly.

Enrique, when are we going to produce DBB? It doesn't seem worth the wait for anyone else ('specially not the bigguns) to do it.

Hunter Reunion Part 1

This weekend is the 10 year anniversary of my graduation from Hunter College High School. click here for the most lackluster website ever (okay, maybe not ever, but it's definitely a competitive candidate)

Tonight there was a "Young Alumni" event, which I would have ignored entirely had Janak not invited me directly. Janak is among the handful of people from my high school with whom I am currently friends. I say currently for several reasons, one of them being that we weren't actually friends at all in high school.

The event was at a bar near my house, one I would never have entered of my own accord because, like nearly every other bar in my neighborhood, it's a loud, tacky establishment full of inebriated young wall street denizens. (Bonus: someone called the cops after the bar staff attempted, repeatedly and to no avail, to chuck a drunk and belligerent woman into the street).

Anyway, long story short: I sat for several hours (facilitated in part by the fact that Frank and I missed the performance of Theatre By The Blind's production of THE RULES OF CHARITY by John Belluso due to a series of farcical mishaps) with a group of men, the majority of whom I haven't seen in 10 years, and found the entire experience utterly fascinating. I didn't recognize a couple of them at first and several were people with whom I barely exchanged two words during our entire high school careers.

On the way home I marveled at the following things:

1) We've all turned out to be pretty different people, but there's a strong feeling of kinship.

2) These people are outstandingly reflective and articulate.

3) One of them knows one of my close childhood friends (Jesse, a musicologist currently in Boston, soon to be in the Bay Area - you should all meet him and his wife, Daphna!) and is about to start a PhD in musicology. We talked ourselves in circles about audiences, tempo, values, aesthetics, and intuitions...

4) Rachel - it's too bad we didn't know that Jason O. has been living in Tokyo for the last 5 years. He'll only be there for a few more months, but you two would have a great time chatting.

5) Rachel - I really miss you.

The official reunion is tomorrow.