My husband's art (4)

Jan

For more on what this image is, how it was made, and why I love it, go here. 
Click on the image to see it in bright detail.

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My husband's art (2)

Jan

Lana and Tirsa
Lana

You know how it is when you wait and wait and wait to share a (good) secret?  That's how I always feel when I'm waiting to showcase my husband's art on my humble blog. I was able to release this image not long ago.  Today I can share more.

This work is months in the making.  It all began with a photo shoot at DanceSport Academy and features our talented, beautiful friends—Jan, Lana, Scott, Tirsa—whom Bill photographed against a green background.  Everything else in these images—the furniture, the hats, the mannequins, the cloth, that pair of legs—was fashioned with a variety of 3D software tools, about which I know nothing.

I just know that I'm amazed, all the time, by what Bill does.

Click on the image to see it in bright detail. 

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these things happened (all in one day)

1. The masterful movie star slash ballroom dancer slash teacher Jan Paulovich said my cha-cha wasn't all bad.

2. I only nearly lost one toe nail when doing a particularly tricky tango move several times in a row, poorly.

3. My kid got an A on his ballroom dance midterm at his university (yes, it is his sixth course, don't you fear).

That's enough in one day for me.

But that was yesterday.  I struggle to think of ways that I can transcend that degree of excitement today.

The day is young.  I shall go forth.

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outtakes from the Dancesport photo shoot

Still pale faced, dull eyed, and wobbly on too-tall shoes, I accompanied my husband to the dance studio this afternoon, where he assembled the green curtain, put together the lights, linked his laptop to his camera, and began shooting a series of images he'll be using for an upcoming project.  (Stay tuned for more; it's exciting.)

With my camera tethered to nothing and with the available light not so much (given that we'd blackened the key windows), I took a few shots as the action got under way.  I was the old, flu-inflicted woman surrounded by so much youth and beauty.

But look at this youth and beauty.

Here, then, some moments from the day:  Introducing (again) the magnificent Tirsa Rivas, Scott Lazarov, Jan Paulovich and Lana Roosiparg.

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the week that was; my son is coming home; and the last chance to sign up for Teen Day!

Only lately (it feels like months ago) I was rambling on, on this very blog, about the importance I have given over to sleep.  My desire to be healthier.  My wish for less freighted, angsted days.

Well, there's only so much one can do when a flu takes over, and by Wednesday afternoon I was under the Mean Bug's spell.  You know how it is—you can't breathe, you can't talk, and you can't go to Zumba.  You can't even learn the jive kick with Jan.  Strangely (a sure sign of grave illness) you don't want chocolate.  (What?  No chocolate?, all right, all right, I'll have a piece of chocolate.)  You just sit, and as you sit, things pile up.

Creakily, barely, things still got done—a 1,000-word review of a complex book, the final touches to an annual report, the glassy-eyed acknowledgment of three of the Project Runways All Stars editions I'd lately missed (that was high on the list; go Mondo), correspondence with my memoir-writing students, and all the behind-the-scenes-work that goes on as we prepare for Teen Day in Manayunk.  It looks like we'll have quite a crowd of young writers and readers on hand that March 24th at The Spiral Bookcase, and we're getting excited.  Please do get in touch with me or the store if you are interested in this chance to meet great YA writers and to show us, too, what your own words are made of.

(And to get published!!)

But in the meantime, I have not prepared for the most important thing—the arrival home, late tonight, of our dear son.  He'll spend the weekend with us before heading out to Vegas with friends.  I want to be my whole self for the few hours we'll have together.

Time for a little Zen.

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Jan and Lana Dance Jive at 30th Street Station

I've written about Jan and Lana so often on this blog that I don't need to introduce them (do I?).  They are the dancing stars, the soon-to-be movie stars, the team that keeps me honest in a Norah Jones waltz, the instruction that burns but lasts.

Here they are, dancing at Philadelphia's Thirtieth Street Station.

Because that's how good they are.

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in which Matthew Quick's novel brings my ballroom dance friends to the silver screen

A few years ago, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto introduced me to Matthew Quick, a novelist whose The Silver Linings Playbook had recently been optioned for film.  Many books get optioned; far fewer films get made.  Far, far fewer films have director David Russell at the helm and Bradley Cooper, Julia Stiles, and Robert De Niro cast as leads.

The story is quirky, funny, and moving.  It also features a crazy dance contest, and since the movie was being filmed locally, local dancers were invited to audition as extras.

My friend and dance teacher, Jan Paulovich (DanceSport Academy), and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, were among those who showed up for opportunity.  They had, they say, no expectations, were simply hoping to have some fun.  One month later, they were on the set with De Niro and others—not just dancing, but acting.  They had been told two days of filming would be required.  In the end, their dancing—and their charisma—changed David Russell's plans for the dance scene...and required five on-set days for Jan and Lana.

A few weeks ago, Jan asked me to write this story for a local ballroom dance publication.  It gave me the excuse to get back in touch with Matthew Quick and to ask him how it has felt to watch his novel make its way to the silver screen (it will debut this November).  Here's an extract from the story:

Raised in a blue-collar neighborhood by stern—and conservative—Protestant parents, dance was never part of (Matthew's) world; indeed, he said in a recent interview, “the thought of any man or boy dancing—especially someone I knew personally—was absurd.”

Thus, when Matthew first conjured the dance scene in his novel about a man just released from a mental hospital and desperate to reconcile with his ex-wife, he was, in his words “going for laughs.”

“Pat (Peoples) dancing was my fish out of water,” says Matthew. “Lots of jokes were instantly born. The outfits Pat and Tiffany wear during the dance competition and Tiffany's choreography are equally bizarre and over-the-top. Hilarious, in a sad, quirky, and hopefully endearing way. But as I wrote the scenes I began to see that dancing was not only healthy for Pat but therapeutic. In many ways, the ridiculous way Pat felt while dancing—expressing his emotions through movement—was akin to the way I felt when I started writing seriously and telling people that I was a fiction writer. Mostly I imagined Pat and Tiffany as emotionally vulnerable--maybe for the first time--while dancing. Art saves!”

Dance, too, I keep learning, saves. And life is full of crazy, lovely collisions.

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The way dancers tell stories

We escaped the snow and headed for the city, where our friends Julia and Gene were celebrating their 70th birthdays in classic (elegant) Julia and Gene style.  She hails from the United Kingdom, he from the midwest.  She's a sprite of a thing; he tips his head, ever so slightly, to pass through doorways.  She's a sociologist and he's a statistician.  Together they remind those of us lucky enough to know them that love is not a formula.  It is what happens in the blink of an eye (they knew at once, they say of each other).  It is what endures.

At this party of friends, family, colleagues, we sat among dancers.  Jan, Lana, Scott, Tirsa, John, Inna, and Julia herself (Miss Cristina was also among us, looking lovely), to be precise.  We were privileged amateurs among impeccably attired super stars (and I do not exaggerate; Jan and Lana will soon be appearing in a major movie alongside actors such as Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper; Scott was once the nation's mambo champion).  We were also quite simply friends among friends.

What perpetually interests me about dancers is how smart they are, how diversified their interests, how capable of telling stories with far more than words. That angling of a shoulder speaks volumes, for example, as does the slight, purposeful turn of the head.  Jan raises his eyebrow, and his opinion is known.  Lana reports on science with the blue light of her eyes.  John brings mischief to his laugh; there is an emphatic grace in Inna's hands; Tirsa moves her wrist and her whole arm sparkles; Cristina is perpetually, stunningly alive; and there's that thing Scott does when he's telling a story, which is to lean in and then lean back, wait for the pulse.  Dancers hardly need words at all when they are telling their stories. 

When it was time to dance, we danced, easy with the songs that Julia and Gene had chosen on a ballroom floor laid for our feet. The rumba, the cha-cha, the salsa, the foxtrot, the bolero, the waltz, back to the foxtrot.  Those dancers know how to move, and they swept us into their graces, and later, around midnight, when we walked the streets of Philadelphia at their side (among Halloween ghouls and ghosts and vampires), I thought of how it must be to move through the world like that—so full of sway and suggestible spine. 

My husband and I woke in a room downtown this morning, headed to the Reading Market for breakfast, went up to the Art Museum and walked our favorite wing. I took a photograph, then, of this Renoir painting, because this gorgeous child is not speaking, not a word, and yet she's full of story.  Julia and Gene, thank you for giving us such a rich and memorable evening on a weekend of historic weather.  We will remember it always with fondness.

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Dance, Superimposed

One of the most exciting DanceSport Academy presentations this past Sunday was the dance of the studio's two young stars—a wild mix of genres against the backdrop of "The Matrix" soundtrack, all choreographed by Miss Cristina and Jan Paulovich.  I photographed the two during the rehearsals Sunday morning.  Look at how quickly K. moves.  Check out the beauty of M.

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Scenes from the DanceSport Academy Showcase

We spent much of yesterday rehearsing for and then delivering the sixth DanceSport Academy Showcase, sited this year at the Villanova University Connelly Center (which is also where the Lore Kephart Distinguished Historians Series is hosted).

I happen to think it was the best show ever—full of brave souls, innovative choreography, sheer talent, electrifying youth, and the final crowning glory of two performances by Latin champion dancers Jan Paulovich and Lana Roosiparg.

It was also, for me, a chance to dance that waltz with Jan and that cha-cha with my husband—a chance, too, to be surprised by dear friends Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura, who arrived unannounced and cheered us on.  How much that meant (and how long remembered it will be).  And afterward, of course, dinner with the Bells.  We always love our dinner with the Bells, and it's especially fun when dinner with the Bells coincides (another surprise) with a second chance to visit with Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura.

Thank you, Scott Lazarov, John Larson, Cristina Mueller, Aideen O'Malley, Tirsa Rivas, and, of course, Jan and Lana, for seeing us through.  For asking us to do more than we think we can—for expecting it from us—and for giving us a stage upon which we can try to soar...or, at least, hear the music.

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Jan and Lana Dance the Jive (for real, ladies and gentlemen)

How often I can be found here on this blog, talking dance, yearning for it.  How many books of mine have taken a choreographic turn or stopped and lived at, say, the very House of Dance?  I've been blessed by teachers who sway me toward better—Scott Lazarov with his impeccable choreography, Jan Paulovich, who insists that I hear the music and is so artfully exact, John Larson, the King of Standard, Cristina Mueller and her Thursday wonders, Aideen O'Malley who does it all, John Vilardo, who worked me out of paralytic fear early on, and others, too.  Blessed is me.

I'm not terrific at dance, but I keep trying, and I console myself with the thought that the trying matters.  This coming Sunday I'll be trying again in a DanceSport Academy showcase—dancing the cha-cha with my husband and a waltz with Jan Paulovich.  I'm not exactly ready for either dance.  But the hours tick on, and Sunday comes.

Today, though, I share this video of Jan Paulovich and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, who dance so magnificently together.  This is what they do, these teachers, when they are free to be their ultimate dance selves.

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