How About Them Olympics?

It's here! Did you all see the opening ceremonies? We saw part of them, but the rain and storms were so bad in Denver that the cable reception was awful, and a whole section of the dance was in silence. At least, they said it was the rain, but I do wonder who's getting fired over at NBC right now.

But anyway, the real reason I wanted to post about it is that this is a blog done by movement professionals, and several of the dance pieces in those ceremonies really were the epitome of good movement performance. The one that hits me in particular is the beginning, when you had the giant "scroll" unrolling on the stage, and dancers proceeded to do a very taihenjutsu-heavy dance across it, holding ink pads that were so subtle, you couldn't see them very well. But the result was a calligraphy-style picture on the floor after the dancers left their literal footprints, which was then raised off the floor to be shown like the painting it was.

Talk about a way to combine writing and dance! :) So you can tell I was mightily impressed. The picture above is from the "boat oar dance," where all these dancers had these giant oars, which showed ships sailing when held upright side by side, and then would open and close like blinds, and wave in spirals...so very cool. I wish I had a budget; so many ideas.

~Jenn