James Thierrée

Don't get your fingers in a cramp from

Googling

and

Wikipediating

the name. He is Charlie Chaplin's grandson. He deserves to be regarded in his own right. He has been performing in circus since he was four years old. I have finally seen him perform with his company, in their show

Au Revoir Parapluie

(

Goodbye Umbrella

). The company performed at

BAM

's Harvey Theatre. The last time I was in this theatre was a few years ago, close to when it had just opened. I was stilting in the lobby with

Cirque Boom

as a sort of warm-up to their contribution to

The Lysistrata Project

, which was a national initiative begun to protest the war in Iraq. As I took my seat for

Au Revoir Parapluie

, along with Friends

Kate

,

Patrick

,

Dave & Zoe

, I considered how long it had been since I worked with them all, how long it had been since I performed in a circus show.

Then I watched the show, which made my lungs laugh, my heart burst and my spleen evaporate. Plus it tickled.

Oh guys, guys guys: I can't spend the whole entry raving, but I could. There was so much about the show that I found personally appealing that I actually didn't notice the lack of concrete narrative, which usually irritates me when I attend circus/theatre. It reminded me of good classical music, the way it transports me so that my free association and emotions provide me with my own story. Circus performed with seeming ease, pathos and humor allows one to relax in that just-right way, a way that makes an audience receivers more than interpreters. The older one gets, the more their critical faculty takes over their personality, because they have more and more comparisons available. Great art, in any medium, allows us to happily (gratefully) release that faculty.

So this isn't a critique of the show. I was too inspired by it to be objective, and anyway it's sold out this time around (as opposed to closed, which is what most shows are by the time I get around to my opinion of them). No, all I'm saying, party peoples, is that capital-a Art still exists, and the French probably have more of it than we do. (Stupid French [it's a

joke

, Sara].) Plus (see, you knew that wasn't

all

I was saying), I am very inspired to make my own pale, incomparable imitation-of-style piece based on the show.

There was just so much to it that I want to be doing in my own work, yet am not. I've always been a fan of direct-address that breaks the fourth wall in one way or another (though I remain ambivalent about the Brechtian convention of "breaking character" to speak with the audeince, when in fact you're still speaking lines someone else wrote).

Au Revoir Parapluie

did this with action and clown, but no actor-spoken dialogue. It was completely sincere, yet transported the audience with music and surreal imagery. The performers were all capable of circus feats, yet also strong clowns and actors, sensitive and expressive and subtle. There was nothing pretentious to the show, even when I was amazed by it. Joy without guilt, catharsis without lingering sorrow.

When I was a young man, fresh out of my first professional theatre experience, I was driving around the southern states with my girlfriend of the time (

Friend Rachel

this was, for those of you keeping score at home) and whilst we mused on our performance futures I fantasized about a company of actors trained in dance, and vice versa, who would create brilliantly sincere and physical debut shows. I was going to call it Sugarsweet Willpower, which proves, as though nothing else ever did, that there's a good reason a lot of our youthful ambitions never come to fruition. This was prior to my even contemplating the worlds of circus or commedia dell'arte, and obviously I wasn't well-versed in theatre companies already at work on similar goals. No, I felt this idea was unique and timely, as well as of course feeling fully qualified to found just such an institution.

Ah, me.

It may be a bit gauche at this point, starting my own theatre group. It's kind of what all my comrades do. "Oh, Jeff started a company now? Yeah. Neat. So . . . how 'bout them Mets?" It's not something I'm interested in doing, at least not from a practical standpoint. I've seen too much of the "Artistic Director" process to be fooled by the name, and anyway, where would I find a Producing Director I could work with? (Who are these people? What makes them sign up for all the sucky parts? It ain't the pay, I'll tell you that much.) No, no company-birthing for this persnickity mother. What I might do, given the right circumstances, is make a show.

I say "might," because of

these

three

entries

, from which not much has yet arisen. I'm chomping at the bit to express myself, but not tearing up the track, and I feel as though the gate has been open a long time now. I hope this show was the poke in the rump I apparently need. I'm keeping it alive in my mind, replaying moments and recording my own ideas. It's interesting to me that I have so many outlets for creative expression, yet feel somehow that there's something personal, important and specific I have yet to express in my work. I want

Zuppa

shows to hang from the ceiling. I want

Kirkos

to craft another comedy. I want

UnCommon Cause

to improvise in performance (more). The most direct answer to all of these wants is to just do it myself.

Just as soon as the holy daze is over . . .

Feel the Burn

Work is bad for you. It's science.

I'm on a rather eccentric work schedule these days, as far as

my day job

goes. It has to do with splitting the job with another capable worker who was training for the position in the hopes that I would suddenly become rich and famous and not need a day job (which by the way, for those of you keeping score at home, hasn't happened yet). This arrangement means I work an average of 20 hours a week, or two-and-a-half days. So I work the first part, she the second, or vice versa. It's been strange. Good, because it's the holidays, and I have a lot to occupy me in my off hours. Bad, because I'm making about half as much money as I'm accustomed to when I'm city-side . . . and I wasn't exactly living large prior to these circumstances.

But here's another good thing: I can make more time for exercise.

And here's another bad thing: When I can't make time--i.e., work days--I am acutely aware of it.

Ooo, but do I know it. When I first started working here the job was much, much easier. I knew less about the work, had less responsibility and my boss was quite frankly coasting a bit on good fortune. Plus,

Friend Melissa

referred me to the job in the first place, and was around to cavort with. We never did anything unconditionally crazy, but she worked in a tiny office and I in a cubicle, which presented us with marvelous staging opportunities for what

Friend Heather

refers to as "archway humor."

"Archway humor" is that which is generated by the story one doesn't see. Rather, one sees the effects of incidences that occur "offstage." Your imagination makes up the rest. Melissa and I being both of the circus persuasion (particularly at that time, when we were both rehearsing with

Kirkos

or

Cirque Boom

), our archway humor consisted mainly of highly physical choices that exploited her doorway and my puppet-stage-like, low cubicle wall. I'm afraid Melissa engaged me much more than I her; I was still fresh to my job, you see. Every so often, for no particular reason, Mel would walk up to my cube, look me in the eye, and wordlessly execute a cartwheel. The effect was something like, "Hi Melissa. What do you want? Oo, nice sneakers!" When her head resurfaced, she invariably gave me a look that seemed to say, "What on earth just happened to me?" The effect on my mood was stunning.

Melissa don't work here no more, having moved on to greener pastures in The Garden State. It's difficult to say whether it is her leaving, getting ever-so-older (oh, the lessons we learn about the difference between "discomfort" and "pain") or the building stress of my work, but whatever the cause I find myself frequently passing the whole day without considering crouching in my chair, cartwheeling in the hall or doing push-ups against the copier machine. And I used to make a point of that. In a day in which I'm working at the office and going to rehearsal at night, I just fail to squeeze in a good work-out at home. Sometimes I fantasize about working as, of all things, a bike messenger, just to feel a pleasant ache of hard-won work at the end of the day. If it weren't already such a perilous job, just ask some people who know me well what a bad idea this would be. Plus, I'd probably be so ineffective. I would obey traffic laws, use hand signals and spend too much time poking around the offices I delivered to.

So here I am, venting my aerobic angst on the 'blog instead. The irony is, when I'm not working, I worry about how much money I'll make that week. Henceforth, these days shall be known as my "burn days." Feeling the burn of that last set of push-ups, feeling the burn of having to save up for coffee cash. The burn days are good motivation for getting something new doin' with my theatre career. That's the only place I've ever been paid for handstands.

Officially, at any rate.

Self-Inflicted

I have, at present, one of those marks on my body that begs to be explained as a violent wound. There is a large purple welt on the inside of my left bicep, and it could easily be believed to be the result of one or more of the following:

• This guy grabbed me with his right hand so hard, I had to punch him in the nose to get him to let go.

• I'm studying Filipino stick fighting.

• Paintball, dude. Paintball.

Sadly, none are the case. No, my manly disfigurement arose from carrying an air conditioner home from the store. In other words, from my obstinacy. I could have taken a cab and been home in a jiffy, bruiseless, but I hate cabs and had assured myself that the air conditioner, to quote my own thoughts, "isn't that heavy and hey--useful plastic straps on the outside. I'll be fine." Of course, what probably exacerbated the hematoma (SOMEbody's suffering from SAT score envy) was the prompt application of push-ups after the air conditioner was actually installed.

I'm not trying to seem like a tough guy here. Wait. Well, actually, that's entirely the point. I am trying to seem like a tough guy. In August, unCommon Cause will at long last mount a finalized (somewhat) production of As Far As We Know as a part of the NYC Fringe Festival, and in said production I will be playing a captured soldier. The gentleman my role is based off of is a large, fit guy, and though I'm making no claims to be imitating him, one could definitely get a better impression of me as a soldier if I actually had pectoral muscles. So over the next few weeks I will be eating big breakfasts and making my arms very, very sore.

An actor's relationship to his or her body is an interesting one. We're probably second to models in our interest in keeping our physique attractive (with possibly a greater emphasis on functionality--definitely, when it comes to our voices) and are eligible for all the same benefits and foibles of behavior that can arise from that interest. There are some things that just can't be helped (apart from significant surgery), such as height, body type and facial features. The better among us learn to use such features to their advantages. Most dedicated actors, however, also feel a certain sense of responsibility (or just plain ol' fun) in modifying their appearance in ways appropriate to a given role. There are some very extreme examples of this from film (such as Christian Bale betwixtThe Machinist and Batman Begins), but it applies to the stage as well. The difference is that the stage at once hides more details (such as wrinkles) and demands more drastic effects to succeed in modifying appearance (such as Antony Sher's ordeals in transforming himself into Richard III).

(A) An (hopefully) interesting observation:

Not much has changed over the years (and years [and years]) of theatre history. Actors with a reputation for altering their appearances for roles are commonly known as "character actors," unless they've achieved celebrity status, in which case they're often known as "bold," or "crazy." (

Gary Oldman

is a fascinating hybrid in that he's internationally known, and rarely looks at all the same between roles.) Lead actors, particularly in film, actually have a vested interest in maintaining similar looks between movies. It makes them more recognizable and type-able, and very often is rooted in their best, or most attractive, look. Apart from the tastes of the general public (or rather, because of those tastes), this consideration arises out of lead roles almost invariably being involved in some romantic plot or other. Take this back to the commedia dell'arte tradition, and one finds it awfully familiar. In classic commedia dell'arte, the

innamorati

, or lovers, never wore

masks

, whereas almost all of the other characters did. The exceptions to this rule were some of the female "servant" characters, presumably because they were meant to also be seen as attractive, though perhaps in a less romantic sense.

Anyway, I'm not in terrible shape. My doctor (when I actually have the insurance to be able to afford her) tells me that I'm keeping myself in good exercise, at least internally speaking, and simply as a matter of course I tend to get in a little stretching and exercise every day. That habit suffered the most it has in years over this last winter-into-spring, what with my injury and the uncertainty surrounding it, but I now feel well-returned to the habit of regular exercise. (Of particular help in this was teaching "physical acting" to high schoolers last week.) Of course, I would be in better shape if I still had my weekly Kirkos session to look forward to, but in many ways the circus skills I've been learning the past few years are what got me in good shape to begin with, and I return to them on my own. It's just easier to push oneself when one isn't . . . er . . . just one. So: I'm a reasonably healthy thirty-year-old man with several extracurricular skills to apply to the pursuit of the desired effect.

That effect being

HUGENESS

.

It ain't gonna happen. At least not in time for this incarnation of

As Far As We Know

. It's just too basic a change to affect in such a short time and, unless the show goes far, it's not a body state I'm enthusiastic to be in. When I was a kid, I would have eaten it up. My body ideals were formed by superheroes, and in large part that means no chest can be too huge, no abdomen too rippled. Now, however, having worked on circus skills and developed a better-informed interest in things like martial arts and

le parkour

, dexterity and speed are more important to me. Perhaps, too, age is a factor. The past year has taught me a lot about what it means to age in the physical sense, and as I grow older, I want to be more agile, not necessarily stronger. Nevertheless, I'm curious to see how effectively I can emulate an all-American soldier in just a month.

I had to come to a certain peace about my body image a while ago. As a kid, I was overweight until I was about 16, whereupon I grew no taller, but over a period of about two-to-three months I lost 40 pounds. No lie. I went from weighing 160 pounds (at 5'8'', very little of it muscle) to 120 (still rather lacking in muscle), which also directly led to my getting some for the very first time ever. And by "some," I of course mean "anything, at all." That detail may seem tangential, but I'll come back to it. I never really understood why the change happened then, or so suddenly. Looking back, it's easy to file it under teenage hormones. It was hard to say at the time, though, because I had wished for it for so long, silently, and it happened so suddenly I wasn't even aware of it until people started commenting on it. Still, I hesitated to do anything with my transformation, not really getting around to it until college, when I was quite unexpectedly cast as d'Artagnon in

my school

's production of

The Three Musketeers

. I had never known what it was like to really work on something so intensely physical until I had to train for the fencing in that show, and I ended up

loving

it. I love having to sweat for my craft.

Some few years ago, I had a little sit-down with myself. "Self," said I, "Let's me and I get together on this body-image thing." It was prompted by an observation from a friend, who wondered aloud if what drove me to be so disciplined about pushing myself in exercise (said friend caught me on a good stretch) was the subconscious worry that someday I would mysteriously revert and regain that extra 40 pounds of baggage. Fear is a powerful motivator in drama, but I try to avoid it in the rest of my life . . . whenever possible. I realized that I was associating being loved, even being worthy of love, with something impermanent and mysterious to me. So I made an agreement with myself that I would try to judge my body more by what it could do than what it looked like. Friend Kate and others were pivotal in helping me come to this conclusion by introducing me to circus--something concrete I enjoyed and could aim for--and since then I have made every go of it.

Of course, one can't always avoid an exterior analysis, particularly in a profession as image-conscious as my own. The important thing for me is to keep that interior (though now, shared with all seven of my 'blog subscribers) priority, even in the face of others' stunning physiques, or casting directors who look at me like I'm a Hot Pocket that didn't get enough time in the microwave. In those instances--as when I'm working to create HUGE pectoral protrusions--I just keep thinking, "I can hold a handstand 0.7 seconds longer than I could last year, and climb things like a spider-monkey." This makes my willingness to literally cause myself pain, inside and out, in order to create some unkown version of myself a bit weaker. But it also makes my journey to whatever I'll achieve far more rewarding, and spontaneous.

Now I have to go do some push-ups. And post an ad on Craigslist to pimp myself out as an air conditioner mover.

Moved by a Clown

It has been a busy weekend. Rehearsal went late Friday night, and I was up early Saturday to help Friend Kate finalize her moving out of the loft that parented Kirkos for years. I inserted a break of a few hours to hold a rehearsal with Friend Anna on her clown piece, then it was back to the verities of moving out. The rest of the weekend was a lot of rehearsal as we come closer to the opening night for A Lie of the Mind. In fact, I just arrived in from our first run in the space. As these things so often go, everyone felt completely disconnected from their work, floating in the endless ether of a new, permanent space and sudden costuming. We'll get past it, and by Wednesday. We'd best, anyway. Opening week brings reviewers and an entire acting class one night. The time until then is to be spent in "tech," which, for the uninitiated, is the time just before opening a show when everyone recognizes all the stuff they were supposed to accomplish yet haven't, and rushes around trying to do that, simultaneously revving the metaphoric engine of the whole production up to eleven.

Does that count as a movie quote? I think not, as "eleven" as a gauge of anything has entered the public lexicon apart from any actual awareness of This is Spinal Tap.

The subject of this blogination, though, is that Saturday spent in the deconstruction the Kate's loft and Anna's clown piece. It was a revelatory day for me. Not in a noisy, declamatory way ("Hear ye! God is dead! Thanks for listening!"); rather as a day of much to do, no time to do it, and irregular but powerful moments of recognition. In fact, narrating the events of the day chronologically doesn't serve it best, methinks. First I uninstalled some shelves, then I complained about Kate's stereo already being moved, then we shredded documents.... No. Dumb. So where to begin?

Well (and good), the first thing to note is a few aspects the essential nature of Kate, at least insofar as I know her. Kate:

• Loves every thing and person that she loves so much that there is no undue haste when it comes to saying goodbye to said thing/person.
• Self-justifies with the best of them, including Clinton, with his eternal question of what "is" is.
• Has principles so beyond question that they occasionally create astonishingly time-consuming obstacles in situations in which the rest of us would probably figure, "Oh, so what if that public trash can is overflowing? I'll just precariously balance my disposable coffee cup atop the ruin of western society."

Which is all to say, Kate simply can't do anything of any significance simply. It's part of what's so lovable about her, and makes her an amazing director/leader. So the loft move became a months-long epic that, in spite of such time spent in prep of that ultimate departure, still had a lot to accomplish in its final stages. I didn't accomplish much in terms of sweeping, effective measures for getting the remainder of her things into boxes. I mainly focused on tasks which, as a result of a shoulder injury, Kate shouldn't attempt herself. Anything that involved reaching up, or lifting weight, basically.

And in the process of this total of about six hours, I said my last goodbyes to the loft. There's something about a space that has fostered your creativity and effort that makes that space a kind of home. It becomes as personal a space as where you lost your first tooth or your virginity, you know? It can, anyway. I've lost touch with that feeling somewhat. I used to have a ritual of saying goodbye to a theatre at the end of every show. Now I mainly only do it for spaces that have held multiple productions of mine, when I'm uncertain if I'll ever return to them. The ritual is simple (and not scary, involving very little mammalian blood). I just stand in the middle of the space, alone, and say a little. Maybe I speak a speech from the show I did there, or some Shakespeare (that just always sounds good), and usually I literally speak the word "Goodbye." And when I say it, I'm saying, "Thank you." Froo-froo, I know. But hey: It makes me feel real.

What was this for the loft? It was more little stolen moments. I sang (Bohemian Rhapsody and tunes from Rent, no less [Nat, calm down.]), took photographs when we broke for lunch, reminisced with Kate and, ultimately, practiced throwing knives at the wall I helped build when they moved in. YES. Knives. They were my pay for my help that day. In so doing, I covered a lot of the bases for what Kirkos was, and . . . in my mind, anyway . . . may someday be again. It was weird, unabashedly sincere, sentimental, beautiful and chaotic. And now, it's part of who I am, as performer and person.

For over two hours, in the middle of all this light-removal and reminiscence, Anna Zastrow and I convened to visit with her clown, Helda. It went well, I thought. Her goals were very much focused upon getting a sequence in better shape for her upcoming performances. I wanted that for her as well, but also had a priority to revisit her clown with no assumptions. In conversation with Anna lately, I have heard much that I identify with: a certain uncertainty, a disconnection from her creative id (that's id, not I.D.) and doubt. Plain ol' doubt. I don't know where these feelings in myself will lead me, but I'm confident Anna's clown is a valid, living character, and that she simply needs to revisit her and listen to her to regain (or rediscover) that validity.
(Uninitiated: I'm speaking here of red-nose, or occasionally Lecoq, clown. It's hard to synopsize that theory in a sentence, but essentially the idea is simple. Each person has his or her own clown, a single character as individual as the person and rather representative of that person's id, or free will, unbounded by society-as or other inhibitions. Along with this goes the idea that what people appreciate in a clown is his or her unabashed flaws and difficulties. [Anonymous--Don't freak out. Think of The Little Tramp.])

So Anna and I discussed much, then I put her through an exercise that my clown teacher, Grey Valenti, put me through when I was receiving my (somewhat limited) training. I asked Anna to enter a room in her clown character, and to imagine that she was there for an interview, though she wasn't allowed to speak. This created a situation in which she had to express herself, yet without parameters and in a context in which there were great consequences. Anna took to it with gusto, and before too long she was no longer making choices, but allowing her instincts to make choices for her. It was great, and frightening, to watch. I kept thinking, "Am I a total bastard to put her through this? Do I really know what I'm doing?" Yet she stuck with it for over ten minutes before I called an end, and ultimately found it helpful. As we moved on to reexamining her established routine, we both had in our minds a priority for allowing for her clown to speak for her, and listening when Helda had something to contribute.

That work was rushed, and of necessity technical, but valuable both to her piece and to our burgeoning working relationship (see 3/12/07 for a bit of history). We succeeded in creating a working space in which I felt I had something of value to contribute, and she felt the ownership and creative daring to challenge my opinions as well as simply try them out. It was great. I only wish I had more time before her upcoming show (April 14) to play like that.

As I moved on, of necessity, to the next effort after Kate's loft and Anna's clown (leaving the loft--for the last time--in slightly more orderly disarray, and Helda hopefully in more disarrayed order) I felt a wonderful gratitude for having work to do, and that work being the sort I care about. Soon (read: already) I'll be back to angst over difficulties in the birthing of A Lie of the Mind, but hopefully amidst that angst-ination I will recall that gratitude. It's a powerful blessing.

Kinesis

Last Saturday evening I attended a dance concert:

Right Before You Fell

. I just fit it in, thanks to the repeated calls from my friends who made it a priority to check in with me and make sure I didn't forget about it in the miasma of my current schedule. I went directly from rehearsal to dinner at a friend's restaurant, to this concert, and then even made it to a late party. The party was to bid adieu to the loft that was home to

Kirkos

for years. The concert, that was a culmination of a friend(and fellow Kirkos member)'s very hard, very disciplined, and as it turned out, very

fun

work.

Kinesis Project Dance Theatre

, headed up by dancer/choreographer Melissa Riker, had its full evening of performance last Saturday. My ties to Mel are multiple. I met her, as I did many good friends, performing in a show called

Significant Circus

,

in 2001. She,

Kate Magram

,

Patrick Lacey

and I formed a sort of creative support group not too long after that--The Exploding Yurts (

please

don't ask)--and Kirkos came into being shortly after that. In the six years that I've known her, I've had the pleasure of watching Mel work and grow through that work. Saturday evening was a surprisingly emotional experience for me. I should have expected it, but I was surprised to experience just how much hope and excitement I was giving off during the concert. I was seeing my friend's work fully realized. I know how difficult that is to achieve, and something about just how much that means to her.

Me and modern dance, we don't hang out much . . . in spite of having had long-term relationships with two professional dancers in my time. I have a great appreciation for what the dancers can do, how expressive and dynamic their bodies and movements are. I envy that, in truth. I also respect it. So much so, in fact, that I refuse to be categorized as a dancer. This occasionally brings much frustration to the likes of Friends Melissa and Patrick, who are hell-bent on convincing me that I am worthy of at least the adjective, "dancer," if not the title. I resist. It's related to how I feel about Joe Nobody doing

Guys & Dolls

in his community theatre and then going around calling himself an actor. I mean, sure, he is. (Mad props to ma' boy Joe.) But he hasn't received any training, he hasn't gotten up at dawn to stand in a line for an open call, he hasn't haggled over a summer stock contract or sold worldly belongings in order to take said contract.

But I transtate a bit.

So we don't hang, me and the modern. I have just enough experience and appreciation to say about a concert, "I liked it because of THIS. THIS seemed a little weak, but that may have been in support of achieving THAT." I've been to concerts with dancers before, and often we appreciate the opposite aspects. When a number leans toward narrative a bit, I get excited. When it is seemingly solely about the beauty of the movement, I begin to tune out. Don't get me wrong: It's beautiful. Wow. Pretty. But so is a photograph of a sunset, and somebody needs to tell me why I should care. That's me. I'm an actor. Because of this bias (and I've done what I can think of to separate my appreciation for theatre from my appreciation for dance), some dance concerts I've seen have made me want to claw out my eyes and throw them underfoot.

And it's not the ones that are all about the beauty. No. If I can figure that out from an early moment--that priority--I can sit back and relax, let them dance me where they may. Rather, it's the ones that have something to say,

but don't seem to give a damn if you understand it.

Or that say something

whether you like it or not, sucka!

These really get to me, because the people involved--though I'm sure they went in with the best intentions...in some cases--inevitably chalk my lack of understanding up to me, not their efforts or ability to communicate with me. I suppose you could say that I value communication in my art. Intentional communication, be it about ideas, emotions or something else entirely.

To this end,

Right Before You Fell

was sort of the perfect show for yours truly. I must confess that, right up front. This critic is biased. The concert utilized set pieces, spoken dialogue, live music, character, scenario . . . it was very theatrical. People were constantly doing things, not just fulfilling choreography, and acknowledging and responding to one another. Imagine that.

Read about the inspiration for the show

here, March 15

. Some would have hated it. If I had gone looking for pin-point-perfect technique, or classical movement, or really anything conventional at all, I would have been disappointed. Instead I was uplifted by vignettes about trying to get along with and without people. Between dances, open doorways and closed doors were moved about on rollers by dancers dressed like nuevo gypsies, as they held a kind of movement dialogue with one another. Each had what seemed to be their own character, informing their choices and scenarios. Melissa's acrobalance experience shone through at certain points, particularly to a number choreographed to Tom Waits' "

The Piano Has Been Drinking

," a piece I was lucky enough to get a preview of at the

Kinesis

benefit in December (see

12/25/06

for a photo). That section, too, is a good example of one of the best aspects of

Right Before You Fell

: its sense of humor. I've known Melissa for a while now, so her brand of humor is about as familiar to me as anyone's.

RBYF

was a great manifestation of unbounded joy for living, and unabashed moments of the surreal.

I could critique some aspects of the show, of course. It irritated me not to have a schedule and titles of the different dances in the program, and I felt as though the end of the evening needed a more significant punctuation, or perhaps clearer imagery of having come full circle (or home, if the notion of taking a walk is to be followed through). But these things may become clear to me after our inevitable Yurtian debriefing. Kate, Patrick, Melissa and I will all gather and surmise, and I'll get the inside skinny on what her specific intentions were. Even without this knowledge, I walked away from the concert feeling fulfilled, and even a little happier about the little unhappinesses in my life at present.

Melissa has extended me an informal invitation to join

Kinesis

in some performances this summer. (She couches it in the term "movement actor" in deference to my sensitivity about artistic categories.) I hesitate, uncertain about what I can contribute and what I hope to get out of it, but seeing her concert shows me more possibilities for an exciting, empathetic collaboration. It might even be funny.

Hey! We could do excerpts from

Guys and Dolls

!