Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)

I saw Vanilla Sky some time ago, enjoyed it. Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), written and directed by Amenábar, the original Spanish film that Vanilla Sky was a re-make of, however, has shaken me. Intersplicing of love, betrayal, loss, anger, desire with an attempted murder/horrible scaring accident, dreaming, virtual reality, insanity, and the struggle to re-find the self and the real world from inside an illusion - it's a powerful tale.

When the actors can reveal the underlying emotional complexity of a story like this, as this cast does, in particular Noriega, it makes for theatre that crosses the bounds of 'on the screen' to us, our lives.

Seeing a younger Penélope was delightful too.

A Vlog: about 7:11min of chitter chatter

If you read this on a RSS feed, don't hit "enclosure" because that'll start a download, just pop in to the site to view. I'm not uploading these little sessions to You Tube, they're not "serious" enough.

As the title says, more chitter chatter. Spent most of the afternoon draping my space in fabrics and recording a poetry reading and trashed the whole lot, ah well. Much to learn. This chat refers to that, and then goes off to discuss how meditation (for me) is nothing, all rather vague. But there it is.

Overexposed night scene, again. Have to do something about the lighting. But then I am middle-aged and the lighting is rather kind. As I do these videos I'm losing shame, it's true. Daylight is still too stark, and anyway who feels like chatting when the photons are pouring through the atmosphere in the masses they do during daylight?

Yes, I am wearing a red bra - the black one is drying on the rack hanging on the shower rod after being laundered earlier today. Normally I wear black with black, red with red, you understand. Gaffs.

The post I refer to in the vlog, which is a good post of substance (unlike mine) on Buddhist meditation is Dale's.

Playing with the Still Image

From Rubies In Crystal

That was fun to do in Photoshop Elements. I wonder how you do it in FinalCut Express, or can you? It was an overexposed black & white shot that I did about 50 things to, including the red colouring & cropping at an angle (without distorting the central image). The final photo is kind of fun, and a story could be woven from it. When my children were at a Waldorf School for the short time they were, I recall not only many puppet shows by the early grade teachers, but that the puppets had very minimal features or were faceless, and this was so the child could better imagine the character in the tale being told.
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From Rubies In Crystal

Ripples

Wouldn't call this "a video" so much as how one might talk in a quiet conversation with a friend. Therefore, a vlog (video blog). Sparked by a discussion of 'change' in my dance class, reminiscences on my years of journaling leading me to feel that we only become more of who we are...

Comic Book Characters

Another side... this one makes us laugh. Hope you get a chuckle too.

(1:45sec) "White," Butoh-inspired dance-in-progress

This blog is a place where I keep my work, along with the progress of pieces. Here's a little Butoh-inspired dance piece in the process of...

Last night I stayed up till 3am composing piano notes in GarageBand to go with it, but had trouble synchronizing, also the notes were too busy in the middle. My first go with GarageBand, and I'm not a musician, so allowing my clumsiness to guide me.

Then I'd also like to overlay images since I found something that struck me on National Geographic this morning, but don't seem to be able to do it in iMovie. Should I go for broke and invest in FinalCut Express? Hopefully I can copy my old Photoshop Elements onto this computer and might be able to change transparencies to overlay that way.

In the Japanese aesthetic, art is always embodied in images of nature. This is true of Haiku as well as Butoh. I may or may not add the photo, but I'd like to have the technical capability to try it and see if it works.

Anyway, the uncut video. I have no idea what sort of poem will arise; perhaps it'll just be a single image. Who knows. Creating it as I go.

My 3rd attempt at a VideoDancePoem.

(4:16) On Butoh-based Dance: A Saturday morning amble...

Discussing Butoh-based dance having just completed a 4 day workshop with Denise Fujiwara in Toronto, Canada.

Ok, so. My first iMac video on Butoh-based dance with a poem in my white flannel nightgown this morning.

Even before coffee. I leave as is. Though I did add the poem later this evening and you might have to increase the volume since, though I re-recorded a number of times much closer to the computer's built-in microphone than the original clip, I wasn't able to arrive at the same volume levels.

In the emptiness of the dancer everything comes to be. I hope I imparted this in my little experimental video. Sharing a recent experience which I am in the process of understanding.

Strange and surreal as it appears, the intensity of the dancers, intimacy, exposure, vulnerability are the core of Butoh.
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YouTube URL here
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Butoh Dancers

do not express but expose embodied emotion

in the Noh tradition of restraint

line of red belts on the kimonos

the dancers move towards us

as slowly as the moon bleeds through the sky

they are intermittently earth, water, fire, air

gone are the wild rhythms of their bodies

they are empty silk shells on the stage

who reveal their intimate selves

what is most human
our contradictory states

our warring, our longing, our loving

without the effort of thought

we who do not watch
or even witness

a performance

rather we complete
their process

of us


© 2008, Brenda Clews