Monthly Archives: February 2014

International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley, Registration Links

Register now for your special dance experience, Summer, 2014. Don’t wait. Early registrants get lower, Early Bird prices and assurance that they can get in the classes before they are filled. Deadline for Early Bird prices for both the M2F workshops© and the classes of Full Day of Dance© is June 30. Deadline for scholarship application is also June 30. From July 1 on, applicants pay regular price. Registrants after Aug.4 are welcome, pay a slightly higher rate. Walk-ins welcome for Full Day of Dance©. Here are three links for your registration: Registration Form, Additional Information, Scholarship Application.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c4qwe4avoozhdgo/IDF-SVreg2014.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/home?select=AddInfoIDF-SV2014.pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cnaq14xcsfe0q4k/Scholarship2014.pdf

International Dance Festival-Silicon Valley: Register Now!

Registration for IDF-SV, 2014, is open. This post offers a brief summary of costs for the Festival which runs from August 11 to August 17, 2014, at the Mountain View Masonic Center, Mountain View, CA 94041. Please watch this blog for further news and details. Please contact The Lively Foundation, livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net, for more information and questions. Monday-Friday workshops: Early Bird Fee is $280. Registration after July 1st is $325. M-F workshops include Leslie Arbogast teaching Dunham Dance, tech & repertory; Leslie Friedman teaching Contemporary Dance, tech & repertory; Leanne Rinelli teaching Salsa, tech & repertory. Dancers taking the M-F workshops may perform in the Festival Concert, Aug. 17, on the same program with the artist teachers. They will also be offered opportunities to create their own work.

Registration for Full Day of Dance© also offers Early Bird discounts. Single class $30/$25–all 6 classes $84/$72. Cost per class reduces with each added class. Master Teachers/classes include: Amity Johnson, Pilates mat; Audreyanne Delgado-Covarrubias, Tap; Etta Walton, Electric Lines; Leslie Arbogast, Dunham Dance; Leanne Rinelli, Salsa; Sohini Ray, Manipuri classical Indian dance. The Open Master Classes welcome dancers of all levels and encourage dancers to try something new. An advanced Tap Dancer will enjoy trying Manipuri even though he or she will be a beginner in that class. An accomplished Salsa dancer can try Dunham Dance and experience something wonderful in movement and rhythm which is entirely new to him or her. Beginners and professionals: all are welcome and all have a great time at Full Day of Dance©.

(You might wonder why the copyright sign after the title Full Day of Dance©. It’s because even though it has only had two seasons, it was such a great idea that it has already been copied by another company and Festival. Accept no substitutes!! Come to the original; you will remember why you love to dance.pictures: top, Amity Johnson; mid,Sohini Ray; L-R: Leanne Rinelli, Leslie Arbogast.

Georgia O’Keeffe in San Francisco

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco presents Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George at the de Young Museum, in Golden Gate Park, from Feb. 15-May 11, 2014. The exhibition of 55 works by the great modern painter reveal so much about O’Keeffe’s inner vision as well as how the outer world looked to her. Erin B. Coe, Chief Curator of the Hyde Collection, Glen Falls, NY, explained that in studying O’Keeffe’s life work, she found that the works created in Lake George had been overlooked and never exhibited for their own importance rather than as a sort of warm up preparation for the artist’s relocation to New Mexico. Georgia O’Keeffe spent nearly half each year from 1918-1934 at Lake George, in upstate NY, staying at the 36 acre farm that belonged to Alfred Stieglitz’s family. It is an exhibition of great depth that shows O’Keeffe’s close connection to the land: specific old trees, flowers and fruits that she planted herself, views of the lake and nearby mountains. The works, wonderful in themselves, served to revitalize interest in landscape, still life, and paintings of buildings at a time when art critics and collectors had decided those subjects were “out.” There are no people in the paintings. The fruits and trees have enough presence on their own, and O’Keeffe lets them fill the canvas. She brings us close to the heart of the trees. Each work of a flower or fruit is a portrait of a being which is very clearly alive, or in the case of the fruit, the product of a living thing, and has its own powerful character. In Lake George, gardening became very important in her life. She had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin. She took more than an acre planted in corn and renewed her interest in botany and horticulture. Among the riveting images are those in a series of paintings of jack-in-the-pulpit flowers. The paintings progress to ever closer close ups as the essence of the flower is presented in a simplified but powerful vision. This is an eye-opening exhibition, one that deserves a close and slow look. O’Keeffe was certain that her work took time to see and to assimilate as she seems to have incorporated each flower and tree into her own understanding. She could then transmit a painting that opened up a way to see them better than one might just walking by. Here’s Georgia O’Keeffe on why she painted the flowers as she did:

“A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many associations with a flower – the idea of flowers. You put out your hand to touch the flower — lean forward to smell it — maybe touch it with your lips almost without thinking — or give it to someone to please them. Still — in a way — nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small — we haven’t time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time … ’So I said to myself — I’ll paint what I see — what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it — I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers: ‘Well — I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower — and I don’t.”

A wonderful experience to get this close to O’Keeffe’s thought and vision; don’t miss it. Pictures: at top, Lake George, 1922; L to R:Autumn Leaves, 1924; Petunias, 1925, all by Georgia O’Keeffe.

International Dance Festival-Silicon Valley Wins Praise

Dancers who have participated in IDF-SV continue to praise their great experiences. Vanessa Nudd danced in Full Day of Dance© in the first season and came back to do the Mon-Fri workshops, in 2013. She wrote these comments to Leslie Friedman, director and founder of the Festival. Leslie taught Tech, Rep, and Comp/Improv, 2013.

“You are an inspiring teacher– I learned a HUGE amount in our time together. Thanks so much for putting on this amazing event each year and inspiring new ( or dormant ) dancers to get off their butts!”

Vanessa has already signed up for the Festival. If you are a dancer who wants to dance, this is the Festival for you. Stretch your technique, try something new, perform for a real audience in a professional, public concert. Contact The Lively Foundation today. livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net

pictures: Vanessa Nudd working on her site specific improv project, IDF-SV, 2013.

Voices of Music: Fantastic & Fun

Voices of Music is an ensemble of gifted musicians specializing in early music. Early here means that the most recent they performed was from the 18th century, except for the fascinating world premiere by Hanneke van Proosdij, a master of recorders. Their program, The Art of the Recorder, performed in Palo Alto, February 13, 2014, will be repeated tonight, St. Valentine’s Day, at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Belvedere; Feb. 15th at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco; and Feb. 16th at the Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Berkeley. I’m listing those events here at the beginning of this brief review so that anyone reading right now can get in a boat to Belvedere or get tickets for SF or Berkeley. It’s possible that some music lovers are not truly appreciative of early music or have never taken time to go to a first rate performance. If you are one of that group, you are missing a lot of fun. The selections on this program were varied, interesting, and beautiful. They are often peppy and have what seemed to this listener to be exceptionally unusual time signatures. The program confided that the meter for Bucimis, “a raucous Bulgarian folk tune and dance,” is in the meter of 15/16. No, I have not figured out how to tap that out, but it was very cool to listen to. The ensemble included Cheryl Ann Fulton, historical harps; Rodney Gehrke, baroque organ; Peter Maund, percussion; Carla Moore, baroque violin; Elisabeth Reed, viola da gamba; David Tayler, archlute & baroque guitar. Mr. Tayler is co-director with Ms van Proosdij. Ms van Proosdij played 8 different recorders. There were selections in which only two of the instruments played or in which one or two of the instruments sat out. The music is rhythmic and lively, occasionally hauntingly lyrical. An anonymous piece from 13thc. Paris and one from c.1400, found in the British Museum, demonstrate that music has changed but that does not mean it has always gotten better. Ms van Proosdij is also principal early keyboard player with Philharmonia Baroque and Festspiel Orchester Goettingen, and has performed internationally with many ensembles. One of the benefits of attending this concert is that the instruments themselves are beautiful, so there is a visual pleasure to crown the experience. The world premiere was performed by Ms van Proosdij and percussionist, Peter Maund. Zephyrus lived up to its name by evoking the mystery of winds both through the recorder and a large flat drum that seemed to be filled with sand. Mr Maund moved it in ways to sound like shifting winds and tides. Voices of Music was the first American Early Music Ensemble to broadcast concert highlights in HD video. They have an audience of 10,000 listeners a day, around the world. Concerts, April 10-13, will be Alessandro Scarlatti’s The Lamentations of Jeremiah, Kirsten Blaise, Soprano, and a 9 person ensemble.pictures: top, Voices of Music; Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler.

Guittard Chocolate, Thank you!

Guittard Chocolate, thank you! Hats off to the makers of the most marvelous chocolate. The Guittard Company benefits our community not only by making the great chocolate, but also by helping The Lively Foundation. In 2013 and 2014, Guittard donated both a 10 lb. block of the finest chocolate and a giant box filled with gift bags of delectable chocolate morsels and mints to our auction at the Meet Us at Ming’s luncheon. Funds raised at our New Year’s lunch go to support our educational programs for Bay Area school children. It is so appropriate that Guittard is involved. Its founder, Etienne Guittard, came to California from France during the Gold Rush. He thought he would trade chocolate for mining tools but quickly learned which object had the greater and more lasting value. Named for its founder, Guittard is one of only 4 ( or is it only 3?) companies which are still operating in the San Francisco area since that time. The Guittard family’s success, now in its 5th generation, has brought happiness to us all! When The Lively Foundation asks friends to support our supporters, it is a very easy thing to do! Eat more Guittard Chocolate! Support The Lively Foundation! Picture: L to R, Leslie Friedman, Lively’s Artistic Director and Eva Marshment, Guittard’s Executive Secretary, at Guittard headquarters

Helene Grimaud & San Francisco Symphony

The astonishing Helene Grimaud performed Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op 15 (1858), with the SFSymphony, Feb. 6, 2014, at Davies Symphony Hall. Ms Grimaud’s performance was powerful, expressive of the deep emotions in the great work. She is a pianist whose affinity for Brahms has offered both wonderful performances and recordings. Listening to the concerto is an intense experience. Brahms never dodges the emotions and does not mind calling on the audience to pay heed to the interworkings of piano and orchestra, changes of rhythm, a lyricism which is not soothing. In fact, Brahms does not seem to mind if one is not comfortable.This is edge of your seat music.. The music can swirl like a rip tide in deep water. It has a force which could sweep one away. It brings to mind images for which one might have yearned but never reached. Writers often find autobiographical detail in this concerto. Brahms’ friend and champion, Robert Schumann, had tried to drown himself in the Rhine in 1854. Schumann was sent to an asylum where he died, in 1856. Schumann and his wife, Clara, had 7 children. Brahms spent time visiting Schuman, helping Clara, helping with the children. Brahms and Clara: who knows? Seeing them through 21st century eyes is not so helpful. Yet their devotion to each other and to Schumann was total. So, is it a game to identify which movement is Robert Schumann and which is Clara Schumann and which is Brahms’ sense of loss? Oh, please, let’s not go there! Johannes Brahms was a great, earth-shakingly great composer. He worked with music and invented music. If he wanted to write a play, he could have done that instead. The concerto is about the music. If memories, images, emotions are called into being by it, that is its life. The concerto embraces the intertwining of music, love, and life. Sadness is there because it is real, and Brahms is always real. Ms Grimaud played with feeling completely in tune with Brahms. She spent herself entirely in service of the music. It was an extraordinary performance by Symphony and soloist.

LBringuier

The SF Symphony offered Metaboles, by Henri Dutilleux, and La Valse, by Maurice Ravel, after intermission. The SFS was an exuberant, well-tuned instrument as conducted by Lionel Bringuier. Metaboles, though a little intimidating to read about, was a poetic and interesting piece. The composer was concerned with finding the correct form for each of the five movements. For example, Obsessionnel: Scherzando and Torpide: Andantino. It was fascinating music played with precision that did not take away from the rhythmic and melodic pleasure of the piece. La Valse is dramatic and threatening. Ravel’s affection for Johann Strauss had moved him to write a waltz tribute; World War I intervened. La Valse is imbued with the harsh sounds of irony. Couples may be dancing together, but they are out of step and off center, like a chandelier about to crash on a party. The music gets faster and –perhaps Maestro Bringuier was excited–extremely loud (as occasionally happened in the concerto). It is not the charming waltz of days gone by but the future’s dance of terror. Pictures: top, Helene Grimaud; L to Rt: Brahms, H.Grimaud, Lionel Bringuier, Maurice Ravel

Festival Dancers Praise the International Dance Festival-Silicon Valley

Dancers from the first two Festival seasons have written to praise the Festival and their experiences. Here’s a quote from Chelsea Zawadski, dancer from Boston:

I will never forget my experience at the festival. I got to meet so many friendly and talented people during the festival throughout a week packed of full of dance classes, rehearsals, and performing. It was an experience I gained so much from and will never forget!

Best wishes for all you do in 2014! Chelsea”

Come to IDF-SV, III, this summer and have a great dancing experience like Chelsea’s.

Picture: Village Dances, Part I, Festival Concert, 2012. Chelsea is the dancer on the left.

KREMERATA BALTICA: Violins, Part III

Violinist Gidon Kremer’s art has been celebrated since he first entered the Riga Music School at age 7. Winning the highest prizes in Latvia, among his rewards was his trip to the USSR to spend two years studying in Moscow with their most eminent violinist, David Oistrakh. Kremer went on to win more distinction, including 1st Prize in the Tchaikowsky International Competition, in 1970, at age 23. His performance on Feb. 2, 2014, in San Francisco, showed that there is even more depth and humanity to him than being one of the world’s great musicians. He performed as leader and soloist with the Kremerata Baltica, a chamber orchestra which he founded in 1997. It is composed of young musicians from the Baltic nations (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia). The musicians, younger than Mr.Kremer, not children, are exquisite players. They are “together” in every sense of the word, creating a strong and flexible sound that suits the most lyrical and the harshest music their program asked of them. It was a stunning performance of challenging music, new to this listener and, it appeared, to most of the audience. In addition to championing musicians from the Baltics, Mr. Kremer is the champion of music by modern composers like Britten and Shostakovich, and less well known Eastern European composers such as Mieczyslaw (Moisey) Weinberg. They performed Violin Sonata Op.134, by Shostakovich; Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op.10, by Britten; Symphony #10, by Weinberg; Concertino for Violin and Strings, Op. 42, by Weinberg. This was an opportunity for Britten’s music to be the light-hearted item on a program. It introduces a theme and proceeds through ten variations such as March, Wiener Walzer, Moto perpetuo. Thoroughly interesting and enjoyable, it was a tribute by Britten to the gifts of his teacher as he demonstrates his own. Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata seems to have been composed by the composer reaching into his chest and pulling on the arteries of his heart. It was composed for David Oistrakh. Mr. Kremer’s performance contained all the emotion of the music as well as exquisite technical achievement. The piece was composed in 1968, the year that the USSR sent tanks into the Prague Spring. Shostakovich knew well the surprise that could come at night like the crack of the bow on the cello. He knew the horror that cartoon ghouls, unaware of being self-satires, could wreak. He knew there was a mysterious beauty that sounds like stars coming out at night. The strings pluck; the terror is understated. The music sighs and wonders. It was a great piece by a great composer played with great soul. Shostakovich considered Weinberg a great composer and friend; Weinberg said that meeting Shostakovich, “was as if I had been born anew.” The Concertino, written in 1948, was not performed in that time. It has a sound of evanescence which wafts a lovely, but sometimes painful sensibility. The final movement sounds a warning in the midst of a waltz. Weinberg’s Symphony #10 expanded our introduction to this complex composer. It opens with a festive, delicate sound. There is interplay between the violins and deeper strings, a conversation trading dancing rhythms. The music evokes a feeling of anxiety and then replaces it with gliding lyricism. One hopes to hear more of this composer. POST SCRIPT: Weinberg’s 10th Symphony was added to the program to replace Shostakovich’s Anti-Formalist Gallery which was to be sung in Russian by Alexei Mochalov. Mr. Mochalov’s wife died suddenly, and he could not appear. The satirical, musical play, printed in the program, reflects Shostakovich’s bitter awareness of the bureaucrats allowed to play fatal games with the lives of artists and their work. The Musical Functionaries: “Yes, yes, yes, yes,/Inside, inside,/To labor camps we’ll send them all!” It was fair to choose another Weinberg piece for fill in for Shostakovich. Weinberg’s life had all too many interactions with the hounds of the state. Born in Poland, he was chosen to study piano in the US. When World War II broke out, getting to the US was not easy. He went to the USSR. His father-in-law was murdered by Stalin the year the Concertino was written. Weinberg was arrested, in 1953, charged with “Jewish bourgeois nationalism.” This was the year that Stalin murdered doctors allegedly for plotting against his state. Weinberg’s one bit of luck: he was imprisoned and would have been killed if it had not been for Shostakovich’s intervention. The composer had that good fortune that he was to be killed at a time when Shostakovich was in the thugs’ good graces. For such an extraordinary soloist, Mr. Kremer has done much to widen the world of music. In addition to Kremerata, he has founded and directed music festivals in Lockenhaus, Austria, Gstaad and Basel, Switzerland, and Munich. Look for his recordings: The Berlin Recital with Martha Argerich, EMI; Mozart’s Violin Concertos with the Kremerata, on Nonesuch.

STARBUCKS in MOUNTAIN VIEW: THANK YOU!

Here is Ashley Whitlock, the manager of Starbucks on Castro St., in Mountain View. Please stand and cheer for Ms Whitlock! She donated coffee, cream, cups, sugars (and non-sugars), napkins, stir sticks to The Lively Foundation for the International Dance Festival-Silicon Valley in 2012 and 2013, and for the Festival of Lights, Dec. 2013. Ms Whitlock is a musician in addition to be a manager. She says she loves to help Lively help the arts. Support our supporters! It will be such a pleasure to do: visit Starbucks on Castro, enjoy a latte, a bear claw, a sandwich, and join us in giving thanks for Ashley Whitlock. The dancers at IDF-SV and our audience in Dec. benefitted from her generosity and Starbucks coffee.