(no subject)

[bethlakshmi]

Let's see here....

Found myself having a little fascination with - spent some time last night googling on it. Apparently they are Japanese chicks who dress up like sexy, gothy little girls. The clearest imagery was Claudia from Interview with a Vampire - little girls decked out to the 9's who are in no way "girls". Being Japanese seems to help, as they have an amazing ability to look "doll-like". I'd post a link or two - Morbid Outlook has a great article on them - but the work filters being what they are, doing a search on this at work is pretty much impossible.

I'm mesmerized. I really haven't paid a heck of a lot of attention to alternative fashion in the past few years, and I didn't really know a heck of a lot about it, even when I was Goth. I picked out what I liked from wherever I found it - I didn't tend to pick up on a stereotype. But I'm just fascinated by this look. And extremely tempted. I wonder if a 6 foot tall, white American Goth Lolita would be tantalizing or creepy. "Giant Baby" indeed!


Went to dance class last night. We are riding the wave of a sucesssful hafla performance last Saturday, and planning out more . That being any performances we do to live music, with the focus of a modular, group-centric performance. We are working off several general ideas:
- lots of improv - so that anyone of the troupe can merge into the peice, with little advance planning, although we are doing a lot of advance practicing.
- direction on format & mood - the trick to making improv not a "dance party" - which is fun, but doesn't have the solidity needed for an audience-focused performance - is to have a general format. Sometimes it's just "be energetic", "be sexy", sometimes it's a real game plan/outline - such as "dance in pairs, exchanging dancers this way"
- some choreography - to add a little bit of a different flavor, we've added choreography into the mix, but the choreography is intentionally modular and taught to everyone and anyone - so that it doesn't matter who shows up for a gig, we all know the choreography enough to make it work.
- line dances - we will now have two Isreali line dances under our belt. These have a very different texture from our usual belly dance "look", and they add a neat counterpoint.

This week we are back to planning. Our musical director has a total of 13 peices ready for presentation at Pennsic - we have probably practiced about 7 or 8 of them between last year's show and this past hafla. At least 4 or 5 are brand new to us. So this week was "what shall we do with this new stuff". And we have some tantalizing ideas:
- anything you can do I can do better - a common choreography idea in a new format - we will exchange dancers in pairs or more than pairs, where one does something impressive, and then the next scoffs and does something even more impressive. We'll be using humor and different bits of shtick to keep it light and not catty. It'll be choreographed - so that we don't blow our trump cards in the first minute - but the choreography will be something we learn together and then break down into little "bits" for each person. If you told me of this idea two years ago I'd think you were nuts. With this troupe it now seems like a natural evolution. How cool is that?
- props - probably choreographed as well - something using neat, dancerly props. And I was just thinking, watching the Hippie Chix last weekend how I really hadn't done enough with props in my dance 'career'. How convenient! And no, I didn't angle for this, Anne brought it up.
- veils - given that there has been a trend at Pennsic AWAY from "we like our dancers lightly roasted" - ie, putting a blazing bonfire in the middle of the dance circle - it may be a reasonable idea to develop veil choreography. I hope I don't need to point out the stupidity of dancing with a sheer, heat sensitive piece of flowing fabric near a fire. Plus, Laura found information on historic veil dancing. It's ephemeral - no surprise - but tantalizing.

And possibly some solo opportunities - drum solos, taqsims (slow instrumental improv) and the like. Rosa expressed interest in doing a taqsim with the two of us, and I was very flattered. I'm also interested in the idea of melodic improvised movement. I've had a lot of fun improving with drum with Master Daveed at Pennsic, which is the only time the opportunity has arisen. It would be very cool to try with a melodic instrument.


Tonight it will be time to prep for the Palio - print out a signup sheet for gate, have a form for documentation information for folks who didn't think to bring documentation with them, practice my own peice, plan when to arrive... And if I'm really super-duper lucky, I may get a chance to silicon seal the bathroom floor tonight. Wheeeeee???

Comments

[wren13.livejournal.com]

Ooh, much posting goodness! And I thought I'd been writing alot lately ;-) Thanks for laying out the dance plans so clearly, this will be a good reference.

[dakotakym.livejournal.com]

The Goth Lolita look is great, and has been around for a long time.. and you can totally pull it off even if you're not Japanese (I had a friend in college who used to dress the part, and she looked fabulous). I say, if it inspires you, absolutely play with the style & see if you like it on yourself. I think you'd look lovely.

[safirasilv.livejournal.com]

I've been finding myself amused by for several years by *other* people in the Goth Lolita look, but I can't bring myself to try it. People keep telling me I don't look my age, but there's a certain point at which one feels silly attempting fashion statements designed to play off youth.

Although who knows? Maybe the ((ahem))-year-old eyes and ((ahem again)) decades of depravity would make the whole thing that much more vampire-schoolgirl-decadent.

[safirasilv.livejournal.com]

Actually, looking at some more pictures I would look fab in the clothes. But I'd just look like a naughty Victorian, not a naughty Victorian child!

[lakshmi-amman.livejournal.com]

I was thinking you'd look rocking in it. You could either be naughty Victorian or if you really wanted the creepy doll look, get some seriously cutsy mask-like makeup - red spots on cheeks, pouty smaller-than-normal lips, and blackened eyes with tons of mascara. Oddly, I'm reminded of the mask-like make up I saw at iSebastiani this week. Wish I knew of some pictures to point to.

[safirasilv.livejournal.com]

I think you'd look pretty dern hot too.
A different effect than a petite Asian flower in the same outfit--but still hot. *makes coyote howling at the moon noises.

Harajuku Girls

[sll1065.livejournal.com]

There is a pictorial book called "Fruits" (published by Phaidon Press) about the Japanese girls (and guys) that dress up Goth on the weekends. They tend to hang out in the Harajuku district.

Here is a link to a 2001 salon.com article on them:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/style/2001/07/09/fruits/

As an interesting aside, Gwen Stefani's debut solo album has a song called "Harajuku Girls" and they are also referenced in the song "Rich Girl." Plus, in the Hollaback Girl video, they serve as backup dancers (or backup dancers imitating Harajuku Girl style).

[jducoeur]

On the blurry line between participatory/improvisational and performance dance: you really should sit down sometime and chat with me and Mara about the Caroso Ball model, not so much as a specific way to run a hafla but as a possible source of ideas. The *real* Renaissance balls (as opposed to the SCA recreations) straddled this line pretty consciously, and were rather more like a bardic circle than the big mixers we usually do...