Friday 20 July 2012
Mimi singing "Out Tonight," as seen from backstage.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Sitzprobe
Saturday 7 July 2012
Today we had the sitzprobe (the first rehearsal with both actors and band, in which everyone just goes through the music once) for Rent in this awesome studio. One of the band members was essentially living there, and it felt just like a real-life version of Mark and Roger's apartment, complete with extension cords going everywhere.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Ceilidh
Friday 30 March 2012
Ryan and I went to a Scottish ceilidh (pron: kay-lee) tonight. It's basically like a Scottish hoe-down, where they teach you the basic moves and then call out the dance as you dance it. Some dances are in pairs, some are in groups, and some are with everyone, like the one shown here.Tons of fun - we're definitely going back.
Friday, February 10, 2012
City Soul
Friday 10 February 2012
Ryan's soul choir through the frosted glass at St. Andrew's Wesley, where they gave a Black History Month performance tonight. It was strange being at a Black History Month event where 99% of the people were not black, but I guess that's Canada!
Ryan's soul choir through the frosted glass at St. Andrew's Wesley, where they gave a Black History Month performance tonight. It was strange being at a Black History Month event where 99% of the people were not black, but I guess that's Canada!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Reel Big Fish
Thursday December 2011
Concerts are so hard to photograph. This one was a ton of fun to attend, though!
Concerts are so hard to photograph. This one was a ton of fun to attend, though!
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Prairie Fairie Fowl Supper
Saturday 5 November 2011
A fowl supper is a traditional harvest supper on the Canadian prairies. I attended my first tonight, although I think it was far from traditional. It is a fundraiser for charities helping people with AIDS and gay highschoolers, it was hosted by a drag queen, and it was nautical-themed so Ryan and I dressed as Popeye and Olyve Oyl. Yeah, not exactly what you'd find in small-town Saskatchewan.
There was dancing after dinner, so here's the dance floor.
A fowl supper is a traditional harvest supper on the Canadian prairies. I attended my first tonight, although I think it was far from traditional. It is a fundraiser for charities helping people with AIDS and gay highschoolers, it was hosted by a drag queen, and it was nautical-themed so Ryan and I dressed as Popeye and Olyve Oyl. Yeah, not exactly what you'd find in small-town Saskatchewan.
There was dancing after dinner, so here's the dance floor.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Black Sheep Morris Dancers
Saturday 10 September 2011
There was a big street fair down the road today, so I stopped in after my exam. It was mostly the same booths selling the same organic dog food and politicians giving out balloons to kids, but I also happened upon this energetic group of Morris dancers. They do simple dances while banging those sticks together as percussion for their singing - very fun!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Fuerza Bruta
Friday 11 June 2010
Ryan and I saw the coolest show tonight! It's called Fuerza Bruta, and it's this awesome dance and performace spectacular from Argentina. The audience (only maybe 50 people) stands on stage, and the show happens around and above and among us. Girls hanging from harnesses dancing and running on the walls, a man on a treadmill being shot at, dancers hitting audience members with confetti-filled boards. And this bit was the coolest - they lowered a plexiglass ceiling full of water over us, and the performers danced and slid in the water right over our heads. Such a neat theater experience.
Ryan and I saw the coolest show tonight! It's called Fuerza Bruta, and it's this awesome dance and performace spectacular from Argentina. The audience (only maybe 50 people) stands on stage, and the show happens around and above and among us. Girls hanging from harnesses dancing and running on the walls, a man on a treadmill being shot at, dancers hitting audience members with confetti-filled boards. And this bit was the coolest - they lowered a plexiglass ceiling full of water over us, and the performers danced and slid in the water right over our heads. Such a neat theater experience.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
At the concert
Wednesday 12 May 2010
We've been doing a lot of couchsurfing, which means staying with local people who have an extra room or space on their couch. We set it up through a website called couchsurfing.com.
Our host here in Ankara took us to a concert tonight, of one of the biggest rock bands in Turkey. It was a surprisingly fun night (I normally hate loud concerts) - here's me having fun not being able to take a picture of the band.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Seconds of Sufis
Friday 9 April 2010
We saw another example of the Whirling Dervishes tonight. Although it was still a performance, this one took place in a Sufi religious community center and had a much more somber atmosphere than the last one we saw. It began and ended with a prayer, and no one was playing to the crowd here.
If you look at the audience members in the background there, you'll notice that they're all men. We women had to sit on the second floor and peer down. I'm noticing that whenever women have separate quarters of any kind in these Muslim countries, we seem to get the short end of the stick.
We saw another example of the Whirling Dervishes tonight. Although it was still a performance, this one took place in a Sufi religious community center and had a much more somber atmosphere than the last one we saw. It began and ended with a prayer, and no one was playing to the crowd here.
If you look at the audience members in the background there, you'll notice that they're all men. We women had to sit on the second floor and peer down. I'm noticing that whenever women have separate quarters of any kind in these Muslim countries, we seem to get the short end of the stick.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Whirling Dervishes
Saturday 27 February 2010
Ryan and I went to a free performance of some Sufi dancers, commonly known as the "Whirling Dervishes."
This was probably a somewhat touristed-up show, but the idea behind this meditation technique of a quirky branch of Islam is that spinning around and around (and around - we saw one guy spin in the same spot for over half an hour!) helps one to abandon the ego, and to find oneness with God through this circular trance-like state. I think that's how it goes, anyway, it's still a little confusing to me.
Ryan and I went to a free performance of some Sufi dancers, commonly known as the "Whirling Dervishes."
This was probably a somewhat touristed-up show, but the idea behind this meditation technique of a quirky branch of Islam is that spinning around and around (and around - we saw one guy spin in the same spot for over half an hour!) helps one to abandon the ego, and to find oneness with God through this circular trance-like state. I think that's how it goes, anyway, it's still a little confusing to me.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Oud concert
Friday 26 February 2010
We went to see one of the most famous oud players, Naseer Shamma, in concert tonight.
The oud is a traditional Egyptian instrument, very middle-eastern sounding. Fun fact - "oud" means "stick" in Arabic.
Friday, January 29, 2010
KTV
Saturday 30 January 2010
My parents arrived today!! (Well, technically late last night in Taipei, where we met them coming in from Malaysia, and then we took a bus down to Kaohsiung, so today is really their first day.) And of course, what is the first thing we take them too? KTV! Ah, that most Taiwanese of experiences.
So here's my mom and dad, jamming out to "Unchained melody."
Monday, July 27, 2009
Rock and Roll Dance
Monday 27 July 2009
Okay, the World Games are over, but I have one to two more shots that have to go up. Here is the other kind of dancing we saw on Saturday, Rock and Roll. The dancing itself was really boring, but it was punctuated with lots of very cheerleadery flips and spins, which was pretty cool to watch.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Dance Sport
Saturday 25 July 2009
Ryan and I went to see Dance Sport today, where we saw some of the Latin and Rock and Roll competitions. Here is the Russian team - they were definitely a favorite with the crowd.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Rock Band
Sunday 1 February 2009
Today was Kevin's birthday, so we all went over to his place for an afternoon of playing Rock Band. I have never really liked video games, but this one I love! I'm not great at it, but we all have a good time together. Here are Becka and Rick, rocking out.
Friday, January 30, 2009
KTV
Friday 30 January 2009
We went out for a friend's girlfriend's birthday tonight, for a classic Taiwanese pastime: KTV. KTV is karaoke, but taken beyond the embarrassing North American version, and turned into something wonderful. It's a little more expensive, but a KTV is almost like a hotel, with a whole bunch of little rooms. You and a group of friends rent out a room, and get to line up all the songs you want to sing, and then you sing them, uninterrupted, the whole night. By yourselves. No one else watches you, no one else sings - it's fantastic! Plus, there's a great big, all-you-can-eat buffet on the fifth floor!
Here's Ryan and Becka, rocking away.
We went out for a friend's girlfriend's birthday tonight, for a classic Taiwanese pastime: KTV. KTV is karaoke, but taken beyond the embarrassing North American version, and turned into something wonderful. It's a little more expensive, but a KTV is almost like a hotel, with a whole bunch of little rooms. You and a group of friends rent out a room, and get to line up all the songs you want to sing, and then you sing them, uninterrupted, the whole night. By yourselves. No one else watches you, no one else sings - it's fantastic! Plus, there's a great big, all-you-can-eat buffet on the fifth floor!
Here's Ryan and Becka, rocking away.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Lion Dance
Monday 26 January 2009
Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy New Year!
Ryan and I went down to the cultural center today to see really cool, professional, jump-up-on-tall-poles lion dances. I took a video, so I didn't have much chance to get photos. But here's a really cool one of them jumping up on each other's shoulders while jumping around on 10-foot-tall poles while wearing a joint costume. Pretty impressive, eh?
Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy New Year!
Ryan and I went down to the cultural center today to see really cool, professional, jump-up-on-tall-poles lion dances. I took a video, so I didn't have much chance to get photos. But here's a really cool one of them jumping up on each other's shoulders while jumping around on 10-foot-tall poles while wearing a joint costume. Pretty impressive, eh?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Concert crowd
Thursday 22 January 2009
A friend of mine had an extra ticket to a neat concert, so she invited me to join her tonight. The composer of the music for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was here, conducting for that and some other music he has written to accompany neat videos of traditional music in Hunan province, in China (where he is from). It was Kaohsiung City's first ever outdoor, no assigned seats concert, a fact of which they were really proud.
They had colored lights shining on the crowd, making us all look rainbowed.
A friend of mine had an extra ticket to a neat concert, so she invited me to join her tonight. The composer of the music for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was here, conducting for that and some other music he has written to accompany neat videos of traditional music in Hunan province, in China (where he is from). It was Kaohsiung City's first ever outdoor, no assigned seats concert, a fact of which they were really proud.
They had colored lights shining on the crowd, making us all look rainbowed.
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