While there's a renegade posse of San Franciscans who hate musicals -- elusive as the Yetti, but rumored to be true -- who spout the "too contrived" argument, I think we can all agree that Flash Mobs are fairly awesome. They take the best part of musicals and forgo the rest, infusing a random street corner with the kind of ebullient surprise usually reserved for stripper-grams and liquor-stuffed pinatas.
Julien Rey -- Frenchman and Janet Jackson devotee -- is one of the forces behind the San Francisco's own Bay Area Flash Mob, serving as one of five co-founders and the prime choreographer/dance instructor. Rey, who moonlights as a software engineer, came to our humble city by way of Osaka where he honed his skills as a backup dancer for a drag queen.
"I was going to a gay bar frequently for karaoke -- I kind of like to show off sometimes -- and this queen said, "hey would you like to be a backup dancer? I said, 'hell yes!' He really taught me how to be break down dance steps."
By Irene Hsiao
Undivided Divided, Beijing Olympics' choreographer Shen Wei's installation of 18 dancers, which ran March 21-24, begins in the silent contemplation of dancers in a uniform grid on the floor, each in his or her own body-sized white square, clad in nothing but nude shorts: blank.
They hardly blink as they lie face-up in savasana; even the breath seems slowed. Their first movements seem to take a measure of the small space they occupy: standing and falling, smearing themselves over the surface of their squares, walking with even steps forward and back along the perimeter, as bare as painting with water. They do not move in unison, but begin with similar movements that gradually become more idiosyncratic, clearly responding to predetermined improvisational prompts: leave and return to the floor, move parallel to the side of your square, raise the arm, stick out the tongue.
Every sinew and muscle is exposed to the people in the audience, who stand close enough to feel the air move between dancers and walk about the space at will.
