releasing a special one-off single this week!

For the past couple of weeks I've been working hard to get something ready -- just a little something that probably won't be on the upcoming album.  After spending all of yesterday locked up with the lovely cello lady above, I think it's finally done.

More soon! but if you want to be one of the first to hear this one-off single, everyone on my fanlist will be receiving a free copy any day now.  You can join the list in the right-hand column on this page, or here.

backstage pics from Re:Vision

We had a super time performing in the Re:Vision Series this past weekend in NYC.  I had wondered about having so many dancers on a smaller stage, plus myself wandering through them, but our piece worked well in the space after all.  I also really enjoyed the work of our fellow artists.  I'll have video and performance pics soon and will write a bit more then.  

A few more from behind the scenes:

dancers getting ready

Liberty lash

on the backstage "fire escape" - do we look scared?

with the wondrous and amazing Pacho aka AJP

red white and blue on 9th Avenue

song for We the People

The dance that we're making now is getting very exciting.  I think it's going to be called We the People.  The idea for this dance emerged from one of the songs that I am working on for the new album but the dance took its own direction, as dances tend to do.  So as it turns out, I have written another new song for the dance!  We showed the work for the first time last weekend at an informal studio performance in Philadelphia.  It was my first chance to tape the piece so that I could see how the song and choreography are working together.  They seem to fit, at least as one possible version of this dance, so we'll keep the song for our upcoming performances at the Re:Vision Series in New York City next month.  I'm still making some adjustments and I don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone coming to Re:Vision... so I'm not going to post too much more about the song yet.  I hope that maybe some of you will be able to come see us!  The dance is really exploding now, and I have such exciting dancers working with me.  I am very grateful to them.  They really inspire me.

jammin' in BK

I am so impatient to get into the recording studio! but we have to wait for scheduling, etc. so for now I've been working up some tunes to get out and do some gigs with my friend Tim Daoust.  We're trying out some different angles with the songs, in both electronic and acoustic configurations, in order to start taking them out around NYC and hopefully beyond.  I wasn't able to tour behind the first album after being swallowed up by dance back then, so it is really exciting to be working on different possibilities for doing those songs live now.

It's wonderful working with Tim because he can go in any direction that we might want to take this, having a background in electronic music as well as rock and classical/new music composition (among other things).  Plus, he has the fabulous Penny, who helps us out a lot; for example checking to make sure that I have set up my gear properly:

 

keeping my equipment case warm:

and letting us know when we are not doing anything particularly impressive:

Re:Vision performances in April

So it looks like we will be performing the new dance in a shared program at The Tank in NYC on April 15th and 16th.  The Re:Vision Series, hosted by Forward Motion Theater, features mixed media and interdisciplinary artists, so we will be expanding the piece into new dimensions and my brain is spinning like mad with ideas!  So far we've been working with the dance in silence, but I'm thinking about creating an electronic score for these performances or incorporating spoken word... or maybe, singing.  And/or possibly, video of some kind.  It's quite a challenge to add such elements right now, since I'm really enjoying the simple rawness of the movement we've been making and have been thinking more in terms of showing the dance outdoors and in simple studio spaces at the beginning.  But this is a great opportunity to try some new ideas for the work and to be part of an interesting show.  Anyway, we'll see what happens!  More details about the show are listed on our website Calendar.

things like this make me so happy

Beautiful artists building bridges with their work. The doumbek player is the totally awesome Joe Tayoun, who played on my "Song of Songs".   Happy Friday!

dancing into the recording studio real soon

Should be in the recording studio early this year! Just working out some last details. Meanwhile I wrote another song, so that's good. This one is definitely a DANCE toon & you know that makes me happy cause I love to dance :)) More soon!