#oh my god imagine him singing and dancing for hermann at the ‘dancing and the dreaming’ song

[dragons-in-spaceee]

*looks at newt* that is a man who watches httyd at least 3 times a week and owns neon green alien socks

[hermannsthumb]

do you have any soft newmann hc's? i'm sick on vacation and feel So grody and bummed, but your writing always cheers me up!

hey man same boat im sick over my winter vacation too!! misery together...heres some nice newmann hcs

hermann always downplays it when he’s sick to the point that he looks like a walking corpse and newt has to physically drag him to bed. but it’s ok because newt will willingly sacrifice his own health to wait on hermann hand and foot

he’s like semi-aggressive about it tho. he tucks hermann in tenderly and strokes his hair all while being like god i can’t BELIEVE you’re making me do this. how DARE you get sick. do you want a massage. obviously i’m going to read to you

newt plays the guitar for hermann a lot, usually while they’re relaxing somewhere, and twists lyrics of songs to be abt hermann instead. this bullet point brought to u by the realization that newt teasingly singing brown-eyed *boy* to hermann would be VERY cute

dad bod newt.....please

very appreciative hermann

newt “““flexing””” while shirtless and being like OH YEAH LIKE WHAT U SEE BIG BOY (hermann does)

i invite u to imagine the two of them getting lost in ikea while arguing over which furniture would look best in their new apartment and then like making up/out on a display couch somewhere 

hermann probably tears up when they move everything in to their place and newt’s like??? it’s a shitty apartment? and hermann’s like i never though i’d get this with you and then they both kinda gt weepy and kiss a bunch

slow dancing in their tiny kitchen... hermann’s head on newt’s shoulder, newt humming in his ear and swaying them slowly, jokingly complimenting hermann’s moves (you must have trained with only the finest dance instructors dr gottlieb...)

they love each other so much and they would have so many photographs and photo albums of themselves together around their apartment....wedding photos everywhere (newt rubbing cake all over hermann’s face, their first dance, when they snuck away from the crowd to kiss in secret and the photographer caught them)....polaroids from their honeymoon (grumpy sunburned hermann in a big dumb sunhat and socks with sandals and a blurry selfie one of them laying intertwined on a towel while hermann sleeps)......trips they’ve taken together (more blurry selfies with beautiful scenery, some shitty pub in germany when they visited where hermann grew up)...newt framed the photo that was on the back of their book of published joint research where they both look completely ridiculous (they refused to let anyone style them for the photoshoot)

valentines day in the shatterdome! newt would absolutely go out of his way to shower hermann with grand romantic gestures...buys him chocolates and flowers and gets takeout and arranges it with little candles in the lab......makes him valentines with nerdy puns...leaves rose petals all over his side of the lab and draws pink hearts on his chalkboard

when hermann’s hands get cold he subtly indicates this to newt (aka not subtly he just clears his throat a bunch and flexes his fingers) until newt very graciously holds them to warm them up

newt painting hermann’s fingernails is *chefs kiss* already but especially if it’s that vaguely translucent kind with the bits of tiny glitter stars in it

i love thinking about the kind of rings they pick out when they get married...newt would probably try to buy hermann the gaudiest fuckin thing before hermann convinces him it should be sensible, dear, that they should just get plain gold bands. newt agrees to it but only on the condition that he can buy hermann a huge gaudy engagement ring because they have MONEY now

speaking of which now that they have money (they have enough for rent and groceries with some left over which means newt insists theyre rich) newt showers/pampers hermann with everything he could possibly want. expensive bubble bath! fancy expensive imported tea that hermann had no idea existed! expensive bedsheets! hermann eventually has to sit him down and be like. newton i love you but this is TOO much

i think i included this in a bullet pt headcanon list before but newt definitely says WOW!!!!!!!!! after their first kiss

[riting]

Hi, Solo / Gala, Honey (Pieter Fundraiser)

Carmela Hermann Dietrich on Hi, Solo

Hi, Solo, a series inspired by Mark Haim, is curated by Alexx Shilling and Devika Wickremesinghe. This particular evening was a fundraiser for Pieter Performance Space. Inspired by Hi, Solo I set a timer for three minutes two times; during each writing session, I wrote whatever came to mind, first about Hi Solo, and then Pieter and the fundraiser.  And….go!

1.

I love Hi, Solo. I love the idea of it. That within three minutes you can make something that is a complete idea. That is the assignment. To create a 3-minute solo specifically for Hi, Solo. Someone I admire once told me, “when you’ve got something important to communicate, say it in three sentences”. I’ve used this when I want to run on at the mouth in an email, a text, in conversation. How often as choreographers do we run on at the body-mouth? Simone Forti, one of my primary artistic mentors, once told me that in the 60’s Robert Dunn gave his (now historic) composition class the assignment, “make something that’s three minutes long and don’t work on it for longer than three minutes”.

What was most interesting to me, was watching how the artists took on this challenge. I saw choreographed ideas that had a set beginning, middle and end; I saw works that weren’t set, but followed a strategic trajectory; some artists improvised, allowing their endings to be arbitrarily decided by the timer.  I saw some that drew me in, and some that didn’t. There were some that made my nine-year-old son laugh. And one that made him sad. I can’t get into specifics about all ten piece because … I only have three minutes to write.

2.

This particular Hi, Solo was a fundraiser to raise money for Pieter. Pieter needs a new floor. I love Pieter’s floor. I can see any inch of it on instagram and remember, “oh, yeah, that’s that spot where my hair always gets caught in the tape”. It’s a well loved floor. But as Jmy James Kidd, Pieter Protector, said, it’s also a bit dangerous. She revealed during the fundraiser pitch at Intermission, that she has a splinter “permanently lodged in her ass.” That’s not good. Pieter has been a radical dance space for creativity, safe expression, innovation, and exploration for seven years. I am there regularly. What’s so amazing about Pieter is not just the mix of people drawn to it’s community, but the welcoming attitude of the entire space. This is the vision of Pieter; a place where artists and people who want to be themselves and feel accepted are welcome. Yes, Pieter has some badass choreographers, but at Pieter the newbie who has never danced or performed is just as welcomed and accepted. Pieter supports Los Angeles’ people like no other. 

Carmela Hermann Dietrich is an L.A. based choreographer and improviser whose work has been performed nationally and internationally since 1995. Her last dance theater work, "In Plain Sight", featuring four real-life people grappling with compulsive behaviors, premiered at the Bootleg Theater. Carmela is also an Upledger Certified CranioSacral Therapist.

Maya Gingery on Hi, Solo

PIETER IS A PLACE

Names either stick or they don’t, and this one did.  It’s called Pieter and only Jmy knows why.

Pieter is a place that was created for community and a community has formed around this dance studio in Lincoln Heights.  After 7 years of pounding feet and rolling bodies, the past-its-prime flooring needs replacing, and so on April 15th Pieter held an evening of performance as a fundraiser for a brand new floor.

Hi, Solo was an evening of 3-minute works by a roster of local artists, some dancers, some performance artists, and a few that fall between the cracks. It’s an eclectic mix, a diversity of styles and forms that serve well LA’s appetite for inclusivity. And so it was, for this benefit show that also included a sweet testimonial from the hosts and board of directors about how Pieter has become the heart center for so many in the local dance and performance scene.

Here’s a short synopsis of what I experienced:

The show began with a work titled Emergency Landing choreographed by Dorothy Dubrule, and danced by P. Jason Black, a non-dancer as he explained it to me.  It could have been called an Ode to Aluminum Foil, as the rotund Jason was indelibly and fashionably wrapped in it, toga-style. To the tinklings of a piano sonata (Schumann perhaps?), Jason expressed as willingly as Isadora Duncan his interpretation of the classical poses of the gods, and just as willingly descended and rolled like a boulder on the ground, the kinetic antithesis to the greek statue. The contrasts worked.

LA-based Carol McDowell, dressed in summery turquoise, danced her own solo titled, Noetic Gestures No. 3.  There was a Latin aesthetic in her choice of music, and a lot of shifting directions and gestural use of space. Later I learned the dance was based on Hermeneutics, or the philosophy of interpretation. Since dance is a non-verbal form of communication, this seemed apropos. One could interpret it however one wished.

Wilfred Souly danced his solo Trapped to a live talking drum played by Magatte Sow. His movements suggested possession by something outside himself, as seen in African spiritualism. There were contrasts of up and down, side to side, in and out. It was a powerful male performance and it’s political intent was the driving force.

Performance/visual artist Luis Lera Malvacias presented a work that was both literally and figuratively dark and subversively visual. Covered in black clothing that completely obfuscated his body, his spine however was visually articulated with a row of white lightbulbs. On the stage lay a mysterious angular black object, also illuminated, a parallel to the objectification of his own body. The artist, bent over like the hunchback of literary fame, moaned and cried as he mysteriously hovered near the box, only his voice penetrating the sphere of this dark perverse world. It was weird and striking.

Maybe it was the psychological resonance from the previous piece, but I can’t remember a thing about dancer Maria Maea’s I choose here.  If that sounds harsh, one can be forgiven for not remembering everything in such a long and diverse program.  I do remember some video, some sound, some dance. However, it’s title couldn’t have been more perfect. Possibly the dance was perfect too. I hope Maria performs it again, when I will be ready to remember it well.

In the second half of the show Doran George presented Aid and Abet, a sexually-loaded interpretation of scholarship. Seemingly naked underneath a trenchcoat casually draped over them, they lay on piles of books and played dead, as Gillian Cameron recited gay poetry. Give me Love, she read in a monotone, as we waited for her to revive him with bon mots.  In the end Doran was resurrected, and rose to reveal themselves wearing a loincloth and a plaster-of-paris penis, fully-erect natch.  Some good ideas there.

Valerie McCann is not a dancer. She’s an actor, she explained to me, but she wanted to make a dance.  So she did.  It was called Helplessness Makes Patients Hard to Please, with the subtitle Love Hurts.  Based on the title I’m going to assume she has some experience with this.  She wore a terrific white robe that was a costume from a play she had been in.  She took that costume with her (who was wearing whom?) and made a dance play about gestures and trajectory that ended at the wall. She used the space well, and I never would have guessed it was her first choreography.  Loads of stage presence.

Dancer/Choreographer Kevin Williamson did an exquisite arm dance.  Feet planted firmly like the roots of a tree, he chose to be in profile as he manipulated his two upper limbs in every possible configuration that profile will allow.  It was a search for reason in an unstable world. To me it’s always within limitations that imagination has room to grow and I was in continual wonder as he took me on his bodily journeying.  He also chose to accentuate the oddness of the Pieter stage, a rectangle interrupted in the center by a square of four large pillars, by standing off-center and far upstage, inviting us to think about the scale and boundaries of human existence. Beautiful.

Dancer Alexsa Durrans wore red and black.  On first impression I perceived her flowing movement as a watery flamenco, though “weighted like water, this will happen again” turned out to be more motivated by fluidity than Spanish passions.  Not sure what would “happen again”, but when water is concerned it’s certain something will.  That’s the beauty of dance, it’s poetry in motion, it ebbs and flows like water, and what’s not seen is often just as important as what is.

Finally dancer Alexa Weir honored us with a wistful, idyllic ode to new motherhood. She filled her stage with potted plants and moved with delicate grace among them. Glass chimes tinkled in the background.  She called it Day Moon.  She choreographed it in a closet.  It was a lovely and calming conclusion to a Nabokovian program.

One problem I’ve encountered as both artist and audience is that no one is writing about independent experimental dance in LA. So naturally no one expects to be reviewed. I had a hard time finding and talking to the artists amid the din of chips, dips and beer-fueled conversations, but I persevered. (Sorry Maria, I couldn't find you!).  Let's be grateful for the creation of Riting.LA, an online place to bring focus to LA independent performing arts and the thousands of artists who make this city such a vibrantly growing creative space.

In conclusion, Pieter raised some money. We got to watch some dance and support the artists.  As always, the after-party was fun and the community communed.  LA is great.

Maya Gingery is a maker-dancer-choreographer-musician-educator-writer, lifelong creative and fellow human. She makes dances and other performative events, collects musical instruments, grows vegetables and sings a song every day. Her best friend Mimi is a deer. She was last seen on stage as Demeter, in the Four Larks development project of  ὕμνος/hymns at the Getty Villa.

Hi, Solo / Gala, Honey (Pieter needs a new floor!) happened on Saturday, April 15th, 2017. The night was curated by Alexx Shilling and Devika Wickremesinghe.

Pieter has since reached their goal to raise $10,000 for a new floor and cosmetic repairs. Pieter’s YouCaring campaign will be live through May 31st. Metabolic Studio will match all funds raised up to $15,000. Please consider donating to such a special space.  

photos by Amanda Bjorn