#this is directed at people in my greece and rome in film class

[mythosphere]

We need to bring back damnatio memoriae because some of you are getting a bit too comfortable for my taste

[easterwings]

i was tagged by @1000-directions thank youuuuuuu (you can tag me in all the things ever)

RULES : ANSWER all questions, ADD one question of your own and then TAG as many people as there are questions

live session or studio session? i guess it depends on the song.  like with “numb” by TATE, i love the studio version, the live version, and the bombastic (acoustic one-take) version equally.

coke or pepsi? coke (zero)

disney or dreamworks? disney/pixar.  i adore a bug’s life to pieces, especially since it’s got madeline kahn and david hyde-pierce in it.

coffee or tea? tea.  i usually drink up to five different types of tea a day and i’ve become that person that carries those five different types of tea in my bag.

books or movies? books.  my crappy attention span rarely lets me sit through a tv show, let alone a movie.

windows or mac? windows

dc or marvel? marvel.  mostly because i have a giant soft spot for tony stark and also because i love the sandman comics.

xbox or playstation? playstation.  the last game i played on a playstation was katamari damacy but i think that counts.

night owl or early riser? i have two small children and i enjoy my free time, so let’s say both.

cards or chess? chess

chocolate or vanilla? (mint) chocolate

vans or converse? converse. except when the little lady gets to walking on her own i’m going to buy her this pair of vans i saw that had little yellow flowers all over them.  :)  (she already has a pair of hand-me-down converse from her big brother but they’re not shoes to walk in.)

star wars or star trek? star trek forever and ever.  doesn’t even matter which series.  i was randomly thinking about the first star trek movie on the drive home from work on friday.  v’ger :(

one episode per week or marathoning? lol you’re lucky to get an episode per month out of me

gandalf or obi-wan? gandalf.  i will never be over his description of aman for as long as i live.

heroes or villains? i guess it depends on the story.  like in the rifter series it’d be so easy to hate laurie but i can’t.  she’s such a fantastic character and wonderfully written and i love her.

john williams or hans zimmer? john williams

disneyland/disney world or six flags? six flags.  i have good memories from going there with my cousin when i was little.

forest or sea? the sea.  there’s so much mythology around it.

flying or reading minds? i have a raging anxiety disorder and a fear of heights.  let’s go with reading minds.

twin peaks or northern exposure? i’ve never seen either one.

harry potter or lord of the rings? lord of the rings, forever.  i have an entire bookshelf of nothing but tolkien and it wasn’t until i got my smartphone that i had a camera that could take a decent picture of it.  i’m so proud of that shelf.  if you would like to see a picture of my tolkien shelf (you know you do), just let me know.  :)

cake or pie? pie

you are banished to a desert island, which benedict cumberbatch character would you choose to take with you? smaug

train or cruise ship? a train

brian cox or neil degrasse-tyson?  neil, although i really like both of them.

wizard of oz or alice in wonderland? alice in wonderland always.

fanfiction or fanart? fanfiction

the hunger games - books or movies? the books.  i still haven’t seen the last two movies and i don’t remember the first.

be able to see the future or travel into the past? be able to see the future.  because anxiety.

han solo or luke skywalker? luke skywalker.

lilacs or sunflowers? lilacs.

spring or autumn? spring.  all that green.

campfire or fireplace? campfire!  before my father-in-law passed away we used to go camping in the mountains and we’d have a fire and it was great.

french fries or onion rings? fries, particularly with gravy.

truth or dare? dare.  i will do anything to avoid telling the complete truth about myself.

winter or summer? winter.  let me be sad in a sweater.

vampires or werewolves? vampires.  except surprise vampires.  i read a historical m/m novel once and the plot twist was vampires and i was not amused. 

red or blue? red, specifically tor red

eyes or lips? eyes

burgers or sandwiches? i think you could argue that a burger is a type of sandwich so let’s go with sandwiches.

friends-to-lovers or enemies-to-lovers trope? friends-to-lovers. i am all about that moment when someone realises that the person they’d been looking for all their life was there all along.

pizza or pasta? pizza.

ancient rome or ancient greece? ancient rome.  i just really enjoyed my high school latin class, okay?

foxes or wolves? wolves

mermaids or dragons? dragons

sci-fi or fantasy? fantasy, although sci-fi is an extremely close second

watch a film in theaters or at home? at home.  i can pause it and go give in to my crappy attention span at home.

fireproof or no more sad songs? i’ve only ever heard fireproof but it’s got lots of louis so it’d win anyway.

bands or individual singers?  bands 

sweet or salty? salty.  the marmite crisp is the work of the gods and bless the person who came up with it.

monotype corsiva or comic sans? comic sans.  i’m not sorry.  that other font is ugly.

turtles or frogs? turtles!  little baby turtles!  also not all frogs are to be trusted.

and for my question, blur or oasis?

i am going to tag @dearmrsawyer @louie-for-life @lirryonce @robotcorsair @iwanttodateizzy @outrunningthezombies @bunnystreet58 @mywitfailsme @whentherewerebicycles @givemeahomeamongstthegumtrees @theveryfloralbee @stuff-and-no-nonsense @tintedglasses @thelinesofthecars @hendroda  and anyone else who’d like to do it.

[twiggyhecate]

Every year a lavish ball which is one of the biggest in Europe is held.  The Life Ball was founded in 1992 by Gery Keszler and DR. Torgom Petrosian. Ever since its debut, the annual event has been committed to removing taboos and fighting against HIV and AIDS, as well as addressing socio-political issues surrounding the virus. This blog will examine the collages that were both the visual and thematic framework for the Life Ball 2017.  Here, the organisers have drawn inspiration from the decadence and austerity of 1920’s-30’s Germany. First, in brightly colored deco couture that conjure up the glamorous and grotesque subjects of an Otto Dix painting. Then through architecture, referencing the monolithic classicism of nazi architect, Albert Speer.

The life Ball, to me, resembled an utopian dystopian ‘Hunger Games’ overseen by the fat elite with their brightly coloured fake personas.    I’d be interested in the thoughts of the reader. 

The slogan for this years Life Ball was #recognisethedanger – the organisers of the event  state on their website that the Life Ball evokes the zeitgeist of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Recognizing dangers in all areas – from health to society – is the overarching theme.

This annual event is held in Vienna, Austria. The backdrop is reminiscent of the Capitol City in The Hunger Games.  

An opening ceremony took place on a massive stage in front of City Hall. Hosted by Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst

The Life Ball, which takes place in the Vienna City Hall

Avenue of the Tributes, Capitol City – Hunger Games (2012)

THE JAPANESE DANCER PLAYED THE ROLE OF THE WHORE OF BABYLON“. ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS SCENES FROM THE MOVIE METROPOLIS. A CLASSIC MOVIE FROM 1925/26, TAKING PLACE IN A FUTURISTIC CITY WITH TWO-CLASS SOCIETY. – SOUND FAMILIAR?

  For those whom, do not know this most famous scene, click below to see.

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist epic science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang.  It is regarded as a pioneering work of the science-fiction genre in movies, being among the first feature-length movies of the genre.  Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic 2026 urban dystopia in the city of Metropolis, wealthy industrialists reign from high-rise tower complexes, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the underground machines that power the city.

Otto Dix

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war.

Every sexual predilection was catered for during the roaring twenties. Identities began to open up, traditional borders were publicly crossed. But the beggar in the background here remains unnoticed – nobody is even looking at him. What do freedom and beauty mean, if they can turn away from those neither beautiful nor free?

A group of colourful individualists pursue their vision of beauty at the margins of society. Behind them, uniformed brutality is threatening their way of life. Do they have the strength to stand up for themselves, and for one another, or will they be trampled under the super-conformist jackboots?

A new, openly hedonistic culture thrives amid the ruins of the First World War. Bars and cabarets are lled with individualist birds of paradise living in the moment. But their freedom to be themselves is already under threat.

Otto Dix Grossstadt 1927-28

 Otto Dix was first and foremost a critic of capitalism — a fact obscured by the bullshitting of his art by Hollywood, that is, the dumbing of it down into entertainment in such films as Cabaret, more pointedly, the neutralising and kitschifying of its critical content by its assimilation into the society of the spectacle we culturally inhabit. 

Otto Dix

The seven deadly sins reminded painter Otto Dix of the depravity and decadence he saw all around him in inter-war Berlin. But who’s to say what’s sin and what’s virtue? Who has the power to decide for everyone else?

Otto Dix The Seven Deadly Sins 1933

Otto Dix’s  prescient picture of Hitler as one of The Seven Deadly Sins (1933) is a brilliantly on-target allegorical painting.

The Berlin doctor Magnus Hirschfeld was a pioneer in expanding the boundaries of sexual identities. His clinic offered a scienti c approach to understanding queerness. He was even involved in the rst ever sex change operation. As book burners tried to impose their idea of normal, he unlocked the door to new possibilities.

In the above picture CONCHITA WURST poses in a mirror exposing both breasts. 

Otto Dix Dedicated to Sadists 1922

A game of life and death. Oskar Schlemmer’s mechanical gures are like chess pieces in some nal confrontation. Are they people? Are they machines? A destructive sex goddess seduces the masses in the background. The black and white machine-people must choose their next move wisely.

What is male beauty? While the fascists promoted idealized sculpted torsos from an imagined ancient Greece, cubist and expressionist artists explored different and freer interpretations of the male body. Labelled “degenerate”, the artists were persecuted and their works often destroyed.

The 1920s and 1930s were a liberating laboratory of self expression and sexual identity for women, gay and straight. At the same time, a counter-movement of chaste exercising con ned countless girls and women to a virginal sameness. Were they drawn together at the price of their individuality?

In this shoot we see aspects of Otto’s famous works.  

Otto Dix Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber 1925

Raised by a grandmother in Dresden, Anita Berber fled to Berlin at age 16 where she supported herself in caberets. By the end of the war, she was dancing nude and performing in films. She was notorious and always in the company of lovers of both sexes. She could often be seen in hotel lobbies naked apart from an sable wrap, a pet monkey and a silver brooch packed with cocaine. She died of tuberculosis in 1928.

Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden 1926

She walked in one direction and he in the other. Dix stopped in his tracks. “I must paint you, I simply must! You represent an entire epoch.” She was amused. “You want to paint my lacklustre eyes, my ornate ears, my long nose, my thin lips. You want to paint my short legs, my big feet – things that can only frighten people and delight no one?” To Dix, her depiction was perfect. The portrait would represent a generation concerned not with the outward beauty of a woman but her psychological condition.

Josephine Baker was famous for her sensational dance performances. She often wore nothing but a few ostrich feathers, and her famous banana costume caused a public scandal. She played with stereotypes about “natural“ African sensuality. But while audiences gawped at her gyrations, many saw in her art a re ection of their own expectations and desires.

Big city (Triptych) (Großstadt (Triptychon)). Central panel, 1927/28

2015 theme was Change, renewal and improvement that was the main topic for Life Ball which runs under the motto To every age its battle. To every battle its setting sun. The word ‘battle’ stands for the fight against the stigma associated with HIV disease and the social exclusion of infected people.  The inspiration for the event came from both the religious practice from ancient Rome and the title of the magazine of the Vienna Secession art movement which was founded by artists like Gustav Klimt and Wiener Werkstätte designer Koloman Moser.

Each year, one or more famous fashion designers are responsible for the event’s fashion show.  This year a fashion show by Francesco Scognamiglio dazzled the audience with its hunky male models in corsets and stockings along with beautiful women in one-of-a-kind gowns. The show ended with Dionne Warwick and her granddaughter Cheyenne Elliott serenading the crowd with a duet of “What the World Needs Now.”

Sources and further reading.  

Life Ball 2017 http://lifeplus.at/en/

Lifebible https://www.lifebible.org/en/

Life Ball 2017: A First-Hand Account of the World’s Most Explosively Decadent, Supermodel and Drag Queen-Packed Charity Gala https://www.wmagazine.com/story/life-ball-2017-inside-account-naomi-campbell-rupauls-drag-race

Metropolis http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/

  Otto Dix masterpieces recreated for Life Ball 2017  Every year a lavish ball which is one of the biggest in Europe is held.  The Life Ball was founded in 1992 by Gery Keszler and DR.

[davidlatreillewhatsup]

Screendance Festival

On April 28th, The Boudoir will have its Swedish premiere during the fourth edition of the Screendance Festival at Dansmuseet, Stockholm.

About

The 2017 Screendance Festival will present multiple screenings and activities at Dansmuseet (the world’s first museum of dance and movement), Midsommargården and Mäster Olofsgården from April 24th-30th in the heart of Stockholm. Meticulously curated, each program will signaled the beginning of a three day celebration at Dansmuseet with screenings of International, Swedish, 1-Minute and gif. Dance programs. Each category will be judged and winners will be announced.

This year’s theme will focus on how we use digital resources and social media in the performing arts. As well as creating an international network collaboration by inviting performing artists from Sweden and other countries. Moreover, the festival will want to exchange with experienced people and to provide the opportunity for artists and the audience to be more active in the whole process before, during and after the festival.

International and local Swedish artists are always part of its selection process. The festival believe in quality and therefore carefully curate programs to offer the best possible experience to all generations. The selected films of 2017 will be showcased during the festival in April as well as touring in Sweden and abroad.

International Competition

Promenade/Cirila Luz Ferron/Argentina 60 pulses/Aliki Chiotaki/Greece Ourself/Hannah Subotnick/USA Dance Rome Rise/Javier Cardenete Rivera/Spain While We Weave/Wafa’a Halawi/Lebanon Exquisite Corps/Mitchell Rose/USA Otis Walks Into The Woods/Derrick Belcham, Emily Terndrup/USA What Weee Are/Alessio De Marchi, Alessandra Turcato/Italy Naken/David Strindberg/UK Saeta: The mourning/Rosamaria E. Kostic Cisneros/UK Vis-er-al/Polly Hudson/UK Move on/Yasuaki Fujinami/Japan Iron Modvm/Derek Pedrós/Spain Aquarius/Timo Zhalnin/Russia A Full Circle – Movement #3/Rodrigo Rocha-Campos/ Canada Dancing Day/Tytus Bergstrom/USA The Boudoir/David Latreille/Canada Ernestina/Vanesa Menalli/Argentina WindowsDance.0/Dawn Westlake/USA The inhabitant/Ariel Martinez/Argentina The Big Class/Marie-Lou Béland/Canada G(o)d/Jr. Pereira/Brazil Wyrd Glass Animals/Josh Why/France Through the Eyes of My Meal/Jordan Taylor Fuller/USA Get Live/Adriana Roze/Latvia/UK Searches/Pablo Pattenden/Argentina Black Square/Timo Zhalnin/Russia Hers Is Where Yours Begin/Janet McIntyre/USA This is not Magritte/Ivan Skorik/Russia Anthropophagy/Vinícius Cardoso/Brazil Curing Albrecht/Jessica Wright Morgann Runacre-Temple/UK Fall/Paulina Rutman/Chile The Natural Route/Goga Riveros och Irvin Castro/Chile Silent Pack/Björn Larsson/Norway We no longer wait for the barbarians/Alain El Sakhawi/Italy Crow Black/Leo Bruges/UK Move/Marlene Millar/Canada Crack the Cypher/Marites Carino/Canada Cold Storage/Thomas Freundlich/Finland Broken/Chris Tourlakis/Greece Diving into your absence/Concha Vidal/Spain Absence/Carolina De Luca/Argentina In and Out of Control/Emir Eralp/UK Night Dancing/Barney Cokeliss/UK Moving Southwark/Jevan Chowdhur/UK SEE | OBEY/Jouka Valkama/Finland Amuse/Ivo van Aart/Netherlands

About Dansmuseet

Dansmuseet is a unique museum of dance and movement founded by Rolf de Maré (1888–1964). He travelled all over the world collecting artefacts, documenting and filming dance cultures. Dansmuseet houses this unique collection of authentic costumes, instruments, sculpture, puppets, photographs and masks from the dance cultures of Asia, Africa and North America. Also included is a rich collection of items from the Ballets Suédois, a Swedish dance ensemble in Paris directed by Rolf de Maré in the 1920s. This company performed artistically innovative productions with the help of a range of artists, musicians, authors and filmmakers, all of whom went on to become world-famous.

Dansmuseet opened in Stockholm in 1953, in the basement of the Royal Swedish Opera. With the creativity of the Ballets Suédois as his guiding light, Rolf de Maré hoped his museum would become a meeting place for many art forms, blurring the distinctions between dance, theatre, painting and photography. De Maré strove his entire life to improve the significance and status of dance in society. The museum has been located in many different places in Stockholm over the years. Drottninggatan 17 is the museum’s sixth address, and here many different art forms continue to come together, focused around the concept of movement.