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Circus Oz at Royce Hall

Circus Oz
So we decided to be the only adults not accompanied by children at the matinee of Circus Oz's From the Ground Up performance at Royce Hall this Saturday.
And we had a fun time.  It's interesting to see a circus that had a narrative through line and repeated motifs.  There was a very interesting piece where the straps were attached to a rope and so there was a pulley relationship between the person on the rope and the person on the straps.  There was also a hilarious bit on skates.  Next week we are off to a magic show, this one for grownups.

Scott Grant 
Red Sky Solutions 
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So we had not seen Gustavo Dudamel conduct, and that was something that we needed to change so the beloved did a two-in-one-blow and got us tickets for the Philharmonic's debut of John Adams "The Gospel According to the Other Mary" with Dudamel conducting the Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Chorale. I must say that it was riveting musically and I love watching 100 people on that intimate stage making music. The percussion stands were full of BIG DRUMS and cow bells and all manner of things to make noise, and they did! I spent a lot of time wondering when this or that piece of percussion would get hit, the anticipation was fun. The music was incredible and very moving, though sometimes I felt the texts got in the way of the story. I liked watching the chorus too, they wore black and had notebooks of white pages like doves flying across them when they sang. However, reading the review of the show in The New Yorker made me realize what a musical dilettante I am. My reaction to the music was primal and not influenced by references to "El Nino" or other composers (I love Adam's "Nixon in China" a text I know so well that the Beloved and I have had a running joke for the past 15 years about Madame Mao's aria. But here, in the New Yorker was a knowledgeable opinion about the opera. Who knew all that was going on?
We also went to the Broad a while back to see the Fado singer, Ana Moura. She really has one of the unique voices of the 21st century, and hearing her in person made me realize how recording can dull a resonant spark. Her voice was so much warmer and powerful in person. The other person who I think has a one of the great voices of the 21st Century is Concha Buika, the flamenco singer, and I must make a point of getting tickets the next time she is in town, no matter how expensive.
Finally, I was in the Kinetic Theory Student Cabaret and Stephanie put a really quick little video montage of the three shows up on YouTube. I have about 10 seconds in it, which you can see here, I'm on a trapeze with red tights - spinning and prancing. I'm the only one on the trapeze with red tights but if you clink you'll miss the cuts.

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The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

Well I just haven't written in a while. But I must talk about The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz. However I must also mention that this spring I went to see Cavallia (which should come with a parental warning label: Do not bring your tween daughters to this show unless you can fork out for a pony) and it snowed in LA while we were in the tent. Otherwise it was a typical Cirque show - a big marshmallow of a spectacle but nothing that sticks to your ribs. But horses, how can you go wrong? We also saw Mark Morris' Allegro at the music center. It was wonderful, a lovely, witty pastoral. At one moment the tallest female dancer (who was tall) and the smallest female dancer (who was a real shrimp) walked diagonally across the stage, tall one leading, holding hands like a mother and child. And two men came and lifted the smaller dancer up in the air so she became a lost balloon, floating away. Lovely images, the part where the men danced together and then slapped one another elaborating on male attraction and homophobia, the fox hunt. All lovely.

However, Chad Diety is just a blow away event. It's really one of the best things I've seen in ages.

It touches on a lot of the things I find important in art - how do you tell a story within the confines of the art form you are using? Set in the world of Wrestling, a male version of the soap opera (did I say that? Yes I did! Take that guys!) that tells jingoistic stories of humiliation, defeat and victory. But our protagonist, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, Macedonio Guerra wants to tell a different story about America. A story where people collaborate to put on a show - because Macdeonio is the guy in wrestling who is an actual wrestler who job it is is to make the bigger beefcake guys who can't wrestle look good. And the beefcake - Chad Deity, who is the wrestling star attraction - is supposed to make sure that the other guy doesn't get hurt. This collaboration is the hidden heart of the wrestling world. You have to be really good to make the other guy look good while you are getting beaten up. It was a fascinating look at who is telling the story.

Does this X-Ray Make me Look Fat?

So I really don't spend a lot of time worrying about my health or searching the web for my symptoms. I know that I am not a medical professional and so I don't like to diagnose myself. And I really like the fact that lately a lot of my medical imaging is getting digitized. I banged up my shoulder pretty awful last October and my chiropractor (after forbidding me to be on the trapeze) decided that this had gone on a little too long and so ordered me to have a shoulder X-Ray. And Tony, the X-ray tech handed me a CD of my pix. So I just popped this CD into my computer and had a total melt down. Um - no wonder my shoulder hurts I appear to have some random flecks of debris in my side. But how do I google this? It looks like I have sprinkles in my shoulder. Could it be the dreaded Cupcake form of arthritis? Maybe it's the frozen banana sclerotic disease? I would love to know what the hell these things are. And I have no idea how to search for this.