* Martha Graham skinny page*

For the front of Heather's skinny page: part of a painting, 'Martha Graham
dance class' by Paul Raphael Meltsner was printed onto fabric. The inks were
manipulated with water + shimmer mist. A quote by Martha Graham was overlaid.

I belong to a yahoo group where we have been exchanging skinny pages sized 4" x 8" - once a month for a little over a year. March was my month to make a skinny page for Heather, whose theme is Women who dared. Yes, I am a wee bit late, but Heather assured me, "Please take your time. I'm not at all worried about you being late. Whenever it arrives, it will be welcomed. So looking forward to your interpretation of my theme." Thank you very much, Heather!

It took me some time to think about what woman I might like to create my art around. You did not have to have a specific "woman who dared" in mind, but that was the direction I wanted to go. After talking it over with my husband some weeks ago and doing a search online, I came across Martha Graham. Of course! Perfect. Quoting the introduction of the PBS program on her in 2005: "Martha Graham’s impact on dance was staggering and often compared to that of Picasso’s on painting, Stravinsky’s on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s on architecture. Her contributions transformed the art form, revitalizing and expanding dance around the world. In her search to express herself freely and honestly, she created the Martha Graham Dance Company, one of the oldest dance troupes in America. As a teacher, Graham trained and inspired generations of fine dancers and choreographers. Her pupils included such greats as Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and countless other performers, actors, and dancers. She collaborated with some of the foremost artists of her time including the composer Aaron Copland and the sculptor Isamu Noguchi."


I studied the Martha Graham Technique for many, many years with my teacher Truda Kaschmann, who taught this technique to my sister and my mother too, not to mention countless others. I knew of Graham of course, but I never realized what pioneering and daring a woman she was until I set out to do this piece of art for Heather. Thank you again, Heather-truly. You have opened my eyes to so much more about her!

I started by gathering materials and searching for quotes, images and writings about Martha Graham. I found a few paintings by Paul Raphael Meltsner that really drew me in. I have since learned that he was a contemporary of Everett Shin, who studied painting with my Great Uncle,William Glackens! This is beginning to sound like 7 degrees of separation . ..  but anyway, this struck me as very interesting. And since this is a gift to Heather, I did not worry about using a copy of part of this painting to represent her theme.

I printed out a variety of photographs, images, paintings and quotes onto paper, fabric and transparency film. I collected a 4x8 piece of flat batting and a soft piece of washed canvas-like material to work on. Heather likes earth & jewel tones, history, quotes and words so I knew I was on the right track. She also said a horizonal page was fine with her, leaving room on the 4" side for holes. I started with the fabric print of the Meltsner painting and wanted to add to it -- so I spritzed, dribbled and dropped both water and Perfect Pearls mist on to the fabric... the ink from the inkjet printer is not permanent so doing this makes the ink migrate. When I liked how it looked I layed this fabric print over some flat batting, onto the canvas fabric and sewed just the edges, leaving the edges raw and the fringe hanging.

Then my sewing machine stopped working - eeeep! Here I am, late with this project that I've only just started sewing and now my machine has stopped??? oh no. Fortunately, between my husband and I we figured out there wasn't anything wrong with my machine, just the foot control piece. When I unplugged the foot control from the machine and used the manual start and stop buttons on the front of the machine -my sewing machine still worked perfectly! phew.

Over the manipulated fabric print of the painting, I added 2 quotes by Martha Graham that I had printed onto a Transparency film. The second, longer quote I printed out 3 x in a row to make it more like wallpaper. I attached the quotes on the transparency film by stitching the clear film on both the top and bottom with a straight stitch.

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep  the channel open." — Martha Graham

"The only sin is mediocrity." — Martha Graham

For the other side of the skinny page, I used photographs I had manipulated in Photoshop elements. I am just learning about this program but have fooled around in it so much that I have become adept at putting a couple of photos together as layers. That is what I did with both of these images, which I then printed on fabric. The image on the left is a portrait of Martha Graham with another photo of her dancing behind it -you may only be able to see her hand, across her own forehead. Click on the image for a larger image. The image on the right is 2 different photos of dancers performing in the Martha Graham Dance Company that I melded together into one image. I like how it looks like she is gazing at her dancers . . .

I added water to this side too, you can see it on the right . . . Then I added another Martha Graham quote printed onto a transparency by sewing it to just the edges of the skinny page. I also added some bright trim to the bottom of this side to correspond with the dancer's bright dress. The trim and the main fabric images were glued on with Sobo fabric glue. Then I knew I was done!

“I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . .
I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted
it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.” –Martha Graham

One of my favorite quotes by her:

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion." 

— Martha Graham

Thanks for sharing this art journey with me

She without arm, he without leg - ballet - Hand in Hand

Celebrity: Beyonce's Single Ladies-Performed by Shane Mercado

He is for sure a professional dancer and that's why no one can do what he can do, yes he is none other than the unmatchable "Shane Mercado".You all might have seen the video of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and have witnessed how well she danced all through the video, but there is only one guy who can do it just the way Beyonce did, and he is Shane Mercado.He has been dancing for 20 years now and wants to show you all how to dance Beyonce’s Single Ladies in his Video.

So watch it,but don't miss it.

Dancing prisoner in Philipphine

Crisanto Niere and Wenjiel Resane were just two more inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, serving time for drug trafficking. Today, they are Internet superstars.

YouTube footage, uploaded in mid-July, shows the prisoners dancing to the Michael Jackson song "Thriller." It has been viewed more than 10 million times and become one of the most popular clips ever on the video-sharing Web site. The skit features Niere, playing Jackson, and Resane, as the "girl," along with more than 1,500 other inmates performing in the background.

This month, the prison authorities tried to take their show, in a manner of speaking, on the road. Byron Garcia, a security consultant for the prison, tried to enter a troupe of 100 inmates in the Sinulog festival this Sunday, a lavish street-dancing festival in honor of the child Jesus and the biggest tourist event in Cebu.

Citing security concerns - 70 percent of the prison's inmates were convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape and narcotics trafficking - Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who oversees the festival, rejected the prison's bid. He told reporters: "Not even if Michael Jackson" - the real one - "joins them."

But inside the prison, the beat goes on.

Inmates spend up to four hours a day practicing a growing repertoire of more than two dozen dances. In addition, those who signed up for auditions and made the troupe have continued rehearsing their Sinulog choreography. Although they have been barred from performing at the site of the main festival events, they are planning shows within the prison itself. The prison is giving away 200 free tickets to each of three shows Friday.

The Sinulog would not have been the Cebu prisoners' first public performance. In August, dozens of inmates, including Niere and Resane, were escorted under armed guard to the provincial capitol building for a public holiday celebration. They performed several numbers including "Thriller" for a clearly delighted audience.

"The videos I uploaded were never meant for entertainment," Garcia, the security consultant, said in an interview. "I wanted to inform other jails about what was happening here."

In 2004, as a security consultant to the provincial government (his older sister, Gwendolyn Garcia, is governor), he was brought in to address problems at the prison after a series of riots. He recommended that the almost 2,000 prisoners be moved from an ancient stockade, which had been built with a 200-prisoner capacity in mind by the Spanish, whose colonial rule ended in 1898. The prisoners were transferred to a new, larger facility.

Garcia also fired dozens of jail guards for corruption, installed an enhanced security system, broke up gangs, banned guns and the use of cash (opening bank accounts for inmates) and enforced an exercise regime that in the past year evolved into dance classes.

Garcia said that what had been weekly outbreaks of violence have subsided, inmates' health has improved and recidivism rates are down dramatically.

He only went the YouTube route, he said, because his attempts to draw public attention to these changes were ignored. "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country," said Garcia, citing one of his favorite passages from the Bible.

Since then, Cebu's Internet fame has prompted other Philippine prisons to pay heed. By the end of 2007, eight others had begun adapting some of his methods, including dance. He has yet to visit them, but he says: "Dance is just the icing on the cake."

Life at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center is no country club. Prisoners sleep on hard pallets more than a dozen to a cell and are held to a strict schedule of work and other activities from dawn to lights-out.

Still, inmates say conditions are better. "It's really nice here compared to the old prison. No more drugs, drinking, look how big our stomachs are," said Rodolfo Ruiz, 47, who has served seven years for multiple murder, jokingly sticking out his belly. He said he had kicked the crystal meth habit he developed at the old facility.

Pepe Diokno, 20, a film student at the University of the Philippines who has toured several prisons while making the documentary "Dancing for Discipline," said the Cebu facility "has the inmates with the biggest smiles."

Dance "gives the inmates something to do, something they can be proud they're part of," Diokno said. "It lets them know that they can be productive, that they aren't useless scum of society. This is rehabilitation already."

In the Cebu prison courtyard, Gwendolyn Lador, a professional choreographer, is shouting into a microphone: "Crawl like spiders! Crawl like spiders!"

The prison brings her in most days to teach inmates. Hundreds of prisoners, in bright orange uniforms, hang on her instructions.

"The situation here is O.K.," Lador said in an interview. "I don't fear them, and they listen. I think it is easier to teach them than other people. You really see how hard they try to get it right."

Later, sitting in his neat cell, one of Lador's Sinulog troupe, Aldren Tolo, 25, in prison for drug dealing, said: "I like dancing. It is a way we get to show the world that even if we ended up in prison, we are not totally damaged people."

Marfury Barberan, 27, a murder convict, is rehearsing John Travolta's role in a "Grease" number the prisoners are preparing for later this year. "Because our families have seen us on TV and the Internet, things are better," he said. "They don't worry about us so much and don't think so much that we have no more hope."

More than two dozen prisoners have tattooed Garcia's name on their bodies alongside those of former gang affiliations and loved ones, openly proclaiming him their "idol." He clearly bristles at suggestions that he forces prisoners to dance. "Do they look like they are forced?" he asked, visibly irritated.

He did say they sometimes receive extra snacks for participating.

The prison's dancing program put it on the shortlist for the 2007 Gawad Galing Pook, a Philippine award for excellence in local governance. Garcia said a private prison operator in the United States has offered him a job, something he is not considering seriously.

"My work here is not yet done," he said. "I am not finished."

Not if he is to keep abreast of the competition he has inspired.

In December, 425 inmates at the Pagbilao jail in Quezon Province received a $500 prize from a national TV station for best video interpretation of the "Papaya Dance," the Philippines' current pop craze.

And here some of their dances..

"JUMP"



"LOW"



"SOULJA BOY"


These are from my personal favorites...so...let's dance! xD

Source :iht