DISI Rascals

At the beginning of 2005 I was involved in a pilot programme for YDance's Dance In Schools Initiative. The plan was that throughout the course of 3 years, 12 full time dancers would deliver dance to every local authority in Scotland which basically involved lots of early mornings (it has been known for tutors to leave at 4am!), lots of staff rooms and lots of carry on.

As the project has now come to an end, and 12 dancers are now looking for work, YDance decided to soften the blow by throwing a party for everyone involved.

I can't remember laughing so much in all my life. A room full of dancers, some of whom don't see one another from one year to the next, all having too much to drink and dancing like lunatics. At the start of the night everyone was on their best behaviour and looking amazing - we're an attractive bunch, you know - and by the end of it I was being lifted by Dan, the skinniest man in the world, being told I was the coolest person ever by Dan and my new GBF, Allan, (and people wonder why I'm such a fag hag) and dancing like a dafty to Windowlicker. Sarah almost had a fit when Wallace put that track on and ordered him to play it in full or risk getting all his records scratched.

The night ended with me, Sarah and Alasdair continuing the party back at his flat, much to the amusement of his (sober) flatmate who decided he might as well just get up and join us.

Me and Allan strike a pose!

Colour Lover

Ok, so you may not be able to tell from my rather minimal blog but I love colourful things. I wear lots of colours and have lots of nice bright things (usually worn with shades of grey but I'm happy leaving the full on technicolour to Blue Peter presenters). Anyway, I've just stumbled upon a site specifically for Colour Lovers... called, wait for it ColourLovers.com

You can browse colours, palettes and patterns, spot trends and if you're brave enough, even submit your own colourful creations. I haven't got round to that yet but I have found inspiration for a website I'm designing for Annie and am now on the hunt for more.

Comedians, Coincidences and Copping Off

The weekend started with a trip to Oban for work before driving to Ardrishaig near Lochgilphead for an overnight stay ready for more work on Saturday morning. Lisa and I had been to the same place the previous week and had caused chaos chatting to the locals and managing to offend one man by asking if he had paid for this new wife from Thailand. With that in mind we were quite glad that there was a comedy night planned, entertainment and something to distract the locals from our big gobs.

The comedians were really good actually with only one exception - a local woman who thought a parody of Flower of Scotland would be a good idea, hmm. Wouldn't have been so bad if it was any good but it was rank rotten. Anyway, the rest of them were really good, particularly a duet who did a whole set of improvised sketches based on audience suggestions. The whole thing reminded me of the Neo-Futurists show I saw in Chicago and when I mentioned this to one of the comedians he told me I was spot on. Not only that but he went to see the Neo-Futurists a few years ago and was only disappointed by the fact that John Jughead Pierson, the man whose music introduced him to Neo-Futurists in the first place, wasn't there. He was on tour. In Glasgow. At a gig my brother organised and I designed flyers for.

Very small world.

And now onto the 'Copping Off' part of the blog. Perhaps a bit of a misleading title as it's probably a lesson in how not to cop off. To the young man from Bothwell in the Sub Club on Saturday night... when trying to charm a young lady with the intention of a kiss and a cuddle at the end of the night, it's probably an idea to establish whether or not she has a boyfriend before kissing her hand and maybe try to learn her name as well and, most importantly, the line 'if worst comes to worst I've got a hotel room booked, hen' is highly unlikely to result in anything more than a slap on the face.

Funniest thing was, about half an hour after I managed to shake him off I walked past him hassling some other girl and overheard him shouting 'HOTEL ROOM' at her face.

Smooth!

Burning and Burning

What a week it's been. In uni I've been busy editing the multi-camera shoot for Scottish Dance Theatre's latest piece DOG which is actually a lot of fun. In one viewer you have the choice of footage from the four different cameras and in the other you see your current selection. It's very tactile and very similar to choreography in that you pick the best view of each section to show the audience. Anyway, it's all good fun but not when you only have two days to learn it, do it and get it onto DVD for Scottish Dance Theatre to show to a festival in Athens. And even less fun when you're left to your own devices to do it. To say I was feeling a little un-supported is putting it mildly. Anyway thanks to Derrick's Linton and Blackie and a marathon DVD burning session today it's all done and they better like it!

Back to my own stuff next week learning Isadora. Woo hoo!

Other burning news. My pee is on fire again. Not funny at all. Back to the doc's tomorrow to get it sorted. I'm getting really fed up with it now, it seems like every few months I have cystitis. It used to go away after a few hours and a dose of Cystopurin but not it lasts at least a week and medicine only takes the sting out of it slightly.

After that pleasant news... I also finished a new film this week (yes, that's how busy I've been!). These Things Happen was filmed at Angus Balbernie's creative lab a few weeks ago and at first I was struggling with all the footage of very different improvisations and trying to figure out how to put them all together but I had a lightbulb moment at the start of the week and decided to do the minimum amount of editing. The footage I decided to work with was filmed on my mobile and the only thing I did to it was to rotate some of the scenes that were filmed in portrait so the film feels like it's rotating but the dancers stay standing. It's going to be screened at The Dance House's Re:Surface event next Wednesday evening. If you'd like to come along, get in touch and I'll send you an invite.

That's all for now.