Merce Cunningham, Dance Visionary, Dies

Merce Cunningham, the revolutionary American choreographer, died Sunday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 90.His death was announced by the Cunningham Dance Foundation.

Over a career of nearly seven decades, Mr. Cunningham went on posing “But” and “What if?” questions, making people rethink the essence of dance and choreography. He went on doing so almost to the last.

Until 1989, when he reached 70, he appeared in every single performance given by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In 1999, at 80, though frail and holding onto a barre, he danced a duet with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center. In April he observed his 90th birthday with the 90-minute “Nearly Ninety” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Read more...

http://www.merce.org/

Average Community, Documentary by Zara Brothers

The first public showing of Average Community will be on Sunday August 30th at 12:30pm at the Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida. www.enzian.org. Save the date!

More info at www.AverageCommunity.com

About the film

Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned factories, neglected row houses and urban decay. Trenton is a relic of America’s once-thriving manufacturing economy, the kind of city most of us have long since forgotten. But for Fred Zara, a 30-something family man living an average suburban life near downtown Orlando, it’s not so easy a place to forget.

Growing up in Trenton in the mid-1980s, Fred went by the name of Fred Fatal, played drums in a punk-rock band called Prisoners of War, and was filled with so much teen angst that he managed to get himself kicked out of high school before reaching the 10th grade.

“Average Community” follows Fred on a 900-mile journey back to his hometown to confront his troubled past, and the troubled people in it, in the hopes of understanding how the person he was made him into the person he is. Fred is joined by his two older brothers, one a disheartened New York journalist, the other a free-spirited Seattle musician, as he reunites with old friends, revisits painful memories and tries to make sense of what it meant to grow up in a dying city.

10 Principles of Beautiful Photography

by Trey Ratcliff – note: this article appeared in Smashing Magazine in February of 2009.

A camera does not work like an eye; memory does not work like film.

There is a fine line between a photo that is quite nice and one that is quite breathtaking. At some undefined point, a photo can cross the Rubicon and be forever a piece of beautiful art. That hinterland between a regular photo and evocative art is a moving target from person to person and taste to taste. However, that zone of wonderment can be narrowed a bit once you start to consider about the way the brain stores memories and emotions.

And, yes, it gets a bit touchy-feely here to determine if you have been able to cross that line. With rigorous practice and peer feedback, you can start to appreciate where that zone is and consequently improve your hit ratio.

The good news is that it does not require rune rites of scapulimancy to divine your way to a more beautiful photo. There are some basic things and mantras to keep in mind as you practice and fail then practice and succeed then practice and fail and then rinse and repeat. I’ll detail a few of these below. Read more...