kite ballet, kate, happy, and you!

[jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu]

Greg footahs!:

>starting in on a grim morning and work, and lo and behold a post on
>kite ballet -- what a happy idea :)
>
>Jeff, has anyone done such a performance to KaTe's "KiTe"?

To my knowledge, no one's used KaTe's "Kite".  Or Kirsty McColl's "Kite."
Or TIM's "Mercy" for that matter.

I've considered the first and third of these, and neither strike me as
overly good songs to use, though I think "Mercy" would be a bit better
than "Kite."  It may be a creative flaw in myself, but I've no idea how
I'd choreograph either.

There _is_ KaTe stuff that I'd like to (or have started! ;-) choreograph.
Le'see.  I'd _love_ to do a pairs ballet with "Wuthering Heights"--one
white kite (Cathy) and one black (Heathcliff).  The song and theme offers
a trememdous opportunity for interplay between the two kites--tight wraps,
nesting, and I think mirror-work would fit in nicely as well.  That would
be loads of fun.  I've always wanted to do something with "Army Dreamers"
and I think both "Sat In Your Lap" and "Night of the Swallow" have some
interesting possibilities (the former would be a nice high-wind piece).
"Jig of Life" might be interesting, but I think virutally any Irish jig
would work well.  Come to think of it, tons of Irish music in general would
work well.  I was considering the possibilities for Loreena McKennitt's
"All Souls Night" a couple of days ago, listening to it while I walked to
work.  And lastly, I've already worked out a concept for a routine to "Under
Ice" which I think works beautifully, but which needs refinement.  It's a lot
of fun to fly that one.

[jeffy starts musing on his philosophy of kite ballet]

Right now, my feelings on choreography are that a routine needs to capture
the feel or style of the music, and the emotion behind the words, and not
act out a "play" based on actual lyrics.  For this reason, I think a lot of
instrumental music works better, because you're not trying to fit the kite's
movements to the words, like making the kite move up when the singer mentions
"up" or "sky" or "over," or making the kite spin when the lyrics talk about
"around" or "spin" or "circle" or whatever.  I don't want to do literal
interpretations of words.  I'll admit that there are times when this works
to great effect--the Virginia Windseekers (pairs ballet) fly to Floyd's
"Learning to Fly" and they always do a beautiful, tight wrap (the two kites,
chasing each other's tails in a circle) one the line "tongue-tied and twisted
just an earth bound misfit I" and it's incredible!).  I want music that's
interesting dynamically, rhythmically, melodically, and emotionally.

Right now, my driving passion is working out something for Wim Merten's
"Four Mains" which I think is just incredible.  I've got so many ideas that
I keep flying in my mind, but I'm dying to get out and get a kite in the air
so I can try somet of them.  I'll use that song for quad ballet (a quad is
a kite with 4 lines, making it extremely controllable; the kite can move
forward, backward, and even sideways).

For individual ballet, I've got lots of things I want to work on, including
Merten's "Birds For the Mind," some of the KaTe songs I mentioned above 
and, yes, that's right, Happy!  I've been working, on and off, on "Words
Weren't Made for Cowards" and "Warpaint."  There are several other songs
I'd like to play with as well.

Welp, congrats to any of you who actually waded through all that to find
the Happy reference...;-)

The chances are pretty good that one of the next competitions I fly in will
be in either New York (Uniondale) (late August) or Boston (mid-September).
I will try to alert anyone interested if I will in fact be flying, and 
if I will, in fact, be using Happy or one of the other Ecto-chicks.

Jeff