Why am i here?

...not in the existential sense, but why am I writing a blog?  The fact that I have to ask (and answer) that question is a sure sign of my age, but here goes:

1) Everybody seems to be doing it.

2) I come from a family of journalists, and I love writing, and even though I don't feel particularly qualified to do it "publicly" (is that another sign of my age??) I do feel motivated to write about something I love, which is dance and my kids (hence the "dancermaker mom")

3) I feel (like most of the world these days...) like I have something to say.

4) I see a lot of dance and there is a lot of great dance in Chicago that deserves to be written about.  And there is a huge absence of dance reviews in our local papers.  The internet is our only recourse.

5) There is not much out there about raising kids.  And there's even less about raising kids and being a choreographer.

So there you have it.  My reason for being here.

First post - new dance

This is the first time I've officially blogged!  I've set up blogs for my kids and participated in other's blog posts, but this is the first time I'm "publicly" writing for an "audience."

I'm starting work on a new group piece to be shown as a work-in-progress as part the June 4 Dance Union, produced by Ayako Kato.  Dance Union is an experimental dance showcase and I'm really excited to be a part of it.  I feel like I can spread out and just be as weird as I want to be.

Gathering dancers for this one was a little bit of a challenge because I had told dancers that we were done until July.  Ayako contacted me about being in June's Dance Union only 2 weeks ago, but I am thrilled to have a venue to begin working on a new work.

This dance will be based on a few images, a little math & matrix work and whatever we create in the studio over a 5 week rehearsal period.  I've been reading "The Information" by James Gleick, which is a history of how the technology for computers was created over the last 300 years.  It seems that the theories and function of computers was put together by a series of research pursuits by many many people over a lot of time.  (sounds like kind of dry reading but Gleick is a really interesting writer...)  Anyway, I'm going to try a mathematical model inspired by the use of base 2 (the language of computers -- basic yes/no) to create some phrases for the dance.  Check back here in 2 weeks to see how it goes!