Dixon Place Dance off...

I just love the street names on the LES. Names like Rivington, Orchard, Essex, Delancey and Ludlow float through my mind as I stroll to the subway stop at Delancey Street. That and the coolest spelling of the name Chrystie. I was just leaving a dance performance at Dixon Place on Chrystie Street. My friend Julia had a piece showcased in a program of pretty spectacular works. All of them modern dance, with great music and great great choreography. A fair mix of break dance, hip hop, ballet and other styles that just blew my mind. Julia's work was amazing and I had, in fact, seen the piece before, a fragment of which was presented back in October of 2010, the same night that my music premiered with Jahna's piece at Triskelion Arts in Williamsburg.

At the end of the evening, the works, which were performed back to back in quick succession, were punctuated by an impromptu dance off. The dancers all seemed to have a gaggle of dancer friends in the crowd that they suddenly began dragging on stage to dance with them. It was the most exciting part of the evening. Then it was a bit of a downer because, a side effect of going solo to an event where most of the audience knows the dancers personally and has most likely come with friends or met friends at the event and where your friend who did the choreography is more than likely not going to hang around because she teaches pilates crazy early in the morning, is that you're sitting alone at the bar sipping your second $5 glass of wine you had to purchase to make the credit card minimum because you never carry cash anymore. But still, did I mention that Dixon Place has $5 glasses of wine...and it's in Manhattan?!

So there's that.

In other news, currently, I'm in the throes of working on music for the trailer to Sides of the Track. I've seen the first two ideas he has for a teaser and there's likely to be a longer form trailer coming along soon. I'm psyched because I get to play around with the ideas from the movie and do sort of an alternate version of everything. It's always a bit bittersweet when you think you've locked in the music and the process is over but then, when you get to evolve it just a little more, it can be really rewarding. Like when I was younger, in high school and college, I became obsessed with writing reprise versions of songs. I remember hearing the Tonight, Tonight reprise from the Smashing Pumpkins and I had to do the same with my band Buggstar's "Teenage Love Song." Never did record it but I still love to play it on my guitar.

This newer version for the trailer, takes a chunk or two of an oud performance that was unused in the film and mixes it with a stripped back beat with a solo piano line. I may do more yet though. We'll see.

Now, I have to clear my head from all this excitement and get to bed. More on the trailer soon.