Book Review: "On Dance" by Murrary Louis

Review posted on 9/12/2012 to: Goodreads, Amazon.com

Review:


During my undergraduate studies at Santa Clara University, my amazing mentor, teacher, and friend placed Murray Louis' book on the required reading list for the quarter. Over the course of the quarter, we were required to read his book, not necessarily in order, but as it pertained to our class. In any case, the depth and breath of Louis' essays provided our class with numerous discussions on the price one must pay to be a dancer, performer, choreographer, and artistic director in today's world.

Murray Louis takes the reader on a journey that is no only auto-biographical, but partially philosophically driven, yet slightly historical. Many times throughout the readings, fellow dancers would smirk and divulge that they too knew exactly what Louis was talking about. Grueling practices, stage fright, sore muscles. However, as we were all aware, the chances of the whole room making in on the main-stage were a long shot. Louis gives readers a reality check that all dancers must struggle with perfection, both internal and external. Body image, personal struggle, financial instability are all regular problems a dancer/performer/choreographer must be willing to endure. This profession is not an easy one, both mentally and physically, and Louis makes quite clear of his struggle through all aspects of this reality.

In Murray Louis' case, he was able to overcome every obstacle, each adversity with help from his family, friends, and loved ones. He provokes that maybe luck or fate may have had to save him a few times, but in essence, the challenges one must face can indeed be overcome with passion. As in his story, the adversity a dancer faces off-stage can not only be applied to the performer, but to real world problems and challenges

More of London

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So our last couple of days in London have been by far MUCH, MUCH better. Thusday we went on a three hour walking tour. We met at Wellington Arch, walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Park...saw the Changing of the Guards at Bukingham Palace and then proceeded to see where Charles, Camilla, Harry, and William live. As we rounded St. James corner we saw a motorcade drive up...it was the QUEEN and Prince Phillip, but no one cares about him. So as our tour guide told us that we were standing in front of Henry Tudor's old house, we asked the nice policeman when the Queen was expected to leave and he curtly replied. "Yes, I do know when". And walked away. So we stayed for ten more minutes with the stuipd guide cracking stupid jokes (he was from Canada and his name was Marcel...right!) anyways, we wait for a little bit and then she came out!!!! We then waved to her and to our surprise she waved back! hat, gloves and all! tino was so excited that he took a picture of the front of the car instead of the back! haha. well after getting lunch we decided to see if there were anymore cheap tickets for shows. When I saw that Avenue Q was listed I knew we had to see it. It's kind of like the Muppets but for adults. It has songs like "If you were gay", "the internet is for porn", and "I wish I could go back to college"....It's amazing. My favorite musical by far. MammaMia and Thriller and Marilyn were all playing but I nixed those and tino's not really a fan of Abba anyways.

We also saw the Free Mason's lodge, more of Trafalgar Square (did you know that it's the second most visited square next to Times square?) and Drury lane. Of course the great weather couldn't last and it started to rain last night. But that's ok. It's a nice 55 degrees right now...slight rain...and nothing i would trade. But at least we'll be home soon..enjoy the pics!

Beginning of London, England

I'm sorry to report that we simply do not like London as much as Edinburgh. For starters, it feels like were in San Francisco, just with some old buildings OCCASIONALLY popping out of seeming nowhere.

Let me back up. Our train from Edinburgh to London was bad, JUST to begin. We sat next to this SCREAMING child. When asked why he was crying, he would stop and look at his mum and say, I dunno. Great, good times. That went on and off for close to 3 1/2 hours. great. Anyways, we make it to London Kings X, then proceed to get ripped off by the "TUBE". 4 pounds for a one-way trip. Yeah, the next morning we just got a weekly pass which ripped us off as well, but we're using it a lot so we're okay. Anyways, we then take three different tubes to get to our hostel, which we blow right by bc they dont have a big sign. So after we backtrack, we find our room. Not as cool as the last one to say the least. Back to metal bunks, and no air conditioning. Not normally a problem, but unfortunatley the "great" weather is following us. We then proceed to buy a towel....which was more like a hand towel, so we had to go down the street and spend another arm and leg to wash ourselves.

That was day one. Yesterday was ALL bad. We got up early for the walking tour, only we didn't bring the map so we didn't know where to go, so we missed it. We then proceeded to Westminster Abbey and the bridge and Big Ben, and then did a Bike Tour. THAT WAS AWESOME. we had a great guide, Owen, or something like that, maybe Nigel, and biked around London for 4 hours. We saw everything. Diana's tribute, Buckingham, Hyde Park...we took lots of pictures and the ones above are only a few. But it was great fun and the sun was shining. That was fun. Well, we heard from the girls in our room that Hairspray was playing, which gave us the idea that we should see a play too. So yesterday we went to the ticket office and got WICKED tickets for like WAY half price, way discount, and today at 230 we saw the Matinee of the show. It was amazing to say the least. So cool. After the show we stumbled upon the actors exit and saw the Wizard, Fiero, and I said Hi to a bunch of the dancers which made them laugh. I also want to see Avenue Q, but trying to convince Tino is taking some work. If we can find discount tickets then maybe....maybe...Tomorrow we're on for another free tour, and then we'll see from there! See ya soon!

End of EDINBURGH!!!!

So here are the rest of the pictures from our beloved Scotland. Some are from the Greyfriar's cemetery...which we visited during the day. But the ghost tour was so awesome that the cemetery at sundown is a sight to see. Especially when you visit the tomb of David Hume, whom I am a big fan of. Not to mention there's the birthplace of Harry Potter, which I was really excited about. The cafe sits where you can see the "original" Hogwarts school and the castle which looks EXACTLY like the castle in the movie. way to go producers there. Anyways, there's also the pictures from our bunks in Fridge where we stayed in Corona and Miller...of course we stayed in the alcoholic room...And our tour guide who looked like Mr. Ray and such. Hope you like them. In the next blog we'll tell you about our HORRID 4 1/2 hour ride to London!

The End of Edinburgh!

Unfortunately, we have left the greatness that is Edinburgh, Scotland. We lost the internet connection late Saturday due to someone in our room ruining the firewalls, but now that we are in route to London aboard the Express train from Edinburgh we have free wi-fi! I thought that was pretty cool that the TRAIN has free wi-fi, but maybe that's just me. Anyways, Saturday we went to the Edinburgh Castle, which was by far the coolest thing ever. Our tourguide looked like Mr. Ray and he wore a kilt. Pictures of our adventures will be above if you haven't yet viewed those. We have a lot to upload considering our loss of internet, and my loss of SD card not working, but it's okay cuz we're back in action.

Anyways, the castle was awesome. We got to see where Mary Queen of Scots lived, the Honors of Scotland (the scepter, crown, the sword, and the Stone of Destiny). We had amazing views of the rest of the city and got to see the prisoners of war section and all that is the fortress of the castle. After the castle we decided to do some more walking around the city and then had dinner at a cheap restaurant that gave deals to people who stayed with the hostel. We ended up drinking cider with the people who worked at the hostel and ended up playing card games and drinking games with them. However, we ended up going to bed fairly early for our last day in Scotland. We had to check out by 1030, and make it to the train station for our 1pm train to foggy London-town. Some of the above pictures are of the views, some of the friends we made on our pubcrawl, pictures of the castle and other various adventures around Edinburgh! It was an awesome 4 days in Scotland and we both thought that this was by far one of our favorite places. We definitley want to come back to Scotland and see some more of it! I'll upload more pictures when we get a full connection, and not one that just comes and goes like on the train!!! see ya soon!

End of Dublin and Beginning of Scotland!

Well once again I picked the color of where we are!!!! We are officially in SCOTLAND! and i can't even begin to describe how awesome is...but I'm getting ahead of myself because I must talk a little about the end of Dublin first!

We decided to sleep in and check out at 1030 as scheduled. We then sat around the common area where we had met some people who had been living in the hostel for over 6 months....crazy right? I ended up talking to this one girl who had lived in Rome, Amsterdam, and a couple of other places before settling in Dublin for the last 8 months. It was crazy. We both lived in the Vatican area and such. We ended up bonding over the fact that there was this red-haired girl who was ancient looking and would just say really inappropriate things in the common area. In addition, there was this guy who was probably 18, with boots up to his knees with no laces, black shirts, and weird longish hair, and these two would go at each other. Of course Wednesday night comes along (a big drinking night, not to mention the Champions Cup was that day, Manchester United LOST to Barcelona, ridiculous) anyways, these two were arguing and these two Irish kids started to pick on the boots kid. Boots kid said something under his breath and the Irish kids and boots kid started to get into it. Well needless to say the only threat boots kid has was "well i've been here forever". And these Irish kids could have snapped this kid in half. Meanwhile, poor Santino is trying to watch the Laker game and is slowly but surely turning up the volume. All in all, Tino told them to shut the hell up so that he culd watch the game in peace. The Irish kids end up getting 86ed from the hostel, only because they were very close to breaking the kid in half. Had I been there I would have said that he should have gotten the shit beat out of him earlier...and the red-head needed to grow up and find a job....but of course I was asleep at 430 in the morning.

Anyways, we boarded our RyanAir flight in Dublin at 1520, and of course we got hassled about our luggage. This time our suitcases lost weight though. Tino's suitcase was only 19.5 kgs and mine was only 3.2 kgs over. So we only got slapped with a 7kg over bag charge. BUT when i tried to board the plane some lady stopped me bc my backpack was huge. Of course. So i had to do some repacking so that it would fit in the stupid carrying case. But the flight was only 45 minutes, and it was a rather scary ride to say the least. When we landed, I'm sure we bounced before we landed the second time.

BUT SCOTLAND IS AMAZING! When we got here we were just in time to unpack, take a shower, take a nap and then hit up the FREE pub-crawl that came with the hostel. What a way to meet your new roommates. That's the best part of this hostel. The rooms are named things, like for example our room is called "Fridge". My bed is named "Miller" and tino's bed is "Corona". We've also got beds called Guiness, VB, and Stella. Across the hall is Gotham City and Little Miss. So this hostel is fun to say the least. On the pub-crawl we met a bunch of Kiwis (new zealanders for those of you who don't know the nickname) and of course a few Asians. Now, you know the Reynolds' sterotype. But come on, this kid had on a shirt that LIT UP! it was like a stero wave, and would go up and down with the beat. It was amazing. We have video footage, and Tino took a picture with him! He looked like that Wang guy from American Idol. And YES, he did do Karoke with his girlfriend. And yes it was to "I will survive". OHHH yeah, and of course my computer crashed right before we got to Scotland. So i've lost all my paperwork for school, and I can't get my SD card to upload pics from the past few days, so you'll have to make do with the pics from above for now until I can get the SD card to work again. We do have a lot of videos and pics on this SD card. It could be that problem.

Anyways, Edinburgh is like the Karoke capital of the UK, because it was everywhere. After going to Oz bar, Opium, the Royal Mile bar and such Tino and I finally joined in at the end of the night. They had free shots for those who sang, so we coudln't resist. Anyways, we woke up fairly early the next morning to get an authentic Scottish breakfast. Bacon, eggs, sausage, potato thing, black pudding (eww) and Haggis (even worse eww). If you knew what Haggis is, you'd know it was pretty gross. Lamb leftovers boiled with oats and ewwness. Yeah no thanks. The rest of the breakfast was good. We then went on a three-hour walking tour of the city with this girl who looked exactly like Anna Vallis. It was crazy. After seeing soooo much including THE cafe that JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, the poltergeist of Mad McKensie, and the "original" Hogwarts (to name a few) we were tired. BUT, we pressed on. We bought our train ticket to London for Monday (which was hella expensive, sorry mom it was the cheapest of the day though), we then went into a ride called the Edinburgh Dungeon. This was the scariest thing Tino and I have experienced in our lives. It was a walking tour of the murders, killings, deaths, and scaryness that is Edinburgh. How people died, where they died, the ghosts, hauntings, etc. yeah good choice huh? Especially since we purchased the Ghost Tour ticket for 930pm that night. Anyways, we couldn't even walk down the admission hallways without holding onto each other for dear life. We were like 5 years old walking around. Well, our cowardness paid off becuase by the time we got the nerve to walk down the hall the lady was like, Oh you're late, just go on in don't worry about paying! Good thing bc the tour was freakishly scary and we would have been pissed at the end of it. The actors in each room were great, and at the end there was a drop that was pretty cool. After this we went back to the hostel to rest, had some fish and chips for dinner and took a nap before the Ghost tour.

It was awesome. Nothing too scary. We walked around the "end of the world" where a wall used to be that blocked the city from inner and outer, and if you weren't rich enough to pay to get back in, well that was the end of the world for you. Anyways, at the end they gave you a free pint of whatever you wanted to calm your nerves from seeing graves, masoleums, and just general weirdness. I have a few pictures that are weird. The weather is "hot" for locals. But it's like maybe 78 degrees in the sun. The beautiful weather is following us. Anyways, it was sundown on Calton Hill (which witch burnings and hangings took place) and I took a picture of Old Town. But instead of being beautiful it looks like it's pouring down rain. And instead of being the town now it looks like it was in the 17th century which is the story our guide was telling us at the time. weird stuff!

Scotland is by far my favorite place to have visited so far. The people are wonderful, the hostel is awesome, and walking around amidst castles, and the crazy weird history is great. Oh, did I mention that Edinburgh is the top 5 most haunted cities in the world! Thanks dad for watching ghost hunters for us! More to come later today! We're going on another tour today!

DUBLIN PART I

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WE'RE IN DUBLIN, IRELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The above pictures are us on the plane, our first Irish pub, fish and chips, and the interesting condiment set-up. We left the Venice hostel at 630am, took the 7am train, made it to the airport by 8 and boarded our flight at 1010am. we landed by noon, and then made it to the hostel. We then went to a pub and managed to get some of our favorite foods before heading to another pub for an after beer. Of course my beer was much lighter than tino's, I just drink the Cider, which is amazing to say the least.

RyanAir sucks. Santino's suitcase was 9.5 KGs OVER the weight limit. But the lady was nice and only charged us for 7kgs over. so that was 100euro!!!! lol. behind the desk i took out a lot of stuff out of my backpack and it was still .8 kgs over. and MY suitcase was .7kgs over. it was crazy. but we got here. In line we sat next to this scottish couple who talked to us for like two hours. They were great. They told us where to go and what to do in Dublin, which was nice. They were so fun, and their accents were wonderful!

Stay posted for Guiness storehouse, Jameson Distillery, and Pub Crawl!