Riverdancing

Didn't I say good karma will be repaid?

Yay, I won a pair of A-reserve tickets to Riverdance. This year is the only year I seem to have won lucky draws! Remember the last time I won Photoshop CS 5 Extended at the Adobe launch... this is the 2nd time I win something worth quite a bit of money. Maybe there are a few smaller things in between... but yes, I have been quite fortunate ;)

Riverdance derived from Ireland with the first performance dating back to 1994. During those days, the tickets were sold out for weeks! A musical tapping into ancient Celtic mythology and Irish history, tells the story of the evolution of the traditional Irish stepdancing. Riverdance started out as a 7-minutes interval act for Eurovision Song Contest held in Dublin.

So it was on Tuesday night. I had quite a high expectation of it but it didn't turn out very well. In fact, the last dance Dunas which my ex-colleague took a bunch of us to, was so much better. Especially the Flamenco performance, it's nothing compared to Dunas which has totally took my breath away by surprise since I'm not really a fan of it. There was a lot of singing, stunning violin performance, a lot of good synchronised tap dancing but the solo performance was not impressive at all... The lead female was mediocre, but the male at least charmed us (the audience) with his X-factor ;) In fact, I would not pay the most expensive priced tickets to watch this performance. Like I told friends whom wanted to catch the performance, get a cheaper ticket sitting up on the balcony, it would do a good justice to the price ;)

The theatre at Marina Bay Sands was disappointing, the stage was small and the screen was only half the size, how spectacular it will be if it was a full size screen on the background! I still prefer Esplanade's!

Check out the Riverdance blog for more information, they're here till 12 December.

p.s: I just read that the female lead has only trained for the role for 2 years, probably explains a lot! Maybe it will get better in future! Let's hope so!

✮ Dunas ✮

Thank you Ridz... who brought a bunch of us to this stunning performance at the Esplanade named Dunas (World premiere in Singapore).

In it are María Pagés (Spain) and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Belgium), the performers, dancers, artists and choreographers. Beautiful music by composer Szymon Brzoska (Poland) and Rubén Lebaniegos.

Starting from 2nd left: María, Sidi and Szymon

I have never attended a dance performance in the past, so didn't know what to expect and definitely didn't bring any along. Came back a wiser person, more appreciative of arts, definitely inspired about how emotions can be such a crucial factor in developing concepts and bringing art in a form of expression.

“The two of us, María and I, are enthused about exploring the desert we have before us”. With these words, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui sums up the show which, side by side, he is going to stage with bailaora María Pagés. The show, in which the Belgian-Moroccan’s contemporary dance and the Sevillian’s flamenco dancing will dialogue with one another, is entitled ‘Dunas’. It will be performed from November 18th to 21st at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, in the setting of the 2009 Autumn Festival.
-- taken from & copyrighted by http://www.flamenco-world.com

Flamenco is expressed through the toque -- the playing of the flamenco guitar, the cante (singing), and the baile (dancing).
-- taken from & copyrighted by http://en.wikipedia.org
Contemporary dance is a genre of concert dance that employs systems and methods found in modern dance and postmodern dance.
-- taken from & copyrighted by http://en.wikipedia.org

Watch Dunas to enjoy the following:

- how the desert is being portrayed with pieces of fabric
- how beautifully the music complemented the dance
- Maria's expressive arms movement and stomping of the feet
- how Maria grew into a tree
- Maria's very beautiful and colorful flamenco costumes
- Sidi's fingers doing up amazing, witty, inspiring sand drawings (both his hands can do symmetrical drawings!)
- Sidi's very flexible body movements
- how silhouttes interact with each other with clever use of lightings
- a very emotional and visually expressive performance
- be inspired --> Art is a form of expression --> phrase digested
- i wish I'm a dancer too

Catch more of Da:ns Festival 2009 performances at Esplanade from 23 Oct till 1 Nov!

p/s: pic is up!