Tag Archive for: David Bowie

bowie 2

How do you mourn someone you’ve never known? How can loss be so palpable for one you’ve never laid a hand on? There’s been enough death and destruction in our lives lately for us to be not only too familiar, but inundated with it. We know the leaden days that follow endless succession after a personal loss, we are all too intimate with hollow nights where space expands to hold the echo. Paris, Belgium, parents, pets, and people who have touched our lives through bringing their talents so richly to theirs- now gone. How can the days feel empty with the loss of one who never filled them?
I’ve cried over a celebrity death twice before; when John Lennon was shot and the tragedy of Princess Diana. I lived around the corner from the Dakota on that cold December night and I joined the disbelieving vigil, passing candles and singing songs with strangers. With Princess Diana’s death I couldn’t take my puffy eyes off of the news coverage, watching over and over as if truth could be digested one soundbite at a time. That seems so long ago. It was all so unreal; one very macro, the other was a personal experience, and now these shocks and stunners have become so close together, they teeter on the mundane. Until Bowie.

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” – Stella Adler

After a childhood trying to pass as normal, this freak of a teenager found out that there was an English glam rocker hanging out in a club on the Sunset Strip. A high school friend would pick me up, toss me a bag with my outfit for the outing; hot pants, halter and glitter platforms and I’d ch-ch-change from suburban cheerleader to glam-child on the I-5 as we sped toward the center of the Universe; the Sunset Strip. The Strip, post Jim Morrison jumping off the Whisky A-Go-Go, was resurgent with a glam and reckless 70s energy to counter the macramé of my suburban safety and Rodney Bingenhimer’s English Disco was where we’d encounter the Starman. Like Elvis, only better, he was an artist like the world has never seen: exciting and dangerous, a legendary chameleon who could embody the character and the story, our story. The Patron Saint of the Outlier, equal parts showman and shaman, David Bowie burst from my dreams in Technicolor, alien, human, godlike and humble. He gave me the vision of a world beyond my straight-A sister and the fear of spending my adulthood in a world that felt so alien. I wore the grooves off his records, slipping him into the Hi-fi stack among the Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond and CSNY of my elder sibs. I saw him live every chance I got, slithering my way to the front of the stage like the nubile blonde that I was.
During my New York years, he was HERO; LODGER & LOW wafting through the loft, or waiting by the stage door after seeing him in The Elephant Man. David Bowie was an artist I claimed as my own; interesting, relevant, fluid. Bowie’s impression upon my youth was seminal. He not only gave us permission to be our different selves, he demanded we celebrate it, challenged a generation to take creativity to the limit and begin there.
I got home late the night he died, went to bed with a broken heart, knowing the world would be different. I couldn’t bear to see the pain on social media the next morning- perhaps if I don’t don’t logon I can pretend it never happened. But it had. Like everything has. And though I knew I’d have to face the tributes, the Ziggy profile pics and the music- oh god, the music- flooding the airwaves. It was an unavoidable reminder of what we’d lost, and what we’d gained.
In the months that have passed since his death, I’ve wondered why this death was so different. Not only for me (whose Plan A was movie star, Plan B- bear Bowie’s babies), but for millions around the globe. This star extinguished reminds us of our youthful promise to be wholly ourselves. A sobering, somber moment as we check in with our velvet covered middle-aged selves to see how our quest for artistry may have morphed into the mundane, or disappeared in the pursuit of money. For me, this is the challenge, to return to the edge and begin there once again.

“Let’s Dance…”rsz_rock_ballets_photo

Wonderbound had scheduled the Rock Ballets into their 2016 season well before the world heard the news. In a perfect confluence of time and space, sound and vision, Artistic Director Garrett Ammon’s ballets, set to the music of David Bowie and Queen take flight a month after the legendary artist’s ascent. The popular program has been here before, but you haven’t seen it like this.

Not only will the Wonderbound supernova perform these stunning works, the music will be played live by a supergroup comprised of Denver’s Chimney Choir and  the Ian Cooke Band.The music of Queen and David Bowie will be featured along with original tunes by both bands.

Can you imagine the kinetic imagination of Garrett Ammon set free to the lyrical strains of Queen’s “Love of My Life”? Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it so I’m sure that when the dancers take stage for “Bohemian Rhapsody” I’ll be in tears, and “We Are The Champions” should give me a chance to pick myself up off of the floor.Ammon’s star shines in “An Occasional Dream,” delving into one of the most famous tales of history and Bowie’s edgier songs, “Life On Mars,” “Time” and “Space Oddity” while Wonderbound Company Artist Sarah Tallman opens the night with her creation , “Unbroken Sky”. This world premiere will feature songs created by the supergroup septuplet of Chimney Choir and Ian Cooke Band and will evoke the explosion of the Beatnik generation.*snaps*

 “We are very excited to be a part of ​ Rock Ballets ​ . It will be a lot of fun to team up with Ian Cooke Band and reinvent some of the classics.“  – Kevin Larkin, Chimney Choir 

And if that’s not enough, Leon Gallery  has curated Denver Artist Mario Zoots for an exclusive exhibition of new works exploring themes from old Rolling Stones issues from the Bowie and Queen eras. (Oh great, now I belong to an ‘era’).

Rock  Ballets ​opens February 13 and will run for five (5) performances throughout Denver. More information on the production can be found at wonderbound.com​ .
If you can’t wait, stop by a limited seating Teaser at the Wonderbound Studio at Junction Box, for a taste of what the full-length performance will hold. Teaser #9 is on February 2, 2016 at 6:30 pm.