It’s my first day off in over a week! It’s lovely just to sit at home, drink coffee, call the folks, and just breathe for a moment.

Last weekend was the ODC Dance Jam’s fifth home season performance, V (“Five”). I helped organize their costumes and arrange the opening night reception. I’m so proud of these teen’s dedication and hard work. Not only do they rehearse and perform new and old works by a stunning array of Bay Area choreographers, they also do all the organizing, fundraising, ticket-selling, reception planning, marketing & PR work for their show. The ODC Dance Jam is awesome. No other way to say it. My favorite piece in their show was Scott Wells’ new work for the Jam. I happily worked with him to put together the costumes for it and I love how rock & roll he let me make it! Wells’ piece is humorous, high energy, and always makes me tear up a bit when three dancers come forward for an intimate moment with the audience to tell them about why they dance. The last, and best, line:

“Actually, it doesn’t make sense to talk about dance.  We dance because words are insufficient to our reality.  And, also, lets change the music.”

Cue the Smashing Pumpkins.

As the Jam did their last performances, I was getting the costumes organized to be loaded into the truck to take ODC’s 41st annual home season, Dance Downtown, to YBCA. We loaded in the next day and the majority of my week was spent pulling last minute costume details together. Oh the flurry of costume shopping, sewing, notes, organizing, and laundry! The 12 hour days of dress rehearsals right before opening nights were the hardest, but also the most satisfying. It’s a magical time, to stand in the house with the choreographers, or in the wings with the dancers, and witness it all come together.

All of the works presented this year I enjoy for different reasons. I love Kimi Okada’s brilliantly humorous, culture questioning, I look vacantly at the Pacific.. though regret, which has the best costumes and I always laugh out loud during! I could discuss for hours the juxtaposition of Brenda Way’s all-female Breathing Under Water and KT Nelson’s all-male Cut Out Guy, but then I would get sidetracked talking about the sweet live music manipulations of Zoe Keating and the Magik*Magik Orchestra. Way’s Raking Light raises questions, and Part of a Longer Story delights, but I am quite taken with Nelson’s Transit.

As my boyfriend Matt put it, after he saw the opening night performance, “It’s a slice of San Francisco.” You see relationships, a family, human interactions unfold over the course of a day. Three amazing custom built bicycles (imagine if a bike mated with a park bench, another with an outdoor cafe table complete with umbrella…) that fly across and around the stage. If you ever get a chance to see them up close, they are unwieldy beasts, but in their relationship with the dancers’ skill, they become light-weight, well-oiled, performing machines. A cloud of hanging Edison bulbs flicker on and off, and they could be stars, streetlights, lights in buildings in a city scape…

I love being in the wings for this piece, in my super important role as newspaper collector, costume quick change artist, and bicycle-butt-straightening assistant. For this piece, and the others, I get a different perspective on the performance than the audience, and it’s still magical. Maybe even more! They should charge extra for my seat (not that I would give it up!)! Seeing the wheels turning, how the cogs are in place – I have so much respect for the choreographers and these dancers, and the process that makes this magic happen. Just like the bikes, a well-oiled, working machine: a work of art producing art.

Here is video of the outdoor performance of Transit ODC did last fall for the SF Trolley dances. I love this version, too, especially the library patrons wandering in and out of the performance.

Transit/SF Trolley Dances from ODC Dance on Vimeo.

Lastly, my words are truly insufficient to describe how beautiful all of the ODC SF dancers are, in every piece, every performance. As dancers, as people, on stage - breathtaking.

I am so lucky to spend these backstage hours with them, in our wardrobe fittings, laughing, hysterically tired, telling dirty jokes. I feel that I am just a small cog in this performance machine, or the very youngest sister in this dance family (pick your metaphor), but I couldn’t feel more blessed to be a part of it all.

Come see ODC SF Dance Downtown at YBCA this week!

- Liz, ODC SF Wardrobe Supervisor

One big change up was saying, fondly, gratefully, “goodbye!” to the cafe at House of Air and, breathlessly, excitedly, “hello!” to Coffee Bar. Working both jobs was a bit of a trick, and I’m happy to now be exclusive with the lovely CB. I’m so pumped to be apart of their barista staff.

A big highlight of the month was participating in Hecho Local, a new arts fair that has sprung up in the Mission district at SubMission arts space. It was amazing to be apart of the first round and I’m looking forward to be apart of its growth. Here are some doodles and pictures from the event:

Psst! I hear there’s gonna be another Hecho Local in August! Sadly, I will not be there, but GO ANYWAY!

Today is the last day of the online event, 30 days of creativity! This was a great event. It was so much fun to keep track of my creative ways and to see others who embraced the month’s goal. Please, check out my board on Pinterest: This is where I showcased what I did everyday this month.

Happily, I finally got a few days off in a row this week. I was able to catch up on important things like sleep, emails, manga, and doodling. It looked a lot like this…

And this…

What’s coming up? An indie film shoot, the Hot August Tour of CO & KS, and SFZineFest 2011 (oh yeah, we’re gonna be there)!!!

So I was totally on board when they asked me to be the barista for their review event. There was some discussion on what to serve and how much to do. What was finally decided was that I would serve only hand-prepared, slow-drip coffee, from 9:30 AM to whenever the review ended. I was a little nervous leading up the event, as I really had no idea as to how functional the actual space would be, and to how many people I would be serving coffee.

But in the early morning light, backlit by the wall of glass at the end of the CCA main “nave,” the grotto glowed, I stepped into the space, and felt very much at home. There was storage for everything, even our slightly odd conglomeration of electric water pots. Matt and Rich, the metal-working Rapid type team members, finished welding the brilliant, custom designed, individual drip bars to hold the Beehouse ceramic drippers, and we were good to go!

We served Ritual, Bicycle Coffee Co., Philz, and Four Barrel coffee and everyone was really excited! It was busy, but not the overwhelming hoard of voracious, sleep-deprived art students I had feared. Overall, the space was wonderful to work in. Lots of people asked how it was, and I told everyone, “It’s great. Simply great.” In terms of functionality and flow, there was lots of storage, everything was within reach, plenty of counter space (impressive in such a small area), and I especially enjoyed the wide, curving, steel front counter/window that allowed for easy interaction with customers. I really liked how the counter was one continuous piece, and jutted out to make the milk and sugar area, and still allowed for interaction between barista and customers on that side. And it didn’t feel cramped when there were one or two extra folks in there with me helping out! I would be really curious and excited to work in the kiosk with all the extras we couldn’t get for this first event – generator, fridge, sink, espresso machine… I think it would would work well!

My favorite comment from a customer was that from their perspective, I was working in a work of art, and it made me look like a work of art! Basically, the space and I were very integrated.

Working as a barista has often reminded me of my time in Japan and the tea ceremony training I was so lucky to be apart of. Serving a warm beverage to another person is a simple act. The Japanese tea ceremony transforms that act into art, meditation – an aesthetic ritual. The practice was developed over many centuries. Coffee service isn’t in the same arena, but maybe we’re getting there. Certainly many people (especially in the Bay Area) take their coffee very seriously. Where the beans come from, the roasting process, the grind, how it’s brewed, and served, are all elements that are being re-examined, re-assessed, and renovated by many coffee companys. My training with Blue Bottle Coffee in Oakland, and my work at the cafe in House of Air, has introduced me to this world. As a “young” barista, I’m aware I’m only at the tip of the iceberg of knowledge, but I appreciate it and want to learn more.

Working in the Rapid type coffee kiosk, I felt like I was a part of a process that might be bringing coffee service closer to the realm of art. This is only my interpretation, of course. But was amazing to see the realms of architecture, construction, mobile structures, coffee, and art overlapping and interacting.

I was honored to be apart of it, Rapid type! And everyone was so helpful and supportive the day of the event! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Here’s a great post by the Rapid type team about the days leading up to the event. There’s also a video from the event! And, finally, the pictures from my camera:

P.S. Just in case you didn’t see it before, here’s the Rapid type apron I made just for this event!

“inspired by a very pregnant, incredibly light and lovely, dancer”

Pencil and ink on Bristol Board

pencil, ink, colored pencil on Bristol board

click for larger view

pencil, ink, colored pencil, marker

pencil, ink, colored pencil on Bristol board

pencil, ink, marker, colored pencil on Bristol board

pencil, ink, marker, colored pencil on Bristol board

pencil, ink, marker, colored pencil on Bristol board