American Dance Festival

I decided to just make one big post about ADF this year. Not to take anything away from it, it was a great season. Maybe it was local crime levels that made me mindful of posting that we would be out of the house! In any event, here it is.

We went to 7 performances this season. We got the same seats for the entire season and they were different this year than previous years. We were in Section 4 Row G Seats 201 and 202 in DPAC. We both actually preferred these seats, so that was a good thing.

Week one we attended opening night on Thursday, June 13. We had dinner at L'Uva with Clay's coworkers Sierra and Stefan. Dinner was good and we enjoyed the company. I am not a fan of Shen Wei and that was on tap tonight. Still not a fan. Sierra liked it and Stefan was amused by our at odds critiques.

Week two we attended Pilobolus on Saturday, June 22. We had dinner at Rue Cler. We only ever eat off the a la carte menu at the bottom of their menu and it makes it one of our favorite Durham restaurants. I always get the steak frites and Clay gets a salad followed by the moules frites, then since I never eat that much Clay finishes my steak and fries. We both like all of the food and we get plenty to eat. We usually find something for dessert here too, but advise avoiding the beignets. Huge disappointment. Pilobolus was great as usual. I was thrilled to see a restaging of 1978's Molly's Not Dead. I still remembered seeing it from ADF's first season in Durham and it was great to finally see it again.

Week three we attended Kyle Abraham.in.Motion on Saturday, June 29. We had dinner at Lilly's Pizza with Clay's older brother and sister-in-law and dessert at Mad Hatter after dinner. We have had Lilly's in Raleigh almost as long as we've lived here, but it is fairly new in Durham in the old Pop's space. So, while it was just pizza for us, Warner and Vivian really love this place. Lilly's had no dessert to interest any of us so we left and met back up over at Mad Hatter. Clay had his favorite cookie, Chocolate Whopper and I had a mocha latte. I will say now that I went all season without a slice of my favorite Black & White cake! I did not know anything about Kyle Abraham before tonight's performance except that his one long piece tonight, Pavement, was inspired by/based on the film Boyz in the Hood. I really enjoyed the performance and thought it was well choreographed and performed. In the bad news category, I have finally discovered the songs that constitute the new rhythm of my live with Parkinson's Disease. I have long thought that if I could just find a song to sing along or hum to go with my tremor that it would help me own it instead of wanting to fight it. Well, it is rap! They were playing loud booming rap music in the auditorium prior to starting the performance and then during it and my right fist was pumping a perfect double time rhythm to every song. Devastating! I hate rap music and it's simple booming rhythm and now I guess I can understand why I really hate the tremor too.

Week four we attended Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance Company on Saturday, July 6. We had dinner at Vin Rouge. I am not a huge fan of Brenda Angiel, though she has some brilliant choreography combining tango and aerial work. Sadly, that work was not on the program tonight. Tonight was just all about playing with the equipment. Meh.

Week five we attended Paul Taylor Dance Company on Saturday, July 13.  We had dinner at Pop's. We were both rather disappointed as this used to be one of our favorite restaurants. We left without dessert and went back to Mad Hatter's for a repeat of our last visit. Paul Taylor is one of my favorite Modern Dance choreographers and companies. Tonight though was a little disappointing. His new choreography was uninspired and the dancers were not used to advantage and seemed to feel it as it seemed they were walking through. The final piece on the program was Arden Court from 1981 and we had both seen it many times and discussed leaving during intermission. We didn't and were we glad. This piece redeemed the evening and finished on a high note. It is a beautiful piece of work and the dancers really shone in it, finally.

Week six we attended Trisha Brown Dance Company on Saturday, July 20.  We had dinner at Bergama with Warner and Vivian again. Bergama is a Turkish restaurant near their home. It was convenient for all of us and had a varied menu. We enjoyed our meals and the servings were large enough that W&V could take away boxes with their lunch for tomorrow. It was good. Clay hates Trisha Brown and never wants to go see here company. He says it is the arm flinging! Trisha Brown retired last year and fittingly her final piece of choreography, I'm Going to Toss My Arms-If You Catch Them They're Yours, was on the program tonight. Clay liked the company just fine without Trisha. Go figure. Trisha Brown is a choreographer that I value as old school Modern Dance and we both really enjoyed the performances tonight and Trisha's company is doing a great job even without her.

Week seven we attended Forces of Dance on Saturday, July 27. We had a repeat dinner at Rue Cler to finish off the season. This was an evening of old and new choreography by established choreographers performed (mostly) by ADF students. It was an uneven evening as might be expected but we really enjoyed it. I especially loved the final piece by Twyla Tharp. It was a great cap off for the ADF's 80th season.

Tremor update: I am still doing the LSVT BIG exercises almost daily and they still seem to be helping. I do them with a stretching routine combining what the PT gave me with what my chiropractor gave me years ago. It seems to be helping with the dystonia and rigidity. The tremor itself is unmoved! I did try to return to taking the 1/2 pill of Artane daily with the same disastrous effects as earlier. I still haven't gotten my equilibrium back. But, while on the drug I couldn't think clearly enough to plan, reason or organize and that was really disturbing. More than anything else that made me abandon Artane for a final time. I go back to Dr. Carnes in mid September. I think he has just about exhausted his range of drug to try prescribing so I am not sure where he and I can go from here.

Quidam

Say KEY-dahm. We took a little, but pricey, fantasy trip today over at the PNC Arena. At 1pm, we saw Quidam. The tickets were in the first tier off the floor, in a little 3 row by 3 seat section at the bottom of section 125 Row A Seats 8 and 9. Tickets were $80 each. Ticketmaster charged $14.40 each for the privilege of purchasing online and printing our own tickets at home. PNC Arena charged $15 for parking.

We didn't buy anything else, but programs were $10 extra. Adult T-shirts were $30 to $40. Domestic beer started at $8 each.

We really enjoyed the show as we have all the Cirque du Soleil shows we've seen. But this was a lot of money for a couple of hours!

We got lunch/dinner at Tripps on the way home. Clay ate all of his ribs and I got most of my chicken and pasta dish boxed up for Clay to finish later this evening.

Tremor Update

So, I am still off Artane. Frankly, I can't really imagine going back on it even at the now recommended half pill daily. It's toxic and if it actually fixed me I might consider it. But, taking poison and oh yeah you still have Parkinson's Disease, well that's just hard to do. All the PD symptoms were returning even before I stopped taking the drug. I just about have my equilibrium back and have stopped being dizzy, and the blurred vision has gone. I would say I am about back where I was before seeing Dr. Robotom. Since the Parkinson's symptoms had started returning before Dr. Carnes told me to stop taking Artane, I am thinking that it just wasn't going to work long term anyway especially with the awful side effects. So that is all the bad news.

 Here I am with big Bob in my Everlasting Sweater! Yea!

I don't remember if I mentioned here that I had taken up knitting again after years because as counter intuitive as it sounds, it helped calm my right hand tremor when sitting still. Somehow I was still able to control my right hand movements and I could use 2 hands and just go slow or at a random pace and pick it up and put it down and my hand wouldn't clench up and fist under. My right foot still does, but... So anyway. I knitted a pink shrug. Too little for me, I didn't buy enough yarn, couldn't find more. I will give it to Vivian one of these days and one of her many granddaughters can have it. I knitted a white-speckled brown shrug. It was fine. I used the leftover yarn to make Clay a hat. It was perfect. A really great hat. Historically, I have never knitted anything other than rectangles. But, I wanted a sweater. Be careful what you wish for! I have worked on and off on what we call "The Everlasting Sweater" for months now. I found a pattern and picked out and bought the yarn. I knitted the whole thing twice and the 4 pieces would never fit together and form a sweater. I am sure now that it was not me and that the directions are just flawed. After I took it all apart a 2nd time, I put all the materials away for a while. I bought some new yarn with the plan to make another shrug like my brown one for my Mom for Christmas.  We were gone overseas for 4 weeks after that. When I was ready to knit again, I got out the used yarn and went online and found another pattern. I have been working on it for weeks now. The good news is that I finished! The pattern was good and I only had to knit all the pieces once and they all went together just fine and even better, it fits!