From teen celebrity, to art school dropout, loser misfit, and rebel-clown choreographer; my dance talents, for better or worse, have yanked me through life.
As a shy little Oregon boy, literally living on a dead end, in the middle of a forest, just off a pissant town, I was completely hidden from the world. When not quietly making friends with local trees, I was hungrily consuming movies that dared me to live large... by performing.
These films weren't just entertaining. Their greasy hands reached through the screen, pressed into my soft skull, and told me that performance (especially dance) could...
Moons and moons ago, while adrift in a sea of gay men at Seattle’s Timberline bar, I tripped into the city’s first lube wrestling championship, and won. That night, lonely exhibitionists were given the chance to be lathered up in KY Jelly and slammed against the floor of an inflatable, lube-loaded pool. What did I win again… um prestige maybe? A story for the grand-kids? I certainly didn’t get a trophy for my efforts. That being typed, it was a stellar night. As I get older, dredging up more and more fodder for #ThrowbackThursdays, I find myself reflecting on lesson’s learned. Here’s some stuff I learned that’ll likely help you too.
Lights come up on a lone ballerina, innocently perched on stage. You recognize the scene, from one of the many Nutcrackers we inevitably endure, but this time it’s different somehow. After leaving her lofty throne, you see an elegant pointe shoe flush what was a toilet all along. And then, IT happens. A dancer, dressed as dung (head-to-pointed-toe), claws his way to the ballet beauty and incites a dance battle for the ages. This satire-drenched ballet, called Bowel Movement, was part of my first show as a choreographer. The whole thing, called Bathroom Follies, remains a seminal part of my strange dance revolution. Below, I’ll set the stage (pun intended) for how such a thing came to pass (also pun intended).
