I was not dreaming about barbarians…although that might’ve been nice too…

Sometimes in that moment between sleep and waking, a thought so fully formed pops in my head that makes me think “oh, there you are!” and it just feels right. This morning it was about revamping the blog and how it needs recording snippets and lots of TLC. There’s a saying from Tony Robbins: “Energy flows where attention goes. What are you giving your energy to?”

I wish energy was a never ending well sometimes, but it’s more like a pot isn’t it? There’s only so much in there before it needs to be replenished. We can eat right, sleep well, take care of ourselves and grow the size of our pot but it’s still a pot. Some days my energy pot feels this big <holds fingers together to the teeniest tiniest amount>.

So, today as I become mindful about where I place by focus and flow my energy, I surfed YouTube for new music ideas. (Yeah, need to consider how often I do this. Files YouTube under the “procrastinating” category). I came across this great video and so many aspects spoke to me. Let’s see where it takes us:

The video: Ashes – Barbarians, by RB Dance Company

Often I’ll post videos like this and only touch lightly on what intrigues me/pulls me in. Today I totally want to spill the tea.

Highlight moments:

• simple set
• starts out with a solo dancer, dramatic pauses
• dancers enter from the back through the darkness (not walking through walls!)*
• bold dramatic moves
• formation changes
• animation changes that match music change to drumbeat
• dancers pulling together during spoken section then bold explosion of movement and spreading out during music change
• Strong finish

First thought of so many may be: but we can’t do this in SL. My answer? Why not?

Unless we own our own mocap studio we can’t perform those exact moves – but there are so many animations in SL that would fit this music. Bold, sweeping, minimal…I challenge you that you could. We have fog to work with, shadow prims, mover systems for formations, dramatic poses.

Not all music and not all dances will speak to everyone, but this performance spoke to me – I could feel it, and those drum beats rattled my bones. The movement was powerful and interesting, the formation changes drawing my eye. So much good stuff in this dance performance, inspiration that can easily be brought into the world of SL.

Should we mimic in SL? Nope, definitely not. But I find so much inspiration in RL choreography videos.

Happy dancing!
~ Eva