Let's Talk About Love

Swedish Press

2008-06-04T02:46:00.000-07:00

Article in the Swedish Aftonbladet. English translation of part of the article is below:

She comes from a family of fourteen, and still her class journey hasn't given her any authenticity points. No one embodies bad taste as she does. Therefore it is only logical that two current projects, a book and a dance piece, makes precisely Celine Dion the protagonist in an analysis of concepts of taste in our present times.

Celine Dion does Esperanto Muzak. Her sexless power ballads, belonging to a tradition of European sleaze rather than american R'n'B, are recorded in all possible languages in order to achieve the deepest possible market penetration. The lyrics, as if straight out of a self-help book- are affirmative and falsely comforting. Love comes to those who believe it. Life is about attitude. Think right and good things will come your way. On stage she is slightly fidgety, making clown like gestures and secret signs to her manager and husband Rene Angelil, who allegedly gambled away all her millions on casinos.

Some of these movements have been picked up by choreographer Jessyka Watson-Galbraith who is behind a dance project called "Let's Talk About Love". When Jessyka Watson-Galbraith decided to create a consciously bad, and really cheesey piece, the choice of soundtrack was obvious: Celine Dion. Together with dancers from all over the world she has produced an on-line performance, a dance mass-movement of home recorded videos that are uploaded on YouTube. The project has been presented on stage on two different occasions, most recently as the closing performance for the Tanztage Festival in Potsdam. In the videos the dancing is solely to Celine Dion and the movements is of the spastic, sweeping and dramatic sort that we do at home when no one is watching, a dance equivalence to singing in the shower.

"Let's Talk About Love" is as much about exploring the choreography of the people as it about creating a work that plays with the conventions of the contemporary dance scene, at the same time an ironic and declaration of love to Celine Dion. Jessyka Watson-Galbraith is not only deeply fascinated by Dion as a person, she has also started to appreciate some of her songs.

Potsdam Press

2008-06-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about love Tanztage Festival-Finale mit einem Abend der "Kurzen Stücke," der fest in weiblicher Hand ist

Tuesday 27 May, 2008
excerpt from article printed in the Märkische Allgemeine, Potsdamer Stadtkurier

The young Australian Jessyka Watson Galbraith rehearsed her choreography "Let's talk about love" with 22 dancers from Berlin and Potsdam bit by bit in their apartments or on open road and then put it together in a few rehearsals. Between stove and bed, in parking spots, on house tops. Videospots (www.letstalkaboutloveproject.blogspot.com) show how daily dance ducks its head under droops or tries to evade dinner tables - accompanied by corny ballads about love. Although Watson Galbraith' role is not really clear yet and she sometimes seems to be the gymnast instructor of her 15 fellow combatants: The project skilfully utilizes shameless wallowing in the glamour pop of Celine Dion to measure the banal in the big emotion, the kitsch in the everyday, the theatre in the living room. One will surely hear again from this Love-Guerilla.

Constanze Klementz

(translation from German, Ulrike Melzwig)

PICTURES OF THE PROJECT

2008-05-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

You will find a comprehensive pictorial over-view of the project here.

BOOTLEG VIDEO OF THE PERFORMANCE FILMED BY MELISSA'S BOYFRIEND

2008-05-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's All Coming Back To Me Now

Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore

Because You Loved Me

Eyes On Me

Have You Ever Been In Love

Let's Talk About Love : Berlin : Compilation

2008-05-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

100 minutes of video, 41 performances on YouTube, 23 dancers, 15 locations, 13 meetings, 9 discussions about love, 4 studio rehearsals, 1 group dinner, 1 alleged copyright violation, 1 blog.

200 million album sales, 200 songs - 198 about love, 172 career awards, 16 brothers and sisters, 11 world tours, 1 custom built arena in Las Vegas, 1 Eurovision Song Contest Grand Prix, 1 Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1 Order of Canada, 1 Legion D'Honneur, 1 husband/manager and 1 son.

Love comes to those who believe it, and that's the way it is.

All By Myself 3

2008-05-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

28 May 2008
Location: Jessyka's apartment, Stockholm
Featuring: Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Beauty and The Beast

2008-05-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

24 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's courtyard, Berlin
Featuring: Mim Wheeler and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

All By Myself 2

2008-05-24T02:18:00.000-07:00

23 May 2008
Location: Kaya's apartment, Brussels
Featuring: Kaya Kolodziejczyk

Skies Of L.A. 3

2008-05-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

23 May 2008
Location: Kaya's apartment, Brussels
Featuring: Kaya Kolodziejczyk

Si J'etais Quelq'un - Studio Rehearsal 3

2008-05-24T02:06:00.000-07:00

23 May 2008
Location: Fischhaus, fabrik Potsdam.
Featuring: Isabell Gerschke, Melissa Maldonaldo, Eleonor Ilia, Ligia Soares, Cass Ginsberg, Jacqueline Fourny, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith, Rosalind Goldberg, Mim Wheeler, Cilgia Gadola.

Je Ne Suis Pas Celle

2008-05-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

23 May 2008
Location: Masha's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Masha Pyatkova and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Look Into My Eyes

2008-05-23T01:28:00.000-07:00

22 May 2008
Location: Big studio, fabrik Potsdam
Featuring: Isabell Gerschke, Melissa Maldonaldo, Eleonor Ilia, Ligia Soares, Cass Ginsberg, Jacqueline Fourny, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith, Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky and Thereza Pommerenke

Falling In To You

2008-05-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

22 May 2008
Location: Big studio, fabrik Potsdam
Featuring: Isabell Gerschke and Masha Pyatkova

Power Of A Dream

2008-05-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

21 May 2008
Location: Rosalind's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Rosalind Goldberg and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

River Deep, Mountain High

2008-05-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

20 May 2008
Location: Melissa's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Melissa Maldonado and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

If I Could

2008-05-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

20 May 2008
Location: Tanz Fabrik Showers, Berlin
Featuring: Ligia Soares and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

All By Myself

2008-05-21T01:39:00.000-07:00

20 May 2008
Location: Cass's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Cass Ginsberg and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

La Diva

2008-05-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

19 May 2008
Location: Stella's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky and Thereza Pommerenke

I'm Your Angel

2008-05-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

19 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's apartment, Berlin
Fetauring: Elena and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Cass Ginsberg

2008-05-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

Cass travelled around the globe as a child with her family and now lives in Berlin, she is German. She is also a talented singer. Her dance background centres around Butoh and recently performed at Dock 11 in Berlin.

Ligia Soares

2008-05-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

Ligia Soares is a Portuguese performance artist. She creates performances with her identical twin sister. Here is a link to her blog, it's in Portguese but you can look at the pictures. Ligia is now based in Berlin. This is the first 'jazz' dance performance she has been a part of.

Skies Of L.A. 2

2008-05-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

17 May 2008
Location: Tanz Fabrik carpark, Berlin
Featuring: Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky and Thereza Pommerenke

Skies Of L.A.

2008-05-16T12:56:00.001-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Mari's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Mari Flønes and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Right Next To The Right One 2

2008-05-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Mari's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Mari Flønes and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Baby Think Twice 3

2008-05-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Mari's apartment
Featuring: Mari Flønes

Baby Think Twice 2

2008-05-16T12:32:00.002-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Helga's apartment
Featuring: Helga Wretman

Baby Think Twice

2008-05-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Thereza's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky and Thereza Pommerenke

So This Is Christmas

2008-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Helga's apartment
Featuring: Helga Wretman and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

My Heart Will Go On 2

2008-05-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

16 May 2008
Location: Thereza's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky, Thereza Pommerenke and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Photo's of The Dinner

2008-05-16T01:34:00.000-07:00

SEE HERE

At 19:00, Tuesday 13 May as many cast members as possible plus some other lovely people attended a dinner to celebrate a love of dance/pasta/each other/Berlin and so on.. The choreographer cooked pasta amidst cries of 'I've seen you in class before haven't I!'

A dance was produced, it's very wavy/up & down and beautiful. Thanks to Siegmar and Steven for the use of their wonderful apartment and to Marlie and Ulrike.

Dewa, Stella, Karla and Thereza

2008-05-16T00:45:00.001-07:00

Dewa Bertschi, Stella Kiesslinger, Karla Novozimsky and Thereza Pommerenke are all undertaking their vorausbildnung at the Tanz Fabrik in Berlin. They finished high school last year. Dewa is Swiss and Stella, Karla and Thereza come form Stuttgart. Stella is travelling to Honduras after the course and Thereza would like to go to the North of Sweden where her father has a farm that hosts cultural projects. They all had a Steiner education and studied 13 years of Eurythmics. 3 of the 4 girls work at the same call centre near Warschauerstrasse. They are not absolutely determined to have a professional dance career, but they like dance, they have time now to give it a go and they want to move. They might continue one day with Tanztherapie.

Mim Wheeler

2008-05-16T00:21:00.000-07:00

Mim is currently recovering from falling out a tree in Sydney and breaking her wrist, but it is healing well. Mim is a manager at Wagamama in Putney, London. She is known in Australia for her fearless dance work, and and has been likened to a monkey. She took this one step further in 2007 and spent ten days in a tree house with her own pet monkey in Cambodia.

Helga Wretman

2008-05-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

Helga grew up in the theatre. She was a member of the Isadora Duncan inspired D Company in Stockholm and continued her dance studies in Stockholm. She moved to Berlin to pursue projects – not necessarily always sticking to the Contemporary Dance scene, although she does create her own choreographies. She has participated in the production of films, been a Bacardi dancer, performed at Gala’s for DHL, created choreographies for commercials and also freelanced for various choreographers in Sweden and Germany.

Cilgia Gadola

2008-05-16T00:08:00.000-07:00

Cilgia is Swiss, and studied in Munich. She has been in Berlin for a year and a half and aside from her performance work she teaches teenagers dance in Kreuzberg. Last year she initiated the website tanzpresse.de which provides an opportunity for critique of Contemporary Dance performances here in Berlin. She writes for the website also. Her sister is moving to Los Angeles, and Cilgia will be passing through New York on her way to visit her in June. Cilgia gave up dance briefly when she was 11 to pursue an interest in horses, but started to take classes again seriously at the age of 15, and hasn’t stopped since.

Maria Pyatkova

2008-05-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Masha undertook her dance training in Novosibirsk. She moved from Russia to work at the Max Plank Institute in Göttingen in the field of Molecular and Genetic Biology. Here, in the absence of any training possibilities she taught classes in ballet and modern. She moved to Berlin a year and a half ago to pursue artistic projects, and complements performing and creating films with research in the field of Social Psychology.

Because You Loved Me 2

2008-05-15T15:10:00.001-07:00

15 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

That's The Way It Is 2

2008-05-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

15 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's backyard
Featuring: Eleonora Ilia & Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

That's The Way It Is

2008-05-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

15 May 2008
Location: Cilgia and Angela's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Angela, Cilgia Gadola and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

This Time

2008-05-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

15 May 2008
Location: Diane's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Diane Busuttil

Jacqueline Fourny

2008-05-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Jacqueline performed in the Potsdam performance of Isabell Schad and Good Work Production's 'Still Lives.' She has taken workshops in Krumping and Salsa.

Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore

2008-05-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

14 May 2008
Location: Tanz Fabrik car park courtyard, Berlin
Featuring: kids, Melissa Maldonado, Isabell Gerschke & Masha Pyatkova

Studio Rehearsal 1

2008-05-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

14 May 2008
Location: Studio 4, Tanz Fabrik, Berlin
Featuring: Melissa Maldonado, Mari Flønes, Isabell Gerschke, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith & Masha Pyatkova, Thereza Pommerenke and Dewa Bertschi.

Carpark Rehearsal

2008-05-14T14:22:00.001-07:00

14 May 2008
Location: Courtyard/car park, Tanz Fabrik, Berlin
Featuring: Melissa Maldonado, Mari Flønes, Isabell Gerschke, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith & Masha Pyatkova.

Eyes On Me 4

2008-05-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

14 May 2008
Location: Melissa's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Melissa Maldonado and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Feliz Navidad - Group Dinner

2008-05-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

13 May
Location: Siegmar's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Most of the cast

The Power of Love

2008-05-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

13 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's apartment
Featuring: Most of the cast

Isabell Gerschke

2008-05-13T04:22:00.000-07:00

Isabell has starred in several German films and television series. She has been dancing since she was very young and she has earned income doing all sorts of dance work – from commercial, hip hop to her own contemporary choreographic explorations. She has a 4 year old daughter, who attends the classes she teaches for children at the fabrik Potsdam. She lives and works in Potsdam.

Love Can Move Mountains

2008-05-13T03:59:00.000-07:00

13 May 2008
Location: Isabell's apartment, Potsdam
Featuring: Isabell Gerschke and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Photo's of Rehearsals

2008-05-12T23:11:00.001-07:00

www.flickr.com

Go to Let's Talk About Love's photostream

Bat For Lashes - What's a Girl To Do

2008-05-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

Because You Loved Me

2008-05-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

12 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Rosalind Goldberg and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

My Heart Will Go On

2008-05-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

12 May 2008
Location: Siegmar's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Rosalind Goldberg and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Immortality

2008-05-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

12 May 2008
Location: Cilgia's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Cilgia Gadola and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Right Next To The Right One

2008-05-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

12 May 2008
Location: Mari's apartment, Berlin
Featuring: Mari Flønes and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Celine vs Harry

2008-05-12T02:45:00.000-07:00

I found this on the website celinedreams.com (hilarious - it's a mash-up of interpretations about Celine's own dreams/dreams about Celine and information about Celine. The author's (Yuri) theory is that every fan wants to meet the object of his/her adoration. At its deepest level, in the beginning, celinedreams was a was a way to meet Celine in person. It's incredible.) Below the Harry Potter article there was an opportunity to directly purchase Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. What a co-incidence. Read more about Yuri here.

Humble beginnings. A youngest of 14 children Celine comes from a humble family. The creator of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling was a single mother on wealfare when she started writing the book about Harry.

The magic. The magic of Celine's voice is one of the keys of her worldwide success. Celine is a born entertainer, she really likes what she does, and she does it well. A hard-worker Celine loves to share her talent with her fans. The Las Vegas show of Celine Dion "A New Day" has been built on magic. Also, the lastest album of Celine Dion is called "Miracle". Do you think it's a coincidence? Harry's magic comes from his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Commercial success. Both Celine Dion and Harry Potter are now a billion dollar industry. Both generate millions in jobs, merchandise, etc. Celine's Las Vegas show contract brings her around 100 million over three years. J.K. Rowling is now richer that the Queen of England.
The show is going on. Yeap. Both Celine and Harry haven't told their last word yet. Celine Dion and her management have just confirmed that they will be extending her Las Vegas Show through 2007. While Harry's story hasn't reached the end either.

Dance Critique in Berlin

2008-05-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

Check out tanzpresse.de for indpendent critique of the Contemporary Dance scene in Berlin. It features writing about the smaller shows that don't make it into the Deutsche Zeitung. It debuted in 2007, and at present is in German, however, it is planning to cover international performances in the very near future.

Eleonora Ilia

2008-05-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

Eleanor (left in picture) attended dance school in Greece, and at the same time under took a diploma in Law. She has recently moved to Berlin and in between taking German language and dance classes is choreographing a Greek theatrical production. This will be performed at the Rathaus Stiegliz on the 24 and 25 May. In Greece she has worked with the Greek National Opera and other independent choreographers.

Alone

2008-05-11T11:25:00.001-07:00

11 May 2008
Location: Lambrini's apartment
Featuring: Lambrini Litsa, Eleonora Ilia and Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Shadow Of Love

2008-05-11T11:18:00.001-07:00

11 May 2008
Location: Tanz Fabrik, Berlin
Featuring: Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

2008-05-11T04:30:00.001-07:00

Jessica lives in Sweden at present, she moved there for love. She studied dance at University in Australia. Most recently she was the personal assistant to three Directors at the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers in London. She thoroughly enjoys corporate employment, and has worked in the fields of film, finance and management consultancy. She is flying to Los Angeles in June to write a film script. Her other on-line projects include investigations into the film Dirty Dancing, the diva Mariah Carey and with the Swedish International Performance Exchange (INPEX) the INPEX DIY Video Festival. She began travelling to Europe to dance in 2000 and finally moved to London to work in 2005. The only performance work she ended up doing there was Let’s Talk About Love. In Berlin she has worked a fair amount with Australian Paul Gazzola.

Jamie Lidell - New Me

2008-05-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

Mari Flønes

2008-05-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

Mari lives between Paris, Stavanger and Trondheim. Her boyfriend is an architect and they intend to collaborate to create performance works. In addition to this Mari tries to unite the artistic environment in Trondheim by holding frequent improvisation jams through VIB - Verksted for Improvisert Bevegelse (you can join the Facebook group). The city of Trondheim owns an apartment near Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin which it offers to its residents as a stipendium. Mari is in Berlin for one month taking classes and seeing and doing as many things as possible. See her MySpace, it's very beautiful. Rosalind is a member of the Let's Talk About Love cast in Berlin.

Rosalind Goldberg

2008-05-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

Rosalind began her dance career performing original Isadora Duncan choreographies with Lilla Baletten which then became the Isadorabelles, and then later the D Company. She completed her professional training at the Stockholm Balettakademien and moved to Berlin in October 2007. She performs with a Swedish choreographer in Sweden and tours her own performance works to Copenhagen, Denmark. Rosalind is a member of the Let's Talk About Love cast in Berlin.

Lambrini Litsa

2008-05-10T06:58:00.000-07:00

Lambrini (right in picture) was born and raised in Athens. She received her dance education in Greece, Austria and Germany and last year she also graduated from the University of Athens, Communication and Media department. She takes a keen interest in dance film. At present she 's living, dancing and having fun in Berlin where she takes care of a spoiled dog and a luxury flat none of which belong to her. She recently popped her shoulder from the socket, but even this cant stop her. She is visiting her parents and friends in Greece so cannot make the performance but features in several videos.

Melissa Maldonado

2008-05-09T03:03:00.001-07:00

Melissa comes from a Puerto Rican heritage, but grew up in Queens, New York. As a child she took ballet and tap dance with Miss Gloria, but always envied older girls who got to take the flamenco classes. Whilst studying at Colombia University in New York (originally she studied Engineering, later switching major's to Art History) she took many dance classes and surprisingly was re-united with Miss Gloria, finally having the opportunity to learn Classical Spanish Dance. She now teaches Flamenco and other dance styles at a new-style multi-lingual school in Berlin, where she has lived since 2000. It has taken her six years to obtain her Niederlassungerlaubnis and now she is able to stay in Berlin and work in any field she chooses. Melissa is a member of the Let's Talk About Love cast in Berlin. See her website.

London, Let's Talk About Love

2008-05-08T14:02:00.001-07:00

See the first part of the performance of Let's Talk About Love in London at The Place theatre here. Read the press here.

Celine On Tour

2008-05-08T01:56:00.000-07:00

Celine's tour schedule
Celine's backstage demand

(Me disguised as a fan.) Seeing her in concert was just one prospect that I couldn't pass up. After all it would be a little sloppy/negligent from a work-perspective if I by-passed the opportunity.

New Purchases On Ebay

2008-05-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

I bought this today on Ebay.

Hating Céline is therefore not just an aesthetic choice, but an ethical one, a way to elevate yourself above her fans—who, according to market research, tend to be disproportionately poor adult women living in flyover states and shopping at big-box stores.

Rehearsal Schedule for Performance in Berlin

2008-05-07T01:12:00.001-07:00

LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE : INFORMATION FOR DANCERS

JESSYKA WATSON-GALBRAITH
Australian choreographer living in Stockholm.
jessyka_wg@yahoo.co.uk
Berlin telephone : 0152 24045252

BLOG FOR PROJECT
http://www.letstalkaboutloveproject.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/jessykabarbara

DINNER
19:00 – Tuesday 13 May – Torstrasse (near Rosenthaler Platz)

REHEARSALS

12:00 – 15:00 Wednesday 14 May Tanz Fabrik, Moeckernstr. 68, Berlin
12:00 – 15:00 Tuesday 20 May Tanz Fabrik, Moeckernstr. 68, Berlin
16:00 – 20:00 Thursday 22 May fabrik Potsdam
16:00 – 20:00 Friday 23 May fabrik Potsdam

PERFORMANCE – SUNDAY 25 MAY – FABRIK POTSDAM
TIME TBC Technical rehearsal
18:00 Closing night of the fabrik Potsdam Tanztage Festival

FABRIK POTSDAM
http://www.fabrikpotsdam.de
Schiffbauergasse 10 D-14467 Potsdam
Telephone : 0331 280 0314

CONTACT : Ulrike Melzweg
residenzen@fabrikpotsdam.de

DIRECTIONS TO POTSDAM

Take S7 or 7 to the last stop Potsdam Hauptbahnhof – from Alexanderplatz/Friedrichstrasse
Then take tram 93/94/99 to the stop HOLZMARKTSTRASSE
http://www.fahrinfo-berlin.de (FAHRPLANSKUNFT)

See also http://www.schiffbauergasse.de for more info about the area.

Free Water Via SMS

2008-05-06T04:17:00.000-07:00

Vitamin Water is doing a campaign in the USA, where you sms a certain number and they give you coupons to get free water jam-packed with vitamins. I think I might do this for the performance on the 25th May in Potsdam. Sms me your email address on my German mobile +49 (0)1522 404 5252 and I will arrange a ticket for you.

Read more about free water here.

Fans - Hello Kitty Hell

2008-05-06T03:31:00.001-07:00

This is almost as nuts as the Dolly Parton documentary DOLLYWOOD. I have no attraction to the world of Hello Kitty but this level of geekdom is hilarious. The time/effort that goes into being a fan. Is awesome. I am a big fan of fans. This blog is a site that chronicles the extensive range of Hello Kitty paraphernalia, the twist is that the writer vehemently hates it all. Read more about the Hello Kitty Power Sander here.

Paparrazzi For All

2008-05-05T01:27:00.000-07:00

"It could be a horrible, invasive thing, like a stalker," Glover told Newsday recently. "But instead he is capturing you as you are."

In a weird twist people actually pay for themselves to be stalked and photographed by paparazzi. Hopefully this means the end of family portraits in studio's with anthroposophical shades of blue as a backdrop. They still haunt me.

Read the full article here.

Twittering Oneself Out Of Prison

2008-05-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

Twitter let's you let the world know what you are doing and thinking whenever you want in 140 characters or less. Or as they say officially a social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.

I have been dabbling with it and unlike the millions of teenagers/geeks out there I don't actually have a network of 'friends' who I can follow - but it has been really useful and more instantaneous way of tapping into the information flow surrounding topics that I am interested in. Mostly by following writers of certain blogs that I read.

If you want to know more read this. This was written by a lady who got engaged via Twitter.

But here is a slightly more hard core use of this communication tool. A Californian student who was covering an anti-government protest in Egypt was arrested. On the way to prison in the car, he twittered 'Arrested.' Within 24 hours he was free, his network of followers on the web had been able to contact the right people. It's quite a remarkable example of the potential of this real-time communication. How the student was able to not just contact one person, but a whole network of supporters via the web with simply one word, and divert a dangerous situation.

Read the whole story here. It's mad.

Friskis & Svettis

2008-05-01T03:27:00.000-07:00

Friskis & Svettis evolved from an idea about connecting the world of sports and medicine and how they could make use of each others knowledge. Friskis & Svettis wanted to build a bridge, linking medical care and health care closer together.

Friskis stood for one part of the what the movement was about, Svettis for another. Friskis meant adapted activities for those who for one reason or another, couldn´t partake in the ordinary workouts. Svettis was the workouts for everyone else. But the "&" sign was the most important, as it represented the aim of furthering people from Friskis to Svettis. Everyone should be able to find a form of exercise that suited them, whether you had been injured, were fit, unfit, young or old.

Friskis & Svettis is a Swedish chain of public gym's with a Socialist edge. It's not-for-profit (!?) and, one may find themselves doing aerobics to Celine Dion with around 50 other people. The choreography in their jympa classes is astounding, sort of Pagan ritual cross Kylie Minogue Locomotion. Getting fresh and sweaty to Celine. This is the choreography of the people.

Perhaps you may have noticed a little influence in the latest video's for Berlin Let's Talk About Love.

Celine At Your Fingertips

2008-04-30T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Celine Dion Foundation, in partnership with Ideabuena, (they develop Toolbars for not-for-profit organisations that work on a pay per click advertising basis. They say that they - are a marketing group with a serious bent on doing good.) has introduced the brand new Celine Dion Foundation Toolbar. By downloading, every time you use it, you help raise funds for the Celine Dion Foundation. One can't but notice the links to her official site, Amazon, Expedia and most importantly how to buy tickets to her show. I just can't help thinking that if her her husband refrained from spending a million a week gambling she wouldn't need to be encouraging her fans to spend money at Amazon/Expedia in order to riase money for Canadian children in need. This is what it looks like, I have it. I couldn't resist.

Eyes On Me

2008-04-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

29 April 2008
Location: Weld - Stockholm
Featuring: Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Just In Case Anyone Was Wondering

2008-04-29T07:10:00.001-07:00

LOL I think we've touched on this before, right? But I think she's definitely had extensions before.

From the FIY to LTAL times, I think it was real. You can kinda see the progression from short hair during the LAP days, going into the FIY album cover shoot, then it's getting longer, she's on award shows, we see it longer, then there's Live in Memphis and it's longer, then there's LTAL, where it's even longer, then we approach the ATW era where it hat gotten super long. When she accepted at the Grammy's that year, that's when she kinda debuted the long hair, then by the time the CBS special appeared, she had the long stuff perfected. So I think all that progression was real...

Then came her hiatus.... BAM, hair as short as mine! LOL

As for the short stuff at the start of her Vegas run, to when she had longer hair, she says in the AND DVD All Access stuff that it was extensions.

[Also, I think, that if you watch closely to the 'making of' for the Je ne ous oublie pas music video, while she's getting ready... the hair dresser is drying her hair, and you can see the extensions and different thicknesses in there...]

So she had extensions to recreate her signature long brown hair, but as her own hair grew in, the extensions were shortened during hair cuts, etc. But, that's not to say that for a special occasion show, she doesn't use a hair piece or clip in hair fall. She may be using extensions to give volume now, but we've also seen her with out the teased up look, so it could possibly be all hers. Well, it is all hers anyway... she did pay for it. LOL

FIY =Falling In To You (Album 96 and Tour 96-97)
LTAL = Let's Talk About Love (Album 97 and Tour 98-99)
ATW = All The Way... A Decade in Song (Greatest Hits Album 99)
AND = A New Day (Show in las Vegas 03-07)

Madonna In Animation

2008-04-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

By the amazing Rowena True.

Created in in collaboration with the costume designer Maki Loulou, who crafted all the Madonna-themed costumes for the Barbie dolls in the film, and Jasper Kidd, who did additional animation and 3D work.

Algorithmic Facial Choreography

2008-04-28T04:23:00.001-07:00

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter - and getting smarter faster than most companies.

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The relationship between dance and technology is somewhat puzzling. I don't know what to make of things such as Algorithmic Facial Choreography in an industry where YouTube is considered something you have to 'get' before you can see it as just one way (albeit lo-fi) to bridge the fundamental issue of geographical isolation.

I find it titillating to think about how the industry and its global network would be transformed if it universally engaged with the Internet and it's possibilities FULL ON. I point to The Cluetrain Manifesto as food for thought.

Things You Might Not Have Known About Celine

2008-04-28T03:31:00.001-07:00

Hilary Clinton ran an on-line competiton in June 2007 that let her supporters choose her campaign song. You guessed it, they chose Celine Dion. The song was You and I.

Co-incidentally it was also Air Canada's theme song in 2004.

Read more here.

Who's Inside The Animal Costume?

2008-04-28T02:14:00.001-07:00

"It's not just the homespun quality of what's famous on the web. It's how fame works -- it's becoming much more DIY," said Weinberger. "Fame is now living in a long tail, or a long continuum of ways to be famous."

An alternative to the pop culture celebrity, geek celebrity is way cooler.

The example in this article is the revealing of the human identity of a WOW game player Leeroy Jenkins at the ROFLCon at MIT over the weekend. Leeroy Jenkins became famous as he was away from his computer whilst his posse was planning an attack on another posse. This was video'd and put up on a WOW Forum. Leeroy was heralded as the hero of the event, as he had acted, albeit accidentally, against the 'geekiness' of his posse. Who would expect that geeks would look up to someone who downplayed the geek-factor? This was in 2005.

Read the entire article here.

FEMALE DANCERS REQUIRED

2008-04-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

For 30-minute performance, a display of devotion for Celine Dion, Love and Dance. All synthesizers, drum breakdowns, artificial wind and web-cams.

Performance date: Sunday 25 May

Venue: fabrik Potsdam - Closing night of the fabrik Potsdam Tanztage Festival

The production of this work is in line with the Tanztage Festival. We commence the day the festival commences, the 12 May, and we premiere as the last performance of the festival, the 25 May. We will have 14 days to assemble/create the piece. I emphasise this project will operate on a part-time basis.

There will be three en masse rehearsals as well as individual rehearsals to create the on-line aspect of the project.

Overall – this is an opportunity to make a dance work with a group of people we don’t know so well and experiment with the conditions under which we produce dance performances and the audiences we make them for. To let our hair down and forget about centring our bodies and minds and get whipped up in a soft flurry of epic-power ballads.

Skills Required: As this piece will be assembled/created and then performed in a very short period, dancers must be able to pick up material quickly. It is not necessary to be excessively experienced or virtuosic, just a basic understanding of jazz and contemporary movement. We encourage copying and following other dancers on stage. Our philosophy is, if you can’t quite get the steps right at least do something that resembles it.

Please contact jessyka_wg@yahoo.co.uk for further information.

Why Celine Dion?

2008-04-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Cool is good. But does anyone actually want to admit we are trying to be good? No. It's much cooler to be bad. But if trying to be bad is cool then shouldn't we not follow the herd and be good? It's damn confusing. It's damn subjective. It doesn't matter.

This dance project exists in the gap between dance in the Contemporary Dance world and dance in society. It started at a point of frustration with how formulaic good is in the dance industry, how insular its own world can be.

So I started thinking about trying to present the "bad". Using every clichéd element of contemporary dance production. Squares of light, complicated abstract movement phrases made by using letters of the alphabet, androgynous costumes, solely open parallel stance, empty expressions, stripped back emotions, perhaps abstraction and ambiguity parading as art... And then this might be a ridiculous and ironic attempt at “good.” And then be "cool." Which is what we want, sort of, at least.

But there was a hiccup on the way. I discovered the unstoppable and inescapable force of Celine Dion. And she has opened up a can of love worms.

What is Celine Dion? She is the ultimate manifestation of love in the commercial world. 200 songs in her career, and 198 devoted to the exploration of love. Between a man and a woman. She is amongst the top ten of highest selling female recording artists of all time. Her fans love her. Her whole life is about love. Her whole world is about how much she loves her 14 brothers and sisters, her mother, her fans, her collaborators, her home country, her music and her manager- Rene Angelil. The only man she's ever known, 28 years her senior and her lover since she was just 16. The perfect anti-dote to “good” as choreography, make a dance about love?

In her career Celine has played the game, and she has played it hard. She has cashed in on how much love she has to give by overtly using the commercial wheels of publicity and promotion to propel her to heights politicians, actors, musicians, directors and Big Brother contestants can only dream of. But the public has lapped all of this up. Underneath Sony, the Academy Awards, the Grammy’s, the Juno’s, the world tours, the magazine articles and autobiographies she reaches deeply, tenderly and intimately into the hearts and souls of her billions of fans.

You ask a person vaguely interested in being cool, what they think of Celine Dion, throw in a phrase such as "Celine Dion will have a bigger legacy than John Lennon in 100 years time" and one gets extreme responses of absolute disgust. Similar reactions to when you mention George Bush. But for Celine, like George Bush, there must be some out there who like her, actually a lot. By dismissing fellow artists like Celine Dion are we highlighting a narrow window of acceptable topics we are willing to consider to work with? Can we equate our dismissal with Celine Dion to a lack of investigation in to the mechanics of the mainstream? The mainstream is after all the dominant force of the world whose welfare drives both global politics and economy. Our quest to destroy the axis of evil, is at the same time, an act of support for Celine Dion?

So my entry point into this world is via the mainstream as opposed to my dance education. And in our cultural climate, one cannot get more mainstream than YouTube. The perfect place to explore love and Celine.

However using YouTube serves more of a purpose than purely being a way to explore the mainstream. When living in London, working 9-7, not having access to studio space or any money to fund a project YouTube turns out to be quite handy. Using the only resources available to an unsupported choreographer: a laptop, a video camera, friends and their living spaces (kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms – in some instances all three combined into one) making dance for YouTube is perfect. It was a way of making dance that actually worked with how one lives, as a dancer in 2007. It didn’t require any of the resources one normally considers to be necessary for dance production.

All in all there are 43 videos that created the stage performance of Let’s Talk About Love. This generated, and we’re still counting, 16 249 on-line audience members of Let’s Talk About Love. As well as the 100 people that saw it live on the 1st of February at The Place in London.

This allowed the performance to be understood differently. The production can be followed; more information than the 200 characters available in the program can be shared. The performance can be more than 20 minutes of stage time and be seen by thousands of people who may have never stepped inside a Contemporary Dance theatre. It also provides a new set of parameters by which to shape the mode of dance production. One is measuring success through the number of hits or views. An Internet audience has very different desires to that of a live audience, and then when these desires are then shifted off-line to a live performance by real people, something new is occurring. Something highly reflective of the day-to-day technology and communication methods we engage with thus, the cultural climate that surrounds us.

So when we combine dance, the familiarity of Celine Dion, under rehearsed performance informed by the parameters of YouTube it provides more than just a murmur about performance. It's re-creating Vegas on a small scale with a big smile and big hair and sweaty dance gear. It's A Chorus Line learnt in our living rooms, it's synthetic music production that can rumble the heart and the belly like when saying "I Do" at the alter. Let’s Talk About Love.

Perfect Commercial Combinations - OLYMPIC PORN

2008-04-26T00:48:00.001-07:00

Here is a post from Agency Spy (blog about the advertising industry).

I really do love the Olympics - the concept and the hopes, dreams and the brilliantly concocted video biography. I swear. It's like Mike Byrne created them for Nike while he was at W+K. I always find myself tearing up right as the athlete's face is juxtaposed against an American flag backdrop. I like to call it Olympic Porn and it's so satisfying it hurts.

I love this term Olympic Porn! Celine makes Love Porn proliferated by her disciples. (See Grey's Anatomy post.) Blatant corporate desires lurking behind gymnastics/love songs. The mechanics behind it all constitute our cultural landscape.

See full Agency Spy article here. Image c/o Daniel Eatock.

Sex Drive

2008-04-25T07:16:00.001-07:00

I was reading a blog article entitled 7 Reasons Your Boss Should Send You to Sex Conferences (wired.com). There were certain points in the article that piqued my interest. Something for those people who refuse to engage in Facebook etc. to think about.

My friend who put an extra monitor in her office so she could dedicate one screen just to Facebook isn't going to reveal at a technology summit what she does with it at night.

If an application becomes crucial to lovers, they will have no problem coming up with genuine reasons to integrate that tool into their work flow.

When today's youth get out of school, they're going to remake the world the way they want it -- and that means tech will be an essential ingredient in courtship, romance and sex. It's so essential to young people's communication now that they don't even realize they're doing it. And this is at a time when they're still spending most of their time surrounded by their peers. Just wait until they're out of school and in the workforce.

Isn't that the major criticism of tech-mediated relationships, high-tech jobs and constant connectivity -- that we lose touch? Personal interaction is key to building a Web 3.0 we can all be proud of.

See the full article here.

Celine Dion Wine

2008-04-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

Capturing the elegance of entertainment and fine wine, Celebrity Cellars literally bottles the most recognizable names and faces in the world. The exclusive creator of stunning, quality crafted star tribute wine bottles, Celebrity Cellars compliments the art of celebrity with carefully selected, award winning wines.

Grey's Anatomy/Let's Talk About Love

2008-04-23T05:45:00.001-07:00

It's the fact that fan's can still find creativity within their commercial spectrum that makes this video such a gem. Celine Dion and a drama centered on the personal and professional lives of five surgical interns and their supervisors. 1997/2007. Props to psyched101.

London Press

2008-04-23T05:35:00.000-07:00

Resolution! Review

Thurs 1 February
Vandella Dance, Linda Gieres, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Even if she didn’t lay down the usual markers of contemporary dance in form and style, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith was true to its spirit: push the audience and question expectations. Deep and meaningless, she led her twelve dancers in a gushing lip-sync and jazz extravaganza to three sick-making Céline Dion songs. Let’s Talk about Love made the audience a mirror to live and filmed personal dancing, the kind you do in private – part catharsis, part piss-take. Inwardly cringing, we laughed out loud to a wilderness of emotional hair-thrashing and diabolical choreography. The evening was made by this joy of warped reality in a dance-world near stagnation.

Alexandra Baybutt

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Resolution! Review

Thurs 1 February
Vandella Dance, Linda Gieres, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith

Just when you think Resolution! has no surprises left up its sleeve, along comes a project devoted to Celine Dion. Yes, Ms. Titanic herself. Jessyka Watson-Galbraith’s Let’s Talk About Love was clearly one chanteuse short of the full power ballad, and one of the funniest dance experiences to grace The Place stage in many a month.

Emoting and gyrating like the cast of High School Musical giddy on a cask of rum, Watson-Galbraith and her eleven fools for love ‘interpreted’ a trio of Dion belters with an open-hearted élan that so ingenuously blended sincerity and satire it was impossible not to fall under its spell. The ragged, under-rehearsed feel of its semi-showbiz musical moves actually worked in its favour, catching the feel of dancing round your bedroom with a hairbrush in your hand. Weird. But kinda wonderful.

Keith Watson

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londondance.com and flailbox.wordpress.com
Lindsey Clarke, 3rd February 07

Taking Canadian diva, Celine Dion, as the ultimate embodiment of the commercial exploitation of love, Jessyka Watson-Galbraith plays with the idea of what is good and bad quality in several forms: dance, film and music. The cast have been messing around with poor quality videos of them dancing in bedrooms and singing along to Celine on YouTube for months and several of these feature as a backdrop to the performance. The intention, it seems, was to use this tawdry, sentimental music (pop schmaltz 'low' culture), contrast it with contemporary dance moves (supposedly a 'high' art form but also poking fun at its seriousness) and have it performed by a cast of 13 young women dressed ready for bed but actually convey real emotion through the drama and blowsiness of La Dion. The piece is really good fun and like nothing I've seen at Resolution! before. The opening section is the most rehearsed and straightfowardly enjoyable with the ensemble executing serious contemporary dance moves in their own style whilst feeling the love from Celine and lip-synching along. After that, it gets a bit more shambolic - too improvised and shabby for 12 of the cast whilst one, spotlit downstage, almost performs the same dance moves as the girl in the dodgy video behind her - which is effective - but too much undisciplined activity going on around her detracts from it. However, this was very nearly cracking in its shambolic appeal and was definitely the crazy icing on a tasty three tiered Resolution cake.