The name Music comes from Muse. For several years I have been pushing for a Love Dance, my generations Swan Song, a grand dance review based upon the music of Love. It is no coincidence that Teresa Moor, Rena Christensen, and Dutta look alike. Here are three Muses that are heading for Horse Mountain to dance the Divine Dance of the Ages.
“What is an a name?” In Horse there is a rose – and eros! ROSEMONT! All the springs on Helicon have “horse” in their name. In one the image of beautiful Narcissus is forever captured. Beautiful women came to distract me when I was young. They believe I did not love them. I love to dance. Rena is my beautiful dancer. When we dance…we mirror our passion. We dance with our beloved shadow, our Muse who makes us come alive!
When I heard from her schoolmate Rena had become a choreographer, I wanted to find her so she could help choreograph my ‘Birth of Venus’. She is destined to bring Love Dance to the stage.
Above is a photo of my friend, Bryan McClean singing at my wedding. He played in the group Love. Marilyn stands to the left, you barely seeing her. Her sister co-authored a book about Fela that is a off-Broadway hit.
Bollywood Dancers are fantastic! Turn down the sound and turn up the Love songs to get an idea of what Love Dance should look like.
The dancers in the photos above is the group Caravan of Dreams who may have performed with Rena Easton in Bozeman.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2013
From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing,
Who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon,
And dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring
And the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and,
When they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus
Or in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius,
Make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon
And move with vigorous feet” [10]
“In Greek mythology, two springs sacred to the Muses were located here: the Aganippe and the Hippocrene, both of which bear “horse” (ἵππος hippos) in their names. In a related myth, the Hippocrene spring was created when the winged horse Pegasus aimed his hoof at a rock, striking it with such force that the spring burst from the spot. On Helicon too was the spring where Narcissus was inspired by his own beauty.”
http://www.thecaravanofdreams.com/id7.html
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/the-dharma-bum-fashion-dance/
Mount Helicon (Ancient Greek: Ἑλικών) is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece,[1] celebrated in Greek mythology. With an elevation of 1,749 metres (5,738 ft), it is located just off the Gulf of Corinth.
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/love-dance-7-2/
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/love-dance-6-4/
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/love-dance-4-4/
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/love-dance-5/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Dutta
In his Aitia, Callimachus recounts his dream in which he was young once more and conversed with the Muses on Helicon.[3] There had been a temple built on Helicon in their honor which contained statues of these Muses,[4] and in his Metamorphoses the Roman poet Ovid writes of Minerva visiting the muses on Mount Helicon.[5]
The Hippocrene spring was considered to be a source of poetic inspiration. In the late seventh century BCE, the poet Hesiod sang how in his youth he had pastured his sheep on the slopes of Helicon[6] where Eros and the Muses already had sanctuaries and a dancing-ground near the summit, where “their pounding feet awaken desire”.[7] There the Muses inspired him and he began to sing of the origins of the gods. Thus Helicon became an emblem of poetical inspiration.[8] Callimachus explicitly follows in the footsteps of Hesiod and he placed on Helicon the episode in which Tiresias stumbles upon Athena bathing and is blinded but given the art of prophecy.[9]
In Hesiod’s Theogony Helicon was mentioned:
“From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing,Who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon,And dance on soft feet about the deep-blue springAnd the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and,When they have washed their tender bodies in PermessusOr in the Horse’s Spring or Olmeius,Make their fair, lovely dances upon highest HeliconAnd move with vigorous feet” [10]
In the Homeric Hymn to Poseidon, a brief invocation, the god is hailed as “Lord of Helicon”.[11]
The cult centers on Helicon established in the Valley of the Muses, a fertile valley near Thespiai[12] and Ascra, under the influence of the Hesiodic texts, in Hellenistic times if not before, were visited by Pausanias in the second century CE.[13] He explored the sacred grove by the spring Aganippe thoroughly and left a full description as it then was. He saw images of Eupheme, nurse of the Muses, and of the legendary poet Linus “in a small rock which has been worked into the manner of a cave”.[14] In the temenos were statues, some by famous masters, of Apollo and Dionysus and famed poets. The absence of Homer at Helicon has been noticed by Richard Hunter (Hunter 2006:18f): “The presence of Homer would spoil the party, for the tendency to see these as rival figures for supremacy in epos is familiar from the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, parts of which derive from the classical period”. The sacrificial tripod which Hesiod won at a contest in Chalcis in Euboea was still on view at Helicon in Pausanias’ day: the presence of Homer at the festival Hesiod mentions in Works and Days (650-59) was a later interpolation.
Dutta won the annual Gladrags Megamodel competition in her native India in 1995,[4][5] thus winning the right to enter the 1997 Miss Intercontinental Pageant, in which she took first place.[6] Later, she was crowned Femina Miss India Universe in 2000.[7] At Miss Universe 2000 in Cyprus, she achieved the highest score in the swimsuit competition and her finalist interview score was the highest individual score in any category in the history of the Miss Universe contest, as her interview saw a majority of the judges giving her the maximum 9.99 mark.[8] After her final question, in which she delivered a defense of the Miss Universe contest (and other beauty pageants), she became the second Indian Miss Universe. Dutta’s win led to her appointment as a UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in 2001.[9] In the same year, Priyanka Chopra and Dia Mirza won their respective Miss World and Miss Asia Pacific titles which gave India a rare triple victory in the world of beauty pageants.[8][10]
Film debut & breakthrough (2003-2004)[edit]
Dutta signed up for the Tamil film, Arasatchi in 2002, but due to financial problems, it was only released in mid-2004. She made her Hindi debut in 2003 with the film Andaaz which was a box office success and won her a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. She then went onto appearing in Bardaasht, which failed to do well at the box office. Her next release Aan: Men at Work was also a flop in India. Insan, Elaan and Jurm also ended up failing to do well at the box office. However, she then appeared in the highly successful comedy, Masti opposite Ajay Devgn.
What does a dancer do when there’s no place to dance?
Some teach, some study, some retire and others decide to put on a show.
That’s what happened when Jackie Englehart and Rena Easton saw the lack of opportunity for trained and talented older dancers in the Bozeman area.
IndepenDANCE alighted on the stage of the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture’s theater in 2009.
Now in its third year, the production is a bit different from other local dance performances in that all the dancers are over the age of 18 and anyone who wants to participate, regardless of experience, finds a place and a stage.
What is on display in abundance is talent and professionalism.
IndepenDANCE is an all-volunteer, nonprofit group of individuals working together to showcase their talent, according to a mission statement from the group.
The idea hatched a few years ago when Englehart missed the auditions for the annual Montana State University dance production. She had already started choreography for a piece and was disappointed to think that there were so few opportunities for choreographers and dancers, especially older dancers, to perform.
She and a few others, including Easton, another local dancer and choreographer, started talking about doing their own dance production.
“We realized there were quite a few dancers in Bozeman that didn’t have an outlet to perform or choreograph,” said Englehart.
For Englehart, after 40 years dancing, performance is still an integral part of the passion. She teaches dance part time at Main Street Dance and works retail the rest of the time. She’s taught, studied and performed whenever she had the opportunity.
Dance is an expression, said Englehart. “For me, it comes from the inside out. It’s not something you can find anywhere else. It combines the physical, mental and emotional spirit of expression.”
But practicing in a studio is not enough to fully enjoy dancing, said Cathy Werner of Mountain Air Dance.
“I think it’s important as adult dancer to continue the performance part of the art,” she said. “Taking class is great, but in the art of dance it is an amazing feeling to be up there on stage performing for your audience … finding that internal expression and sharing it with the audience.”
After a few years of batting the germ of the idea about, Easton put up the money, took a chance and rented theater space at the Emerson. “So we had to come up with a show. It started snowballing from there,” Englehart said.
They held auditions to find out what other dancers were looking for performance opportunities.
“As a movement artist, you need other people,” Englehart said. “So if you don’t own a studio or take classes, it’s difficult to figure out how to gather people to do a movement piece.”
The auditions were designed not to eliminate dancers but as an introduction between dancers and choreographers.
“IndenDANCE has been all-inclusive,” said Werner, who has performed and choreographed for the event since its beginning.
“At the auditions, the choreographer taught a short phrase in the style they were choosing to choreograph,” Werner said.
Englehart found two dancers during the auditions for her performance piece this year. Paige Franklin and Alli Price, along with Kay Van Norman and Englehart, dance a contemporary piece to “Underwater” by Vertical Horizon.
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