MIRRORS AND WINDOWS (and the dancer Kitty Lunn)

...what you need to know right now is that she feels no pain when she dances, she used to be on broadway, she is a scholar of scripture, she is beautiful with cheekbones, and skin that always looks as if she's just taken off a face mask and applied expensive skin cream to it, she adores Frida...and this is where it eclipses interesting and settles into epiphany-ville...right here, when she was explaining her take on Frida, while I was thinking of mine, I realized yet again that we take away from anything and anyone whatever we want to take...you want to believe in obama? fine. nobody can say anything or write anything that could dissuade you. you take away from an infinitum of paintings/sculptures/photos just as far as your own intelligence or emotions/depth can take you...a black and white (mostly white) walker evans photo of a fallen ionic column is iconic, renegade, and telling to a number of people; a watershed photo!!! while the rest think it is exactly the former: little. else. nuttin' honey...so, i guess i always took from frida what i needed, or how she translated through my vessel (she was an atheist, she clinged to life and earth and dirt and soil and indigenous culture and faces and tradition and pain and honesty and roses and color color color and self-portraits and alcohol and love...ferocious. singular. independent. feminine.)...while what kitty most takes away from frida is that she never made herself into life's victim, even after 3 miscarriages, polio, and later in life, an amputated leg...she sees that all of Frida's pain went straight into her life's work; and this is what kitty needs to see. wants to see. sees. isn't that amazing? nothing but mirrors and windows, ladies and germs...mirrors and windows.

kitty has choreographed a 3-piece solo performance set to lila downs' 'gracias a la vida,' wherein she channels frida in mini acts and flashes frida's self-portraits in the background at various points throughout the performance. kitty dances in and out of the chair.

i hope to be able to show you more of kitty's life as the months go by. she has a show in may. maybe so do i.

tonight i learned a whole hell of a lot. and all i can do is swear in place of deep breathing, exhale heavily and sigh a lot, and think about my four limbs WHILE sighing a lot, and well up at the delicacy and ferocity that is, si lila, la vida.

happy thanksgiving.