It’s our 4th concerts of Bjork. I feel blessed to go see her. Her Freedom and Beauty Completely Shakes Me. Her Fearless and Honest Voice Makes Me Cry. She is Way WAY Ahead of  Where We Are at Right Now. I Completely Admire and Am Deeply Impressed. She makes me feel Humble. Her Intellectually Genius Musicality. Her Desire and Curiosity to know Technology.  Her Restless Research.

She Rocks My World. Now She Rocks the Universe.

It happens to be Gael’s Favorite Museum. Flushing, Queens.

At the venue.  Architectural details remind me of Casa Milla and Sagrada Familia of Gaudi in Barcelona.

Bjork’s one of the most beloved instrument, Harp. The opening lines of  ”Pagan Poetry” and her new song , “Moon” all starts with Harp.

Bjork singing to “Hang”. A new generation instrument that makes this sort of softly vibrating and echoing a monk’s Bell like sound. It makes peaceful and unbelievably beautiful sound.

Bjork is my Hope for the Future.

bjork.com

The space was bit smaller than what I expected. But also intimate in a just right way. Mysterious red hue of warm light wraps you around and higher than high ceiling with awesome music with great sound starts get you going before the real thing starts. A good size of crowd is gathering and it totally feels like we are going to have a real good dance party! There were only 2 kids in the entire crowd. Gael is one and just this girl with long braided hair at maybe just about Gael’s age. It’s a good mix of crowd and we are all just so curious to see what will happen in anytime soon! People are patiently waiting…

People are already looking up!

Entering the room.

Emi, Denny and Me! Gael’s here with us too! 5 years old and over are permitted to this performance.

Great beat goes on.

Starting!

Absolute Highest light of the show. Water above your head up on the ceiling!

I am trying to reach out to her as the water stage’s getting closer to the crowd. It’s CRAZY Amazing!

I believe Fuerza Bruta is NOT about synchronization,which is what I really like about, but there’s a short moment of this. 4 performers coming together.

The creators on the front.

Closing dance with crowd.

The evidence of great fun for the night!

The crew outside on smoking break after the show.

That was maybe the best thing we did for the raining friday night of September in NYC. It was still warm out and rain felt somehow friendly and safe and getting inside of theater of Fuerza Bruta made me feel like we were not wasting the golden friday night sitting on a couch watching a TV because of the rain…

This one big crowd participating performance of Music, Dance, Light, Air and Water of Fuerza, the Force is something that you should totally experience! It’s one good stimulation for your senses and mind. And Huge credit to excellent beats and music for the entire night and I really would love to be there if Fuerza Bruta ever will have a one kicking dance party.

Now watch the teasers!

LOvE NYC!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/09/a-powerful-stimulation-fuerza-bruta-nyc/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/07/ultimate-summer-party-moma-ps1-nyc/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/07/ultimate-summer-party-moma-ps1-nyc/#comments Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:36:22 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=8334 Awesome Breezy Entrance at MoMA PS1.  Warm Up Ps1:  the Ultimate Summer Party for NYC!

I can’t believe it’s already the 14th year now MoMA PS1 is holding this music, dance, art installation that’s all happening in one gigantic outdoor party on Saturdays all summer long at this cool industrial area in Queens, NYC!!!  When we all heard then MoMA was branching out a sister MoMA out to Queens: PS1 taking over formal Public School #1 on Queens, We all were bit skeptical even though there are a few prominent Art and Design institutional places like Noguchi museum in the same neighbor hood.  \It felt bit out of the way compare to the mail one is on posh and touristy uptown in Manhattan. But PS1 had proved that was only a worry that we didn’t have to have at all after all. PS1 now has grown into a proud and even more rebellious and interesting little yet not so little sister of MoMA fueling Powerful Energy of New and Young Generation of Cool NYC peeps. And  maybe even of the “World” as you will be surprised to see and hear how many international visitors at not just “Warm” but maybe more of “Hot” summer Dance parties that PS 1 is housing year after year.  Every year PS1 holds a competition to design and doll up their envious grand schemed concrete and grabbled awesomely modern yard, and I personally like to thank to MomA doing this so as this is an absolutely a brilliant idea and also a another definite reason what attracts me and sure all other visitors to go visit PS1 as the yearly brand new Summer installation is something that you must not miss.

This year’s simple yet breezy and green installation is another winner that you want to see and I highly recommend the actual exhibitions that are going on in this beautiful formal public school space as it’s filled with much entertaining (I rather like to call it entertaining! ) Rayan Trecartin’s Any Ever : the short film series, and my absolute favorite of all, a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain ( the screening ends on July 24th) which I ended up buying the DVD at the bookstore is another one you should not miss!!

The Warm Up Summer party at PS1 runs until the September 3rd with various DJS from around the world, So you haven’t missed much but certain exhibitions will do end at certain point, so if you are not sure what to do on Saturdays, pS1 Warm up party will be the perfect thing to do for this entire summer!

Now I like to share some pics from my visit to PS 1 Warm Up party this Saturday, July 16!

Yes the kid are welcome, but if you like to bring your little ones go early and live early. It get’s bit intense for the little ones later on. The party hour is 2-9 pm.

Hay Garden. No Smoking!

Real good seating this year. Not too obscure to sit down and there were plenty of these to mingle and chat.

Loving the fact they had brought quite an amount of trees this year.

Gael, no worries, I promise you I’ll take you here! The September 3rd, We will come back all together with Dad!

Yes, we will play ping pong too! Love you. Miss you Gael!

Loving the Crowd. The People. All together. Can’t help it!

DJs and Bands rotating all day.

Inside the Museum building. Entrance at Ryan Trecartin’s.

There were 6 rooms I believe set up in all different way with Head sets for you to use. Plenty of odd and fun seating were built for the audience. And comfy!

Hospital beds turned to mega seating.

I have mixed thoughts and feeling about Laurel Nakadate: Only the Lonely work series. Hmmm , If anyone likes to discuss about it with me, shoot me an email!

I adore PS1’s staircase murals!

Permanent collection: James Turell’s ” Meeting”, 1986

Visitors gaging and enjoying this wonderfully opened up room with natural light and air coming through.

Here’s the movie I was talking about. Crazy, beautiful photography, not normal, disturbing, funny, sick, calm, tripping and everything else. Alejandro Jodorowsky: The Holy Mountain, 1973 and couple more scenes from the film below.

The Book store.

The cafe.

7:30. Now it’s really crowded! Music’s  pumping, people are dancing, being silly, whatever!

Ahhh Emi, I so wished you were standing right next to me!! I miss you Emi!!

With Adriana and Dani.

Good job Sir! The last DJ.

If you haven’t yet, go check it out!!!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/07/ultimate-summer-party-moma-ps1-nyc/feed/ 1 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/06/into-the-night-of-rio-sugarloaf-mountain-and-samba-at-lapa/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/06/into-the-night-of-rio-sugarloaf-mountain-and-samba-at-lapa/#comments Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:34:57 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=7737 The view to Corcovado and the city of Rio from Sugarloaf Mountain, “Pao de Acucar”.  You can see tiny “Cristo” on the top of Corcovado looking over Rio.  It’s almost surreal and I must say it’s quite cool!

The director of Casa Amarelo, Matthieu told us a few times. “Don’t pass 4:30 for the sunset!”  And we just made it! We haven’t stopped at all since we left the Casa Amarelo around 10:00 am to shop Ipanema and Leblon, walk, walk and walk, took pictures, stop for lunch, the markets then back home then literally 2 minutes to drop off our bags, brushed teeth and out the home with a scarf around the neck as the late evening temperature drops quite quickly in Rio now. The line is quite long to get on a cable car up to Sugar Mountain but also it’s moving quite fast. Fast enough. Feeling getting quite tired yet bit excite to get on the cable car, we are patient.  22 Real ( about $20.00) for the ride for both ways per person. The ride itself is quite quick. It’s the wait and the amount of time how much you want to stay up at the deck on the top of the mountain.  The view is absolutely amazing and you get to really understand the beauty of the bays of Rio and the physical relationship among the Rio, Christo, the beaches and the people reside within all. Cariocas.

At the bottom of all. The Cable car station. We are only imagine what it would be like while waiting…

The view to the right going up.

The view to the left going up.

The camera just doesn’t do the justice of the actual view for the top. You get the 360 degree views all around the mountain and it’s just breathtaking…!

We did not get to go up to the Corcovado to visit Cristo and I am learning now, Corcovado would have had the better view for me as you get to see several favelas, Ipanema, Copacabana, Sugarloaf Mountain and the lake Rodrigo de Freitas.  A good excuse to return to Rio actually!

No this pic is not taken by me as we did not go up to the Corcovado but if you do a Helicopter tour, You can see this view from the Cristo too!

Cristo almost looks like a U.F.O

The beach on the let is the Copacabana. The right one is the lake. You still see Cristo on the back.

A wonderful experience to understand the whole layout of Rio and enjoy the amazing view! It’s one magical city you are Rio!

After, we had returned and had one caipirinha at Casa Amarelo ( thanks Sammy!)  munching on couple pieces of bread pre-packing our bags and stuff. We had changed one more time to freshen up but something conservative. No high heels. No flash outfits here!  Just comfy shoes and something warm and we were going to walk down to the Lapa from Santa Teresa to check out couple Samba clubs or more like Samba music hall and Dance hall.

It’s a Saturday night and Cynthia and I are determined to go listen to live Samba otherwise we are  complete losers with big capital L as we are for God sake in Rio De Janeiro!!!  The streets are closed and filled with people in groups and couples hanging out by the side walk bars and cafes eating and drinking. The Vibe is fantastic! It’s lively but also quite quiet. I can’t imagine what it would be like during the carnival.

Lapa is an area located by the bottom end of Santa Teresa and next to Downtown. Lapa is now a real heart where live Samba clubs and dance halls are  and once used to be the red light district but  since the 1950’s, Lapa has been one of the most important area for the Intellectuals, artist, politicians and writers do come and socialize  and celebrate Samba.  Lapa also houses on eimportant historical architecture, Carioca Aqueduct. Below.

Carioca Aqueduct, Lapa.  The aqueduct was built back in 1723 to supply the water for Santa Teresa from Carioca River but the water pipes were not even until the century later.  Now it’s used for part of the Tram rail ( the Rail run on the top of the aqueduct offering the view of the Lapa and Downtown).

I had looked up a few Samba clubs and 2 of them happened to be the best in town. One place is this guy  right here you see, “Carioca da Gema”, more of a Music Hall rather than a dance hall. You pay 25 real to get in and they’ll give you drink and food order sheet with your name on to hold on to it. ( anything else from entrance fee is extra charge)  We decided to go in!  It’s still early as 9:30 ish but Carioca da Gema runs the first show at 9:00 with rotating live Samba bands.

Inside! It’s already getting filled up! but I have to say club crowd at least here was very civilized. No pushing or harassing sort of. everyone keeps their pace  and space focusing on music, it was very peaceful and well behaving.

Couple Caipirinha and taste of Samba at Gema, now we are out to street to go check out one more place!

Cigarett, gums and candy guy. When was the last time I saw such?  Learnt you can also by single cigarette for 1 real.

Now entering to our real deal of then night. Democraticas!  Love the entrance and warm rundown feeling.

Would Cuba would be like sort of?  A mansion built in 1807 turned into a Live Samba club, This place is a definitely a dance hall. I feel like I am back in 1950’s. The whole place reminds me of the documentary, Buena vista social club. It has this wonderful old school vibe. I am loving this.  Its 11:30 but the night has not really started yet so we are going for another caipirinha!

Down and humble bar at Democratica.

A big wonderful band! Awesome beautiful music you want to dance to again and again and again!

I’ll say Samba is the half of Rio. You just can’t miss it. Ever!!!!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/06/into-the-night-of-rio-sugarloaf-mountain-and-samba-at-lapa/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/04/sleep-no-more/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/04/sleep-no-more/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:43:50 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=7262 Main lobby of Mckittrick Hotel comes back to a life with “SLEEPNOMORE“, 530 west 27street between tenth and eleventh avenue, NYC

So Alex and Lara stopped by one night to pick up some hair product from Emi.  It has been a while we all got together as everyone’s so busy with work. A glass of wine and some chatting felt so good. It’s always nice to have unexpected friends stopping by! Shortly before they headed back home, Alex talked about this interesting play, performance, dance sort of that interacts with you walking, touching, watching and browsing. ” Sleepnomore”

A quick history of the hotel here that I really don’t want to talk about it too much as YOU should be really GOING  there and EXPERIENCE the whole thing and just get lost in the middle of all but I try to make it short as possible to share what this is all about at least a bit. Mckittrick Hotel was built back in 1939 to be the finest hotel that NY would ever have, then World War II had just started only 2 weeks before the opening date made Hotel never be able to open to the public till today. British theater company, PunchDrunk collaboration with Off Broadway company Emursive brings the hidden space in this long years of silence back to the life for this most intriguing and unique theatrical experience that you would ever have. Even in the city like New York.

The audience in simple yet modern and  beautiful white masks freely walks around, follows the happenings, touches everything they wish, tries on, opens up, flips through and just “Be”.  The hotel is completely and interestingly decorated for the play room by room and floor by floor that must have many original details of the hotel when it was built to open. Audience choose his or her own pace, path, spots and story lines of that moment what is happening in the hotel. You can even take a break if you wish.  Each one of the audience becomes no one behind the mask yet is an absolutely most important  part of this big play. Why?  Because this theater and this play or performance whatever that is sssoooo need you  to be there to physically follow after everything that is happening by interacting with all the details of this play down to the small prop.

Here are a few of my visual images to tell you what it all felt like. Myself  behind that mask feeling somewhat safe from everything that was surrounding and happening then feeling somewhat naughty hiding my face from everyone,  my mind was going through so many muses, tear sheets, dreams, films and stories, music and all.  Mostly visually and attitude wise at least. Then there’s a surprising story line you will finally realize what this play was based on at the end!

First and definitely, I was in the movie of Stanley Kubrick,”EyesWide Shut”

then also I was maybe in one of HBO’s series, Carnivale!

then it also so much felt like the great “Great Gatsby “! Especially the costumes and general attitude of artists.  Even this cover feels like ” Sleepnomore”!

Then there were also ” The others” moments…

Then the last supper in All versions…

How about Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express!

Then here we are with Shakespeare’s Macbeth! Or no?!!??

And…for the actual pictures of Sleep No more from NY Times’ review, Click on THIS.

Anyway, Go check it out yourself to know what it is all about!

It is a hell out of time you will have!  One of the most stimulating things I have done in a long time…!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/04/sleep-no-more/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/02/my-love-robot-valentine/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/02/my-love-robot-valentine/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:33:15 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=6801 Valentine morning was unusually colorful. Or was it just me up earlier..?  Beautiful Sun rising. Getting into a week long of Holiday presentation at work, honestly there’s no room for me to think about Valentine or anything else really, and Valentine is not a day that is on my list of things do in general. Chocolate? Naaaaaa.

But guess What I Get from my 2 coolest men!!   The sweet smart free standing Robot Trophy, The LOVE!

Here’s the better picture of him. Isn’t he so cute? He’s heavy as I always like with anything. I Always associate the weight with the quality. So Emi and Gael did an awesome job by choosing my kind of heavy materials to create the robot!

The heart in magic clay was Gael’s contribution and his power to bring this robot to a life. I just can’t get enough of this! And his sweet and numbered face!

Robot’s awesome legs, two feet and adorable little bum!

His feet. Check out the cool studs under his right foot.

And the proud and happy winner!

And the Feast follows!

Fresh Salmon and Tuna Crudo with Lime Lemon Cilantro Rock salt dipping. It melts in your mouth. Soooo Goood!

What do you call it in a fancy way, the palette cleanser sort of. Truffled Honey and the Truffle Pecorino., the Double Truffle!

Followed by Truffle gnocchi with Enoki mushroom cream sauce. Creeaammyyy.

Gael’s Duct taped Valentine card for us. The main middle area design is a bird with dotted feathers…  Rocking and Rolling Gael!

Now the after meal dessert!

Emi, You are the best father Gael can ever have and You are THE Love of my life.

LOvE you both So Much!

Thank you for the best Valentine I ever had!!!

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2011/02/my-love-robot-valentine/feed/ 1 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/09/sound-suits-nick-cave/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/09/sound-suits-nick-cave/#comments Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:27:57 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=5168

Vogue, the September issue.

Personally and symbolically, the September issue of Vogue has been a really good inspiration for me from many different angles: re birth of 50’s ( in a very good way, Thanks to Prada and Louise Vuitton) and never ending effort and searches of progressive fashion designers of Futurism ( I mean.. look at all those towering height and architectural behavior of all those shoes, my jaw drops here)  ARE clearly much better and ahead than many actual architecture outcomes out there. The prototypes of ourselves in modern life in the Future or any sort of thing, I like them all and find them extremely important and interesting.  Despite of all of these goodness, my absolute favorite spread out of the entire issue was ” Monsters, Inc” : the amazing 8 page colorful creativity of artist NICK CAVE’s Sound Suits outshine any fancy bags and shoes including $2595.00 Marc Jacob’s mink Pom Pom Bag.

Chicago based Artist , Nick Cave has been running a Traveling exhibition, “Meet me at the Center of the Earth”  since early this year at Fowler Museum, UCLA( ended on May 10th). The presentation consisted of 35 of his sound suits, which are sculptures made by multi-layered mixed-media and are named for the sounds they create when worn. Influenced by African and Caribbean rituals as well as haute couture, Cave’s work explores the ideas of transformation, myth and identity. BRILLIANT!  I so wish I saw the performance of Sound Suits in person….! And thank you Vogue for Amazing collaboration!

Making of SOUND SUITES

]]> http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/09/sound-suits-nick-cave/feed/ 0 http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/04/celentano-adrianoprisencolinensinainciusol-parole-parole-stai-lontana-da-me/ http://www.lacasapark.com/la/2010/04/celentano-adrianoprisencolinensinainciusol-parole-parole-stai-lontana-da-me/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:47:15 +0000 jaehee http://www.lacasapark.com/la/?p=3383

Che Grande sei, Celentano!

I got to get on a tramp, metro and double deck Bus ( upper level)!  to get to the theater. What a nice experience!! You can pretty much walk everywhere in East Berlin to all the attractions and actually a bicycle would be the perfect to browse the East Berlin. But to go over to West side of Berlin, it can take you easily over an hour of commute depends on the distance and traffic during the day. The entire Berlin is about 9 times bigger than Paris. So it’s huge.

I was bit nervous about the play, Megalopolis because I have zero German, but hey, I give it a try! 

German, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, French and American, total of 10 amazing casts, really Rocked my World!  Passionate and talented. There was more of experimental modern dancing than ton of dialogues in this play and also each native spoke or sometimes sing their lines in their own language definitely was unique and also helped me to follow along. But even the whole portion of German or Portuguese was actually very interesting experience I had because at the end,  the physical expression, the tone of the voice and the musical sound came to me as mega package of pure emotion. I found myself getting goose bumps and my heart beats fast.

My understanding of Megalopolis is a space,  a metropolitan city where people from all around the world come together and interact and survive each others in chaos, strong emotions as anger, sorrow, humor, fear and their social status as a certain race, rich, poor, gay, straight, powered, authority and anything else you can imagine. Interesting. And very entertaining performance. Each one of the cast had distinctive personality and strength. The experimental music and sound was quite amazing. Having seen this play sitting in a theater filled with Berliners was a definitely meaningful experience to me. Also it wasn’t like seeing a Blue man group or something. This wasn’t a commercial main stream. This was rather a great chance for me to lick the surface of what Berlin could offer as their distinctive modern culture.

Thank you Daniel and Franziska!    

www.dorkypark.org

The Theater.

The metro Station.

Choreography benoit-swan pouffer

photography franÇois rousseau
video gilles papain
music stefano zazzera
costumes nancy haeyung bae
lighting jim french
Video produced by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
http://www.cedarlakedance.com/

The space becomes the dance itself, the dancers, the audience, all connected, the one. Absolutely brilliant installation brings the supreme dancers along their powerful heart beats and sound and the each movement completely alive to the audience. Also I like to point out Nancy Haeyung Bae, one of my many talented designers at Gap who actively has been designing costumes for the Cedar Lake company for the last many years. Living a rich and creative life.