Of all the celebrities that have died this summer- what is it about this summer that has them dropping like flies anyway?- the most recent is the most devastating to me. Merce Cunningham died last night at the age of 90. This man was a choreographic genius in the world of modern dance. For as long as I have studied and learned the history and evolution of modern dance, Cunningham has been a vital part of the discussion. This man took dance to new heights for 6 decades with his innovative and creative ways of combining all performance elements (movement, music, costumes, scenery). Cunningham's most famous choreographic method/tool was the use of chance. The movement sequence, the musics, the spatial patterns, all of it could be up to chance and determined literally by the roll of a die or drawing a card from a deck. Once again, this man was genius. He trained with dance great Martha Graham- took her concepts and training methods and manipulated them into what worked for him- modern dance that had an upright feeling and the lightness of ballet. His dancers were highly trained- they had to be to execute his complex movement patterns. And of course, we can't forget is close partnership with composer John Cage, also a pioneer and genius. The creative pair worked to make unconventional music from electronic means and choreograph dancing that didn't go perfectly with the beat of the music (let's face it, Cage's music didn't have much a beat a good bit of the time).

So please, let's honor this choreographic pioneer and genuis. Look him up on youtube, read his bio- he was a truly incredible man and will be missed. The dance world must say goodbye to one of their beloved, I must say goodbye to one of my favorite choreographers.

I'm alive! It's been a crazy last few weeks/month or so. I finally graduate from college :) cum laude from the Honors Program about a week and a half ago- though it all seems longer after the insanity of the past week or so. Graduation was lovely, such an exciting happy day though with a few small hang-ups. My parents met Stephen's parents for the first time and that went alright- much better than I expected but not amazing. The day of graduation, I came down to Charleston with Stephen. He had one more week of exams left before his graduation and we had the daunting task ahead of us to find an apartment. Well, the day before his graduation we started moving stuff in to our lovely new place. It's a one bedroom with a cute galley kitchen, one bathroom, a living room, and a dining area- about 700 or so sq ft. In between graduations, packing, visiting with relatives, and searching for our lovely new home, we both got pretty sick- poor Stephen was in bed the whole day of his graduation after the ceremony with quite a high fever. But, we are now both feeling loads better, have found our lovely home and have ended the annoying long distance in our relationship. Now, I just need to find a job :)

Pictures of our place to come later when we have all of our furniture in place- we still haven't moved our couch and recliner in and set up shevles, etc.

My final semester at school has been killer. I have been so incredibly busy and then I didn't have a computer for a few weeks so I was not on xanga much :(. But, now that I have a working computer again, I absolutely do not have the time to be on xanga much. I going to have to cut my xanga, facebook, and myspace time significantly over the next few weeks to two months so that I can get everything accomplished. I will hopefully still take time to read my subscribers, if not every day, every two or three days, but don't expect comments, pulses, or blog posts for a while (not that I've made many of any of the above for a few weeks now anyway...)

It's not that I don't love my xanga time, cuz I do dearly, its just that I have way too much to do and its stressing me out. I figure if I decrease the amount of time I spend online, I will hopefully spend more time actually getting stuff done. Hopefully.

PS. My psycho roommate moves out tomorrow!! We used to be best friends then she turned into a crazy bitch and started treating another best friend like shit among many, many other things and now shes moving into an empty room downstairs of my building for the remainder of the year. SWEET!!!