Last Friday I met up with a woman who I met at the Faramarz Asseff music video. She was playing the bride in his video, and mentioned that she does contact improv. Since I'm interested in doing more purely improvisational dance techniques, I decided to go to an event hosted at a church of all places. It was fairly ironic, because I told myself that I should make room for extras in my life, but have my base be constant (such as observing the sabbath in some meaningful way).

There was music in the main room, whether live or electronic, a lot of art up in an alcove, and a bunch of people playing with fire a la burning man. One girl caught my eye, since I saw her at a huge rave in San Bernadino that I attended last summer. She was doing a bit of crane and monkey (kung fu styles) which showed up in her performances with a staff that had fire on each ends. We ended up chatting for a fairly long time, and did some push hands (a tai chi/kung fu exercise, where both people take a static stance and gently try to throw the person off their base). She was one of the more interesting people that I've met in LA so far. She currently is one of roughly 8 animators for the Simpsons, and explained to me how the majority of cartoons have most of the work done via CG or out of the country in places like Korea. The fact that she used to strip was fascinating too.

I crashed at my friend's place around 6 AM, after getting breakfast. Definately not a super restful evening, but an interesting experience, full of modern hippies.