Daily Archives: July 28, 2017

If you go

What: Frequent Flyers 'Toward the Light' performance

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, and Saturday, Aug. 5; 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, and Sunday, Aug. 6

Where: Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder

Tickets: $24-$28

Info: frequentflyers.org/events

Festival at a glance:

The Aerial Dance Festival runs from Sunday, July 30-Friday, Aug. 11.

Morning immersions: New this year, three-hour study immersions with festival faculty, runs 9 a.m.-noon, July 31-Aug. 5 and Aug. 7-11

Daytime classes: Classes run in 90-minute sessions from 1-7 p.m. July 31-Aug. 5 and Aug. 7-11

Evening workshops: Burlesque, 7:30-9 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8; Thai massage for aerialists, 7:30-9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 7, and Thursday, Aug. 10

Intimate Encounters performance offers a chance to see the festival artists up close and personal with an audience Q&A, 7 p.m. Monday, July 31.

2017 faculty

Angela Delsanter, Boulder, aerial dance mixed apparatus

Katie Elliott, Boulder, intermediate to advanced modern dance

Danielle Garrison, Boulder, intermediate sling-to-air

Danielle Hendricks, Boulder, bungee dancing

Valerie Morris, Boulder, beginner low-flying trapeze, rope and harness

Sarah Romanowsky, Las Vegas, fabric composition, intermediate fabric, beginning to advanced lyra

April Skelton, Boulder, intermediate to advanced low-flying trapeze

Nancy Smith, Boulder, invented apparatus, aerial choreography

Sam Tribble, Corona del Mar, California, cyr wheel, flex and stretch

Teo Spencer, New York, fabric post and hang, advanced fabric and rope

Yuki Tsuji, Boulder, handstands

Mandy Hackman, left, and Alysha Perrin join hands during the Frequent Flyers Dancers rehearsal of "Toward the Light" for the 2017 Aerial Dance Festival 2017 in Boulder. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

Before Cirque du Soleil began blowing mainstream minds late last century, Boulder's Nancy E. Smith was only one of a handful of professional aerial artists in the United States.

By the time "America's Got Talent" a hotbed for aerialists and acrobats rolled around in June 2006, Smith's aerial dance company, Frequent Flyers, was already 18 years old.

Frequent Flyers has performed for Cirque and appeared on Season 5 of the talent reality show but the Flyers were already inked in history books when they organized the International Aerial Dance Festival, which is thought to be the first event of its kind. The festival celebrates its 19th year beginning Monday and features two weeks of immersion into the art with classes, workshops and performances by some of the biggest names in aerial dance.

"There are a number of festivals around the world that have been created as a result of ours," said Smith, Frequent Flyers' founder and artistic director. France founded Les Rencontres Danse Aeriennes in 2008, England's European Aerial Dance Festival began in 2009, and the Irish Aerial Dance Festival was formed in 2010.

Frequent Flyers was more than a decade ahead of the curve.

"Students who have come to the festival over the years have gone to open their own studios, create their own festivals," Smith said. "We've educated and inspired so many people around the world."

As a pioneer in aerial dance, Smith said the art form allowed her to express a childhood love of being off the ground and in the sky.

Aerial artist Sarah Romanowsky, of Las Vegas, will teach at Frequent Flyers' 19th International Aerial Dance Festival, which runs from July 30-Aug. 11. (Randm Vision / Courtesy photo)

"My favorite thing to do as a child was climb trees," Smith said. "And spin around until I got dizzy and fall down." This made aerial dance a perfect match, she said.

New this year are morning-immersion classes, which Smith said will give students a more in-depth experience with the faculty. The two weeks that sandwich the Showcase Performance, planned for Aug. 4-6 at the Dairy Arts Center, will feature three-hour morning immersions Monday through Friday with afternoon "a la carte" 90-minute classes. Students may attend one or both weeks (July 31-Aug. 4 and Aug. 7-11).

Smith called the festival a "real variety show, a cross-pollination of aerial arts and circus performance." To allow for a more structured flow to the popular faculty showcase, Smith said she added for the first time a performance theme: "Toward the Light."

"It's a variety show of professionals working in the air," Smith said. "It has work that's experimental aerial modern dance as well as straight-up, blow-your-socks-off aerial. The loose theme gives the performance more continuity among the artists, who are creating interpretive works."

Some which will be never-before seen performances.

"It's an artist-driven festival," said Smith. "It gives the artists free reign to use their own creativity and showcase what they are seeking to artistically express."

Aerial queen of social media

Also new to this year's festival is a new faculty member, Las Vegas-based Sarah Romanowsky, who will be teaching fabric and lyra classes. Romanowsky, who has quite the decorated aerial resume, said the festival is "very famous."

"It has such a great reputation," Romanowsky said. "Nancy Smith and Frequent Flyers are such big names and are highly regarded in the aerial dance world. I've never been, but I've always heard so many wonderful things. I'm excited to meet people, to connect with other aerialists who have a similar passion as I do. "

And Boulder will be lucky to have her. In her career as an aerial artist, Romanowsky has been suspended above celebrities, floated in air on TV, and soared above the cast of "Glee" in a Super Bowl commercial. Just weeks ago she went from teaching and judging an aerial competition in Ecuador to performing in Los Angeles at an ESPY's after party. ("LL Cool J performed after we did," she said.)

"It's always a fun novelty having behind-the-scene moments and also be celebrity adjacent," Romanowsky said.

Romanowsky said she grew up as a dancer, training in ballet, jazz and tap, then studied dance at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Following graduation she moved to Las Vegas, where she was a showgirl in the iconic variety show "Jubilee!" After attending Hollywood Aerial Arts she became a teacher and performer, working wherever her trade takes her Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Antigua, Panama, Mexico and Singapore. She's been featured on Nickelodeon's "Kids Choice Awards," Disney's "Shake it Up" and the 2011 Chevrolet Super Bowl ad with "Glee." From Cirque du Soleil performances to Vegas shows to music festivals, Romanowsky, at 34, has flown many friendly skies.

But her total "dream-come-true moment" came in New York performing at Radio City Music hall with The Rockettes.

"They were right below me as I was doing harness work in the air," Romanowsky said. "To do a contract in such a famous, huge and respected venue, it was such an honor. It was such a wonderful moment, an absolute dream come true."

Romanowsky has become quite a spectacle on social media.

"The social media thing started with YouTube, I was just uploading videos for different jobs, when one day, I was teaching at a studio in Oakland and a student recognized me, saying, 'We've all seen you on YouTube,'" she said. "I was shocked. I thought, 'You mean someone found these videos? Someone is watching these videos? So I went and looked and sure enough, the videos had a ton of hits."

Upwards of a hundred thousand, in fact. So she started an Instagram page, which has become her "mini little side job," developing and uploading content for her loyal following.

"I guess people were paying attention, so maybe I should," she said, laughing.

An art form that empowers

The Aerial Dance Festival is open to all ages and offers beginner to advanced classes. Smith said it's an opportunity for "people from all walks of life to experience dancing in the air." Students can learn how to fly on trapeze, fabric, lyra, bungee, invented apparatus and more, while learning from the pros.

If people who are interested but a bit apprehensive of being in the air, Smith and Romanowsky said a good teacher will never push anyone into an uncomfortable spot.

"It's OK to have a little bit of healthy fear not a paralyzing fear, but healthy fear," Romanowsky said. "The person needs to respect what they're doing, to respect the danger of what they're doing because anything can happen. But if you can stay centered, you can approach it with a calm mind. It may be a little overwhelming, but you never have to do something you don't want to do."

Smith said it's important to be present in the moment while in the air.

"You have to have laser-like focus, there's risk involved while being off the ground," said Smith, who co-authored a book on aerial dance with Jayne Bernasconi, published in 1988.

On top of flying through vertical space, aerial dance also offers another pretty cool plus, Romanowsky said: empowerment.

"As an aerial dancer, you have to learn to trust yourself in the air and that confidence can help permeate other areas in your life," Romanowsky said. "Especially for women. A lot of women participate in aerial performance and even just gaining the upper body strength can be a very empowering thing for women."

Smith said she expects about 200 students to enroll and more than 1,000 to attend the performances.

"You can't see this anywhere else," said Smith. "It's such a unique event and Boulder is a hub for aerial artists, so there will be some mind-blowing performances."

Christy Fantz: 303-473-1107, fantz@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/fantzypants

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Aerial Dance Festival brings two weeks of classes, performances to Boulder - Boulder Daily Camera

Its rather hard to be cavalier about someone elses problems when they take them so seriously and so personally.

Oh wait, no it isnt. Especially when theyre the types of problems found in Person to Person, which might as well come with a checklist so viewers can mark off every bad indie trope it contains. The film bills itself as a more eloquent mumblecore offering about a series of inconsequential stories about an ensemble cast of New Yorkers (of course thats where it takes place) while betting that well care about them by the end. In the end, do we? Maybe, but just not in the way Person to Person wants us to.

Most of the stories are unrelated or loosely tied together at best, but the common theme is our search for love and connection. Its certainly a timely topic, given our current state, one wherein people are connecting more online than in person.

Writer-director Dustin Guy Defa obviously thinks his movie is about his characters trying to forge new connections with various degrees of success, but Person to Person is really about how difficult it is for well-meaning men to get women to love them. With such values, its small wonder that he seems just as confused as much of the female cast (which wastes the likes of Abbi Jacobson and Michaela Watkins) about how they should come off. At least theyre not the only ones who deserve better, even if theyre the worst off. But each story involving a woman either revolves around them needing a man to find their place in life or acting as a catalyst so the guy can move on with his. Its also no accident that the most sexual character is not only the most objectified-which feels not only insulting and shameless, but bafflingly out of place-is also the one who gets stabbed to death. Or at leastIm pretty sure she does? Defa mentions a stabbing, and even shows us some blood, but doesnt even have the balls to tell us anything else.

Some stories are genuinely charming, like a music lover chasing down the man who sells him a fake record. But some of these little stories dont feel so inconsequential, such as the guy who at least feels guilty for uploading naked pictures of his ex. His comeuppance, which involves him posing naked with a stuffed animal to protect the sensibilities of men everywhere, is presented without a trace of irony that his photos are funny, while hers are humiliating, not because her privacy was violated, but rather due to the fact that it leaves her open to the lust of Internet creeps.

Person to Person also has an annoying sense of of self-righteousness about just what kind of person deserves love in their lives. And it has the kind of delivery thats supposed to be a more eloquent version of everyday speech, but in actuality just brings to mind a hipster douche banging the script out on his typewriter. The fact that he cant make a day in the life stretch longer than 84 minutes suggests even Defa isnt entirely interested in bringing out the best in this movie, in spite of all its minimalist touches that are sure to charm fans of the lo-fi aesthetics. If only hed put as much effort into the screenplay.

This is a reprint from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. To read more coverage,go here.

Read the original:

Movie Review: Person to Person - The Young Folks

Microsofts next-generation HoloLens virtual reality headset will come with an AI chip.

The tech titans custom silicon aims to save time by analyzing data directly on the device, without uploading it to the cloud first.

For consumers, that means a faster VR experience without losing mobility.

Were in the business of making untethered mixed reality devices. We put the battery on your head, in addition to the computer, the sensors, and the display, Marc Pollefeys, director of science at HoloLens, wrote in a blog post. Any computer we want to run locally for low-latency, which you need for things like hand-tracking, has to run off the same battery that powers everything else.

With that in mind, Redmond this week revealed that the second version of its Holographic Processing Unit (HPU)responsible for processing information from the HoloLens onboard sensorswill incorporate an AI coprocessor.

This is just one example of the new capabilities we are developing for HoloLens, Pollefeys said. This is the kind of thinking you need if youre going to develop mixed reality devices that are themselves intelligent.

Mixed reality and artificial intelligence represent the future of computing, and were excited to be advancing this frontier, he added.

During Mays Microsoft Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella laid out his plan for artificial intelligence, which he likened to the arrival of books and the Web.

It is about your passion, your imagination, and what you can do with technologies that we create, he told the audience, as reported by TechCrunch. We want to democratize AI just like we brought information to your fingertips.

HoloLens smart glasses launched last year, promising rich developers users an augmented reality, in which you see the real world around you, as well as projections powered by a modified version of Windows.

And while some consider the technology dignified, while others worry it makes the wearer look like a huge creepy dork.

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Next-Gen HoloLens Adds AI Capabilities - Geek

During Israel's 2014 war in Gaza, Israeli army Capt. Libby Weiss was the first to bring foreign reporters into the Hamas tunnels discovered linking Gaza to Israel.

TEL AVIV-Capt. Libby Weiss spent most of the summer of 2014 in a Hamas tunnel, and she wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

Israel's military captured the tunnel, which extended from Gaza into Israel near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, during Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza. As a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Weiss was tasked with showing the tunnel to journalists, and she was the first to bring foreign reporters into the claustrophobic space.

Her inaugural tour went to Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

"It was really chilling to be inside there," Weiss said. "There were empty potato chip bags and water bottles strewn about on the ground. It made you realize just how close the enemy was."

For the past six years, Weiss has been on call 24/7 for journalists from all over the world. Reporters turn to her when they want to film Israeli soldiers in action or need a quick comment from the IDF on breaking news.

On Aug. 17, Weiss finally will be turning off her army-issued phone. At 29, she is stepping down from her post and retiring from the military.

Weiss is not your typical Israeli soldier. Born in the United States and raised in Portland, Oregon, she moved to Israel in her early 20s and enlisted in the army soon afterward. She didn't have to join up-at the ripe old age of 23, Weiss could have skipped military service-but the thought of foregoing army service didn't even occur to her.

"There was never any doubt in my mind that I wanted to serve," Weiss said "I saw it as the basic responsibility of anyone who is a citizen, and it was also a way from me to adopt my Israeli identity."

She has worked in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit for practically her whole military career. Since March, Weiss has headed the international social media department, overseeing a team of 14 enlisted soldiers and one junior officer who produces viral content in English, Spanish and French. Their mission: tell the story of Israel's army, and promote a positive image of an army that is often condemned by critics overseas.

Working in a nondescript building in central Tel Aviv, the soldiers sit hunched over a bank of computers editing video footage shot in the field and uploading posts to the IDF blog and the army's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. Most of the soldiers in the division are immigrants -- from North America, South America and France

Weiss got her start in the unit's foreign press branch, doing media tracking and crisis management. Though she initially signed on for only a year and a half of service, she was soon hooked.

"I was fascinated by the work and understood its importance from Day 1," she said. "I didn't have to think twice about staying on and taking leadership roles."

Soon she was named head of the North American media department, where she spent four years. She quickly worked her way up to the rank of captain.

With her phone constantly ringing, no day was ever routine. Weiss always kept her field uniform and safety equipment at the ready in her car.

Sometimes her work took her overseas. After the 2013 Philippines typhoon and the 2015 Nepal earthquake, Weiss deployed with the IDF disaster relief delegations to those countries.

"Every time disaster struck across the world, Libby was my clear choice for deployment because I couldcount on her completely," said former IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, Weiss' boss and mentor for much of her time in the army.

On assignment abroad, Weiss witnessed some horrific sights -- and some miracles. In Nepal, she saw a teenage boy trapped for many days under rubble pulled out alive and brought for treatment at the IDF field hospital.

"He survived on a bottle of ghee, or clarified butter, that happened to be in an air pocket with him," Weiss recalled.

In the Philippines, Weiss was present for the birth of the first baby born in the IDF field hospital there. His parents named him Israel.

"I became quite friendly with the family, and we are still in touch," she said.

Of all her army experiences, Israel's war with Hamas in 2014 was the most challenging and demanding. Suddenly, Weiss found herself dealing with hundreds of journalists a day rather than with dozens. She did on-camera interviews 10, 20, sometimes 30 times a day. Often they were interrupted by air-raid sirens that sent Weiss and the reporters jumping into ditches to take cover from incoming rockets.

Weiss said the war tested her ability to separate the personal from the professional.

"When you are an Israeli citizen and there is a war, you feel involved. It's here in your backyard. Then add to that being in a military uniform," she said.

"You are exposed and you know about troop movements and military plans before they are carried out, and you find out details that are life changing for people, like when a soldier is killed. It warrants an emotional response on all levels, but as a professional you can't have that."

Growing up as the youngest daughter of Israeli-born parents in Oregon, Weiss never imagined she'd become an IDF officer. And she didn't know she would live in Israel.

"I don't know if I ever saw myself, at least back as a teenager, immigrating to Israel," Weiss said. "But we definitely felt connected to Israel. It was part of our identity. I attended a Jewish day school and my parents spoke to us in Hebrew at home. We saw ourselves as Israeli Americans, and we were certainly Zionists."

After graduating from Northwestern University in 2010 with a degree in political science, Weiss spent a year participating in the Israel Government Fellows, a selectiveMASA Israelprogram run by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.

Midway through the year, Weiss decided to make Israel her permanent home, and officially made aliyah once the program ended. Because she was an Israeli citizen from birth due to her parents, all she needed to do to immigrate was go to the Interior Ministry, show her Israeli passport and receive an Israeli identity card.

"Here I was making the biggest decision I had made thus far, and maybe the biggest I will ever make, and it took me 15 minutes and was the least painful bureaucratic process I had experienced in Israel," Weiss recalled.

Nevertheless, Weiss feels she missed out on the powerful emotional experience that most North American immigrants get by taking an aliyah flight organized by Nefesh B'Nefesh alongside dozens of other new immigrants with a one-way ticket to the Jewish state.

"I think I would have enjoyed the significance of deplaning and having the community that welcomes you the minute you touch Israeli soil," she said. "That underscores and reinforces what a big decision it is, that you are now joining-or rejoining-the Israeli people"

Nefesh B'Nefesh honored Weiss last month with its 2017 Bonei Zion Young Leadership Award. She also received numerous other awards during her military career, including the prestigious Presidential Award of Excellence in 2014.

Weiss' parents and older siblings all still live in the United States. They say they are proud of Weiss.

"Once Libby moved to Israel, it didn't really surprise us that much that she joined the military," said her brother, Gil, a Chicago physician. "She had a strong sense of wanting to do what was required of her peers and to carry out that responsibility."

Satellite image of the area from Gaza to Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, where the Hamas tunnels extended.

Now that she's leaving the military, Weiss plans to take some time off and then go into business. She completed the Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA program at Tel Aviv University while in the military.

As she begins this next life chapter, Weiss says she has no regrets-either about her time in the army or her decision to move to Israel.

"I see myself as both American and Israeli, and I am appreciative of both countries," she said.

This article wassponsoredby and produced in partnership withNefesh B'Nefesh, which in cooperation with Israel's Ministry of Aliyah, The Jewish Agency, KKL and JNF-USA is minimizing the professional, logistical and social obstacles of aliyah, and has brought over 50,000 olim from North America and the United Kingdom over the last 15 years. This article was produced by JTA's native content team.

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How an Oregon-born immigrant to Israel found a job giving tours of Hamas tunnels - Heritage Florida Jewish News