Runaway Train

Song by Kasey Chambers (here) or vid below

"I'm gonna take ya down to the railway line
I'm a gonna take ya where your heart won't break ya
And the water tastes like wine..."

Anyone who hangs with me for the least bit of time learns I am a Train Junkie. I love traveling by Amtrak and have done many multi-day trips, in coach, all over the country. And what no one knew, until now, is that both my grandfather and uncle were engineers on freight trains.  Even though I grew up a long way away from them, the love of the rails runs deep in my family.

A train act was always in the side of my mind and I had many visions of how it would play out, but when it came time to buy set parts and pick a song I had to go with what was available and this sexy mesh freight train was just the right thing.

Back in my zine writing/publishing days I put out one "Rockin' the Rails" with all kinds of moments I collected on an epic-ly long trip cross country, that involved two layovers in big cities, where Amtrak foot the bill.  By the time I made to my parent's house, my mom said, "You would have got here faster by dogsled." And she was kind of right.  But I loved the trip, I had lots of time to write and listen to music.  I made an accompanying mixed CD to go with the 'zine.  So when it was time to do my train act, I went to it for the perfect song. 

Out of 14 songs, I found the right one.  I have other strong contenders that are on my song list and may appear in the future as a totally different act.  I am not much of a modern country fan, but I came across Kasey Chambers via the womyn's music scene and really loved the CD. This song in particular always just got me, where it counts. *wink*

Somehow I managed to move all 352 mesh prims of of a 60m train with a spot on mover a distance of over 50m. A feat which is not supposed to be possible, but I will tell my secrets to anyone who needs to know.  The rest of the set was inspired by 70's TV Westerns, I needed to cover most of the stage and the new windows on the theater to hide my train.  So I made a big TV not too unlike one my parents had when I was a kid.  As for the dancing, I wanted to do to complicated jumping between the cars and such, but in the end the continuity of the dance and sheer sexiness of the moves was more important to me.

The night of the show, I also managed to do something that should be impossible, I was wearing two copies of my shape.  I did not see it, nor did most other folks, but it gave me the most burly biceps EVER, and I had to spend the rest of the night cleaning up Jess's drool trail that followed me. *giggles*

Long Snake Moan

Song by PJ Harvey (here) or vid down below

"You wanna hear my long snake...moan!
You oughta see me crawl my...roar!
It's my voodoo working..."

Three acts into this run and I have done three holidays. This time it is St. Patrick's Day.  I will save the rant about the persecution of the Pagans that this holiday represents, since I had it here last year at this time when I did "Union of the Snake".  

Immediately after I was committed to doing the Duran Duran tune last year, I stumbled back across this PJ Harvey song, and knew I must do it next year.

Changed the set around, got all new costumes, and instead of riding off into the rainbow on a huge snake, I became one instead.  It was a little challenging to find the right movements for the Land Naga that I became.  So many of my dances had the snake tail doing all sorts of improbable motions.

This one was really fun, and damn sexy, at least it was goood for me, hope it was for the audience too. *wink wink*

My next act will not be attached to any holiday, I promise.  I do not even get all caught up in them in real life, so this was kind of weird for me, but I feel the acts can stand on their own so I know I have not gone completely overboard.

Birds Like It

Song by Tape Five (here) or embedded below
I used the shorter album version, but for obvious reasons I like this logo/vid better. *wink*

"I just got to tell you baby, while we're standing here,
anytime that your're around me - all the birds appear..."

It was a stunningly beautiful fall afternoon, when the rain stopped and the blue skies forced a brilliant rainbow over my drive home from work. I had Tape Five in the CD player and this song just said, DO ME! ;)  So I did!

A Mardi Gras act, that was on some sort of float, had been on my mind since last year, but its look was eluding me. First I researched the oldest Mardi Gras floats and they were inspiring. But having just seen Catching Fire, I was still buzzed about the costuming for the citizens of The Capital.  Oversize flowers and animals with a futuristic color scheme won out.  I wanted to have some platforms and such on the float, but once I started doing the dance, it became obvious that we needed space to dance.

I was working on a Harpy themed costume, and when I announced to the group that was the direction I was going in, SexyS saved us all a whole lot of bank by offering up her collection of really awesome Harpyia outfits from !Devious Minds! for The Fantasy Gacha Faire. And a flock of Harpyia was recruited, or hatched, as the case may be.

Choreographing group numbers with the Group Formations HUD from Spot On is a dream come true.  My alts had to dance their asses off on this one, and spend hours just standing on their movers, but for the triplets, my Solid Blaze Dancers, that is what they were made for. *grin*  A little work in progress shot...

The night of the show, the set did not rez right (the pics above with only blue sky background).  That is a super frustrating thing when it all goes just fine at home and rehearsal, and then not on the night of.  But the sheer awesomeness of this flock made a set fail unnoticeable.  In fact, since I was so distracted by juggling 7 other people and not wanting to cam about and make myself crash, I did not notice until I saw the pics from that night.

The act was performed a second time at Burnal Equinox, a month later.  After many larger than me tech troubles, the act went off with out a hitch back at our home theater and the set parts were all in their right place.  I am sorry for my lousy pic taking and cutting some folks off.  Taking pics while performing and having a screen full of huds and windows tends to make less than ideal framing. *sigh*  I also did not want to take snaps while performing and get out of synch, but we look damn good in our perching poses. 

Me and "my" Shadow ;)

The act itself was dedicated to a certain bird I know, Jasmin, though she did not get to see the shows due to RL complications.  Thanks to SexyS Quintessa, Shadow Tarber, Gamma Infinity, Meegan Danitz, Diawa Bellic, Jill Mackenzie & Aubreya Joszepe. You all were stunningly beautiful and it was great to fly with you!