Disneyland through Goofy's Eyes

Garsh! Look out for that crocodile!

Who knew such a phrase would entice me to visit Disneyland. It makes sense, though. Visit hot attractions and sites in part 1 of this 1991 video tour of Disneyland. Your guides? Mickey and the gang of course. It's not cheesy and uncool like you may think. I laughed and smiled a lot when I first watched this.



But it's more then entertainment. The purpose of the video is of course to get the audience to come to Disneyland. The tour of the jungle cruise attraction with Goofy is my favourite. I think it works because Goofy isn't really a tour guide. He takes the tour as a regular visitor, so we see everything new and exciting from his perspective. Well, not quite. He reacts to everything as if it's real! Hilarious, but it also aligns with the Disney theme of fantasy: everything is real if you use your imagination. The cruise would be so much more fun if you took it with Goofy, right?

They should have a segment of Goofy on a roller coaster. Can you imagine? "Yaaaaahahahoooooey! Garsh!"

Part Two Part Three

Celebrating Community Health with Buffy Sainte Marie

I'm here at the international community health centre conference: Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow as the social media central help table/internet cafe supervisor. We have had a live Spout feed displaying on a large screen Tweets people have shared with the official conference Twitter hashtag: #CHC2011 This Spout feed and other efforts of the social media team has interested many attendees who had never used Twitter or didn't know much about it. Lots of people come to my table where I give them training on the basics of Twitter and inform them about the hashtags and usernames associated with the conference and community health centres in general.

I keep searching #CHC2011 on Twitter to check out the many Tweets that continue to pop up there, Tweeted by conference attendees and staff. I urge you check them out too.

The conference video team, seated in the table beside mine, have conducted interviews of conference attendees who are doing great things for community health, including winners of awards given by the Association of Ontario Health Centres, where I have recently my communications internship. (I have stayed on to help the Assocation put on the conference.) My grades are in and I am a graduate of the Corporate Communications and Public Relations Post-Grad certificate program at Centennial College!

And I celebrated completing my program and working at a successful conference when Buffy Sainte Marie performed at the conference last night! She was amazing!!!



Then my colleagues and I danced the night away. Oh, and we had a great four course meal too...

The conference ends tomorrow. Then I seek employment as a communications and public relations professional.

Has Black Swan Influenced Perceptions of Ballet?

In Black Swan, dancer Nina Sayers loses her mind as she prepares for both the movie's title role and the role of the white swan in a production of Swan Lake. The Black Swan character is evil and sensual, characteristics that Nina must find within herself to play the Black Swan well. Early on in the film it becomes clear that she has a history of mental health issues. She becomes increasingly paranoid as her preparation for the role consumes her, but it's always unclear what is really happening: is the blood real? The feathers? To Nina, they are real and so they are real to us.

But what consequences may such a dark film have on perceptions of ballet dancers? Several dancers have come out in an obvious PR move to try to dispel stereotypes of ballet dancers as being cold, masochistic, tightly wound and super competitive. In a December Los Angeles Times interview, two principal dancers in the New York's American Ballet Theatre answer questions about similarities between Nina's experiences in Black Swan and their own experiences preparing for and performing in shows.

While they explain that some aspects of the film are realistic, at points it is clear that Murphy and Hallberg, particularly Murphy, are trying to debunk notions of ballet that Black Swan has perpetuated:

GM: "Most of my colleagues have a great sense of humor... you have to embrace the role onstage and experience what that character is about — very repressed and angry. But does that mean I was a nightmare to live with? Absolutely not ... The mean-spiritedness portrayed in the movie was disturbing to me ... It (dance film The Red Shoes) asks the question of how can a dancer experience and portray greatness onstage and also have a full personal life — and as a woman, have kids and get married. In this day and age, people do it all the time."

This interview and other articles about the Black Swan film clearly show that some in the ballet world are afraid about the impact the film may have on people's perceptions of their craft. Will Black Swan hurt ballet? Apparently not. Tickets for The New York City Ballet and Russian National Ballet at Valley Performing Arts Center productions of Swan Lake have been selling wildly.





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