Blues music is one of those genres of music that has been around so long and through so many different eras that it’s is so ingrained to our music culture that we forget about it. In my opinion, everyone loves Blues music in one form or another. I, along with a larger community, actively go out and express my love for it through dance.

Why I dance to it or why I love it is a question that is tough to answer, not for myself, but also for many other dancers. We just feel the need for it. IMHO, great blues music is full of soul and is raw in it’s form. There is pain, sorrow and suffering, yet at the same time there is life and hope. It’s the same for me when I dance. Dance is an expression of emotions done in the rhythm and feeling of the music, and that is what separates dancing from moving. Why I dance is a very personal thing for myself, and can only be described or understood best when dancing with me. Maybe that is why I partner dance, so I can share myself and what I feel for the briefest of moments till we part when the music ends and I can share it with the next person who I dance with.

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I had meant for this post to be about my upcoming workshop in Blues, but being the passionate person I am, I felt the need to talk about why I dance, especially when it’s about Blues. The most important aspect to be for an instructor of any shape or form is their passion for what they do and can take me into their world and their love. It makes for the most mundane of subjects interesting and keeps me engaged.

That being said, I’m teaching my first ever Blues Workshop with my dance partner and friend Tamara Cohen on July 23rd! There’s a lot of things I can say about it to convince you to try it out but the deciding factor is really down to “You love to dance. You love Blues. You’ll love to learn to dance Blues.”

Event Information:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173431432719759

Click here to view the embedded video.

A community of practice (CoP) is the process of social learning that occurs and the shared sociocultural practices that emerge and evolve when people who have common goals interact as they strive towards those goals.

One of the most interesting things about the internet that I have found so far, is how communities have empowered folks to go through the DIY processes and attempt things for themselves. With fashion becoming a bigger part of my lifestyle, one of the most interesting things I have found is how folks have taken fashion into their own hands and have made it a viable business venture to become creative and do what they love. First it was t-shirt design sites like [threadless] and now [Etsy] taking things a step further and being very successful. I’m curious to how this will play out as it challenges the fashion industry’s traditional methods of not just business, but design.

Diving deeper into the DIY, I have run across some sites that provide free and paid patterns for those who wish to make their own clothes, but what makes this is interesting, is the underlying idea called Communities of Practice and how this has shifted with technology and the widespread reach of the internet.

Back in the final year of my studies, a project I had worked on (Project X) explored the ideas behind communities of practice and how to utilize this in our game concepts, trying to learn and work with each other for a common goal. It was a really interesting topic to explore and is something I would like to re-visit and apply to the company I am working with now.

On a side note, one of my favorite pieces is this motorcycle jacket found here: http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/larissa
I don’t doubt that one day I will attempt to try my hand at fashion or at least attempting to make some clothes.

Seattle has been one of my favorite cities to visit ever since the first time I placed foot there in my university years. In fact, the Seattle Lindy Exchange 2006 was the first out of town experience and holds a place in my heart.

Camp Jitterbug is an event held in Seattle with competitions, performances, social dances and workshops drawing a MASSIVE amount of people from all over the country all wanting to learn from the best. They have multiple track levels ranging from Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced, Advanced Plus (Advanced+), and Masters with the latter two requiring auditions. It touts itself as ‘The Awesomest Lindy Hop Event Ever!’ and I am inclined to agree with it.

Since moving back to the west coast, I have been anticipating about re-visiting Seattle to dance again; partially to benchmark myself with my first visit, as well as how I fair dancing with Seattle based dancers.

How did I do? I SUCKED… but it sure felt good.

At the risk of sounding egotistic, it was nice to get away from being one of the better leads of a scene. Some dancers would believe that I’m an advanced-plus lead, whereas I only feel that I am more of a intermediate, maybe advanced, level lead…with potential. I am always undergoing a cycle of improvement with each dance partake. While dancing in Vancouver is great, with good dancers, I feel like there is something missing that makes the dancing great, and that will push me improve, especially because it is in such a close proximity Seattle. Personally, I have found myself social dancing less, and attending more practice sessions in lindy as well as other dances.

Dancing at Camp Jitterbug brought back the experience that I am all too familiar with, yet have not experienced in the last while—being a ‘beginner’-level lead. It was not like this for every dance, but with some of the more well versed followers, even some I have danced with before, I felt like I was a ‘beginner’ dancer all over again.

When dancing, this made me more aware about how much more room I have to grow, and while I might have plateaued a bit, there is so much more for me to work on and this is invigorating for my drive to dance and get better—Cleaning up techniques, paying more attention to musicality, working on swingouts, vernacular jazz, syncopated steps and timing, etc. Being about to experience and watching the competitions and seeing some of the best instructors and dancers competing only helps drive my want to learn and practice more to get to that next level.

Camp Jitterbug was awesome, and I believe that everyone should go to it. It’s quite the experience to get to be at such a large event, and while I never took that classes this year and missed the Jump Session Performances, you can be assured that I will be there next year, dancing up a storm and learning from some of the best instructors. I hope that all my friends in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and around the country will join me next year and share in the same experience with me at Camp Jitterbug 2011.

Posted via web from Tien’s posterous

Click here to view the embedded video.

Completely done using 3dsmax, Vray, After Effects and Premiere. Most of the elements were CG except for: the photographer (shot on greenscreen), pigeons, timelapsed growing flowers, flying airplane and sky backgrounds.

I am amazed about how much can be done with 3D now and the type of rendering capabilities that is possible at this moment. Just a few years ago, I remember when GI (global illumination) was becoming increasingly popular as computation time was becoming shorter because of new CPUs and improvements in high-end renderers. Caustics, sub-surface scattering and other photon mapping based features were things I was excited about using to create more photo-realistic images. Now, computers are powerful enough to produce realistic looking short films, on a single home desktop machine. It’s amazing, and it has all happened within a span of a few years.

above: Martini glass design rendered in 2001 with 3D Studio Max scanline renderer, and 2003 re-rendered with Brazil r/s with caustics and GI turned on

I would love to dive back into the world of 3D modelling and rendering, but there’s so much to learn and catch-up on. Which renderer to choose? Go back to Brazil or try some unbiased ones like Indigo, Maxwell, Vray, & others?

Watch the video; unfortunately it is not in HD but can be viewed in HiDef on Vimeo, so head on there now (http://vimeo.com/7809605)

Enjoy!

Known for plein air drug use, crime and homelessness, the DTES is one of the worst places to travel to or through by any means at anytime by anyone, and yet some of the best places to eat are only a block or two away from that area. I personally have traveled down that street at about 8-9:00pm to experience things, but walked only a few blocks past Pigeon Park and avoided Main and Hastings by Carnegie Hall.

What has compelled me to blog after so long was stumbling upon this surprisingly engaging documentary called “Streets of Plenty” on Scout Magazine (here) which follows a young student’s, Misha Kleider, social experiment to live homeless in the DTES (and areas of downtown). This was posted on on the YouTube page:

Streets of Plenty – An unprecedented look into the underworld of Vancouver’s downtown east side ghetto, this 65 minute documentary follows one man’s 30 day experiment of joining the thousands of homeless, ill, and addicted, who survive the streets of Vancouver’s cold, wet December. He starts off with nothing but a pair of underwear. Where he ends up is a place he never knew existed, even though it’s a place he passed by every day.

This is the perfect film for anyone who wants to see first hand what life is like on Vancouver’s streets, but doesn’t want to risk murder from gang violence, contracting a fatal or chronic disease, or a life-long addiction to crack or heroin. Official Selection 2009 Queens International Film Festival. Official Selection 2010 Oxford Film Festival.

For anyone who has a remote inkling about what goes on in the DTES, I would recommend for you to watch this since some of the moments found within is completely surprising to see but it also gives insight about what really goes on in that neighborhood and the areas where the homeless resides and ‘work’.

This 65min documentary can be found on YouTube as a 7 part series, or I have embedded (in YouTube HD) after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film turns out to be extremely engaging and I never thought they would take the direction where it goes, but I have to applaud Misha and those involved for taking on this project and documenting the lifestyle & experience within the DTES. Also I agree with one of the posts found on the Skyscraper forums (here), that it doesn’t “demonizes the rest of the city in order to make their point. He makes the average person care more rather than less.”

I feel that those whom criticize what goes on in that area and what is being done about the homeless should realize that there is more needed than low-income housing but that the solution lies when everyone in Vancouver can understand and care about the complexities of the problems. Like the video stated, addiction is one of the key problems, but I believe it doesn’t all have to do with just drugs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I recall the late nights, driving around the streets of Port Coquitlam and Surrey looking for interesting shots to get. The one shot I can’t forget is the one where I shot off the edge of traffic on the dangerously narrow Pattullo Bridge as the cars were passing by.

Good times! Check it out below. If you look closely enough, you’ll see a young Tien in the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s still a bit left to do. As you can see it’s pretty sparse in terms of… well everything but I’ll be rolling out updates as things go along. For now, I have migrated some of my old projects under Interaction and will be rolling out the photography section soon! I just found some great jQuery snippets to utilize and show off the photos I have. There’s still twitter, flickr, etc.

I have been blogging sporadically since 2001 on Livejournal, to Goddessoul (Thanks Lainey!) and than Xanga. This site came into fruition in the winter of 2006 but I fell back onto my old Livejournal site.

Now here, with renewed valor, I will be posting up anything that interests me and goes on in my own experiences. That will range from, design work, photography, fashion, food, dance, and anything else that comes of mind. The layout is set for a big 900px Big Picture images, so expect to see a lot of photography work up!

For now. Enjoy! and feel free to browse my second blog www.hamfats.ca where my buddy Randy and I blog and take pictures of our dance endeavors!