Tag Archives: WIBA

Leaning in for Slaughter and Morris

Dance and Dancers, Dance and the other arts, Uncategorized, , , , ,
morris
“The” by Mark Morris, on the McCarter program on April 12

I just registered for the WIBA program featuring Anne Marie Slaughter for (as I write on Monday) for Tuesday, April 12, 5 p.m.. Finally broke down and did it, wasn’t going to (my favorite choreographer Mark Morris is at McCarter that night) but I will just have to leave Greenacres Country Club early. Wasn’t going to go because I have mixed feelings about Slaughter’s opinions on why women can’t have it all as blurted out in the notorious article in The Atlantic. 

Of course women can’t have it all. We pre-Gloria Steinem brides knew that all along.

But I got so confused by the discourse (she said/ She said/ she said/ She said) that I gave up and went on doing what I was doing before, which was trying to have it all and not succeeding.

photo anne-marie-slaughter

So I’m hoping this former Princeton professor turned media guru will enlighten me on her current views about women. (Will she also weigh in, as a former Woodrow Wilson School dean, on the Wilson/name controversy?) . I will have to  leave early to see Mark Morris Dance, but at least I’ll take home a copy of Unfinished Business,  her new book based on the article that caused so much commotion.

As for Morris — Virtually all of Morris’s choreography is to live music, including Whelm to Debussy and The,  a four-hand arrangement of Bach’s first Brandenburg concerto. (There will be one piece to recorded music; the songs of Ivor Cutler. Complete program here.)   I firmly believe the commotion surrounding the excellence about Mark Morris is well deserved.

 

 

The S&M novel “Fifty Shades of Gray” could be named “Fifty Shades of Profit.” From profits on that book, the publishers gave everyone, even the mailroom, a $5,000 bonus. To cash in on the phenomenal interest in that rag (Ok, Ok, I read it too) the Women in Business Association borrowed the title for its meeting on Thursdaya CHyde_Headshot_Web, January 23, 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Capital Health. Cost: $25. One of the speakers is, natch, a sex therapist, Dr. Christine Hyde.

Wait a minute. I relish being in a room with powerful women. I went to WIBA’s anniversary party at Capital Health, was energized and inspired (see my previous post  and for pictures click here). But I am not that interested in sex therapy in a group.

Turns out Hyde has a different topic — what you eat. She has a phenomenal story of going from 300 pounds to running a mini-marathon in a matter of months.  “As you start detoxing your body, your mind gets clearer and your energy level sours. You don’t realize how bad junk food and poor-quality food affect how you think, ” she says.

In this magazine story Hyde tells of her turnaround. Now that, I could use.

In Princeton and DC: Old Girl Networks at Work

Around Town, Dance and the other arts, , , , ,

The WIBA Leadership Conference was a delightful success, and on an appropriate day, when Congressional women did an endrun around recalcitrant men to lead-broker a compromise.

From Time magazine:

It’s quite an irony that the U.S. Senate was once known for having the worst vestiges of a private men’s club: unspoken rules, hidden alliances, off-hours socializing and an ethic based at least as much on personal relationships as merit to get things done. That Senate—a fraternal paradise that worked despite all its obvious shortcomings—is long gone. And now the only place the old boys’ network seems to function anymore is among the four Republicans and 16 Democrats who happen to be women.

At the WIBA conference, woman after woman told of battling the old boy networks. “Women can’t direct theatre,” Emily Mann was told, yet McCarter hired her. She knew what she could do. Asked: “Did you ever think you would get a Tony? breathless pause expecting modest no”

Mann’s answer: YES.

I think the operative slogan is: “Never underestimate the power of … ”

Smelling Salts to De-Stress the Modern Woman

Business, ,

In your purse, carry the aroma of lavendar or eucalpytus — known for soothing the mind and spirit, said the expert at Capital Health tonight. At the 2nd anniversary of Woman in Business Alliance, (WIBA), an enterprise of the Princeton Regional Chamber, more than 100 women heard some stress tips from Dr. Randi Protter. It was a gala occasion, for some photographs, click here.

Protter gave this unusual tip about soothing scents. You can’t carry the vial of lavender with you,she noted, it would leave your purse full of oil. But you can take a small glass vial and fill it with rock salt or kosher salt, then drip the essence over it. When you need a spa break, sniff sniff sniff.

Another good tip: try “square breathing,” in for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, breath out for four counts, don’t breathe yet for four counts. That works too. We all tried it.

Stress goes back to cavewoman days, said Protter, when women developed their output of cortisol and adrenaline. Back then, they had two choices, make dinner or be dinner. Now we have more choices, but we still have stress!