Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, I traveled to Richmond to see the band "The Builders and the Butchers." For my dance showcase/charity event, the first dance I've choreographed thus far has been to this band's song "Golden and Green." While researching inspiration for my piece, I discovered that they would playing only 4 hours away on my day off! I knew it was destined to be. They played at this bar/music venue called The Canal Club at 8 PM Sunday night. They were incredible live. I saw them before at Lollapalooza 2009 in Chicago, but that was before I was into their music. They are an up and coming band from Portland. Their music includes mandolin, banjo and electric violin. I would describe it as folk meets new age hipster rock. There weren't a lot of people there for their show, although more showed up for the second band "Heartless Bastards." Afterwwards I got to talk to the singer, Brian, for quite some time. I told him about my experiences in Nicaragua and my idea for my charity event. He was totally supportive and enthusiastic. I think fame is still new to him, so the idea of someone setting their own art to his art was awesome. He also was impressed that I drove 4 hours to see his band. I told him there were a few sections of the piece that I wasn't quite sure about. I asked him if he had any suggestions. He told me about what the song meant to him. They based the song the documentary "In the Realms of the Unreal." It's about this artist named Henry Darger who was born in the 20's. He lived his life as a hermit-like janitor. He kept to himself all day and at night he interacted with no one. He felt that his "life calling" was to create this graphic novel and he did so. He worked every day until his death where he finally wrote his 15,000 page graphic novel. There are only 3 pictures of him in existence, yet his life style and story amaze people to this day. He was so sheltered from the real world that he didn't know common things such as a woman's anatomy or historical events. Brian told me to watch the documentary and perhaps I could incorporate this story into my own vision of the song's description of good versus evil.