Considering how much Ashley loves him, I had to do a David Bowie tribute class.
I picked a playlist that included artists whose work and artistic careers could be considered to have been influenced by Bowie in some way, and I threw in a handful of Bowie tracks as well (breaking an unofficial rule I have not to play an artist more than once per class). What do I mean by influence? Check out the way he paved the way for shapeshifters like Madonna and Lady Gaga. His ability to transcend stereotypical gender roles had at least a little bit to do with paving the way for Marilyn Manson’s androgyny-powered aesthetic, Janelle Monáe’s adoption of an “android” alter-ego and Stromae playing a man and woman simultaneously in his amazing music video for “tous les mêmes.” That’s to say nothing of the way his sound influenced the music of other artists in the playlist.
The choreography for this class was based around a three-song circuit of climbs, _______ and sprints. The _______ was a grab bag of options, including high-resistance surge intervals, standing surges and endurance tracks. We did that circuit four times, and I challenged the participants to pick one kind of track and push themselves a little harder than normal each time through for four songs of next-level effort.
Check out the playlist below.
Note: The photo used in this post is from the coloring station at Ashley’s David Bowie-themed “Oh, You Pretty Things” 30th birthday party, which was held the Piranha Shop. The Piranha Shop folks do cool parties under the name of Modern Social Experience, and you can check them out yourself if you’re interested!