Helena, Montana (Oct. 3-5)

Now from big city to Helena, Montana my second time this year. I was invited this time to take part in the Youth in Transition Conference. It felt great to come back to the fresh air and friendly hospitality of the Montanans (If that’s how it’s pronounced). I was happy to see some familiar faces from M.Y.L.F (pronounced My Life not MILFJ). A cool experience I had was hanging out with Mike Beers and his girlfriend Mary. I got to know them from the M.Y.L.F conference this past summer we also linked up with another Youth Leader named Flynt who is deaf. An accomplishment that I am proud to share was that I was able to Flynt to give a speech in front of an Audience. It all started earlier that day, Flynt was in a panel discussion with some other Youth that recently transitioned from High School and he insisted on using an interpreter to speak for him. Thing is, I know Flynt can speak and he speaks well. Yes,  he has a speech impediment but not that bad. He was just extremely shy and self conscious of his voice. That night I was able to convince him to make a speech about himself and his passion to build furniture. So the next day before giving my speech I introduced Flynt to the audience and he came up and shared his story with his voice in front of over 100 people. He had never spoken to audience before and I am proud to have shared that experience with Flynt. Thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to do that.

Montana is always a great place to visit and I hope to come back again soon.

Los Angeles (Sept. 30-Oct. 3) – 3,489km

As soon as I finished my last performance at the AAF I headed straight to the airport for Los Angeles where I was invited to perform at the J.U.I.C.E Hip Hop Dance Festival. Once I landed in L.A I had no time to rest as it was straight to the dress rehearsal. All I have to say is WOW! The venue this festival was at is one of the most beautiful theatres I have ever been to. It was the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. It is an outdoor theatre on top of one of the Hollywood mountains. The theatre is disguised in a way that seemed naturally part of the mountain. It was a very magical theatre.

I was extremely honored to perform “The Ground Up & Beyond“ a piece that K8 “Lynx“ Alsterlund and I have been working on since 2008. This is a solo based on my life; check out the youtube video below! We have been working on this piece for while, but it has also been shelved due to other opportunities going on in our lives. So every chance we get to show this piece we are thankful because it gives us the opportunity to improve it with time. We also learn a lot about each other each time.

This trip would not have happened if it was not the support of local community members. K8 and I went through a lot of trouble applying for government grants trying to fund this project. Thinking that everything was positive and everything would go through, we got the bad news rejecting our proposal. Very upset and sad, K8 and I shared our story with a couple friends of ours that truly believed in our project and wanted to help us out. So I would like to give a big THANK YOU to Rada and Adrien from Rada Dancewear and Sansha Canada, Eugene and Jesse from Astanga Yoga Montreal, and Amy “Catfox“ Campion from Antics Performance.  I truly believe in the strength in Community and believe this is what makes our society a better place. So once again a big thank you all my past, present, and future supporters J

On this trip to L.A I also had the opportunity to meet up with Melanie Taylor a mother with a daughter born with Arthrogryposis. Melanie and her husband Murad are very special people to me, as my family and I were the first people they got to meet and talk to about AMC since the conference in Philadelphia in 2009. Melanie was also my first official customer to purchase an ILL-Abilities T-Shirt from my webstore.  Check out www.mikaelajane.com for more info on Melanie and Murads daughters.

Every time I go to L.A I feel like I learn new things through dance & culturally through fashion, language, way of life…I don’t know there is just something L.A has, that is very unique & is not like anywhere else in the world. Personally, I do not know if I could ever live there, the traffic is horrendous everyday including; Sundays and late nights, but the weather is amazing all the time and the people are extremely chyll. Which I love!

Toronto (Sept. 29-30) – 600km

I was invited to Toronto to take part in the Abilities Arts Festival (AAF) this is my 2^nd year being a part of it, but this year I got to share my experience with my close friend Mikey “Piecez“ Prosserman and an amazing BeatBoxer named Balu part of UNITY. We created our show the night before the event and let me tell you this will not be the last time you see the three of us working alongside each other. We made an awesome team and we got to motivate, inspire, and entertain our audiences. We had a great time at the AAF and hope to be a part of it again next year.

On this same trip I also had the opportunity to be a part of the Pan Am Games Brand Launch outside of the Air Canada Centre for the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games. As amazing of an opportunity and as great experience it was, I learned a valuable lesson in my career; to not over book myself. Unfortunately, I got too excited at this opportunity and did not think about the consequences of exhausting myself between the AAF and this performance. I believe this may have affected my performance at both events on the 1^st day. I was not too proud of myself that day.

Good Day,

Ladies and Gentleman, How is everyone doing? I am happy to finally be in front of a computer and updating my blog. These last three weeks have been amazing! There has been so much that has happened that I just do not know where to begin. We`ll start with a little math, I just calculated that from Sept. 28, 2010 until Oct. 17, 2010 I have traveled over 25,542km(approx.) between land and air. These past 19-days I have also calculated that I have spent 69 hours of them traveling on planes and waiting in airports. I don`t know what was longer the waiting around the airport or the actual travel time.

I am proud to share that the traveling allowed me to finally finish Blink “the power of thinking without thinking“ by Malcolm Gladwell. Which is an extraordinary easy to read book filled with lots of interesting facts and many life lessons. I suggest everyone to have the opportunity of checking the book out.

Everyday for the next 5-days I will be updating this specific blog with a new story from one of my travel adventures in Toronto, Los Angeles, Montana, Malta, and New York…

Hello World,

How’s everyone doing? I must apologize for being absent lately. My schedule has been super exciting but incredibly charged all over the place.

In the past month i have started teaching at joseph charboneau and mackay center. I have also had some great trips in Toronto, new York, Los angeles, and Helena montana.

I am currently on my way to Malta where I a
Appearing in a small cameo on a french film. I have never been to malta and very excited with the opportunity. Will update you upon my return.

I have been writing this blog on my phone while being drivin to the airport. Vetoing dizzy

Will give you more updates soon.

Best,

Luca “LazyLegz” patuelli