Category Archives: Event

Curation Situation

I’m guest curator for the Degenerate Art Ensemble’s Art Stream for the next two weeks.

I’m tasked with posting daily snapshots of artists and institutions that the world needs to know about. My first shot’s fired and it’s dedicated to Unnur Andrea, an Icelandic performer who makes music and videos. I’ve focused on her video work as it’s more interesting to me.

Here’s the link: Unnur Andrea – Food & The Body Becoming One

From day 3…

Screenshot from the DAE site
From my brief on photographer/mutilation artist Zhe Chen

 

 

 

The White Days in Images

We recently shot video of the entire play; not sure what will become of it. If it’s possible to post it here, maybe I will. Our director/playwright, Curtis Taylor, has collected a number of screenshots from the shoot. Here they are in no particular order.

Also, the show has been extended into November. We’ll be performing on the first Friday & Saturday of the month! If you missed it before you still have a little time. The shows have been near sell-outs every single night!

City Arts Fest 2011, Fred Wildlife Refuge

Free Sheep Foundation are curating a show for the City Arts Festival at Fred Wildlife Refuge. Here’s a pre-show look at NTG’s latest wheatpaste commentary. The fellows on the wall are Officer Ian Burke and  Christopher Monfort. Look them up if you’re the curious type.

Here’s the flyer for the show. Drop in if you have time. There’s some lovely stuff up by a number of wonderful people.

Musical Performance: Right HERE/Right NOW

[UPDATE! Here/Now has finally posted the group portrait for the night and has written a short piece on the event; check it out here…]

Here/Now Group Portrait
Don't we look great?

Last night I had the pleasure of playing an improvised set at Paige Barnes’ and Christopher Hydinger’s HERE/NOW improvisational performance event. This is their description of Here/Now: ‘HERE/NOW consists of 8 Dancers and 8 Musicians randomly paired together and given 8 minutes to improvise a duet.’

I was one of the musicians and I was the last selected to play. I haven’t done a lot of improvised music so this was definitely a daunting moment for me. I have a lot of faith in myself as a performer so the fear was kept at bay easily with cigarettes and bubbly water.

Dancer Beth Graczyk and I were selectively partnered. I’ve known Beth for a minute; been fascinated with her dancing for a longer time. As soon as she said ‘hello’ on the street on our way into the performance space I had a feeling we’d be working together.

It couldn’t have been any better either. I brought silver bowls and blue enamel camping mugs, a lot of dried beans, and a set of shiny tiffin pots. Beth had her own inspiring self.

We opened with an expectant looking Beth staring at me and doing some light, jerky full-body twitching while I slowly poured beans into a large stainless steel bowl. The beans made pinging noises and the sound gradually became lower in tone as the beans filled the bowl. But who cares? What’s more important is what happened.

Beth at some point decided to throw herself into my large collection of cups and bowls and landed on her back, head shaking among the kitchen ware. Beans were splashing to the floor and over both of us. I worried that the sharp noises might injure her ears (it’s metal on metal!), but she showed nothing except abandon and so we raised the pitch.

Somehow, I’m really not sure how, Beth grabbed me, dragged me, wrestled me away from the pots and through a lake of spilled beans to the middle of the dance floor. I kept trying to keep at least one thing to bang on, but she was kicking me and I couldn’t find my feet and the beans were slippery. There was an awful lot of clanging and foot stomping and I think she was yelling, but I might have imagined that.

Eventually we separated and I made my way back to the mess of my instrumentation. We finished with some simple scraping noises and Miss Gracyk swaying. I think. I could be wrong; there was a lot going on and I was terrifically excited. I might have remembered things wrong.

The audience seemed to enjoy our duet; I know I sure did. I gave Beth a huge, real hug and we took a bow.

The organizers had the night recorded, but I won’t receive a copy for weeks, sadly. Hopefully when it comes out I’ll be allowed to display it on artofmulata.

[Update: I’ve received the DVD and it’s amazing. These guys really put a lot of work into making the disc lovely. If you want a copy go to their website and order one; you won’t be disappointed!]