transmutation//change

This is a difficult entry to write and I have been putting if off for a while...but I think its finally time.

After a bit over two years after its conception, the performance piece that became Rusalki, eventually grew into the Anatomia Dance Collective, and took us all to some beautiful places, finally has an online video presence.

Combining footage from 5 or so different venues and events, most of which consistently came out quite glitchy for a mysterious, unknown reasons, the video was created by my good friend Adam Cooper-Terán. Adam has has seen this project grow from the very beginning, and I couldn't really think of a better person to bring it all together. I'm tremendously pleased with how it came out, and very excited to share it with you at last:

Its interesting to think how powerful this piece was - in many ways, it let me back into the world of performance and dance after a long and painful break, and I know that my path to San Francisco and my life here would be very, very different without it. I'm so grateful for the people I had the honor of working, traveling, and performing with under the guise of the Anatomia Dance Collective, and for the amazing things we were able to do together.

That said, I am also grateful to lay this piece - and my role in the Anatomia Dance Collective - to rest. Rusalki marked many transformations in my life, and opened doors that I never could have foreseen...but now, those transformations are complete, and I have walked through those doors, and I know that its time to let go. I am no longer officially a part of the Anatomia Dance Collective, though I wish them well, and look forward to potential collaborations in the future.

...What's next?

Well, most of all, I'd like to continue creating characters, performances, and events...drawing and building and dancing and performing - working with other artists, with new technologies, new ideas, and new audiences. A very specific performance piece has been spinning in my head for over a year now with amazing clarity (usually a good sign), so I am currently looking for dancers and venues in San Francisco that I can work with to bring it to life.

Also, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how I represent myself online, and where I'd like to go as an artist/performer. There's a lot of thoughts and words there -- thoughts and words that will probably bring a considerable amount of change with them in time. There's also a couple of other projects I would love to mention and share with you...well, you know, isn't that usually how it goes?

...But for tonight, this will be all.

Good night, Anatomia, and good night, Rusalki.

spring, forward

...So many things happen, and most often, my lack of updates is a sign that too much is happening at once, rather than that I haven't been up to anything exciting :]

This weekend, the anaTomia dance collective went up to Flagstaff to perform at the Flagstaff Fringe Festival and teach an aerial silks workshop. Many thanks to Jayne Lee of Human Nature Dance Theater for making this possible for us. Below are some pictures of our performance courtesy of Scott Sawyer. We also got some good video footage of us, and I hope that our growing video-archive will soon yield a nice, beautiful video trailer to go up on our new website.



Onwards to the pictures!

Winter Masquerade Ball, etc

Hello, dearest long-abandoned blog! First off, a very happy 2010 to everybody!

The past month or so has been incredibly busy for me, and I look forward to posting about all of the various projects I have been involved in as well as new thoughts & directions on the horizon. The most current project that I'm working on is organizing a Winter Masquerade Ball with the anaTomia Dance Collective:

(artwork by Maria Thomas, layout by me.)

As you can see, the Masquerade is coming up quite soon (next Saturday, eep!) so we are busy making the final preparations, checking in with DJs, musicians, performers, and all of the other people that are helping to make this possible.

You can get more details at:

HTTP://WWW.WAREHOUSEMASQUERADE.COM

Many thanks to Daniel Anderson of Proteus Creative who made that site for us, and is awesome and amazing and wonderful (but not just for reasons related to web design or art :)

The premise of the Masquerade is analog vs. digital...or perhaps nature vs. technology. The date of January 23rd is the cusp between Aquarius (intuitive knowledge, organic growth) and Capricorn (rationality, linear thought.) Although we didn't really plan for it fall on that date, it did coincide nicely with our aesthetic. We've got two warehouses spaces which we will be using for the event: one as a magical frozen winter forest, and the other as an industrial post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout space (also the practice space of the band Ensphere/the venue Plexus.)

The industrial warehouse will have DJs and dancing, and the forest warehouse will have live acts and a chill area. The idea was to provide a venue for people to transform themselves through elaborate costumes, and BE transformed by the environments we create. I've been jealously eying events like San Francisco's Annual Edwardian Ball for years now, and am tremendously excited to have something of (hopefully) a comparable caliber in Tucson.

I most certainly hope to see you there in your finest and most elaborate masquerade attire :]

anatomia

As promised - here are the specifics about the benefit show this coming Saturday:

(more info on the Solar Culture website...)

This is the largest independent project I've ever been a part, and a lot of work is going into this event (8am rehearsals, anyone?). I'm graduating on Thursday after a very intense 5 years as an undergrad, so a Friday performance will be nice and cathartic.

I think its going to be a beautiful evening indeed. If you happen to live in Tucson, I sincerely hope you'll stop by.

We are putting together a benefit show in order to be able to attend a contact improvisation dance intensive in Jerome called the Flying Nest at the end of May. It is scheduled for the 15th of May at 8pm at Solar Culture. There is going to be live music, a silent auction, and of course our performance. We're still working out the details, but I will be sure to announce the specifics as soon as we have them set.


Below are some images from a photoshoot we had last Sunday - I think there's plenty more to come, but here are just a couple:

(that final image is by Nika Kaiser)

nameless again

(image courtesy of Adam Cooper-Terán)

This will be part of a showcase of all the other groups that work in that space - its a wonderful event, and a great way to see just how many exciting things are happening in Tucson. The showcase is donation based, and you can find out more information about it here, and get directions to the space here.

I hope to see some of you that night :]

Here are some more images from the Friday performance - all photographs courtesy of Lane Johnson. I might play with the the raw files some more, but I figured I'd post the unedited footage first.

of swans and spiders

The show was absolutely amazing.
I could have not done it without the beautiful talented people I worked with. So much love and gratitude to them all.


Here are some photographs from this website. There's going to be video footage and lots more pictures - I just have to track it down in the next couple of weeks and find a way to upload it online.

Katherine


Lia


Maria



Aurelia


Silks





How lucky am I to work with her?







POST FACTUM


piggyback ride


sleepy aerialist


I think this is only the beginning.

last dress rehearsal

Continuum make-up test:



performance tomorrow.
eep.

nameless, pt 2

Here are some images of how costumes are coming together so far. I am working on two of them (mine and Katherines's), my friend Maria Thomas is working on two more (hers and Lia's), and Aurelia is making hers based on the very first image I produced.

the only colors will be shades of white & this dusty sort of blue...
I just spray painted tons of flowers this weekend, and I really like how they came out.



the front of my bodice



the back



Katherine's top



Eventually things will come together to look something like this:



Lia (complete with hoop skirt!)




Katherine



Maria

nameless

In regards to my most recent exploits:
(prepare for an absolutely epic update)

Right before winter break, I was asked if I wanted to do a performance piece for Continuum, which is a huge event to celebrate the opening of the School of Art’s Visual Arts Graduate Research Laboratory which is set for February 20th & February 21st, and will involve 100 + artists.

I immediately thought of how amazing it would be to have butoh-like dancers in glorious white Skingraft-inspired dresses moving silently and mischievously through the multiple galleries in the Research Laboratory. I made the following costume sketch:

...And what began as just one image in my mind has grown into something very beautiful and powerful very quickly.


As things stand, the piece is called nameless, and is inspired by the Eastern European legends of the rusalki (also wili/vila, the phrase from which the phrase "getting the willies" comes from, and the Willies found in the ballet Giselle). These are ghosts or water demons suspended between the water and the air who lure mortals to misty ponds or lakes in hopes of satiating their eternal desire to dance. It is very much about a female power and beauty that has passed through the filter of death, and is bewitching, horrifying and fragile at the same time.

The movements of the dancers will be completely improvisational and interactive with the environment around them. I am looking to butoh, mime, contact improvisation, ballet and court dances for the physical vocabulary of the performance, and encouraging the dancers to transform and be transformed by the space around them. Essentially, I want the performers to create psychological tension through movement (not abrasive tension, but engagement, curiosity, slight amusement, wonder, perhaps slight discomfort) which will culminate in an aerial/dance sequence at the very end. I am incredibly lucky to be working with Flam Chen and several very talented local dancers and friends in this project - it is definitely a very collaborative endeavor.

Although I have been performing and dancing my whole life, it has always been on others' terms, and this is the first time that I can direct the energy and aesthetic of a performance. It is very exhilarating and a little frightening to be in such a position, but things are falling into place so easily, and I am finding so much joy in working on this project, that I think this is the right time for such a transition.

Below you'll find some images that are inspiring the costumes and aesthetic of the piece. (Unfortunately, I did not keep track of the artists/photographers as I was collecting these, so I am afraid I cannot give credit as to who created these images - many apologies):

...Bodied dressed sort of like that, and moving sort of like this:






And this:







And there will definitely be some of this:



(which I consider one of the best silks solos out there, by the way)

So there you are - this is what I have been focusing most of my energy in the past couple weeks. If the rehearsals we've had so far and the way the dresses are progressing are any indication, this piece is going to be exquisite. I know it probably evolved into something much more extensive than the School of Art originally envisioned (hmm yes, there's an aerial rig involved) but as I said earlier, its coming to me so easily, and I have the resources to make this happen...so why not?


I will do my damnest to document the design process of this whole endeavor, and I already have sketches and progress photos uploaded online, but I fear that this blog entry has reached inappropriately gargantuan proportions as is, so till next time!