Related to the last: Darrell Jones is one of three choreographers involved in the next Seldoms production, 3 x 3, and is hosting a workshop as part of the Jane Adams-Hull House Museum‘s Art and Democracy Series.
Darrell Jones’s movement workshop will physically tap into the energy of riot from a multitude of vantage points. Jones will guide participants through some of the processes used in his work Whiff of Anarchy, created in collaboration with the Chicago dance company The Seldoms. Exercises such as reading the crowd, weight-sharing/bearing, physical thresholds and collisions/consensus through movement will be used as a way to trigger collective and individual chaos and investigate the spark of riot as an energetic improvisation of movement. The workshop is free and open to the public—dancers and non-dancers alike.
It’s at the Museum building itself on February 11 from 12:00-1:30pm. Darrell is a ray of sunshine in human form. It will cost you nothing. Go.
Oh, Chicago Cultural Center: Is there no end to your bounty of free exhibits, performances, snacks, and Tiffany domes? Seriously, it’s one of my most beloved institutions in this city. Sure, the integration of the 1977 Holabird & Root renovation into the original Public Library structure hasn’t (for me) aged well, but that’s a petty grievance toward a place that’s hosted tons of events, both that I’ve attended and been involved with, that have had a profound impact. Well, here they go again: Via the Ars Scientia program, it will play host to a salon-style conversation between Carrie Hanson (AD of The Seldoms), artists Tiffany Holmes and Frances Whitehead, and environmental scientist Dr. Liam Heneghan. Tapping into themes Hanson explored in her April premiere, Monument, the salon promises that each of the three artist participants will talk about how concerns related to environmental sustainability impact and become subject matter in their work, while Dr. Heneghan will share his perspective on the same from within the environmental science field itself.
Sound interesting? Of course it does. But get out a pen and write this down: It happens this Monday, January 26, from 6:00-7:30pm. You heard the President:
And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
As promised, I occasionally post non-dance-related items. To be honest, I assumed it was something I’d do more often than I have so far. Well, lo and behold, here’s a little something for you folks that’s only about movement in the most abstract way: Danish photographer Simon Høgsberg blew up the internets recently with his beautiful panorama/assemblage/photomosaic of pedestrians on Berlin’s Warschauer Straße entitled We’re All Gonna Die: 100 Meters of Existence. Give it a few minutes of your time–you won’t be disappointed (I especially like the older couple toward the middle in their mysterious eye bandages).
I think I’ll ask Roz to kick things off this week: She waxes wonderful about the example she hopes freshly-anointed Sadler’s Wells AD/CEO Alistair Spalding is setting with his approach to the position. I have to say I’d be fine with what he’s doing setting off a storm of imitators: High-profile regular-season engagements for front-of-the-book modern companies and a return to the tradition of ye olde impresario, someone who actually uses his connections and reputation in the performance field to suggest and support collaborations among artists who, as institution-level successes, too seldom return to cooperative work. Although the stable of associate artists he’s assembled is heavy on the male side–exclusively male, rather–it’s a nice concept and, depending on the length of their “terms,” may open up in the future to more diversity (UPDATE: It already has, with the addition to the group of Sylvie Guillem and Jasmin Vardimon). Among his other projects, his April/May Focus on Forsythe multi-venue blitz is exactly the kind of thing I would freak out about, had I the occasion to be in London this spring. I remember meeting him briefly when I performed at Sadler’s Wells waaay back in the day–according to Sulcas’ profile he would have just been starting out at the time. I sometimes wonder about the integrity of closed-door meetings between big-budget presenters; a lot of what gets cash thrown at it is a debacle, and I have to part ways with Spalding when it comes to his advocacy of Christopher Wheeldon’s work–but in general, hell, I’m sure he’s doing much more with the position than I would be able to accomplish. Hats off to you, you foxy thing.
Apologies, readers, for the tumbleweeds that have meandered across this URL these last few days. What with all this going on yesterday, and the fact that my boyfriend and I decided to rearrange our entire house–not to mention, you know, work–I’ve been a little tied up. However! Today you get this juicy morsel, a belated Times roundup, and some hot new links in the sidebar, so quit your bellyaching.
What you see above is a teaching video for Sweet Pea, choreographed by Gloria Johnson to the song “Honey, I’m Home” by Shania Twain (for extra credit, drink in all the genius lyrics here). It’s just one gem I discovered whilst perusing the blog-as-project This Dance Is A Cliché, the tongue-in-cheek brainchild of artist Sarah Dahnke. Not afraid to love, Dahnke and I are of like minds when it comes to acknowledging the innumerable traps and pitfalls of progressively-aimed vocabulary generation and composition as innumerable gifts, perfect nuggets of a wholesome and easy joy. Each dance cliché, after all, was born at some point or another: Can you imagine being in the room at the precise moment that the kick-line was invented? Is it possible to know, when George Balanchine inserted a grand plié in second position en pointe into some early ballet (oh but readers, which one?), whether he could have forseen its greedy, ostensibly-edgy inclusion in almost every cut-rate ballet made in the last 50 years that considers itself to be “contemporary” or–shudder–postmodern? There is no way to know, but that forced-arch plié endures nonetheless, and will live on in perpetuity as The Step That Thought It Was Fierce, a Little Engine That Could on a track going nowhere. Nancy Garcia, a consummate blogger herself, recently nabbed Dahnke for an interview that spans a multitude of subjects including (but not limited to) Rahm Emanuel, Miranda July, and T-shirts. Check it out, and hey: If there’s a move you love to do, at least partially because you’ve seen it a million times, then by all means take her up on the invitation.
Rhiz.eu/ECF megaproject Move Out Loud already has sixty-some takers for their (pardon my gushing enthusiasm) totally awesome idea:
Move Out Loud is an internet platform where contemporary choreographers and dancers can upload a video of a solo dance, maximum 3 minutes long, starting with the last movement of the solo that the previous artist has uploaded. The result is a chain of movement, a world choreography that crosses frontiers, languages, cultures, religions and socio-economic differences.
You can watch each video individually here, chains of a few linked submissions here, browse by geographical location (um, what’s up North America?), or swing by their YouTube channel for all kinds of related goodness. Additionally, “The Move Out Loud Project has the highest support of the Portuguese Republic Presidency.” Video below is of solos 2-6.
Dance artist Asimina Chremos seeks three highly skilled female dancers for creation process and performance. Rehearsals will take place on Fridays during the daytime on January 23, 30 and February 6, 13 and 20 at Silverspace studio in Wicker Park, Chicago. The performance takes place the evening of February 20 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, IL. The choreography we develop will be part of an evening of contemporary live music featuring mandolin virtuouso Dimitris Marinos. Pay is $300 per artist, if more funding is secured this may increase. Please respond ASAP to Asimina at silverspacedance (at) gmail (dot) com.
You live to dance, and Asimina is terrific. Go get ’em.
On Facebook? Friends with The Silverman Group? There may be something in it for you, namely up to four (!) tickets to the Fulcrum Point/Thodos Dance Chicago new music/dance premiere/wine & cheese event Modern Myths, this coming Tuesday the 20th at the Harris. Sure, it’s Inauguration Day, but by 7:30 the historic occasion will be over and you’ll just be stuck at home with nothing to do, so go get some culture already. Jeez.
UPDATE: If you haven’t got the Facebook goin’ on (or if you haven’t gotten your act together and friended TSG yet), just email sophia_fulcrum (at) att (dot) net by 4:00pm Monday.
I made no attempt to hide my adoration for Chunky Move when they brought I Want To Dance Better At Parties to the MCA a few years back (I’d link to my fawning Flavorpill preview here but–NO!–it done disappeared). Anyway, I had sort of lost track of them–not surprising considering they could not be based any further away from here–but they’ve popped up on that newfangled TenduTV, in an interview with AD Gideon Obarzanek about his solo Glow. He’s obviously highly geeked out about technology, and works with it on a level that few choreographers can (as opposed to the too-common issue of choreographer-has-vague-vision-of-highly-complex-or-impossible-effect-he-or-she-hasn’t-the-first-idea-about-how-to-execute*). Also interesting was this floor-solo-as-music-video for New Buffalo that popped up as related, which I suppose it is. Not exactly breaking news, but they make a nice pair. Enjoy.
*Which is, of course, fine in theory–artists in all media visualize experiences and effects that they have some sense are possible, then consult experts in the field for advice on how to actualize these effects or adjust them to meet technological or budgetary constraints. However, the key word here is “consult,” and I’ve seen more than a few cases where that verb was replaced with “bully” or “throw tantrum about why can’t anybody else here think like an artist and just do what I tell them to,” which verb replacements are always unfortunate (and often organizationally-endangeringly-expensive) for everyone involved.
Unless credited otherwise, all posts are written and edited by Zachary Whittenburg. Any opinion expressed here is solely that of the author or commenter. No content published here represents the opinions of any print or online publications to which I contribute, nor any companies or institutions with which I work.
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