I'm sorry! I just don't GET IT.

Art, is a finicky, slippery, fish of a thing.

Some people love it! Crave it! Marinate and savor it!

Other people want to toss it back into the ocean where it undoubtedly belongs.

Still others are somewhere in the between. Taking it as they find it, but not always overtly seeking it out.

Well, jokes on you, Still Others, because art is EVERYWHERE. Your beloved Super Bowl commercials? That was someone's artistic marketing dream! The jingle of your go-to oil changery? That was borne of a musician's heart! The color scheme of your CPA's office? Yeah, someone said to herself, "These commercial business chairs will look alright with this commercial business carpet, and this wall hanging from Staples is fine."

Art is, delightfully, everywhere.

(Here is comes...)

BUT.

The trickiest misconception about art is that you have to, you know get it. Understand it. It has to mean something to you every time. And here's the thing. It might not.

Living in a Calamity - Shop Handmade!

Way back in September, in the beautiful warm, sunny, Summer's baby sister part of Fall, Meghan and I (with our pal Ray) sojourned over to Assembly Row, where our friends The Grownup Noise were playing a set in the lovely outdoor amphitheater.  We ate brie sandwiches and sipped iced coffee from Paul. We basked in the sun in the company of already warm friends.

It was pretty much the best day.

Shopping in a Calamity - Rock Paper Scissors

If you ever have the good fortune of finding yourself in the small, scenic port side town of Wiscasset, Maine, I strongly emphasize the importance of a pitstop at Rock Paper Scissors. It's a cozy paper wonderland filled with all the things you've ever wanted for your home/office/home office, in all the colors of the wind. And you may just make a new friend while you're there.

Do not let any ferocious beasts deter you in your paper quest.

If I can make it here...

Guys! We're in New York! It's real! It's happening! And there's no turning back!

I say this because I am writing this post live from the WOW Cafe Theater. We've been here just about all day (with the exception of a brief break for pierogis, of course) and we're amping ourselves up for spending the next two days here.

Our day started with some real-life Tetris. We did some big, burly, heavy lifting to create a space that was both inviting, supportive, and non life-threatening.

Here's an example of something that is completely safe.

As the day wears on we're meeting more and more of the artists with whom we had previously only known through e-mail. At the risk of sounding extremely immature [and amateur,] it is pretty surreal to watch this all come together. To see these artists/people in real life and to know that they want to be a part of our project/process/production is something I can only describe as THE COOLEST THING EVER.

I know I speak for all of us when I preemptively say how grateful I am to to the WOW Cafe Theater, to Fresh Peach Dance, and to each and every one of these fabulous artists/performers who are crawling out of the NYC creative woodwork to put this weekend together. Oh and also to Veselka. Because you know, pierogis.

It's reassuring to me, as a dancer, a choreographer, a "director" and just as a nice person, to see that there are people everywhere that just want to perform, to share their art with whomever is willing to watch, and that want to be a part of collaborative experiences...such as ours.

Cheers to everyone, which is topical as we still have a few hours left of tech responsibilities and Meghan's sister just brought us beeeeeeeeahs, kehd.

-A.

Dance Making - Stay Away

A few years ago, I started writing songs. It's fun, and a nice counterpart to making dances. One thing I've done a few times is take a song I've written and worked from the words I wrote to make a dance to go along with the song. I take individual words and turn them into a piece. This is definitely not something unique to me as a mover, but I thought perhaps somebody would find it useful to see my thought process.



Things I enjoy about making dance phrases this way:

• the mood of the movement almost automatically fits the mood of the piece
• not that I'll necessarily use the song. But it's good to be able to translate the vibe of a musical piece into dance. I think I learn a little more about it that way.
• it's easier to remember over long periods of time
• it gets me to create shapes I normally wouldn't get to. Or, if I would maybe create them normally, I probably wouldn't isolate them as special if not for this exercise.

My process:

1. Write a song. I did that part a few months ago.
2. Go through the song and write down the 2 or 3 word phrases that struck me as being more vibrant.
3. Go through the song again and, for each phrase chosen in Step 2, write down another phrase from the song that seemed connected in some way. The connection need not be in the context of the song.
4. For each pair of phrases, draw a little picture. The picture is somehow related to the two phrases. but perhaps in a way that wouldn't automatically make sense to somebody else.
5. Make a movement based on each set of two phrases their matching picture. The movement could be related to the group visually or based on meaning. Or it could be a softer connection that's more difficult to explain. In any case, I usually try not to think about the original meaning of these things in the song during this step.

It may seem a little strange to purposefully ignore the original song from step to step, but in some ways I want to get further away from it in my cognizant brain. I think that the things the song brings up to me are an important part of what the song is actually about. So through this process, I try to get at those things.

Here are the phrases and picture that I came up with: 

Of course it isn't too important, but I like to write things in pleasing ways. It makes the whole process a little meatier.




What I did:
I'm going to show you a few of the movements that I created and explain where they came from. Then I'll show you the phrase.


BODY'S FINE - DRESSED UP - CUTE LITTLE DUDE IN A TOP HAT

This is related to its trio in two ways. First of all, you may notice I'm making a sort of top hat gesture with my arms. Secondly, I wanted to be presentational with my body, using a pose-like posture to represent the idea that the phrases were about body and clothing.




FEARED - PUT AWAY - BASEMENT STAIRCASE

Here I climb down my body with my fore-arms. I suppose the influence of the stairs is obvious. I also thought that doubling up my body nicely represented the ideas of fear and putting something away.






YOU'RE NICE - NICE CLOTHES - PAPER TAG

To show the 'nice-ness,' I wanted to be very open. Then I kept angles, straight lines, and corners to keep the shape of a rectangular clothing tag.









The Phrase:
So, here's the phrase itself! It's certainly still in progress. This was the work of very little time. I did find some movements I think are worthwhile and that I'd like to continue prying into.

Weekday Inspiration

Art is everywhere! Including Inman Square on a previously rainy fall evening. Who knew?

Photo by Amy! Via Instagram...no filter, though, I swear!