Save SAES dance!

For any of you who read this blog and are also connected to the realm of SAES (St. Andrew's Episcopal High School) some major things just happened that you need to be aware of and reacting to. To put it in the shortest way possible: no more middle school dance program, no more dance as part of the arts curriculum (only as elective P.E.). This from a school that prides itself on its "four pillars" of education. Guess that when the economy gets bad, the programs that produce alums that can't donate the big bucks are the first to go...

Anyway. I'll probably talk more about this later, but for now, check out the new blog that we'll be using as a base to gather and network information, and then organize our next step. Even if you're not a SAES alum, i think it's something worth being aware of. First they take our government funding, then our education systems...

Anyway. I can't take this any more. I'm going to try to sleep off the impending sense of impending doom. Check the blog HERE and organize towards action!

Also also also!

Also! 

Check it out: Anna Brady Nuse has been kind enough to invite me to become a contributor to her film/dance/dancefilm/screendance blog Move The Frame. I'm already on to my second post (but the first one was the basic intro to me and my work and, let's face it, you already know all that) - check it out here. I'll be writing every week, following the production of our first section of the film - Julia's solo "Glass Tree in Harlem" - so add it to your RSS if it's not there already!

Your Mind-Blow of the Day: Blaise Aguera speaks @ TED

So i found this after Julia PT mentioned geeking out to it and suggested I look it up. It's part of the TED talks, which never cease to excite and inspire me. It took me a few days to get around to watching it, but i just did, and WOW! completely mind blowing and exciting! This type of inter-information-sharing is something that excites me not only because it's a new and interesting technology, but because it really facilitates an exchange of human knowledge and experience. Things like this make me think that all those people (my friends being some of them) who talk about a "coming together of minds" in the impending 2012 might have a point...

Check it out, and make sure you watch all the way through.

Dancefilm - points for a fresh concept

So. Success so far at keeping the blogging going while adding another job to my life: not so hot.

But! (fear not, gentle reader and all that jazz) I'm getting my camera back today, and will be able to post some rehearsal footage soon, which gives me the same feeling as this too-good-to-be-true spring we're experiencing in NY. Also, i'm developing strategies for coping. For instance, posting some great dancefilm from time to time that i think is interesting.

Take this one, for example. 

I came across it on dance-tech, and thought that it was a pretty fresh concept and well-edited to boot, even if it gets a little too effecty (in my opinion) by the end.  I like how the film takes the liberty to utilize multiple sets and modes of "story telling" What do you think? 

Call for collaborators: SIDEsubTEN

Here's an email i just sent out to some of the artsy folk in my life. Consider yourself invited! Send submissions to SRosner@gm.slc.edu

Hi Friends!
i hope you are all enjoying the feels-like-spring weather!
I am in the process of recruiting a team of ten artists to each take part creating a side project that i'm working on (thus the SIDE and the TEN part), and emailing you because you were on my mind as a possible collaborator!
I know that all of you are busy busy creators, but check this out and see if it's something you'd be interested in - i think it would be a lot of fun!

Here's the deal:
I'm working with the lovely Julia PT in creating a beautiful plastic-bag-tossing solo that is the end section of the new piece i'm working on.
We have about forty separate phrases of movement, each ranging from one to five seconds in length (so a lot of little clips).
We are arranging them in a certain way for our version of the piece, but are excited by the simplicity of the structure, and want to use this as an opportunity to engage other artists. I am excited by this idea of having the solo in the piece as is, and then also having ten other versions of it. These versions, which would not be included in my piece, would act as a sub-layer (subvisc, if you speak my language - that would be the "sub" part) of information to the solo - a group of interpretations of one set of ideas that could be shown separately as just these eleven works (mine plus the ten of yours). I'm really excited by this idea, and see options in front of us like a gallery showing or a web-centric-gallery where we could show all eleven.
SO.
We'd like to invite you to take the forty phrases that we have, use as many or as few as you want, and make your own work out of it. Ours is a movement/film version, but we're excited to integrate as many different mediums and media as possible - drawing, music, painting, sculpture, dance-tech, film, writing, dance, theater, photography, and all the lovely things that i'm not even thinking of yet. All you ask is that you use our raw material as a starting point to make your own related-but-original work. The options are literally limitless. Come in to the studio with us, "capture" our phrases in any way you want, and then go to town. All we ask is that you make the final projects available for a joint showing/showings!

If this sounds like something you'd be interested in (or even just hearing a little more about) email me and give me a general idea of what you'd like to do - just the general medium(s) and any ideas that might be popping up - don't worry, i won't hold you to them. At this point, i think ten sounds like a manageable number, so we'll see what the response is like. If we get way over ten, we'll figure out some application, but for the time being, just email me to voice interest.

Also, feel free to pass this on to friends and artists you think might be interested.
We can't wait to work with you!

Best, Sarah A.O.

Hope that starts the ideas pinging...let me know if you have any questions!

Kinetic Cinema with Doug Fox @ Chez Bushwick

So i know you don't have plans for next Wednesday yet (not because you're not cool, but just because it's Wednesday, and it's still a week away) so allow me to suggest a fun after school activity: Doug Fox's go at Kinetic Cinema at Chez Bushwick.

If you're not yet hip to the Kinetic Cinema series (or even if you are), i highly suggest you come check it out. The program, designed and curated by Anna Brady Nuse (director of Movement Media at Pentacle, "Move the Frame" blog creator, and a dancefilm maker herself) is described as "the intersection of dance and the moving image". Every third Wednesday, she invites someone new to put together a program of dancefilms and other media that have inspired them. One of the things that i love about this series is the acknowladgement that talking about dancefilm naturally involves talking about film that isn't dance, dances that aren't on screen, and all types of media that falls somewhere in between. The result is programs that are as diverse as the are interesting - and every month it's a whole new perspective.

This month, Doug Fox (creator of Great Dance) is going to present a bunch of dance-related animations. Here's part of the press release:

The program will feature over fifteen clips from video and film animations, theatrical movie releases, TV commercials, music videos, performances and installations, and student projects. Among the highlighted animation techniques will include hand-drawn 2D animation, 3D animation, live-action and computer graphics, stop-motion, rotoscoping, motion graphics, real-time performance animation, machinima and other animation styles.

This program builds on Fox's online guide to "50 Dance and Movement Animations," which he published in January 2009 on Great Dance. He has interviewed many of the artists, animators, directors, choreographers and dancers who participated in the production of the videos which will be screened and he will share insights from these conversations during the Q & A section of the program.

Doug has a preview of what he'll be screening available on his blog - i started watching, but then decided to save it for Wednesday so it will be more of a surprise. I'm excited for all of them, particularly this one - technology i'd pretty much trade my soul for. It holds the ability to capture that best impossible moment in movement that goes by too quickly to capture or hold on to. Maybe I love it because it's where the ephemeral and i meet back up post hypermedia, or maybe it's just my undying love of the matrix trilogy.

Anyway. Hope to see you there!

---

Date/Time: February 11, 2009 7-9pm

Tickets: $10 at the door, no reservations.

Location: Chez Bushwick, 304 Boerum St., Buzzer #11, Brooklyn, NY 11206.

Phone: 718.418.4405

Web: www.chezbushwick.net

Trains: L to Morgan Street