Widening the I

July 2, 2009

Pina Bausch – Michael Jackson

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — wideningthei @ 9:01 am

I know the linking may be a little simplistic, or a little silly, but how we memorialize our dancers has been on my mind with the passing of Pina Bausch and Michael Jackson. Pina Bausch passed away earlier this week. Last week I was on a train that stopped briefly in Wuppertal, Germany, and I remembered Bausch, wondered how much time she spent in Wuppertal. Dance Magazine sent out an e-mail with the subject “The Dance Community Mourns the Passing of Pina Bausch.” I did not get an e-mail from them mourning the passing of Michael Jackson, even as dance writers from Apollinaire Scherr and Sarah Kaufman in the Washington Post, and a whole slew of folks in between eulogized him. For both, I went to youtube to remind myself of their creative output. For both, I went to facebook to see how my friends were reacting to the news. Both were inadequately memorialized by the New York Times. I think it’s notable that Bausch was still creating new work, and obviously had more work in her, just waiting to be born. (I would have loved to see her work inspired by Chile.) I know these thoughts are kind of inchoate; I’m just struck by the sudden absence of these two artists, one whose name is known by most everyone on the planet, one known by a segment of the cultural elite, at least in the US. How did they alter the dance landscape, both in death and in their lives? What lasting contributions did they each make? Who cares about which one and why? What would a Pina Bausch-Michael Jackson memorial dance look like? Why is one considered high art and the other not?

Dance Place in DC is hosting a memorial with music and dancing tonight from 5-6 pm for Bausch, Jackson, and Portland dancemaker Keith Goodman. I love this big tent attitude. Have you heard of similar events in other cities that put Bausch and Jackson together?

(As an aside, this week has solidified my position that I don’t really believe in people “resting in peace.” The now-defunct but fantastic LiP magazine used to run this column Honest Obituaries for a Dishonest World, obituaries that tried to give an unvarnished, complete record of a life, rather than just the nice things. The time to cut people some slack and give them a break is when they’re alive. After they’re dead and gone, you might as well give a true accounting of the life, what that person did and was responsible for, both good and bad and everything in between.)

June 29, 2009

genius is all around you, Part 2

Filed under: Uncategorized — wideningthei @ 8:19 pm
Last Meadow

Last Meadow

This is the second part of an interview with choreographer Miguel Gutierrez. Part 1 can be found here.

On working with New York City youngsters:

I do this thing in New York where I volunteer for Theatre Development Fund. They have a program called Open Doors, it was a program started by Wendy Wasserstein who had this belief that New York City public school kids should have the ability to go see dance and performance in New York for free. So each year it’s a different group of kids, this year it was such an amazing group of kids, and we take them to 6 different performances, mostly dance, I’m like a mentor in dance, so we focus on dance. And it’s like an art education thing, so you take them to see it and then you talk to them about the performance afterwards.

And it was really interesting, this year the kids, just because of who the kids were and because of the performances we went to, we were able to get into some pretty heady, sophisticated conversation about what is performance and what is dance and what is art and what is expectation and what is entertainment. Yeah. That was super-exciting to me. That work is totally life-fulfilling, you know it totally makes me happy to be alive kind of stuff. It’s just 8 or 9 kids, or 10 maybe? You get to know them a little bit and they have to write journal entries about the performance and the discussion. They got pretty saucy in some of those, which I love. I love when people are candid. So, that’s actually one of the main reasons I stay in New York, is that program. Even though it’s not like I do it all the time, but when I think about moving, I think, no, cause then I wouldn’t be able to do that thing that I love doing.

On possibilities of technology in performance:

Jesse Hewit who’s the California rep [for Freedom of Information] gave me this kind of incredible book to read, which I’m not going to remember the title of right now [Shoot an Iraqi], but it was by Wafaa Bilal who’s an Iraqi born artist who had done a piece two years ago in a gallery in Chicago. I can’t remember the name of it either, but he, very different, he set up an interactive gaming interface where you could shoot paintballs at him in the gallery, “shoot an Iraqi” basically, this kind of idea. And he did it for a month, he lived in the gallery for a month and he was always there. And this book is sort of part documentation of that project, part memoir. It’s definitely humbling, ‘well, gosh, 24 hours is a lot’, but this guy did this thing for a month. I mean, it’s so intense and it was fascinating, again, this idea of using technology in this way to sort of have this direct relationship to an art project. I mean, in that case the technology was the art project. It was through people all over the world, he got shot at something like 60,000 times. But then there were fascinating things in that book about how there were people who created defense forces where they would like hack into the program to keep the gun from pointing at him. It just created this online tension and just that idea of this interaction between the gaming community and violence and the idea of the remote body. And so that was really in my brain as we were doing Freedom of Information too. Because it was so much about, this idea about imaginary bodies.

On living consciously in the world:

I feel like that action or that piece, yes, there is the original conception of the action being in relationship to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I feel like that is still real for me. But there was something in doing it that was just about this idea of consciousness in general. And what it is to be conscious over time, to remain conscious over time, and what it is to consider another body, to hold that presence of another body, to be outside of yourself and to be inside of yourself at the same time. Which I think is such a basic sort of thing when you’re thinking about response to war, it’s like, ‘what does it take to feel what is happening?’ And you know, I don’t know! That project happened and I didn’t come out with a halo on my head or touching the children and healing them on the streets. I don’t think it was about that. I think it was about being like, ok, it’s on me to live consciously in the world. And I do feel like that project has had an impact as a result.

On false boundaries:

And something that has come up for me ever since is this very basic idea of – my body has more energy than I think it does. We all have more energy than we realize that we do. And as a result, we have more compassion than we think we do, we have more patience than we think we do, we have more generosity, we have more love. It’s like every moment that I encounter a boundary in myself now, I can’t help but think, maybe there’s a space beyond that boundary. You know, which is not to promote like co-dependent behavior or like kill yourself working. No, it has nothing to do with that. Like I said, compassion could be about self-care, or self-care can be about compassion, so I think it’s just affected that perception in me. Definitely in performance I’ll think, ‘oh my god, I can’t do this’, but then I think, ‘no, you probably can actually.’ So that’s interesting.


On claiming dance ancestors:

I think I’ve chosen my history. I feel like I’ve done some work to find out who my antecedents are. And to understand what the lineage is that I’m inside of. It’s funny, you know, god bless them, but I look at that wall of photographs in the corridor [Texas Woman’s U., department of dance], and it may be true that they are, but I honestly look at that and I’m like, these are not my ancestors. You know, I look at that and I think, like some of them are, but a large number of them I don’t consider in that way. And instead, I think of someone like Ishmael Houston-Jones. I think about the obvious Judson people. But then I also think about other performance forms and other artists. Then I also think about Marina Abramovic or Günter Brus. Like I think about, and that was a very conscious choice I made a few years ago to sort of claim that as dance history for myself. You know, I think about Akira Kurosawa, I think, ok, that person is a choreographer. Or Terence Malick.

Why is that so rare?! I don’t know. I think it has to do with education. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, I don’t know what education is everywhere. I can certainly think about my own dance education that I got in college, which was like, these are the dance people. It wasn’t about even locating those dance people in a relation to an art historical context. I think it’s just the nature of the way I think about stuff. And the legacies that interest me and the artists that interest me and not placing a box around it. I guess because I don’t reduce the experience of dance to vocabulary and movement. And I think that’s a lot of why it happens, cause people think, oh, that person and they moved that way. Which, yes, enormous enormous enormous enormous component of the experience. But I guess I think about like, well, what was the artist’s work about? Like what was the project of this artist’s work? So if that’s how I’m defining the people who inspire me, or who are my ancestors, then it doesn’t matter if they’re in dance or not.

On being inspired by a variety of people:

I feel like these experiences of inspiration, I was talking about this with my roommate in New York, I’m ready to be taught by anybody who’s interesting to me. I mean, there’s an artist, a young woman at Hollins University, whose work I think is really frickin’ smart. She’s like a frickin’ sophomore, and I’ve seen a bunch of her work. And yeah she’s young and her work is maybe young, but I look at her and I think like, OK!, you’re a peer artist, or I’m learning from you. Like, who cares if she’s 18 years younger than I am. Like that has nothing to do with, I’m not looking that way. So it’s like I think we still struggle with this modernist model of like mama and daddy. Like Martha and Merce. And also that we’re always looking upwards to this thing and I’m guilty of it too. And a lot of those artists, like Merce Cunningham, one of my all-time favorite artists in the whole frickin’ world, so it’s like I have it too. And I can enjoy my own hero worship and it’s useful to me.

We all pick our heroes, we all pick our histories, and I think it’s….I was very impacted by all the identity politics of the 80s and the early 90s, all this attacking of the canon. All of this thing of like why are we supposed to learn this particular trajectory? And it’s ironic because now I actually want to know that trajectory, like now I’m ready to read Plato, and what was Plato saying, you know? I don’t feel threatened by that now in a way I might have when I was 18. But I do appreciate that all the work of that time was just about saying, genius is all around you. It’s like all around you all the time. It comes in lots of different shapes and sizes. I really feel that that’s true. I really, I’m sort of astounded by all different kinds of artists all the time.

June 27, 2009

Smearing with Miguel, part 1

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — wideningthei @ 7:18 am

Last month, New York choreographer/performer Miguel Gutierrez was kind enough to sit down with me for a bit and share his thoughts on a wide variety of fun topics. The printed word doesn’t really do justice to Miguel’s language, which is full of meanderings and asides and inflections. Miguel is also just a joy to be around; you wish he was in your family so you could have him livening up your table at Thanksgiving. He’s so articulate and thoughtful that I’m breaking the interview in two parts because there was so much interesting material to work with.

Was able to sit in on an open rehearsal for Last Meadow as well as a showing. Since the work is still in progress, I won’t do a full review, but I will say that at the end, I felt like crying, but wasn’t sure why. And at one point, the connection with the performers was so intense that I had to look away. And that was during a rehearsal. I really hope I’m lucky enough to see it again. Premieres in Portland in the fall at the TBA festival and then comes to DTW in New York.

On Last Meadow, his current work-in-progress, with Gutierrez, Michelle Boule, Tarek Halaby. Lighting design Lenore Doxsee. Sound design Neal Medlyn.

The material for the piece all comes from the three James Dean films and we’re sort of just ripping off whole chunks of those movies, but not in any way, shape, or form because I’m interested in recreating the movies or in reconstructing them, or even deconstructing them. I’m interested in taking these external influences and sort of allowing myself to be inspired by the figure of James Dean to create this exploration into the choreographic. And the choreographic sensibility that applies not only to space and the body and action in relationship to the space, but also to sound and also to language and how these things kind of interact with each other, and sort of smear over each other and smear on top of one another, in the hopes of confusing people.

On the virtues of misinterpretation:

I can say a little bit about what led me to this interest. Before we started working [on Last Meadow] I was interested in this idea of misinterpretation. I was in a lot of situations, in other countries and different contexts, where I realized that I didn’t understand what was happening, and then I sort of realized that I feel like that a lot in my life, that I generally feel very outside of things and I kind of observe things and I’m like ‘what’s actually going on there?’ And then I thought about how dance is essentially this misinterpreted or noncommunicable language, or how people treat it as such. They treat it as this language that needs to be decoded, and then the general public feels dumb because they can’t decode this thing that they feel like is somehow privy to only a few people.

There’s not this thing that this represents something else, and I feel like dance’s weakness is often seen as that, and I’m intrigued by approaching that as its strength at this moment. And literally there’s this thing that doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t work, it’s not rational, it’s not experienced rationally, it can’t be reduced to a rational experience. And that maybe it shouldn’t be, you know? And that maybe it’s about our ability to expand our perceptual faculties into this other realm, (obviously I feel like I’m not the first person doing that by any stretch of the imagination), but for me it’s the first time that I’m really understanding, that that specificity of that particular project has made itself known to me, and it’s strange to … I feel like the last few years I’ve always been keeping dance at an arm’s length, of sorts, and being like, “no I’m making performance, I’m making pieces, I’m making these things, they involve these other kinds of elements, and yada yada yada, I don’t just make dance”, and then to instead to like re-embrace this idea of dance and expanding its definition and expanding my own perception of it, so those are the things about this piece.

On being a maximalist:

I think I’m a pastiche kind of artist. I kind of made these different things, I sort of assemble them. I’m not like a mono-conceptualist; I’m not someone who starts with this one thing and then it’s like I’m proving the theory of my idea through the piece, and then by the end I’ve like proven it in this ascetic, stringent thing. I think I’m this maximalist, kind of like, it’s coming from here, it’s coming from there, kind of rolling in each other. And that’s been fascinating too because the piece is dovetailing a little bit with a relatively recent interest I have in neurology and cognition, and modes of cognition.

On the central interest:

There’s such a pressure in dance-making, or the art world, to whittle down to the one thing that you do, like ‘I am the artist that makes everybody spiral all the time’. And I think I’ve had this thing with myself where I’m like, ‘oh, I don’t know what my one thing is, what’s my one thing?’ Something that you can brand yourself with and I definitely think there’s something to be said for becoming specific and mature as an artist and realizing like ‘ok, the center of your interest is this’, and I do believe that I have that. I think the center of my interest is existence and our experience of how we experience the turbulence and the complexity of being alive. And I think inside of that a huge sort of operation in my work is desire. How we experience that through desire, the desire to feel things, the desire to be seen , the desire to activate the space, the desire to be multiple perceptions of yourself. I think that that’s in there. I don’t make things where everybody’s in red all the time. You know what I mean?

On funding, the diy model, and self-starvation in dance:

It’s not for funders to tell an artist how to make their work. Which is an inherent problem of the funding model as it matches an artist’s biorhythm. At this point, I’ve sort of matched my artistic biorhythm to meet the timelines of these external structures. You know, it kind of works, it kind of doesn’t work, sometimes it works. I kind of make it work because there’s not a lot of other choices. But I think for other artists it’s challenging.

And then secondly, I was sort of like, ‘what frickin dance person is not diy and hasn’t been for the last x number of years?’ I’m at a place where I don’t want to do it all myself. Yeah, I can write the grant, I can do the e-mails, I can find the costumes… I don’t want to! Does there ever get to be a moment where someone else gets to take this over? I mean, I have an administrator, I’ve had collaborators, so it doesn’t apply to me so much, but it struck me as a very young response. Of course, when I was in my early 20s, I was like, ‘yeah, do it yourself, like new economies, this kind of thing’, and it was a strange moment of me being like, ‘wow, I’m in my late 30s, like I want something different now’. I work with people who have children, I can’t ask them to travel in a van and sleep on a floor and do the show. Like, they need to sleep in a real bed, they need a crib, they need a thing, they need a babysitter, there are other kinds of realities that emerge. So I was thinking about that and how dance, I feel like dance is so constantly, is like self-starvation. We’re so incapable of asking for what we need, we’re so incapable of learning what we need, we’re so incapable of being clear, like, ‘yeah, I deserve to get paid $20 an hour’, at least. And stand behind that without feeling weird about it. You know, there’s this extreme volunteerism in the community, and I think that’s beautiful that there’s this incredible generosity and part of the reason I stay in the dance community is because I love that generosity.

But I don’t it like when it genericizes the value of everything. That’s a really dangerous comment to make, but I do feel like sometimes it like if everything is equal value, then you don’t know how to treat something differently. And I don’t think money is the defining value or factor but I do think it’s important for an artist to feel like you can say, ‘well, I’m worth this, or my time is worth this.’

On “success” in the dance field:

And I think it creates lots of really problematic relationships with that notion of success. I mean, I think I’m viewed as a “successful artist”, I’m not incorporated, I can’t pay my employees health insurance, I don’t have health insurance, I haven’t had health insurance my entire adult life, I don’t have a savings account. When we have gigs, it’s great that we have gigs, but we don’t have like three gigs in a row where we have a tour. We have like a thing that happens, then 6 months passes, then we do another thing. And I feel like I’m doing well, but if I think about other places in the world, other artists I know doing differently in their work. These things are relative. I don’t mean to demean the value of what’s happening in my work, but economically, you know, we’re talking just about money, it’s not like I’m making my money from my work. And it’s never been that way. My economic reality has always been patchwork income. Always, always. I’ve always had money come from three different places. Like a job that I did there, the person I danced for there, a piece I’m making here. It’s never been like, oh, I go and make the one piece and the money comes rolling in.

On artists organizing politically:

Something that came up in the panel [The New Economy Smackdown] also was the way in which artists don’t organize themselves politically here in this country. That’s something that I’m super-conscious of, I mean, I travel to France all the time for work that I do there. And France is like they’ll strike at the drop of a hat, but it’s like, they shut the country down! A few years ago the technicians in the theatres had a strike and that shut down all the summer festivals. It shut it down. There’s issues and there’s problems with unions and with the union model but I think it’s also interesting the idea that there’s a collective of people who feel like they’re like, ‘no.’ when’s the last time that you knew a bunch of dancers who went to a community board meeting and were like, ‘no.’ It doesn’t happen. So that was discussed as well which I thought was good to talk about.

Teaching as an act of generosity:

Teaching gives me a very specific thrill, because I think teaching is essentially an act of generosity, at its best. And so, there’s something so powerful about creating this space in yourself and having that space in your life where you just give. You’re like, ‘I’m going to pay this much attention to you, or I’m going to give to you this much of my information.’ I’m going to choose to see you as possible and capable. So I think teaching does that. And in a situation like here [at Texas Woman’s University] where the students are willing to receive that, then it becomes all the more thrilling.

Miguel and cute Texas baby Gus Gamblin

Miguel and cute Texas baby Gus Gamblin

May 16, 2009

Tharp: letting the elbows fly

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — wideningthei @ 8:29 am

Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp

Why doesn’t Twyla Tharp want to talk about getting the Kennedy Center Honors? Tharp was in town to speak at the Nasher Salon Series and on a local morning talk show twice declined to say anything about it. Was it political discomfort because of the Bushes? Reader Lillian thought it was more because of the people she was with. Curious! (And to the Nasher, first you bring Bill T. Jones and now Twyla Tharp and you charge $60 each time? You’re killing me here. How about at least putting hunks on YouTube for those of us art-lovers not in the upper crust?)

I consoled myself by listening to a radio interview Tharp did with Krys Boyd on KERA. You can hear the interview and read a thoughtful review of the Nasher event here. Boyd does a good job of not being steamrolled by Tharp but I wish she would have delved a little deeper after some responses rather than just going to the next prepared question. I love Tharp’s pointy-elbows attitude, she makes no attempt to cover her first-impulse sarcasm. I also appreciate the comfort with ambiguity, first stating that “action doesn’t lie”, like words do, and then a minute later admitting that that was a lie itself.

Highlights of the interview come around minute 10, talking about risk and art-making: “If what I’m working on is something I already know how to do, the only reason I’m doing it is because somebody is paying me a lot of money.” Minute 19, as Boyd asks an insensitive (to a dancer) question about aging and Tharp gives a quick smackdown: “Is there a grieving process? Well, what does it sound like? (a mild yes in response) Well, there you go!” Around minute 34, Tharp talks about not being interested in getting to an arrival point, because that means a kind of stasis, and stasis means you’ve stopped moving. “A certain kind of success is not really desirable.” Lastly in my personal highlights, Tharp is saying that she’s never formally studied whirling like the dervishes, but she could “probably rotate around the room longer than most people you would run into on the street.” Probably true!

April 29, 2009

Red Dye #40

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — wideningthei @ 4:02 pm

Red Dye #40

Red Dye #40

How often do you get to see the very first performance of an exciting new modern dance company? How often do you get to see them for free? You have your chance on Friday and Saturday! Show is at 10 pm, so you will feel slightly scandalous for being at such a late-night event. You will feel like an insider, and it will be true. “Red Dye #40″ (REDDance premier concert) will be held in the Dance Studio Theater at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. REDDance’s creators are Meredith Cook and Amanda Jackson, soon-to-be MFA students and both super-talented choreographers and performers. I’m especially excited to see Lisa Niedermeyer’s new work, Ink, that is set on Amanda.

P.S. The end of graduate school is swallowing the blog. Will return to a more regular posting schedule sorta soon. In other news, Widening the I will sorta soon be based in DC.

April 18, 2009

16 minutes of air

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — wideningthei @ 12:32 pm

Sarah Jane Pell, "Undercurrent," 45cm transparent dome containing 16 minutes of air, 2007.
Sarah Jane Pell, “Undercurrent,” 45cm transparent dome containing 16 minutes of air, 2007.
I am completely in love with this image, and with the artist/researcher/aquabatics instructor who produced it. (Thanks to Gina Sawyer for bringing her up.)

April 14, 2009

90 years of Merce

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — wideningthei @ 8:21 pm

How cool is it to have Sonic Youth play at your 90th birthday celebration? Merce Cunningham turns 90 on Thursday and he’s still creating new work. Amazing. You can’t get to New York for the official event at BAM? I’d recommend reading Carolyn Brown’s memoir Chance and Circumstance as a good way to celebrate. Brown was a dancer with the company for a solid 20 years and her tales from the early days will make you feel like you’re in the bus with John Cage, stopping along the side of the road for picnics and mushroom searches. The second half drags a bit but the writing is luminous and the whole thing is filled with insights about Merce’s work, the relationship between Cunningham and Cage, the New York avant garde in the 50s and 60s, and a slew of other interesting veins. Honest, restrained, fascinating. (Gia Kourlas wrote a little review and conducted an interview with Brown back when the book came out a couple of years ago, if you just want a tiny taste.) Happy birthday to Mr. Merce. Thank you for all you have given us and well wishes for more years and more beautiful dances.

April 4, 2009

New Yorker roundup

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — wideningthei @ 2:10 pm

Have you gotten hopelessly behind on your New Yorker reading this year? Let me assist by offering my very subjective top 5 articles of recent months.

Walton Ford's Nila

Walton Ford's Nila


1. Atul Gawande on our horrific practice of keeping prisoners in solitary confinement. For years. By the tens of thousands.
2. D.T. Max on David Foster Wallace. Devastating and memorable.
3. Mariana Cook’s A Couple in Chicago. A small, moving portrait of a relationship, originally published in 1996.
4. A selection of John Updike’s poetry. More satisfying than the snippets from longer pieces, the poems are complete on their own and present gorgeous visions from the last days of a life.
5. Calvin Tomkins profile of the visual artist Walton Ford. Super-interesting ideas on the relationship between humans and nature.

*bonus favorite bit from Joan Acocella’s review of the Miami City Ballet in New York: “[Jennifer] Kronenberg and Jeanette Delgado are big-time stars, but a number of the women in the company–Patricia Delgado (Jeanette’s beautiful sister), Katia Carranza (a Mexican powerhouse), Amanda Weingarten (a comer, still in the corps)–dance as though they think they’re stars. Someone told them they could be, and that makes all the difference.”
Go Amanda! A comer for sure!

March 28, 2009

ultra extra arts mix, #3

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — wideningthei @ 3:13 pm

performer Scott Martin with press-on lights, photo by Jesse Scroggins

performer Scott Martin with press-on lights, photo by Jesse Scroggins

The third annual Ultra Extra Arts Mix was held last night, and somehow maintained a mellow vibe despite the presence of 8 video screens and lots of fun art.

Maybe the event is a little too ambitious for its scope of one evening. There were films to be seen, masks to be constructed, paper birds to be cut out, light photographs to be made, performances to take in, roaming life-sized paper dolls, a man wearing white with lights that came on if you pressed on him, food, drinks, friends, oh my! Not all of these elements mixed with each other. Some of the documentaries were reported to be “downers,” good and necessary in some venues, maybe not at a Friday evening mixer. Likewise for the performance by Sarah Jaffe. As mentioned below in the NX35 entry, I think the woman is incredible and she reaffirmed my belief in humanity a couple of weeks ago (seriously), but I felt guilty even whispering during her set. Probably not the desired effect at a Mix.

At the same time, the overflowing abundance of art was really lovely in places. A visit to the restroom yielded confusion thanks to a sound art piece by Greg Dixon that was very convincingly reading women’s names and phone numbers into a microphone. A helpful artist’s statement at the sink said the piece was intended as ‘sonic graffiti.’ There were also photographs in each stall, necessitating a discreet trip to each one.

One element that did work especially well in the space and with the dispersed crowd was Ilana Morgan’s untitled performance art experiment. Everyone was given a neon green sheet with times on it for small performance event, such as “two men carry water bottles toward the drink table. They drop the bottles, and they roll. One man is disgusted with himself for dropping the bottles while the other does not really care.” The performative nature of everyday life is endlessly interesting to me and by the time I had seen all five little vignettes, I was thinking about my every move and writing descriptive text to accompany it. Each vignette was tiny and satisfying. Also amping up the energy was a gorilla/guerrilla fashion show, complete with paparazzi, security, a gorilla, and some very convincing models with cardboard clothes. William Forsythe on a video screen was used as a movement model and paired with a soundtrack that included MIA and Michael Jackson. This provided some of the finest, and frenzied, dancing of the evening, courtesy of Texas Woman’s University’s DanceLab. There were four TV screens set up with movement sketches by Lily Sloan, you can see them all on her blog. Sketch #4 is especially strong and I was happy to watch it over and over again.

Food and drinks were more than up to snuff and whoever DJed the background music did a great job, bouncing everywhere from Carole King to Alela Diane. I didn’t know that happened anywhere except in my own head! Things had sufficiently loosened up by the last hour or so that an impromptu mock karaoke performance was met with enthusiasm and lighters and I saw a bit of contact improvisation breaking out spontaneously in spots.

Attendance was lower this year which made the event feel at times like an awkward high school dance. One thing that I loved about last year was that it was one of the few times ever where I saw UNT arts people and TWU arts people all happily mingling in the same room. This year it seemed like the UNT side of the equation was missing. Maybe the $20 ticket price can’t be swung by the youngsters in this economy? On a related note, I know of at least a couple of folks (older than 45) who were planning on coming until they read in the paper that the event was targeted for 25-45 year olds. Is there some way to market arts events to young people in a way that doesn’t alienate older potential supporters (with potentially deeper pockets)? Leave a comment if you have any ideas!

March 25, 2009

first ever full NX35

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — wideningthei @ 3:33 pm



Centro-Matic at NX35 (4)

Originally uploaded by inmemoryofradio

Now that SXSW has come and gone for the year, I thought I’d give a brief rundown of NX35, which happened the weekend before SXSW and was pretty darn incredible. NX35 was created as a showcase for the Denton music scene, a way of calling attention to this incredible local resource and I think it was a huge success. At the end of the festival, I felt rejuventated, happy, and proud to live here. I love that it is just the music with a minimum of other hoopla. And only $65 for an all-access wristband (compare to the hundreds of dollars at SXSW). I’ll pull out some favorite moments for those that didn’t get to attend this year, and recommend that everyone come next year.

–Centro-Matic’s set at Dan’s. Will Johnson does this great hop with one leg high in the hair. I bet he can do a mean grand battement! And there was a super-adorable proposal in the front row during the set.
–The saw player for Laura Gibson. I thought, oh what a tired gimmick, when I saw the percussionist pull out the saw, but then he was amazing! Spooky and gorgeous.
–Sarah Jaffe’s set at Hailey’s. Words can hardly do this justice but Jaffe is a rockstar. I knew her music and liked it, but this set helped me remember why live music is viable and why being a human is sometimes the absolute best.
–mixer at the Loophole. It was supposed to be for booking agents, but was actually a lovely assortment of musicians, agents, bar owners, etc. I chatted with a good number of folks and they reminded me of one of my favorite things about Denton: the extreme scarcity of pretentious jerks. There are some in this town, but not nearly as many as other places, based on my research. Everyone was friendly and warm and had either just played a show, or was just about to. Gotta love this place.
–The trick-or-treat atmosphere around the square. People bouncing from venue to venue, despite the cold weather. Fun. Very fun.
–Loved seeing the same people night after night. Usually I’d see a given friend once every few months, at NX35, it was every night for 4 nights. It was like summer camp for adults.
–The woman who played a typewriter as an instrument during the Robert Gomez set at Dan’s. Typewriters make me swoon.
–Seeing Billy Roy’s one man band discovered by a whole new audience. I’ve been seeing the man play 12 instruments for as long as I can remember, and it was great to see him featured so prominently every night of the festival, excuse me, conferette.
–Also notable and fantastic!: George Neal (as always), the early set times, the no-smoking at Dan’s, the house show(s).

On the organization side, there were a few snafus, but I thought overall it was relatively smooth. I appreciated how un-slick and processed the organizers were with the press, saying things like, “I went in with no expectations, and I went in thinking it would be a complete disaster.” My only real complaint was the website, which was poorly-designed if you just wanted to see a schedule of who was playing when. But the positives far outweighed any negatives. There was a spirit animating a lot of the performances, musicians really giving everything. The talent per capita here is unbelievable. I hope the conferette remains just as unique and feisty next year, and that Denton-dwellers can appreciate what we have here and protect it.

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