ultra extra arts mix, #3

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!