Joanna lives in New York, Patricia in Paris, Stephen and Misa in Santa Barbara, Sinan & Serkan in Turkey, Mojca in Slovenia, Julia in Austria . . . finding ways to create.
SOURCES OF INSPIRATION - the seed, SB-ADaPT Festival 2011
Sources of inspiration always come from somewhere, and when I pause to think about the radical changes that have been occurring with regard to where we are at creatively, as a newly formed collective, ArtBark International (formerly SonneBlauma Danscz Theatre) I take notice that this is June of 2012.
I think of Lerna Babikyan and Regina Picker (above, Lerna in the white jacket, Regina on her left - at the Festival breakfast on the Center Stage Theater patio) who live in different countries. One in Turkey and one in Austria. They traveled to the SB-ADaPT Festival in Santa Barbara almost exactly a year ago today and were in residence at Fishbon to create something specific for this community's tri-level wharehouse for the Cut the Edge emerging genre performance installation.
At the Festival we also met Moska Majcen (on the left, Lerna on the right), of Dance Theater IGEN from Celje, Slovenia. In order to make the journey's doable financially for our international artists (they were not paid to perform and didn't receive any financial assistance from us) we collaborated with the Fishbon community, and those in need were provided housing in the homes of warm and loving folks from this community, such as Jill Littlewood who housed Lerna & Regina, IGEN, Simya SANAT from Istanbul and the whole cast of 10 from Rubans Rouge Dance Company from L.A. It was in Jill's kitchen, over dinner, that Moska and I connected in the exuberant atmosphere created by a home full of international artists living under the same roof, cooking together, talking art with wild Iggy dancing about in his pink briefs shocking us with his wild, crazy ways. Moska expressed that she really liked my creative work, one thing led to another, and the Affinity I project happened with her traveling here to the U.S. to create with us and then share work in Los Angeles, New York, and Santa Barbara.
The Seeds Sprout!
We began the process with "skype rehearsals". Here is an excerpt from our very first skype meeting and how the collaboration began.
It blows me away, to think that Mojca came and went with SonneBlauma choreographers collectively setting 3 new works on her and that she is back in Sloveni. That Stephen is now in Celje, Slovenia working with Mojca to create a new work for the RAW MATTERS: ADaPT Special festival being organized by Regina and the arts collective Raw Matters in Vienna, Austria (yes the ADaPT Festival sprouted in Vienna!) He is probably right now just returning from his second master class in choreography with dance students of dance Theater IGEN. Yesterday I videotaped our skype session and a very tired Stephen shared his thoughts on what it is like to be in Celje, Slovenia working! I need to add captions because you can't hear him very well. EXCITING!
I just can't wrap my mind around this, the capacity to work with artists from all over the world (potentially), meet up (is the carbon footprint worth it I ask myself which sparks additional ideas) and pull the work together for performance.
CRAZY! On Saturday I had a skype rehearsal with Patricia Morejon, a budding actress who lives in Paris. In the spring I conducted a series of experimental integrative arts performance installation labs with two other artists in our community, Tina Corbett and Cecily Stewart. While skyping with her, Stephen skyped in and Patricia was introduced to Mojca. We had a quick discussion about the performance in Paris we will have after the Raw Matters ADaPT Festival and assigned each other tasks/homework assignments to move the project forwards. Patricia in turn has recruited some musicians to create the sound scape for this experimental lab that will be created. If that isn't enough, Sinan plans to be in Paris to be integrated into this work, and he is also learning choreography from the internet to be integated into a piece Stephen premiered at NECTAR. For his work in Vienna, Stephen is also collaborating with artists from Turkey, Austria, and New York and they will be integrated into the new work during the intensive rehearsal process the week before the Festival in Vienna.
On Sunday, Joanna (who lives in New York) and I had a nearly 2 hour, exhausting skype rehearsal. She is packing today to leave to Denmark for a Festival there and will meet up with us in Vienna for the Raw Matters ADaPT Festival. I just can't wrap my mind around this! We made progress with the works we are going to present going over the script for the performance art piece we will do in a subway in Vienna (we haven't decided which line yet.) I showed her my costume via the skype camera and she was able to pull out a bridesmaid dress from her wardrobe that would match this. We also chose costuming for the installation work. We also discussed the installation space and wrote together an email to contraMASS to try and get dimensions of the space, we watched Youtube videos together (Skype has a shared screen function.), we discussed our work "Unzipped" and how its recent performance by me as a solo opened up new options and how we might be able to integrate them into the Vienna performance and discussed others learning this work. We discussed the technical aspects of some guerrilla performances we plan to do at an undisclosed location.
So... now it seems as if a cross-cultural collaboration is also sprouting with an artist in Israel and that this may take us to Jerusalem for the Machol Shalem Festival!
Exciting times!
Indeed...
exciting times!!Love and Light!
Misa
www.artbark.org
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