Monthly Archives: February 2011

8 Feb, 2011

Ode to my Father and my brother…

2016-03-18T22:36:01-07:00By |Categories: Amara Tabor Smith, Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Images|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I’m cooking as fast as I can! A week and a half ago, I found myself cooking for one food party after another and no sooner than I finish washing my trusty pot that I cook my stews in does Julie Phelps and Keith Hennessey call me and ask me if I can come cook for 150 people at the amazing marathon performance they produce at Dance Mission called, Too Much! What do I say? Hell yeah! I had a

9 Feb, 2011

France’s Next Top Set Designer Pt. 1

2011-02-09T03:33:23-08:00By |Categories: CounterPULSE|

Well, here I am back on the other side of the world working that whole theater thang!  That's right your trusty Theater Manager and resident Lighting Designer has once again flown to France, this year the first of 2 trips, to conduct workshops with design students who will hopefully build part of our set, saving us the cost of shipping it to France.  Though I'm only here for 10 days and only 2 days in so far, it has been

12 Feb, 2011

Mid Way

2016-03-18T22:12:02-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, Kegan Marling|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

I feel half gay. Not sexually that is... I'm not bisexual or sexually confused. I'm clearly hot for men. I just feel culturally half gay. Like somehow I've inherited or learned only a part of the culture, but not actually enough to pass a thorough inspection. If I was to try to board a plane to return to Gay Land, customs would have a field day before letting me pass through. Of course, I don't really feel half straight either.

12 Feb, 2011

Birthing Pains

2016-03-18T22:19:07-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

I see the creation of each art work as a kind of birth. There's both great connection and great pain in this process, and I often forget that the magnitude of how connecting a piece is directly relates to how painful its birth can be. Last week we tried out a structure for performing a lot of the most salient material we've been developing in our Friend project. It's a difficult feat to imagine how to collage together all the

12 Feb, 2011

Conditioning

2016-03-18T22:18:54-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , |

I'm humbled to see how deep so much of my conditioning runs. I've been learning about and experimenting with inclusive dance techniques for almost a decade now. I'm continually looking for ways to make the ways I perform, think about, create and teach dance/theater inclusive of people with diverse mobilities. And still my conditioning asserts itself over and over. I fall back on how I learned to dance. Sometimes this is wonderful and provides a storehouse of movement approaches and

13 Feb, 2011

This One’s For Friendship

2016-03-18T22:18:42-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

One of the things that is shifting in me in response to the recent death of my friend Sharon Mussen is a re-prioritizing of friendship. I had a professor in grad school tell me once that I should never direct my friends in my projects--that the roles become too confusing. Even though I respect this professor very much, that advice somehow confirmed for me how much I operate from exactly the opposite view. I love creating experimental performance precisely because

13 Feb, 2011

2nd Work in Progress Showing

2016-03-18T22:18:25-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater, Video|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I was reminded yesterday of how helpful work in progress showings are. I often forget that this is an experimental form we're working in, and that experimental forms need actual experiments. While performances are experiments, they are high-pressure ones, and I learn as much, if not more from showings along the way. Here's some excerpts from ours yesterday:

14 Feb, 2011

Letting go of gumbo..

2016-03-18T22:35:39-07:00By |Categories: Amara Tabor Smith, Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Images|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

For many years on my birthday, my mother would make her seafood gumbo. It was one of the few times I would ask her to make this dish and I always liked to share this experience with family and friends because my mother’s gumbo is an experience. It is thick, messy, full of crabs legs, shrimps, oysters and okra. We used to spread newspaper on the table, wear bibs and used nut crackers to crack the crab, the sound of

14 Feb, 2011

Investigating Mysteries

2016-03-18T22:18:11-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

I love mysteries. I love mystery novels and movies, and mysterious stories and myths. I love when spiritual teachers refer to the divine as the "Great Mystery." More and more these days I'm seeing my performance work as a series of mysteries I'm immersed in. Each new performance project at times seems like something I've conjured up with my collaborators, and at other times like something much bigger and mysterious that we are entering into. I much prefer the latter

17 Feb, 2011

Reflections on Queer Dance

2016-03-18T22:17:55-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|

The following is my introductory note in the program for tonight's 2nd Annual Queer Dance Festival at CSU East Bay, followed by some related videos. This felt like an appropriate exploration to share here: Reflections on the Nature of “Queer Dance” By Queer Dance Festival Director Eric Kupers February 17th, 2011 University Theatre, CSU East Bay I want to attempt a definition of “Queer Dance,” (even though I believe that these two words are ultimately impossible to pin down.) “Queer”

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