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A wise woman drums to the four directions of the earth Tum, tum, tum, tum, tum She calls the ancestral spirits of the land, water, air, fire And begins to teach me the way to journey   There I am, as ancient as her Yet, afraid of my power Alchemy comes to my aid And I jump into Pegasus, my Power Animal Flying to Marcahuasi The sacred Peruvian mountain of my youth   I travel to the mountaintop Passing ethereal

Because San Francisco industries are hemorrhaging artists, and CounterPulse safeguards resources for YOUR artistic community. Because you know that things can just be so much better than what they are. Because all your most brilliant friends will be there. Because we’re going ALL OUT with the Innerspace theme and transforming our building into a queer starship. (You like toasting and dancing under beautiful intergalactic starry skies, right?) Because silvery, futurist, industrial-ish, fantasy FASHION LOOKS. Because CounterPulse has one of the

What is the body's relationship to furniture, to structure, to the design we inhabit but rarely have an opportunity to adapt? How can design be appropriated to be more collaborative in creation and destruction, shaped by our social norms and urban conditions? Can design be improvisational, performative even? What happens when humans are no longer the subject and objects embody new life? How can our bodies respond to architectural cues and prototype new designs? Jeremy Edwards came to CounterPulse with

The need for a wow is paramount. There is no situation where a wow can not shake the habitual, move you in to the very heart of the mundane, and re-fascinate your existence. From day to day, we move about in a world that we know very little about. I do not know how electricity works, how leaves grows on a tree or how a touch screen knows my finger. Most of the time, I think no more of it.

We were led into a cobblestone courtyard after a short trek through the layer cake city of Belgrade. The old and the new built alongside and on top of each other. All stonework and stairways in and around the ancient walkways of the city. They took us up away from the river, past stately parks and brutalist buildings, up a hill through old world neighborhoods to the Center for Cultural Decontamination. Greying plaster walls with red tile roofs. Slightly crumbling

Telling myself what to do feels foreign And bends itself into what will turn into the first escape of many It takes a careful tread and a dissonant listening in order to achieve the uncut smile that spreads across my face So I scan wildly Wanting no one's eye but my own Desperation and wanton for a hazy comfort that's flits, floats, and spreads to the edges that become unseeable I am comfy rolling in the masses comfy to await

1. In an attempt to focus in I blurred and multiplied. The psychedelics have worn off and I’ve learned some things but am still aggrieved. To believe is to trust and to sit is to not stand. And to float? Up here vestiges of an old self linger while I wait for my magic feet to heal themselves. Emy asked “How do we know magic is real?” and I thought, “we don’t.”   2. I’ve finally made

So CounterPulse is centering their second annual festival around improvisation and the pursuit of “freedom,” and this... is just a very real workout for all of me: brain, bod, heart, etc. I think it’s a bold move on our part. And I say: thank goodness for bold moves. Years ago, I used to co-teach a kind of ever-evolving, ultimately impossible pedagogy—with my sister Larry Arrington—that we called Freedom Practice. We were two young white, at-least-partially-euro-contemporary bred dance artists who decided

Interview conducted by Claire Frost, Artspan Program Manager, on January 28, 2019 Claire Frost: How do you see your work and your practice fitting into CounterPulse's space + programming? How does this space contextualize (or not) your work? Brea Weinreb: Similar to CounterPulse, community is integral to my work. Every figure painting I've ever made has been of someone I know, and most of those people live here in the Bay Area alongside me. Particularly with this new body of work

UNEARTHED is a night of video installations and performances by Bay Area emerging artists exploring ancestry and diaspora, trauma and healing, vulnerability and sexuality, and questions about our past and future. Co-curator Claire Staples interviews three of the artists: Titania Kumeh Claire Staples: You have been exploring the bathtub birth story in your performance work for a little while now. What were your original inspirations and interests, and how have they changed? Titania Kumeh: My fascination with performing birthing or origin

Performing Diaspora 2018 artists Cynthia Ling Lee and Melissa Lewis in conversation. Cynthia Ling Lee: I'm excited to chat about your work today! Tell me a little about the initial inspiration for your work.  Where did it come from? Melissa Lewis: I had this wild and weird dream some time ago. Bruce Lee (or some version of him) was there visiting me, and we were in close proximity in somebody’s home somewhere, doing mundane things around a home. It seemed like