Essay on Rhizomatic Arts in The Dancer-Citizen

I wrote an essay about starting my company, Rhizomatic Arts, for the first issue of The Dancer-Citizen, a new peer-reviewed online scholarly journal exploring the work of socially engaged dance artists. I discuss how and why I started my own business to reconcile the disparate aspects of my professional practice, and how our programming is supporting exchange, collaboration, and artist sustainability.

This first issue of The Dancer-Citizen claims "a space for conversation arising from our unique knowledge as dancer/scholars: what do we know about citizenship, belonging and mutual obligation, and how are we using, building on, investigating and challenging this knowledge? How are we working, what are our disparate views and methods, and in what forms are we expressing, embodying, and reporting? What connections are we making, or could we make, with each other and other disciplines?"

Click here to read more.

Hometown dance at HomeLA // Frogtown

I'm presenting a new improvisational work called IN THE CURRENT at HomeLA // Frogtown, Saturday, July 18th, at the Women's Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles. I'll be dancing with Sibling Rivers collaborator Erika Barbosa in the Los Angeles River, just behind the WCCW. Info at homela.org and facebook.com/events/1077519742277753/.

Open Rehearsal: July 13th, 8:00pm-10:00pm (FREE) RSVP to info@homela.org
Performance: July 18th, 7:00pm ($20) 
Reception with Amy Von Harrington DJing: July 18th, 9:00pm

Artists:
Allison Wyper with Erika Barbosa
Sophia Stoller
Constance Strickland
Soyoung Shin
Emily Marchand
Samantha Mohr with Nikki Stewart
Filipa Valente

LISTEN TO A FOLLOW UP TALK ON KCHUNG RADIO'S PERFORMANCE NOW!

ECHO: a performance for one (and only one!) person

I've been commissioned by the Mountain Standard Time festival to create a durational piece for their Spring Runoff Performance Marathon, and I've taken the opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do for years: a cell phone performance! 

ECHO is a performance for one (and only one) person. The single participant will be guided in a real-time exploration of Echo Park, near downtown Los Angeles, via a live cell phone call with the artist. The participant and artist will experience an intimate connection, in public and without seeing each other’s faces. In the privacy of her ear, the participant will encounter “echoes” of the complicated social histories of the historic Echo Park Lake and surrounding neighborhood, interwoven with poetry, music, and the artist’s own biographical narrative. The performance will conclude with a meal.

The performance will be scheduled at a time mutually convenient for the participant and the artist. Contact me to participate!

"How to Talk (and Write) About Your Work" returns to LA!

I am once again presenting this super fun and rewarding workshop on crafting meaningful elevator pitches, mission statements, and personal/artist statements to Los Angeles area creative professionals. Sign up through our hosts, the Women's Center for Creative Work!

WHEN: Saturday, May 16th, 1-5pm
WHERE: WCCW, 2425 Glover Place, Los Angeles 90031
COST: $60/$50 WCCW members

More info at http://www.rhizomaticarts.com/workshop/

Ideas for remote collaboration

Last summer I flew to Perth, on the far west coast of Australia, to spend a week and a half working with Sam Fox of Hydra Poesis. During my residency there, at the Center for Interdisciplinary Arts Studios, Sam and I reflected on our experiences collaborating from across the globe via Skype, writing, and video exchange. My trip was generously funded by the Network of Ensemble Theaters, who recently published our notes for a workshop exploring new models of co-authorship in online collaboration:

This is a critical moment in the culture, in the life and development of the internet, virtual embodiment, and the aforementioned ubiquity of handheld devices and webcams as a cultural phenomenon.

... remote online collaboration following open source principles inherently challenge artistic authorship, even suggesting the destruction of the innate value of the material. Employing a “commons” ethos, we might treat our works with less reverence, and give over the rights to (conditionally) over-author our works, as a function of the possibility for decentralization of the collaboration structure.

Read more here.

Workshop: How to Talk (and Write) About Your Work

In this workshop for artists and creative professionals, we practice talking about what we do, why we do it, and why it matters. Using structured, one on one interviews, you will learn to craft clear and meaningful elevator pitches, mission statements, artist statements and bios that express your unique identity for grants, publicity, and publication.

WHEN:     three Mondays  -  March 9, 16, and 23  -  8-9pm

WHERE:     SIJCC, 1110 Bates Avenue, Los Angeles (map)

COST:      $50 for the series, prepaid in advance

Register at http://www.rhizomaticarts.com/workshops