The accomplished Gina Gibney and her historic and beautiful Gibney Dance Center.

The facebook (yes, oh so exclusive) invite to our upcoming show.

Did you know today is National Duran Duran appreciation Day?

The Merce Cunningham App!

We have a special curator this week. Stephanie Todd Wong is the Executive Director of Dance Source Houston. She holds a BA in Dance from Mercyhurst College, as well as an MFA in Dance from George Mason University. Originally from Kentucky, she moved to Houston in 2008 from the Washington DC area where she spent ten years choreographing, dancing and teaching. While there, she was a dancer in the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, had her work showcased at both Joy of Motion and Dance Place, as well as created a high school dance program for The Flint Hill School. Stephanie also served as the Interim Director of Dance/MetroDC, a local branch office of Dance/USA. She is the mom of two beautiful little girls who also love to dance!

You’ve Cott Mail – not really a website, so I’m bending the rules. But this is an email digest put together by Thomas Cott, Director of Marketing for Alvin Ailey, that I make time to read every single day (and considering my schedule, that says a lot!). Invaluable, and Thomas Cott is going to be speaking at the Houston Arts Resource Fair tomorrow, so I’m super excited about that!

Paperbackswap.com – I like to read but I don’t necessarily always want to spend a lot of money to keep up with my habit. I found this website a few years ago from a friend and it has been an awesome resource. You create a free account and list the ISBN numbers of any books you have at home that you no longer need/want to keep. Other members of the site can then request one of your books and when a request is made you mail that person the book. When they receive it, you get a credit to your account that then enables you to make a request for a book that gets sent to you for free! You can put your name on wait lists for popular titles and are notified when a copy is available and you can create wish lists of books you want to get in the future. I think they also have sister sites for movies and music, but I’ve never made it past the books.

All Songs Considered  – This is a site I used to spend a lot more time on than I do now, but I miss it! It was created several years ago by Bob Boilen who used to direct All Things Considered on NPR. He so enjoyed finding new music for the music buttons between stories for that program that he created an entire program just for the music. It’s a great resource for finding new music and getting in depth info about music you already love.

Virtual Pillow  – This time of year, when I’m jealous that I can’t be in the Berkshires enjoying the immersion of dance happening at Jacob’s Pillow, I find myself gravitating to the Virtual Pillow. It’s an online exhibit of video excerpts from all the years of performances at the Pillow. It’s so easy to get lost in this site.

Finally, I’m also a mom, so the New York Times blog, the Motherlode, is also one of my faves (because we all like to be reminded that we’re not alone on this great adventure called parenthood).

She’s  pretty much a celebrity in Houston’s art culture.  She’s our guest curator for this week’s Links We Like.

She’s K.C. Scharnberg.

Finding Balance

#1: I don’t get a whole lot of time to read for pleasure these days, but when I do, I love to read Fast Company. There I find a fabulous mixture of practical advice and inspiration for the creative, the leader, the motivated individual.

#2: Paradoxically, I’m preoccupied by slowing down and by the shift that many humans are beginning to make for themselves in direct protest of our world becoming increasingly busy. Many of us are caught up in the “busy” trap. I’m personally trying to make daily efforts to get myself out of this trap. I’m trying to make a shift towards riding my bike instead of driving, spending less time at the computer, making more regular plans with friends, and just allowing myself to have idle time. The Slow Movement website is full of inspiration to get me there. “The Slow Movement aims to address the issue of ‘time poverty’ through making connections.”

#3: I recently attended a conference at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, CA, and was so inspired by hearing the experiences of alumni and current students that I’ve begun to look much more seriously at the Soka model of humanistic education. The Soka education philosophy was founded by Japanese educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, furthered by Josei Toda, and made accessible outside of Japan by Daisaku Ikeda. In a nutshell, “Soka (value creating) education takes the human being as its focus and makes developing the humanity of each individual its objective. It emphasizes the nurturing of students who, through relationship with educators who are themselves attempting an inner “human revolution”, are capable of establishing personal happiness and creating value in society.” (See Ikeda Center website) Doesn’t that sound like the way you’d want to grow up learning?! I just ordered the book Soka Education and can’t wait to dive into it.

#4: Cute Overload! This is my favorite way to waste time on the internet. Everything is soooooo cuuuuuuttteee!!!

#5: Another guilty pleasure….Post Secret! Laugh. Cry. Repeat.

More about K.C.

K.C. Scharnberg – Program Director, Fresh Arts

Raised in Denton, Texas by classical musicians, K.C. Scharnberg developed a deep appreciation for all art forms at an early age. While earning her B.A. in Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, K.C. developed her professional skills with internships in arts management at the UT Performing Arts Center and the Arts Management Institute at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining the Fresh Arts staff in 2010, K.C. held positions at the Department of Theatre & Dance at The University of Texas at Austin and Elmore Public Relations in Houston.

As Program Director of Fresh Arts, K.C. manages and oversees the organization’s exhibition series, professional development curriculum and training, and all other physical programming including the Cultured Cocktails series, Artist Speakeasy series, and special events such as the annual Winter Holiday Art Market.

Outside of work, K.C. serves as an Advisory Board member of the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University, is active in her Buddhist organization, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI-USA), and serves as a founding member of Houston-based Horse Head Theatre Co.

Never intending to disappoint, Frame Dance presses forward with a somewhat belated “Links We Like Friday” guest curated by the fabulous Clover Morell.  Enjoy!

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My Blog Hit List for Summer 2012

By Clover Morell

www.clovermorell.com

Clover Morell is an artist & curator who creates interdisciplinary performances and media works. Often collaborative and experimental by nature, Clover’s work examines the human spirit, interpersonal politics, perception, memory and discomfort.

Morell has exhibited her work throughout Chicago at The Chicago Cultural Center, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Betty Rymer Gallery, Link’s Hall, Elastic Arts and MOTO Restaurant. Her work in collaboration with Julie Laffin toured to The Prague Quadrennial in 2007 and The Dutch Theatre Festival in Amsterdam in 2009.

Originally a visual artist from New York, Morell received an MFA in Performance from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College Chicago in 2005. She has studied media, writing, movement and performance-making with artists Lin Hixson, Goat Island, Sadie Benning, Lida Abdul, Jenny Magnus and Diego Pinon among others. She currently lives and works in Chicago.

1. My number one, all-time favorite blog has got to be http://wanderlustmind.com by my friend Sebastian Alvarez. He curates the most amazing articles across the web on art, science & technology. It is always an inspiration and I cannot spend enough time with it!

2. Next on my list, as of late, includes this sweet little blog: http://www.brainpickings.org which has a ton of reading suggestions to keep the noodle workin’. I like the way Maria Popova, the author, describes it:

Brain Pickings is your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces across art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, you-name-itology. Pieces that enrich your mental pool of resources and empower you to combine them into original concepts that are stronger, smarter, richer, deeper and more impactful.

I can spend hours reading over the little blurbs she provides about the concepts and authors behind them. As a bonus, she provides links to videos, often from TED TALKS (http://www.ted.com/talks), which I can’t live without.

3. Photography is a huge inspiration to me – it’s my secret, coveted skill – my wannabe profession. The rich imagery can help me build concepts, color schemes, characters – gives me a boost in a dull day – and illustrates nuance, emotion, space among so many other things. There are a ton of amazing photography blogs and magazines out there. Currently, I am enjoying this one: http://www.seesawmagazine.com

4. During my studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I had the opportunity to work with some of the members of Goat Island (now extinct) (http://www.goatislandperformance.org/). They taught me about the art of creative response ala Goat Island style which is basically taking something like a photograph and translating it into a dance and then placing a ton of restrictions on it:  edit it down to one minute, stretch it to fit a 3 minute piece of music, exchange your dance for a line of dialogue from a friend, now turn that into a 15 minute dance, watch a film, copy a move, paste that into your original dance at 3 minutes and on and on until you’ve developed something that feels right. I was a big fan of their process, their work and their approach to collaborative art making – because it actually works and keeps people together.

One of the members, Matthew Goulish, would occasionally present papers at the school and his writing always had me jotting down notes, running back to my studio inspired to integrate narrative and science into my work, about the brilliant lives of bower birds or some other obscure idea from nature/life. This blog is a collaborative effort and the brainchild of Matthew Goulish and Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment (http://www.forcedentertainment.com/) (who rocks my world) and is called The Institute of Failure (http://www.institute-of-failure.com/).

BONUS:

I couldn’t get through this without asking my brilliant artist & designer husband, Andy Rohr (http://blog.twenty2wo.com/2009/08/andy-rohr-27-steps.html) for one of the many design blogs that inspires him everyday. After all, as he’s taught me, good design is important to all aspects of creative living. His pick:  http://grainedit.com

What is Director Lydia Hance doing next week?  Find out here.

Bizarre story of Houston’s vandalized Picasso.

What do you all think of this article on challenging the status quo in the non-profit dance world?

Tap is Music, found on Dance Advantage. 

And here’s a pic from CONTEXT.

Happy Friday!  I have for you, a hodgepodge, today:

Some very smart advice from Ray Bradbury on writing, but also, I think, on anything.

One writer’s opinion of the top 5 overrated art movements of all time.  A little over-simplified, but fun/funny all the same.

Any actor who says this: “And maybe not a classic, but one that is my personal Prozac, ‘Waiting for Guffman'” is someone I’ll hear more from.  Here’s Jayne Houdyshell, a 2012 Tony Award nominee for her performance in Follies,  Playbill.com’s questionnaire of random facts, backstage trivia and pop-culture tidbits.

Phantom Cellphone Vibration Syndrome Is Real, Damn It

Here’s an article I wrote about my work with students with neurological differences.

And here’s a festival that all dance filmmakers should submit to.

Yours Truly

and forever in artmaking and random links,

Lydia

This Friday, I’m asking some questions…

What the heck is modern dance??  This is a light article on defining– or explaining– modern dance.

How solid is your dance movie library?

Do you feel guilty for taking a vacation?  I’m a believer that R&R of the artist benefits everyone.  Rest easy, performers, art admins, educators, movers and shakers…

What is impossible?  If you are one of our regular readers, you know my love for the TED talks, and if you’re new, you’ll find out soon.  Erik Johansson creates realistic photos of impossible scenes — capturing ideas, not moments.

A fabulous dance film festival, submit you filmmakers!

Vintage photo of Eiko & Koma.

More than a Prop, Object as Performer

Behind the scenes with David Hallbert— helllooo releve. 

Finally, recently saw this movie.  Fabulous.  It’s on Netflix if you haven’t seen it yet.

We are going to keep it simple, folks.  We are one week til the show, CONTEXT.  That means there are only a few links you need this week.

1. www.framedance.org

Our website, recently designed, and awesome on iphones, ipads, etc.  Play around, and watch the videos.

2. www.framedance.org/boxoffice

Tickets!  I am encouraging you to get them because we sold out twice at our last ticketed event.  This is going to be a phenomenal show.  Everyone involved is just brilliant: the dancers, photographers, composer, tech crew, and I think the film is pretty great as well.

3. Links and Press

Facebook Event

Paper City Magazine

002 Magazine