The fabulous Jane Weiner shared this article with me on Why Arts Education is Crucial.  Good read.

Breather taken.  We had a fabulously successful run on CONTEXT.   Engaged audiences, dancers at their peak, and some of the finest collaborations we’ve made.  I took a week, or so off, and during that time I visited Santa Fe.  It was magical.  Really powerful to be in that high desert.  I had been wanting to go to Santa Fe for some time, and finally we did it.  For me, the power was in the stillness, the beauty, and the magic of that area.  I joked that I was channeling Georgia O’Keeffe.  I visited the O’Keeffe museum, took in her paintings, hiked, found some lovely turquoise jewelry, slept, made fires at night, ate some really good food…and some really bad food, practiced yoga an an elevation that made me nauseous.  I talk often about how much I value the artists’ need for respite.  It was invigorating.

What am I doing now…hopping back on the train.  Not literally.  I’m spending this month finalizing my concepts and ideas for my Fresh Arts Installation which will occur the last few days of August and first few days of September.  I’m going down another road with audience engagement— my lover of the moment.  Then we’ll hit the rehearsals in July and work through the summer until the show.  My working title is: The Black Place.  Much more on that to follow…  Stay aboard.

Here is the review of CONTEXT by Nancy Wozny in Arts + Culture Magazine.  Give it a read.

Click here for a preview written by David Feil.  And get your tickets here.  They are selling…don’t be caught without one.  I am so extremely thrilled about this event.  Come see what we’ve been working on.  Come be part of the art.

A note from composer Charles Halka on his piece, Por La Fuerza las Tierras, the centerpiece of CONTEXT.

First, I’d like to say how excited I am that Frame Dance chose to feature my music at CONTEXT.  It isn’t often that I get to be a part of such a collaborative and multimedia event, but I really learn a lot from artists in other fields, and future ideas or projects are usually inspired in the process.

In my music, I strive for experimentation whenever possible, but at the same time musical influences from my childhood and adolescence feature quite prominently.  Por la Fuerza las Tierras, the featured work at CONTEXT, is probably one of the clearest examples.  I don’t claim to be an expert on Mexican and Latin American music, but my early exposure to it in elementary school and my annual trips to Mexico during my so-called formative years certainly laid the groundwork for a continued interest this music.

As a composer, though, I was never involved with Mexico until 2009, when Alejandro Escuer, flutist and director of ONIX Ansamble (www.onixansemble.com), contacted me.  I had submitted a work to the ensemble’s composition competition, and while the work was not the winner, Alejandro liked it enough to ask if I would consider writing a new work especially for ONIX.  2010 was to be the centennial of the Mexican Revolution and the bicentennial of the Mexican War of Independence, so it was the perfect opportunity to write a work inspired by the very music that helped shape me as a musician and composer.

Along with generous support from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, ONIX put together a concert-film performance titled Viva Zapata! with the aim of commemorating the Revolution and its ideals of human rights and liberal reforms.  My work was included in the performance and premiered by ONIX in Puebla, the site of some of the earliest fighting during the Mexican Revolution.

Por la Fuerza las Tierras, which translates to “[take] the lands by force,” exhibits aggressive and relentless energy in passages of both struggle and celebration.  After an extended moment of respite in the middle of the work, the music gradually gains momentum again and pushes energetically forward to the end.  Given the occasion for which the work was written, both the rhythmic and melodic material are greatly indebted to various Mexican musical styles.

I’ve had the opportunity to see Frame Dance’s work in progress for CONTEXT and feel they’ve really captured the different characters of the piece.  It’s a great feeling knowing the audience will be experiencing my music visually, aurally, and even almost physically.

Here we go!!  Press for CONTEXT.  First up.  002 Magazine.  Thanks Fresh Arts Coalition for including us!

ARTIST STATEMENT                        |            CONTEXT

CONTEXT is a project that excited me from day one. For starters, photographing dancers is a fascinating undertaking for me. It is such a visual experience that combines light, movement and form. Besides that, the concept behind this show is rich in possibilities. The reality of the dancers in close physical proximity to the viewers, together with an exhibit of combined images by two different photographers and film by a third eye is bound to create a layered experience that will invite the audience to participate. They will create their own CONTEXT as their senses are engaged by motion, light, and stills — both live and recorded.

I photographed the dancers twice, first in an informal rehearsal setting in a typical dance studio, and the second time in a planned shoot at Spring St Studio, a location chosen because of its textures and lighting.

The dancers were a pleasure to watch and work with. Their movements were strong, sometimes rough and rhythmic, other times soft and incredibly tender. They were calm, secure and very focused on their work: using their bodies to explore and express universal human feelings, longings and thoughts.

As a stills photographer, I was interested in the forms created by the elegantly athletic contortions and wanted to capture the beauty of the body shapes as they are frozen in time through a photograph. I chose to use controlled natural lighting from two sources to create an extreme light-dark contrast that enhanced the perception of these forms.  The images were produced in black and white to leave no room for distractions: these photographs are about the shapes.

Having photographed the still forms, as I watched the dancers repeat the motions over and over, the sense of movement captured my imagination. I decided to tackle the same dance piece from a different perspective: deliberately slow shutter speed images that, in contrast with the previous collection, capture traces of color and light as the dancers move through the floor and into the air. The result is a second set of color photographs offering a rather different perception of the choreographed piece.

The final collection is comprised of two sets. One high contrast black and white group of images that is solid, detailed and that focuses on the shapes. The second set, a light, colorful and often ethereal group of images that focuses on the movement. And the possibilities do not end here. As the choreography is performed live in front of the audience, fresh individual perspectives will be formed in each mind, making the viewer a co-creator with the dancers and the visual artists. The creation process never ends. It is a part of being alive.

Happy Hump Day.  Make sure you check out the articles guest curator Mary Grimes gave us in the post below.  There’s some great stuff in there.

I have some exciting news.  I have been chosen as co-curator of the Third Coast Dance Film Festival.  Dance-f0r-camera is a genre I am passionate about, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be curating a dance film festival that is moving forward with so much momentum.

Third Coast Dance Film Festival celebrates the intersection of contemporary dance and the moving image with a screening series of short dance films.  Currently entering its third season, Third Coast is an annual dance film festival based in Houston, TX.

The 2011 festival featured 13 short films, including international films from Canada, Russia, Germany, and England, as well as four films from local Houston dance film makers.  The 2011 festival is currently on tour and will be screening in the Kaleidoscope Arts Festival at Slippery Rock University on April 26, 2012.

I am eager to step into this curatorial role. Filmmakers, keep your eyes peeled for this year’s call.

Last year’s poster:

I write about Fieldwork quite a bit on this blog.  Here’s some exciting news.  Houston choreographers, take note.

Fieldwork, Diverse Works, and Dance Source Houston have entered into a partnership.  The famous 12 Minutes Max! show,  held at Diverse Works (in which Frame presented an excerpt of Mortar last year) will now be made up of new, risk-taking choreography made in the Fieldwork workshop.  Fieldwork choreographers are eligible to be considered to be presented in 12 Minutes Max!.

Interested choreographers are encouraged to attend the Fieldwork Showcase on April 15, 2pm at Diverse Works to hear more about the partnership.

Also, feel free to contact me at our website: www.framedance.org, or leave a comment here.  I have been the Fieldwork Facilitator since 2009.

— Lydia Hance

As we get closer to CONTEXT (May 11-13) I will be posting about the collaborators.  CONTEXT will be an interactive, multi-sensory exhibit involving dance, photography, music and film.  First up, Sil Azevedo.