Hello folks,
Tickets to our upcoming Philadelphia Live Arts show are now available online! The show, Private Places, will be presented from September 15 – 20th. Seating for each show will be relatively limited, but there are 5 shows to choose from. See you there!
photo by L.Browning Photography
*also, please check out our One Year Vlog Project, too
Hey folks,
So, if you’ve been keeping up with our vlogs, you probably know that Marcel Foster is working with us right now as Project Director for our work connected to Private Places. Marcel is an organizational force to be reckoned with! He is also an artistic force to be reckoned with! Marcel has a show coming up called HumanAnimalCapitalism, taking place on June 14th at 7:30 and 9:30pm at the HyLo Boutiques. Marcel says, “If you want to check out Scratch Night before, you should be able to catch the 9:30 HumanAnimalCapitalism show in plenty of time.” We strongly recommend it! Click the image below for more information.
*a quick reminder to subsribe to our weekly vlog project, too
This weekend, the collaboration between our four idiosynCrazy performers and nine Swarthmore College students culminates in a performance for the Swarthmore Spring Student Dance Concert, this Friday and Saturday night at 8pm. The show is free and takes place in Swarthmore’s Lang Performing Arts Center. Collectively, the 13 collaborators formed the following manifesto:
WE are for an art of independent actions. CREATION is a winding path. This piece is first and foremost a collaboration. All parts of this dance are flexible and are not permanent. This is democratic. NOTHING is more interesting than three giraffes. This piece is genuinely weird, steeped in quiet stillness. A somber, opaque dance, sans impulse, which 
corresponds to the whimsical nature of John Cage’s music (curious and aloof). YOUR pain doesn’t affect or move me. Each event is caused by the previous event, and causes the following event in a clear way, with a clear impetus. Everything is interrelated, but only because it is witnessed. We interrupt ourselves. Small movements require MORE space. WE coexist in a strange world. We are apathetic. It’s about coping with the absurdities of life. Its purpose is to struggle with various conceptions of reality. This is dance. This is art. This piece does not end when the lights fade and dancers leave the stage. ANYTHING is a correct answer.
*a quick reminder to subsribe to our weekly vlog project, too
*a quick reminder to subsribe to our weekly vlog project, too
Hi folks,
As promised, this week is a two-for-one to make up for the one week we missed so far. We just shared our April Directors’ Notes, and now we have the second question in our “What do YOU think?” series. So, early in May, we are going to be having an outdoor photo shoot somewhere in Philly with our very own Lindsay Browning. Our 
previous shoot with Lindsay took place beneath the Vine Street Expressway at dawn and produced images like these here. Well, for this May’s shoot, we are going to need a new location and are wondering what YOU have in mind? Perhaps there are some spots in Philly that make you stop for a double-take, or drop your jaw a little, or make you smile for some indescribable reason.
Our question to you – Where in Philly should we set up our May outdoor photo shoot?
Hello folks,
You can check out our April 2012 edition of Directors’ Notes by clicking here. Take a look at what we have going on. Take care!
Some info on our latest series in idioSomatics.
We told you about this new plan that we have with idioSomatics: we are going to have subtitles for each of the short (4 – 6 week) series that we are offering through idioSomatics from now on. We started with Shannon Murphy’s idioSomatics: POST-JAZZ (get into the all caps 😉 it was pretty major). Well, now we are right in the middle of our newest series – idioSomatics: Skinsational.
So, what is Skinsational…? Skinsational, taught by Jumatatu Poe, is a contemporary dance class in which we will draw heightened awareness to the functions and fashions of our skin. Jumatatu has been lately drawn to the idea of “infinity in both directions” – those things within us that serve to distinguish us, individuate us and clarify our sense of our material and metaphysical selves; then those things that exist beyond the boundaries of where we end, the environment surrounding us. Largely, in Skinsational, we examine the role of our skin as a liminal bridge between these two infinities, sending information out into the environment to which we connect, and sending information in to our own “selves.” And that title? “Sounds sexy, doesn’t it?”, Jumatatu asks. And, yes, we will go there, too 😉
Friday mornings from 10am – noon at the Community Education Center. Come check it out! Bring your body…
above photo by Angie Chung
*check out our One Year Vlog Project
Shavon Norris reflects again on our Swarthmore project, looking at her experience as a supervisor and outside eye to the project. Coming next week, we will see some video on our One Year Vlog Project that highlights some of the work our 4 idiosynCratz and 9 Swarthmore students have been doing since October.
*check out our One-Year Vlog Project
It is March, we started in October
mentors, mentees, John Cage
production deadlines, discomfort, newness and April approaching
debates about improv, about what belongs on stage
about how to create a dance, about what dance is
there are challenges
confusion, frustration, understanding, compromise, trust
buttons pushed, toes pointed and bodies moving
there are writing exercises
warm ups that are fun and sweaty
there are insecurities, confidence, change and beauty
there are 13 bodies/brains making decisions
13 bodies/brains negotiating preferences, perspectives, aesthetics
trying to make something honest and good
trying to make art
trying to be heard
trying to be seen
trying to make sense
trying to form relationships, friendships, ownership
this is collaboration to the tenth degree
a collision of histories and personalities in a studio
a collision of values and techniques
of humor, communication and needs
I admire these bodies
I respect these bodies
I am glad I am not one of these bodies
these bodies are journeying into territory that frightens most
they venture into the unknown
they move into undiscovered language and hip flexion
they make time to hear all of what is being said
time to witness all of what is being seen
and include all of what is being created
accept what is offered
the studio does not feel big enough to hold it
the stage deep enough to share the story
but they are making a dance to store the journey and the learning
I look forward to April
above: Karim Sariahmed; photo by Tayarisha Poe
Hello folks,
If you have been following our One Year Blog Project, you may have noticed that we generally release our blogs on Wednesday afternoons, in conjunction with our weekly vlog. And, if you have really been following, you noticed that we missed last week’s blog! Well, “missed” might be a little misleading.
So, what happened? Well, we were scheduled to send out a newsletter that first Wednesday, 3/7, and I was having a hard time figuring out exactly what to write. We have a few projects underway right now, but nothing that we have, you know, just completed or anything. We have a few gigs that are in talks, but that do not have solid dates yet, and you know, contracts. I was feeling like our newsletter might end up being like, “Hey, how you doin’?” type thing… So, I kept trying to rewrite things in ways that would hopefully make it seem like we had something to say :-/ … right up until the deadline… and then, the deadline passed.
What you should also know is that our idiosynCrazy staff (Shannon, Shavon and I) has been having some organizational coaching meetings with a wonderful organization and life coach, Kilian Kroll. With Kilian, we have been imagining the future of idiosynCrazy, crafting out our individual roles as directors of the organization, designing ways that we would like to present our art to audiences, constructing models of engagement with different communities, planning the classes that we teach on a weekly basis to professional dancers and performers, discussing the model of our project at Swarthmore and its potential future at Swarthmore and other places, brainstorming ways to create financial and social sustainability, thinking about immediate projects like Private Places and the duet that Jumatatu and Shannon are currently creating, and so on… Well, I guess we have been pretty busy, even if not newsletter-worthy quite yet 😉
How are we going to make it up to you? So, at the beginning of April, we will release our newsletter PLUS the next installment of our “What do you think?” series (the last one was centered around the title of this season’s first idioSomatics session: POST-JAZZ). So, please be on the look out. We would love your input. All right, take care and we will be in touch again soon.
smiling,
jumatatu
*check out our One-Year Vlog Project
Gregory Holt, one of idiosynCrazy’s mentors in our Swarthmore Project, shares with us some of his realizations, frustrations, and hopes for the project as it continues to unfold. Coming soon, we will see some video on our One Year Vlog Project that highlights some of the work our 4 idiosynCratz and 9 Swarthmore students have been doing since October.
*check out our One-Year Vlog Project
i think there is a lot of exciting stuff just below the surface, but i also feel that it will only just begin to emerge by the time we’re nearing the end (as usual?). i think i expect a higher level of ‘buy in’ from the students- it seems that many of them are pretty ambivalent about what they want from dance or what they are willing to risk for it. we have begun to establish relationships with some of the students where we can use our own vision and their trust in us to ask for that risk, but with the other students its hard to know what to base that request on, especially in an ostensibly collaborative situation. i feel the lack of exploratory time and relationship building time. i mean, its clearly happening over the course of the work, but again, its going to feel like it all emerges at the end. its also hard to set my own ego aside sometimes. what i want from my art is not necessarily what i will be helping create in this project, so i need to open myself more to buy into other priorities as well. how can we make all this VISIBLE? i mean, all this dialogue and reflection is super interesting- can we frame it in our bodies to allow the audience to make it real with their witnessing? i’ve enjoyed going to the shorter rehearsals a lot- with danielle and gabi. its much more close and intimate. i’m excited to see images develop- there’s already some very strong stuff, so just letting things take their time and also varying the density of material will do a lot for the final product.
those are my thoughts right now!
best,
greg
.
.
.
stay tuned in weeks to come for more from inside this process…
Shannon Murphy shares with us some thoughts about the newest series in idioSomatics: POST-JAZZ. idioSomatics is idiosynCrazy productions’ free community class, geared toward providing free training for professional dancers. The class is offered as a part of idiosynCrazy productions’ training initiative, The Physical Laboratory. You can keep up-to-date with the latest series by adding The Physical Laboratory to your Google Calendar. idioSomatics is Fridays from 10am – noon at the Community Education Center.
*also, check out our One-Year Vlog Project
POST-JAZZ
– Shannon Murphy
Feeling awkward and a little unsure of how things would go, I arrived at the CEC the morning of our first of 5 classes in the idioSomatics: POST-JAZZ series. I usually don’t voice my knowledge in jazz dance in the Philadelphia dance community, although I’m sure that it slips out into my movement all the time. It took a bit of coaxing from Juma, who proposed that I teach a Jazz dance series to kick off 2012’s idioSomatics return. Generally surrounded by the post-modern dance community, I voice my other interests – in Franklin Method, anatomy, and imagery – loud and clear, and it never crosses my mind whether the class will be on board or not, or if my interests are valid. But this, to me, feels different. I am questioning how well I anticipated handling the duality of having a body-mind-centered / jazz class. I wonder how far-fetched my desires were to facilitate exploration of both gentle, aware preparedness AND the spark of accent and fierceness that the persona of Jazz dance usually brings to the studio. This duality haunts me as a teacher. I want class participants to know that this duality is possible.
I’ve been spending much of 2012 soul-searching. So, revisiting my ghosts about Jazz dance seemed to fit right in. After our first class, I chatted with participants Gabrielle Revlock, Marcie Mamura and Ellie Goudie-Averill and found myself finally asking aloud what had been playing over and over again in my head. What are the differences between the persona of a dance style and it’s technique? Does the selling, or the sexiness that is connected to jazz dance facilitate more than just the look? Does it give us more options as performers? And if we take that away, is it another dance style? We begin talking about how “playing the part” is often a part of the culture of dance class. I acknowledge dressing a certain way for ballet class tends to produce a different outcome than wearing the same attire for a release technique class would. I consider if it is just the clothes, or if they facilitate a shift in my state of being. If the latter is true, then I wonder if I take on a different persona as a teacher to facilitate different agendas. I’ve been asking myself how the teacher-student culture differs from jazz to more contemporary dance practices, and if adapting to either will actually help me lead a class where I’m looking to share a balance between mindful embodied movement and a highly energetic and technical practice.
I’ve taken the last three weeks to whole-heartedly dive into teaching my peers contemporary jazz class with clarity of anatomical, and qualitative awareness. I am having fun, rediscovering why I love Jazz, and how I can make it useful to myself and to my dance community. We’ve been focusing on how to hit an accent, completing a line inside the down-beat in a way that won’t give us tennis elbow. We’re talking about moving energy on the inside of our bodies and finding continual pathways of movement in what is commonly known as a hip roll. To be honest, my language about movement is not that different than what I would offer if I were to be teaching a contemporary movement class, but I find I’m exploring physical vocabulary that has been put on the back burner for a bit now. I know that, for quite some time, I have purposefully neglected my jazz dance roots to find new options. Now after spending so much time digging into new territory I feel confident to welcome back this style of dance in a new light. POST-JAZZ is reminding me that I have something to offer that I, up until this point, have not allowed myself to give. Fusing jazz, and Franklin Method brings together two ways of looking at my body in motion. I ask myself, “why can’t I let my hair down and know that my clavicle is spiraling into my sternum creating potential energy?” I know this is just the beginning of leaning how these two worlds can collide, and am looking forward to seeing what can develop for me as a teacher, an artist and for the future of POST-JAZZ.
photo by Lindsay Browning