In his story Sarrasine, Balzac, speaking of a castrato disguised as a woman, writes this sentence: "It was Woman, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive fears, her unprovoked bravado, her daring and her delicious delicacy of feeling" Who is speaking in this way? Is it the story's hero, concerned to ignore the castrato concealed beneath the woman? Is it the man Balzac, endowed by his personal experience with a philosophy of Woman? Is it the author Balzac, professing certain "literary" ideas of femininity? Is it universal wisdom? or romantic psychology? It will always be impossible to know, for the good reason that all writing is itself this special voice, consisting of several indiscernible voices, and that literature is precisely the invention of this voice, to which we cannot assign a specific origin: literature is that neuter, that composite, that oblique into which every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.

· · ·

Probably this has always been the case: once an action is recounted, for intransitive ends, and no longer in order to act directly upon reality — that is, finally external to any function but the very exercise of the symbol — this disjunction occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters his own death, writing begins. Nevertheless, the feeling about this phenomenon has been variable; in primitive societies, narrative is never undertaken by a person, but by a mediator, shaman or speaker, whose "performance" may be admired (that is, his mastery of the narrative code), but not his "genius" The author is a modern figure, produced no doubt by our society insofar as, at the end of the middle ages, with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the prestige of the individual, or, to put it more nobly, of the "human person" Hence it is logical that with regard to literature it should be positivism, resume and the result of capitalist ideology, which has accorded the greatest importance to the author's "person" The author still rules in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, in magazine interviews, and even in the awareness of literary men, anxious to unite, by their private journals, their person and their work; the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions; criticism still consists, most of the time, in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of the man Baudelaire, Van Gogh's work his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice: the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person, the author, which delivered his "confidence."

· · ·

Though the Author's empire is still very powerful (recent criticism has often merely consolidated it), it is evident that for a long time now certain writers have attempted to topple it. In France, Mallarme was doubtless the first to see and foresee in its full extent the necessity of substituting language itself for the man who hitherto was supposed to own it; for Mallarme, as for us, it is language which speaks, not the author: to write is to reach, through a preexisting impersonality — never to be confused with the castrating objectivity of the realistic novelist — that point where language alone acts, "performs," and not "oneself": Mallarme's entire poetics consists in suppressing the author for the sake of the writing (which is, as we shall see, to restore the status of the reader.) Valery, encumbered with a psychology of the Self, greatly edulcorated Mallarme's theory, but, turning in a preference for classicism to the lessons of rhetoric, he unceasingly questioned and mocked the Author, emphasized the linguistic and almost "chance" nature of his activity, and throughout his prose works championed the essentially verbal condition of literature, in the face of which any recourse to the writer's inferiority seemed to him pure superstition. It is clear that Proust himself, despite the apparent psychological character of what is called his analyses, undertook the responsibility of inexorably blurring, by an extreme subtilization, the relation of the writer and his characters: by making the narrator not the person who has seen or felt, nor even the person who writes, but the person who will write (the young man of the novel — but, in fact, how old is he, and who is he? — wants to write but cannot, and the novel ends when at last the writing becomes possible), Proust has given modern writing its epic: by a radical reversal, instead of putting his life into his novel, as we say so often, he makes his very life into a work for which his own book was in a sense the model, so that it is quite obvious to us that it is not Charlus who imitates Montesquiou, but that Montesquiou in his anecdotal, historical reality is merely a secondary fragment, derived from Charlus. Surrealism lastly — to remain on the level of this prehistory of modernity — surrealism doubtless could not accord language a sovereign place, since language is a system and since what the movement sought was, romantically, a direct subversion of all codes — an I llusory subversion, moreover, for a code cannot be destroyed, it can only be "played with"; but by abruptly violating expected meanings (this was the famous surrealist "jolt"), by entrusting to the hand the responsibility of writing as fast as possible what the head itself ignores (this was automatic writing), by accepting the principle and the experience of a collective writing, surrealism helped secularize the image of the Author. Finally, outside of literature itself (actually, these distinctions are being superseded), linguistics has just furnished the destruction of the Author with a precious analytic instrument by showing that utterance in its entirety is a void process, which functions perfectly without requiring to be filled by the person of the interlocutors: linguistically, the author is never anything more than the man who writes, just as I is no more than the man who says I: language knows a "subject," not a "person," end this subject, void outside of the very utterance which defines it, suffices to make language "work," that is, to exhaust it.

· · ·

The absence of the Author (with Brecht, we might speak here of a real "alienation:' the Author diminishing like a tiny figure at the far end of the literary stage) is not only a historical fact or an act of writing: it utterly transforms the modern text (or — what is the same thing — the text is henceforth written and read so that in it, on every level, the Author absents himself). Time, first of all, is no longer the same. The Author, when we believe in him, is always conceived as the past of his own book: the book and the author take their places of their own accord on the same line, cast as a before and an after: the Author is supposed to feed the book — that is, he pre-exists it, thinks, suffers, lives for it; he maintains with his work the same relation of antecedence a father maintains with his child. Quite the contrary, the modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now. This is because (or: it follows that) to write can no longer designate an operation of recording, of observing, of representing, of "painting" (as the Classic writers put it), but rather what the linguisticians, following the vocabulary of the Oxford school, call a performative, a rare verbal form (exclusively given to the first person and to the present), in which utterance has no other content than the act by which it is uttered: something like the / Command of kings or the I Sing of the early bards; the modern writer, having buried the Author, can therefore no longer believe, according to the "pathos" of his predecessors, that his hand is too slow for his thought or his passion, and that in consequence, making a law out of necessity, he must accentuate this gap and endlessly "elaborate" his form; for him, on the contrary, his hand, detached from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin — or which, at least, has no other origin than language itself, that is, the very thing which ceaselessly questions any origin.

· · ·

We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single "theological" meaning (the "message" of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture. Like Bouvard and Pecuchet, those eternal copyists, both sublime and comical and whose profound absurdity precisely designates the truth of writing, the writer can only imitate a gesture forever anterior, never original; his only power is to combine the different kinds of writing, to oppose some by others, so as never to sustain himself by just one of them; if he wants to express himself, at least he should know that the internal "thing" he claims to "translate" is itself only a readymade dictionary whose words can be explained (defined) only by other words, and so on ad infinitum: an experience which occurred in an exemplary fashion to the young De Quincey, so gifted in Greek that in order to translate into that dead language certain absolutely modern ideas and images, Baudelaire tells us, "he created for it a standing dictionary much more complex and extensive than the one which results from the vulgar patience of purely literary themes" (Paradis Artificiels). succeeding the Author, the writer no longer contains within himself passions, humors, sentiments, impressions, but that enormous dictionary, from which he derives a writing which can know no end or halt: life can only imitate the book, and the book itself is only a tissue of signs, a lost, infinitely remote imitation.

· · ·

Once the Author is gone, the claim to "decipher" a text becomes quite useless. To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing. This conception perfectly suits criticism, which can then take as its major task the discovery of the Author (or his hypostases: society, history, the psyche, freedom) beneath the work: once the Author is discovered, the text is "explained:' the critic has conquered; hence it is scarcely surprising not only that, historically, the reign of the Author should also have been that of the Critic, but that criticism (even "new criticism") should be overthrown along with the Author. In a multiple writing, indeed, everything is to be distinguished, but nothing deciphered; structure can be followed, "threaded" (like a stocking that has run) in all its recurrences and all its stages, but there is no underlying ground; the space of the writing is to be traversed, not penetrated: writing ceaselessly posits meaning but always in order to evaporate it: it proceeds to a systematic exemption of meaning. Thus literature (it would be better, henceforth, to say writing), by refusing to assign to the text (and to the world as text) a "secret:' that is, an ultimate meaning, liberates an activity which we might call counter-theological, properly revolutionary, for to refuse to arrest meaning is finally to refuse God and his hypostases, reason, science, the law.

· · ·

Let us return to Balzac's sentence: no one (that is, no "person") utters it: its source, its voice is not to be located; and yet it is perfectly read; this is because the true locus of writing is reading. Another very specific example can make this understood: recent investigations (J. P. Vernant) have shed light upon the constitutively ambiguous nature of Greek tragedy, the text of which is woven with words that have double meanings, each character understanding them unilaterally (this perpetual misunderstanding is precisely what is meant by "the tragic"); yet there is someone who understands each word in its duplicity, and understands further, one might say, the very deafness of the characters speaking in front of him: this someone is precisely the reader (or here the spectator). In this way is revealed the whole being of writing: a text consists of multiple writings, issuing from several cultures and entering into dialogue with each other, into parody, into contestation; but there is one place where this multiplicity is collected, united, and this place is not the author, as we have hitherto said it was, but the reader: the reader is the very space in which are inscribed, without any being lost, all the citations a writing consists of; the unity of a text is not in its origin, it is in its destination; but this destination can no longer be personal: the reader is a man without history, without biography, without psychology; he is only that someone who holds gathered into a single field all the paths of which the text is constituted. This is why it is absurd to hear the new writing condemned in the name of a humanism which hypocritically appoints itself the champion of the reader's rights. The reader has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other man in literature but the one who writes. We are now beginning to be the dupes no longer of such antiphrases, by which our society proudly champions precisely what it dismisses, ignores, smothers or destroys; we know that to restore to writing its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author.

— translated by Richard Howard

jill sigman/thinkdance
raises questions through the medium of the body
www.myspace.com/182286423
http://www.thinkdance.org

Yesterday, on Broadway, I stopped outside the 99 cent store. There was a girl pushing her grandmother in a wheelchair. She had two pigtails. She might have been nine. Her younger brother circulated around them like a planet in a loopy orbit. The grandmother wanted to check the prices on a bin of specials in the street. Suddenly the girl began to sing. It was a strange, old-fashioned kind of singing, long warbly notes in a false falsetto, as if she were out of another time, or imitating something she thought that singing was supposed to be. It was beautiful and sinister and sad, this girl singing into the void while her grandmother picked through the irregular tube socks.

I don't know why I want to give this to you, but I do. I make art to put a frame around things that I see—to wrap them up and offer them for your attention, for your interest, for your caring, like a favorite Polaroid in a lovingly painted gold macaroni frame. I make art to remind you how fine-grained and odd and inexplicable the world can be. And if I can't bring you that per se-- the singing girl on Broadway-- I can make something like it with its own ineffable, ambiguous beauty. Something that I can put in a theater and repeat every night.

And that is why I am dismayed with what I see through the looking glass in my part-time job as a grantwriter. I see hard-working, budget-bending, well-intentioned cultural organizations and arts councils with a penchant for artistic one-liners— artworks whose content can be captured in one line, or maybe one paragraph— fully articulated, contained, exhausted, by those words. Concept art didn't die with 70s conceptual performance. It became the performance analog of corporate sculpture— quickly accessible, self-satisfied by the mere fact of its existence, challenging no one. But art should not be reducible to the proposals written to fund it.

What is important to me, and why I make art, are not about what and all about how. With too little time and too little money and too little certainty, how rarely enters the picture. What matters is only what—the work should be simple, or clever, or something that clicks. Something giant. Something placed on a historical spot. Maybe both. The power of the artwork is equated with its description. Through this lens, what moved me yesterday is just a girl singing poorly in front of a pile of socks.

But what is art all about? Shouldn't it reveal something about our humanity, our ability as people to feel and experience? Doesn't it help us notice what we forget to notice in daily life? Whether it does that is a matter of how. And that won't be revealed in a one sentence description. It's a matter of the artist, his or her process, skill, commitment to walking in the dark… and a little serendipity.

The problem—from a funding perspective—is, we won't know in advance whether the girl with the tube socks will be banal or fascinating. In a landscape of scarcity, many funders and curators want a guarantee. Quite understandably, they can't afford to have faith in the digging because—to be honest—it might lead nowhere. Artistic oneliners are more easily explained to corporate boards, unsuspecting taxpayers, liberal politicians. Guaranteed to reach many and be profound to none.

But art as we know it will become obsolete if we put our trust in fast food art. This is about believing in the power of art, really. Not just pretending to. And artists cannot be the only crusaders. Curators, funders, administrators, audiences have to remind people that the how matters, that powerful art is not formulaic or reducible to a shorthand description. And that will mean taking risks, sticking their necks out for art that may or may not work. Because that is the nature of art. It is not a product that comes with a warranty. It is a product of great openness and blindness­­—and we have to stop pretending that it isn't.









An experimental dance company based in New York City, jill sigman/thinkdance raises questions through the medium of the body. Founded in 1998 by choreographer and performance artist Jill Sigman, the company presents work that exists at the intersection of dance, theater and visual installation, often using non-traditional environments, formats, and ways of engaging the viewer. jill sigman/thinkdance has performed at such sites as a dilapidated Belgian printing house, a Croatian munitions storage building, a drained-out swimming pool, and a two-story 19th century gymnasium. Audience members have received instructions by cell phone, written on eggshells, and worn Superman T-shirts. The work of jill sigman/thinkdance grows out of Sigman's own history in classical ballet and modern dance, the visual arts, and academic philosophy. Trained extensively in classical ballet at the Joffrey Ballet School and Ballet Center of Brooklyn, Sigman discovered traditional modern dance forms at Princeton University, where she earned a Certificate in Theater and Dance. Eventually pursuing graduate studies at Princeton in analytic philosophy, Sigman became increasingly interested in linking her continuing work in dance and performance with the philosophical questions she was exploring. Upon completion of her Ph.D. in 1998, she wanted to give people a more visceral experience of thought than the printed word allowed, and formed jill sigman/thinkdance as a vehicle for that performative dialogue with audiences. To invite viewers to be intellectual playmates in artistic exploration, the company gravitates to alternative venues, socially conscious topics, and work that questions the borders of artistic disciplines.

"My Humps"
Single by The Black Eyed Peas
from the album Monkey Business

Peak chart positions

* #1 (Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Virgin Radio Airplay Chart.
* #3 (Belgium, Switzerland, UK, U.S.)
* #4 (Germany, Netherlands, Norway)
* #7 (Czech Republic, Finland)
* #11 (France)



From Wikipedia:
"My Humps" is the third single from The Black Eyed Peas' fourth album, Monkey Business. It samples a section of the song "I Need a Freak" by Sexual Harrassment. Released in 2005, it reached number three in the U.S., becoming the Black Eyed Peas' third top ten single in the U.S. The single also reached number three on the UK Singles Chart, their sixth top ten single on the chart. The song was not initially released as a single; "Don't Lie" was intended to be the lead-off release for the album. The song won the 2007 Grammy Award for "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal".



The official music video for "My Humps", directed by Fatima Robinson, premiered on TRL. It shows Fergie dancing with backup dancers as images of expensive items such as Louis Vuitton purses and jewelry, which is supposed to be the jewelry her men have bought her, appear on the screen. The other members of the Black Eyed Peas — Apl.de.ap, Taboo, and will.i.am — sing about how much they spend on Fergie as she sings about her "humps" and "lovely lady lumps". In some vignettes Taboo, Apl.de.ap, and will.i.am are behind women erotically dancing.

The video received the award for "Best Hip-Hop Video" at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards on August 31, 2006.

Alanis Morissette covered the song in 2007, seemingly as an April Fools' Day prank, although she has not confirmed this. In contrast to the original "My Humps", Morissette's cover is performed slowly and in the style of a ballad, with only a piano accompanying the vocal. On April 2, a video in which Morissette parodies Fergie's dancing moves in the original "My Humps" music video was added to the website YouTube. By April 3, the video was the most viewed on Technorati, and it was viewed 4 million times six days later. The Associated Press wrote that Morissette's "quiet, somber version only highlights the ridiculousness of Fergie's original lyrics". The video has been hosted on Morissette's official website. TIME Magazine stated that the parody proved that Morissette "under[stands]" irony, in reference to her hit single, Ironic. On April 15, Fergie confirmed to E! News that she thought that the cover was "hilarious," and "genius." Fergie also said that she sent Alanis a cake in the shape of a "derriere."



Morissette

Alanis Nadine Morissette (born in Ottawa, 1 June 1974) is a Canadian and naturalized[1] American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She ranks among the top selling recording artists in history,[citation needed] largely thanks to her multi-million selling third album, and she has won seven Grammy Awards.

Morissette began her career in Canada, and as a child recorded two dance-pop albums, Alanis and Now Is the Time, under MCA Records. Her international debut album was the rock-influenced Jagged Little Pill. Jagged Little Pill sold thirty million copies, making it the best-selling debut album of all time by a female artist.[2]

Morissette took up producing duties for her subsequent albums, including Under Rug Swept and So-Called Chaos. These garnered weaker reviews and lower sales.

Peaches (musician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(For other uses, see peaches)
(a peach is a type of fruit)

Peaches then covered the Alanis Morissette parody, changing the title again to "My Dumps". This version combines Peaches' original "My Dumps" lyrics with Alanis' melody.



Merrill Beth Nisker (b. 1968; Toronto, Canada), better known as Peaches, is an electronica musician. Her songs are mainly concerned with sex.[1] She lives and works in Berlin. Before she became "Peaches", she was an uncertified private elementary school teacher and librarian. She plays almost all the instruments for her songs, programs her own electronic beats and produces her records.

Her songs have been featured in movies such as Mean Girls, Waiting, Jackass Number Two, My Little Eye and Lost in Translation. Her music has also been featured on Showtime's The L Word television series. Peaches performed guest vocals on Pink's album Try This, on the song "Oh My God", and on the Chicks on Speed album 99 Cents, on the song "We Don't Play Guitars". She has been invited to lecture at the Contemporary Music Academy in Berlin.[citation needed]

For her 2006 album, Impeach My Bush, Peaches collaborated with musicians JD Samson, Radio Sloan, and drummer Samantha Maloney whom she affectionately calls The Herms (short for hermaphrodites). Together, Peaches and (the) Herms is a direct reference to 70's duo Peaches & Herb. Peaches and Herms was the opening act for Nine Inch Nails during the second half of their summer 2006 U.S. tour.

Peaches' music is preoccupied with gender identity. Her lyrics and live shows self-consciously blur the distinction between male and female; she appears on the cover of her album Fatherfucker with a full beard. When asked if she had chosen the title for shock value, she commented:

"Why do we call our mothers motherfuckers? Why do we stub our toe and say, "Aww motherfucker!"? What is a motherfucker? ... We use it in our everyday language, and it's such an insanely intense word. I'm not one to shy away from these obscene terms that we actually have in our mainstream. Motherfucker is a very mainstream word. But if we're going to use motherfucker, why don't we use fatherfucker? I'm just trying to be even."

She disputes accusations of "penis envy," preferring the term "hermaphrodite envy" since "there is so much male and female in us all". She does not shy away from identifying herself as a sexual being, rejecting the sanitized portrayal of women in popular music.

The Rolling Stone Interview: Iggy Pop
The legendary Stooge looks back on his forty-year reign as the world's wildest, craziest punk.

DAVID FRICKE with Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop vividly remembers the tiny cutoff-denim shorts and moccasins he wore onstage; the way he repeatedly hit himself with a drumstick, raising bloody welts all over his chest; his headfirst dive into the crowd. The Stooges -- Iggy, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton (Ron's brother) and bassist Dave Alexander -- had issued their then-new, now-legendary 1969 debut, The Stooges, and were opening for Joe Cocker at the World's Fair Pavilion in Queens, New York.

After the Stooges' set, Iggy recalls, "I walked out to the middle of the floor, in my shorts with these welts on my body, to talk to the talent agent Frank Barselona about possibly booking the group. He said, 'Iggy, I think in twenty years or so, you're going to be a very important guy. But for now, no thanks.' "

Iggy laughs in a rubbery subterranean growl. Half of the fun of listening to him tell Stooges war stories is his vivid comic delivery. The other half is the survivor's triumph punctuating each tale like a power chord. Iggy Pop -- born James Newell Osterberg in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1947, the mad lad whose kamikaze drug use and ritualistic physical extremism onstage almost killed him before the mid-Seventies -- turns sixty on April 21st.

He is a Stooge again, too. "I'd been in an impossible band, living an impossible life," he says, referring to the notorious on- and offstage chaos that split the Stooges after 1970's Fun House and again following 1973's Raw Power. "But never, since I met Ron and Scott, has a voice been raised between us, a fist made. There was nothing in our way." The Stooges (with bassist Mike Watt replacing the late Alexander, who died in 1975) have been touring since 2003 and are now playing songs from their first album in more than thirty years, The Weirdness.

For eight hours over two days, at the small house in north Miami where he and the Ashetons wrote The Weirdness, Iggy spoke about his entire life: his Michigan origins; the wild birth and crash of the Stooges; David Bowie's role in resurrecting the band and the records he and Iggy made in Berlin in the mid-Seventies; and, of course, he cracks, "the list of thirty-two important transgressions -- my stations of the cross."

But, he insists, before going deep into the mess, marvel and legacy of rock's first and still greatest punk band, "I don't think there was anything wired or weird about the Stooges when we started. We were just creative."

In "Trollin'," the first song on The Weirdness, you sing, "My dick is turning into a tree." Is that something even a Stooge should sing at sixty?
You write about things of importance to you. And it's gotta be for real. Do I think about my dick? Oh, yeah, all the time. If I think about it all the time, I got a right to sing about it. If I wasn't thinking about it all the time but thought, "It's time to write a rock song, I'd better mention my dick," then I wouldn't even be able to say "dick" right. Besides, it's an ecological line. It's not, "My dick is all bad, motherfucker, wickety wackety woo." It's nature-oriented. [Pauses, looking serious, then laughs] It is!

In another new song, "Claustrophobia," you sing, "My second mind is burying me alive." Is that Jim or Iggy? You've answered to both names for most of your life.
Jim has the second mind. I would call it the executive area. I'm wary of terms like "bipolar." But when I've read about that sort of thing, I've certainly seen my past in it.

Were your parents concerned about your behavior as a kid, to the point of taking you to a doctor?
You're asking, "Were there early warning signs of Iggy Pop?" [Laughs] Not at home. But in the third grade, I had a very stern teacher, Mrs. Bordine. I don't remember what I did, but in front of the class, she tied me to my chair with red twine. She tied it around my trunk, arms and legs -- for a significant period. I must have been fidgety that day. But were my parents worried? No.

I always felt that in rock & roll, something's gotta happen. I liked that word -- happening. If it wasn't going to happen in front of me, I was going to make it happen. I actually tried not to repeat myself. They say it was Stiv Bators [later of the Dead Boys] who handed me the peanut butter [during the Stooges' famous, nationally televised set at a 1970 festival in Cincinnati]. "He's strange, we'll give him peanut butter." That wasn't in the repertoire. But people started bringing it to the shows. I was like, "No, I'm not gonna fucking play with your peanut butter." I got involved with stuff that had some corny overtones. But I was never a corny thinker.

You have an unusual background by Detroit working-class-rock standards.You grew up in a trailer park, but your father was a college-educated high school English teacher.
My parents had been shocked and impoverished by the Depression. It made them careful and frugal. At first, as a teacher, my father made no money. So he got the idea of living in a trailer park. The rent was a dollar a day for the plot. I slept over the dinette, on a shelf. We were definitely the only college-educated family in the camp.

Once I hit junior high in Ann Arbor, I began going to school with the son of the president of Ford Motor Company, with kids of wealth and distinction. But I had a wealth that beat them all. I had the tremendous investment my parents made in me. I got a lot of care. They helped me explore anything I was interested in. This culminated in their evacuation from the master bedroom in the trailer, because that was the only room big enough for my drum kit. They gave me their bedroom.

Are there aspects of your father in you -- as Jim or Iggy?
Yes. Nobody's going to tell me what the fuck to do. And I don't like bullshit. Also, I like quiet -- less people around as opposed to more. He was that way.

And your mom?
She was unusually generous and nice to everybody, a person who sought harmony and equality in situations. I have some of that. I don't function well when there's conflict. I'm very nonconfrontational. People use "confrontation" a lot to describe what I do professionally. But that's one thing. Life's another.

When did your parents first see you play with the Stooges?
We did the Michigan state fairgrounds with the MC5. They sat in the grandstand. I had a fairly wild gig -- things thrown back and forth between a couple of audience members and the band. I saw my parents later and asked them about the gig. My dad, who had played some minor-league baseball, said, "You remind me of young pitchers I used to coach -- lot of speed, no control." But my mom didn't want me to feel bad. She said, "When everybody stood up, your dad climbed up a pillar, so he could get a better view." He was at least interested.

So they were aware of what you got up to onstage.
Oh, yeah. I did a show in the town where my dad taught. I broke a bottle over the mike stand -- I thought it looked cool. One girl who was particularly demonstrative in the front got a couple of minor cuts from the glass. She was holding her arms up in the spotlight. Blood was dripping down; she was screaming. There was a little ruffle in the household over that, because it was written up in the paper: POP GOES THE BOTTLES -- BRING BACK ELVIS. But nothing worse came of it. It was somewhere in the petty-infraction zone.

I've always been amazed that you ran for class president in high school. In the Sixties, that was the ultimate in straight.
From the moment I set foot in junior high and saw how the other half lived, I wanted nothing more than to be like them. Never could get it right. I saved my money and bought a pair of loafers. But they were red Hush Puppies. My socks were the wrong color. Nothing clicked for me, until I played drums in the talent show. People treated me differently.

Then, three years later, you're going psycho onstage at the Grande Ballroom. How do you account for the turnaround?
The day I got out of high school, no more haircuts. My haircuts had been enforced by my dad. I bought a bottle of Clairol Ultra Blue, dyed my hair platinum and started playing in a rock club full time: five sets a night, six nights a week, fifty-five bucks.

I started going wild -- getting drunk once in a while. Borrowed cars, crashing 'em. Got my first fingerprints and mug shot. And I was listening to two albums -- Bringing It All Back Home, by Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones Now! And maybe Out of Our Heads, by the Stones too.

What was it about Dylan and the Stones that hooked you?
I was learning song construction. How to write, how to play. How to make it feel. Music should never be too good, too tight. It should excite you. The Stooges' music is supposed to make me feel good. And I've always had faith that if I feel good, others will. That faith has been tested [laughs].

What did you learn -- and take -- from Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison when you started singing with the Stooges?
From Morrison, it was the way to stand at the mike -- the stance and the grab. He hung on the stand. Nobody else did that. The other thing was he might do anything -- and he doesn't respect you. You don't get respect for ten bucks -- sorry! From Mick Jagger, it would be his moving around while he performs the song. Also, the voice as an irritant. When he sang, it was the opposite of nice.

Did you feel that, as performers, they didn't go far enough?
They went as far as they needed to go. If I was going to work in the same direction, then I had to go farther. But it didn't necessarily mean more extreme. The Stooges went farther afield in our influences. We listened to [the acid-folk band] Pearls Before Swine and [avant-garde composer] Harry Partch. The drumbeat on "1969" is not a Bo Diddley beat. It's straight off a belly-dance record. Stone fucking Fertile Crescent.

How important was LSD in the birth of the Stooges?
I took too much. I really did. We were on LSD when we named the group. I was on it sometimes when we worked, particularly in the Fun House period. Also, I think it helped the other guys in the band. I was spending half my time talking everybody into the idea that we could do this. I was asking a lot -- to follow this insane guy, to make this creation music. There was no reason to believe it was going to go anyplace. But when we took LSD together, there were creative moments when everybody believed we could do something.

You got the nickname Iggy from your first band, the Iguanas. Where did you get the surname Pop?
Jim Popp was a friend of the Ashetons and Dave Alexander. They were part of a gang that cut school and sniffed glue together. I always thought Pop was a cool name. And it goes good with Iggy. If it had been left up to me, I would have been Jimmy James. But we played one gig and immediately got long column inches in the Michigan Daily. There was a review of Blood, Sweat and Tears. They got a paragraph. The rest of it was about everything we did. And it said, "Ex-drummer Iggy Osterberg." I said, "Fuck, I'm Iggy. But I gotta ditch the Osterberg." Which is a shame. I quite like the name now. It's a good name.

Did people actually applaud at your early shows?
My memory of the original years was a transfixed, frozen attention. Few people wanted to be anywhere near the stage. They would just stare. It was as if the audience was a gigantic cardboard cutout, a diorama. Nobody moved. Nobody went to the bathroom.

Little by little, people started liking it. It was mostly high school kids -- tenth graders. What we did didn't bother them. They thought the riffs were cool. The songs said something to them. And then there were the Ramones, sitting in Queens, going, "I can get with that. It's kind of simple." It didn't bother them at all.

You named the second Stooges album Fun House after your infamous band house in Ann Arbor. Describe daily life at the Fun House.
The idea was that it would be a place where we could live and rehearse and create. It was a lovely, three-story Michigan farmhouse with a stately lawn and what remained of a farmer's cornfield behind us. The farmer, Mr. Baylis, rented it to us for about $250 a month. It had nice woodwork and a lot of handcrafted things he had made. We weren't there a month before all the drains stopped working. You couldn't pee. You couldn't take a shower. You couldn't cook anything. Dave Alexander wore taps on his shoes, the kind greasers wore in schools to fight with. He tore up the woodwork on the floors.

But I remember a happy time -- some fairly healthy guys smoking weed on a daily basis, growing our hair, having sex with as many young fans as we could get to come over, taking our laundry out to our various mothers. We were just carrying on as an area band.

How much songwriting did you get done? Your early shows were short -- twenty, twenty-five minutes tops.
We had a few grooves. We had one that became the end of "Ann." I called that "I'm Sick." We had one not unlike "Little Doll" -- that was "Dance of Romance." We had one that came along later -- a descending chord passage that sounded like what the Sex Pistols did later in "God Save the Queen." We played that over and over, and I'd sing something.

Whatever came into your head?
Based on a prearranged phrase that would be the name of the song. And I would freestyle. I can rhyme quickly. I also had a series of hand signals -- like James Brown -- so we could switch from one riff to another, so the music never stopped. The main reason was I didn't want to give anyone a chance not to applaud: "As long as we don't stop, nothing'll go wrong."

We didn't have any songs. When we got a contract, then we had to write songs.

How did heroin change life at the Fun House?
We had a roadie living in the basement -- he introduced the band to skag. The first time I took it, I laid on the hood of an abandoned car we kept behind our house, thinking it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I felt awful. Every time I moved, I would heave -- for thirty-six hours. I thought, "I'm never going to touch this again."

Somehow, little by little, it crept in. It became a comfort -- a blanket, a refuge. I was a local blues drummer, making the transition to a songwriter and frontman in a competitive business, very quickly. I was trying to forge ahead, and I burned out. People around me, who weren't as intensely motivated as I, didn't get jonesed as bad.

Did heroin break up the original Stooges?
That and economics. And the group did not have a strong work ethic. I would have liked to see a bit more elbow grease. Then, at some point, I went crazy. I proved too fragile to do what I needed to do for the group. Had there been a system of rehab, had the group had savings, we might have been able to stop and regroup sensibly later. Instead, I did that at home with my parents' help. I got kind of halfway stable.

Was it hard to go home in that state?
Yeah. I was in and out. I was good and bad. It must have been a terrible strain on my mother and a big pain in the ass for my dad. I was crashing once in a while -- I'd get drunk or druggy for a day or two. But I was basically staying with my parents, taking a very modest and decreasing dose of a form of methadone -- Dolophine, the only methadone I've ever seen in the form of cherry syrup.

I looked great, if I do say so myself. There's something about that drug, when you're young and untroubled, that gives you an Indian-summer kind of look.

Was it hard later to see bands like Kiss and Alice Cooper score big with a cartoon version of the Stooges' shock tactics? Kiss opened for you in New York on New Year's Eve, 1973.
Dude, it's etched in my mind. Kiss were third on the bill that night, probably getting fifty bucks, but they had a giant KISS sign made of lights that must have weighed five hundred pounds. Obviously, someone poured money into this band. It was a business plan. Yeah, I remembered that later. And you have shared blame there. We had a cooler group, but I was too fucked up. I had become unsound, and no group with me in it was going anywhere.

How did you end up in New York for your fateful meeting with David Bowie at Max's Kansas City?
I'd been given a ticket to Florida by the manager Steve Paul to explore the idea of becoming a singer for Rick Derringer, late of the McCoys. Steve had seen the Stooges at the Goose Lake Festival [in 1970] and found my performance frightening. Then he chimed in with the usual litany: "Let's get this guy out of the group and put some real musicians around him."

I knew I wasn't doing that. I weasled out of that deal and ended up crashing at [ex-Elektra A&R man] Danny Fields' apartment in New York. I was there one night, watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on TV and getting misty, because I identified with it. I felt and still feel the business I'm in is more corrupt than I am. Then the phone rings, and it's Danny at Max's. It took three calls for him to get me there to meet David: "Look, this guy could help you."

Everything Bowie did for you as a fan and friend is well documented. But what did you do for him?
One thing I can tell you for sure: For three years, I was a guinea pig. If he had a new idea and wasn't sure how to approach it, he would write or arrange something in a similar manner for one of my projects. He had a period where he worked with personnel and engineers with me first, until he got the lay of the land. Then he would do his album with them. That was just a practical part of him.

Honestly, I gave him an outlet for an overflow of talent and ideas he had. The more obscure and weird the idea, that's what I wanted. As for whether he got ideas from me, he was soaking them up from everybody. Everything was a source. We went to Bali years later. He bought a gamelan and shipped it to Switzerland: "I can play that." And he did -- on "Loving the Alien" [on 1984's Tonight].

"Lust for Life" is the best and best-known song from your days with Bowie in Berlin. How much of it is autobiography?
It's William Burroughs, from The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. I loved that Dr. Benway line: "Love, what is it anyway? It's just like when you hypnotize a chicken." And there was Johnny Yen, the Venusian green boy -- he's gonna sell you the love con. He'll go through your closet while you're staring into space. I was mixing that with personal experience.

The riff was directly lifted from Armed Forces TV. I wonder if they still use it. At four o'clock in the afternoon, the channel came on with this black-and-white image of a radio tower, going beep-beep-beep beep-beep-ba-beep. Exactly like that. We were watching it one day, and there was a ukulele nearby. David grabbed it, said, "Get your tape recorder," and knocked it out on the ukulele.

What was your reaction when Royal Caribbean Cruises wanted to use it in a TV ad? It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate song for selling romantic getaways.
I was thrilled. And the song sounds great in there. I always paid attention to advertising jingles when I started writing songs. The first commercial the Stooges were in was a radio ad for the Detroit Dragway. They used a loop of the riff from "Real Cool Time" [on The Stooges], while the guy's going, "See the motherfucking death-defying funny car! Big Ed Son-of-a-Bitch and his nitro-burning. . . !" [Laughs] I was like, "Yes, yes!" We weren't paid, but I didn't even think about it. I was so proud.

Look, blood, sweat and tears never got me or my music a fair hearing in the totally fake, nauseating, entirely crapola commercial-radio system -- which is thankfully in its death throes. I hung out with those guys for years, doing horrible promo tours where you'd have to sit there and listen to the program director insult you if he wanted. You'd do an acoustic performance for his station, but he'd never play your fucking record. And he'd be laughing about it as you drive out of the parking lot. So am I happy to hear my music anywhere? Yeah. I don't like the art ghetto. I want a wider culture.

You are one of rock's premier icons of self-destruction. Do you feel any responsibility for those who died imitating your excesses, like Sid Vicious?
He was somebody who recognized destruction as a style, and I was one of many influences. I encountered him once, backstage at a Johnny Thunders gig. Sid was sitting with a beer in his hand, talking to somebody as normally as you and I are. In the split second when he saw me, he went [slumps down in his chair] -- that "I am totally stoned out of my mind and cannot communicate" pose.

I thought, "Oh, he spotted me." Or maybe the guy was just shy. A lot of people who get stoned -- they're just shy people. And there are people who hate what they are, who want to get rid of that part of themselves, to scrape it away. They look at me in certain periods, especially twenty years ago, as someone who did that -- who managed to be fucked up and . . . [Long pause]

Totally cool at it?
Yes. Then they live that out for themselves. But they can get something positive out of it, too. They get hope. People ask me for advice all the time, everything from "I'm going through a bad relationship" to "How do I get my art out there?" I get a lot of respect now. On airplanes, regular family folk now call me "Mr. Pop" -- with no irony. I like that.

Are there physical things you can't do onstage anymore?
[Points to the live "Raw Power"-era photo of himself on the front of his T-shirt] Can't do that! Can't bend over backwards and pick up an apple in my teeth. If I have to work two nights in a row, I'll jump real high on the first night. The second night, I'll get up about six inches.

I have a dislocated shoulder. I have a lot of cartilage lost in my right hip. Both knees are about to go. I have one leg about an inch and a half shorter than the other. When I was thirteen, I was run over by a big guy playing junior high football, and the right leg ended up a quarter-inch shorter. By my midtwenties, it was a half-inch. Then in the Eighties, I had no money and was taking packed economy flights everywhere, night after night. The combination of that schedule and a fall I took dancing on an amplifier left me with my spine twisted and a slight limp.

Aleve and tai chi brought me back. But as I began to lose unlimited use of my body, I had to start using my head. I'm a much more remarkable person mentally than physically.

Do you ever wonder how much longer you can be a Stooge?
I am working at what passes for full metal jacket for a guy of my vintage -- promoting, touring, running the band business, the whole fucking ball of wax. It's Ron Asheton's bloody fault [laughs]. We'd still be rehearsing if it was up to me. But he'd leave me these phone messages, usually between two and five in the morning: "Jim, you know when the commander tells the squad to take that hill? They just take it. They don't think about preparation. They just go, fast, now!" It's Pork Chop Hill for him.

I cannot keep it up forever. But I will work hard. These boys are hungry. And I owe them something. I was getting to a place in my career, before this hooked up, but I got here on their watch. My attitude is, I have the luxury and sanity to go out and see what happens. And when it begins to feel wrong in any way, then you withdraw.

Is that Jim talking -- or Iggy?
That's an interesting question. [Pauses, then grins] We do these things together. Because Iggy knows a lot of shit. One thing about Iggy -- he pays for Jim's life.

I'm saddled with a gigantic past to live up to, live down and generally live out. It has a humbling quality. It makes you realize, "Oh, I didn't always have this nice house." I wasn't always so shrewd. And it's not my favorite part of my life. I would rather be like a nice new penny that everybody loves [laughs]. But that is not my fate.

No, you are Mr. Pop.
And that's OK.

The New York Times

May 11, 2007
Music
Off the Beaten Beat
By MELENA RYZIK

ON Monday night inside the GlassLands Gallery, a converted warehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 100 or so people, alerted by MySpace pages and music blogs, gathered for a concert by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For an hour, the singer Karen O yelped and shrieked and pranced around a makeshift stage in a paint-splattered gold bodysuit, often wading into the audience a few feet away. At the end of the night the band took requests; to close the set, as her band mates played on, Ms. O paraded most of the crowd toward an alley behind the building, a musical moment as intimate as a reigning rock star can have.

"We hardly play small venues anymore, but this one is definitely special and personal," Ms. O said afterward. "My favorite kind of party to be at or show to see is a house show. This is as close as you get." Amid the teeter-totter energy that currently defines New York's music scene — where the lamented demise of one club is offset by the splashier opening of another — many artists can be found outside that playground entirely, performing at off-the-beaten-path locales like warehouses, rooftops, apartments or inside a Brooklyn oil silo.

Music fans with limited funds and a taste for adventure look forward to the summer concert season, which is about to turn the city's parks and other public spaces into musical free-for-alls. But there are already many places to see bands for little money, without sellout crowds, ticket surcharges or security pat-downs. (Yes, Virginia, there's even cheap beer.)

And the lineups are diverse. Experimental music did not die with the closing of Tonic, nor did grungy rock with the fall of CBGB. With a little planning and an active MetroCard you might catch the next Arcade Fire performing in a parking lot.

"Anything is a venue," said the promoter Todd Patrick, known professionally as Todd P. For six years he has made it his mission to program music in far-flung places, from divey bars in Greenpoint to Lutheran churches to private lofts. Now New York's alt-location guru, he has recently expanded to work with bands on the verge of stardom (Animal Collective, which he booked in 2005) and even nationally known acts (Oneida, Trans Am) at large clubs like Studio B in Brooklyn, winning the attention of the music industry.

But Mr. Patrick's hallmark remains the cheap, on-the-fly, do-it-yourself concert, promoted through his Web site (toddpnyc.com), his e-mail list (13,000 strong) and MySpace, blog and newspaper and magazine listings. Essentially a one-man band, Mr. Patrick, 31, has interns who work the door (ticket prices rarely go above $10) and stamp hands (he only does all-ages shows) while he helps set up.

"Because the idea is about D.I.Y., I like to show the strings," he said. "I want people to come to the show and see me build the P.A. system, see that there's nothing glossy about what we're doing. I think alternative venues are a great way of doing that. It just kind of throws it off. If a club is the quote-unquote appropriate place to see music, why do people have so much more fun in a warehouse?"

Last weekend was typical: On Saturday night he booked shows at two unexpected spaces, an Ecuadorian restaurant across from a low-income housing project in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and a loft apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. Both drew several hundred people to outer-borough neighborhoods not typically known as destinations.

The restaurant, Don Pedro, had a full menu of ceviche, $3 bottles of Negra Modelo and a small stage in a brick-walled back room where Cass McCombs, a singer with a Lou Reed croon, performed to a packed house. William Alberque, 36, a Defense Department analyst visiting from Washington and a longtime fan of Mr. McCombs's, said he preferred seeing him anywhere but a rock club. "The D.I.Y. spirit is wonderful," he said. "It's just you and the band, five feet away. You buy into what's happening so much more. It gives you musical butterflies."

At the loft there was even less distance (and more butterflies). The headliner, Dan Deacon, a sensitive electro-party rocker from Baltimore, performed on a patch of carpet in the middle of the room. No stage or bouncer separated him from his audience, which swarmed around, fists pumping, creating a heaving, dancing, steaming mosh pit. Even the walls vibrated.

In shorts, a sweat-soaked Mickey Mouse T-shirt and his trademark oversize red spectacles (think of Sally Jessy Raphael), Mr. Deacon leaned over his keyboard and mike, persevering despite sound problems. His 20-something fans had started singing along even before he passed out lyric sheets. Crowd-surfers easily reached the ceiling, and a camera crew from Vice magazine recorded the whole thing for hipster posterity.

Mr. Deacon, 25, credits Mr. Patrick with helping propel his career from unknown novelty act a year and a half ago to headliner today. (He plays the Mercury Lounge tomorrow.) "He helps out-of-town bands break and get known in New York more than anyone else I know," Mr. Deacon said in a bedroom after the loft show. Nearby, interns counted the door money; Mr. Patrick takes 10 percent before expenses (security, interns) and the rest goes to performers. (Mr. Deacon noted that he made more money at Mr. Patrick's shows than at regular club gigs.)

Along with low overhead other common traits of this scene include out-of-the way locations (a long walk from the subway is common), online promotion, candles instead of spotlights and a high tolerance for graffiti: GlassLands, where the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed as part of a video shoot, has two rooms where anyone can scribble on the walls, markers and paint provided. Many places lack proper licensing; Mr. Patrick switches locations often to avoid the authorities. (Don Pedro is a legal establishment with a liquor license; the loft space was not.)

Of course not every alternative site is scruffy or hard to reach — or illegal. The Apple Store in SoHo has free performances by bands like Blonde Redhead and the Bravery several times a month, often before their sold-out sets at major halls. At Monkey Town, a performance space and restaurant in Williamsburg, a back room lined with stylish, low-slung white sofas and walls outfitted with video screens offers a high-design setting for lo-fi acts.

The city's nonmusical cultural institutions also frequently book scene makers: Cat Power performed at the Museum of Modern Art this year, and later this month the American Museum of Natural History morphs into a disco with a D.J. party given by the event guide Flavorpill (rocking out beneath the blue whale garners at least as many cool points as trekking to an outer borough).

But adventure — or a sense of discovery — is important.

Perhaps the biggest wow factor lately comes from seeing a show at a former oil silo on a stretch of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Occupied for the last two years by Issue Project Room, an experimental arts organization, the silo is hidden behind an imposing metal gate with a small sign just off the Carroll Street bridge. Between the lapping (if occasionally stinky) water, the courtyard filled with poplar trees and the warm glow emanating from the two-story performance space — the top floor is reached by an exterior metal ladder — it's as far from mainstream clubland as you can get.

Rebecca Moore, a singer and violinist active in the protests over the closing of the Lower East Side club Tonic, performed at the silo last week. "I am very grateful for Issue Project Room," she said from the stage: a rug at the front of the room. "We couldn't get away with playing staplers at many other places."

And that's exactly the point, said Suzanne Fiol, the founder of Issue Project Room. "We are trying to be a breeding ground for experimental work, and we need spaces like this to nurture it," she said.

(Issue Project Room will leave the silo in July, but another group, MeanRed Productions, will move in. An outdoor concert series is planned; Nicodemus, a D.J. and founder of the traveling party Turntables on the Hudson, is already booked for Turntables on the Gowanus.)

And the alt-location audience is eager to trade accessibility for authenticity.

"It feels good to give money to something that's not so commercial," said Laurel Frazier, 42, a corporate travel agent who came to see Ms. Moore. "It seems more supportive of the artists and their freedom to do what they want to do."

For Mr. Patrick, who said he considers his bookings a form of being a curator, that independent spirit matters. "It actually does totally come up from the grass roots," he said. "There is not someone in a boardroom sitting around deciding what the new bands coming out of Bushwick are going to sound like. I really love going to shows, and I really think it should be a more purely appreciative-of-the-art experience than it often is."

And, he added, "almost inevitably there's a party afterward."

Ms. O, for one, appreciates Mr. Patrick's events, like a Deerhunter loft show she attended the night after seeing the band perform at Mercury Lounge. "The energy, the vitality of it, was on a different level," she said.

Though he's no longer working with Studio B, Mr. Patrick is being courted by several other places, including actual clubs in — gasp! — Manhattan, and he said he hopes to open his own legal space. (A previous attempt at an underground spot was halted by the authorities in 2005.) In the meantime he is working on a long-held dream to book a show in the upstairs dining room of a 24-hour Midtown or Wall Street deli. Because, well, why not?

www.brooklyneagle.com

Art

Arts & Entertainment: May 3
Changing the Atmosphere of Dance
by Carrie Stern (edit@brooklyneagle.net), published online 05-03-2007

By Carrie Stern
Information welcomed at
dancenews@brooklyneagle.net

Sometimes there is a moment when art shifts, changes. The next "new wave" reveals itself in bits and pieces — a performance, an interview, a production, a space — until a trend becomes apparent. Recently, and as far as I can tell only among resident Brooklyn choreographers, I've felt such an alteration, a new production/performance model evolving.

AUNTS is Californian Jamm Leary. Leary, who lives in Bed/Stuy, is a choreographer only "because it humbles me and I can curate only if I understand" what choreography takes. She thinks hard about how dance is presented, how it is performed. "AUNTS is about having dance happen," reads the AUNTS manifesto. "The dance you've already seen, that pops into your head, that is known and expected and unknown and unexpected. Dance that seeps into the cracks of street lights, subway commotion…drunk nights at the bar." Early on Leary noticed she didn't like sitting in the dark at concerts. "I want to talk about what I'm seeing, to walk around. I want music and alcohol. I want people to be loose, like when you go see music." With Rebecca Brooks she decided to "test a model of producing dance/performance/parties with multiple, overlapping performances happening at the same time lasting five seconds or five hours; never a 'work in progress.'"

Leary never charges for events or for the food or drink that are part of every event. Cabaret-like, performances often start late — 9 p.m. — and last into the early morning. On March 30 Individual Viewing Experience took shape at Space Space, a performance space and gallery the size of a small store on the ground floor of a small brick apartment building in Ridgewood, Brooklyn. With living quarters in the front, the back end is a loft-like expanse of wood floor edged with table, chairs, bookshelves, fridge and stove. Near the entrance the "free boutique" — admission requires bringing something, even a chapstick, for the boutique or free bar — displays hand-me-down T-shirts and dresses hanging from bike wheels, books piled in bookcases. People take what they want; whatever's left at the end of the evening goes to a charity.

Around the room videos of the evening's performers, what Leary calls "dead" performances are playing on a random collection of screens. Leary likes the idea of "people walking into 'the dead'" and waiting for live performances. One end of the room is curtained; a long, ragged line stands patiently, jovially, waiting, people kiss hello, chat, mostly about life as an artist. Beer is swigged, Jamm makes screwdrivers and serves them, bags of pretzels and popcorn are on a table. Everything is free. A masked group hands out cards with instructions. Mine reads, "tango with Michael Jackson." A woman in a Jackson mask grabs me in a tango hold while our picture is taken.

Leary envisioned Viewing Experience as a "simulating home entertainment system." A woman with a clipboard and a tiny hourglass monitors the audience, admitting one every minute. Watching alone, each audience member has a "solo" experience. Of course, it's hard to control; couples enter together, people don't leave. As the evening progresses the couch seating becomes party-like rather than a private viewing. Nonetheless, the experience, particularly when I was almost alone, is like no other performance. Akin, I imagine, to the experience of a peep show, the performer is there for you alone. The shortness of your stay, if you abide by the rules, makes the performance mysterious, it has no beginning or end. Enter again and the channel has flipped.

In reality, Individual Viewing is an unusually large showcase of 24 performers. None of those I saw were ready for prime time, but evidence of what Leary calls her generation's interest in incorporating and appropriating movement from elsewhere was abundant. The event is the true performance. Like site-specific work, happenings, and the participatory structures of some dance/performance in the middle of the last century, this new trend melds social life and artistic work.

It's hard to be in the forefront. The traditional structure of performance is familiar, the paths to completion set. Structures like Leary's require inventing a new template. Leary "doesn't feel embarrassed asking for favors" for instance when she's looking for a free space, but it can be tiring and trying. Leary is currently planning a project with more traditionally staged presentations; she may even charge $3. The last dancers who played with similar non-traditional formats — Judsonites, Grand Union, Meredith Monk, Trisha Brown — eventually moved to traditionally staged presentations. It's hard to make a living otherwise. Here too Leary is trying to think outside the box. Rather than a not-for-profit she's looking in to for-profit incorporation backed by arts investors. And she wants to do it in Brooklyn.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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FULL WRITE-UP OF SESSION

Here are Bob Yesselman's (Director of Dance/NYC) notes from "International Perspectives on American Dance."

On Friday, January 19th, 2007 just prior to the official opening of the Association of Performing
Arts Presenters conference (APAP), I attended a session presented by the Dance Working Group, a consortium of dance organizations, among them Dance/USA, that each year present a forum for ideas looking at big picture issues in dance. Each year, the Dance Working Group chooses a topic both relevant to what's going on now in dance, and provocative in the ideas put forth. This year was no exception. The topic was How American Dance is Viewed by the Rest of the World and provocative was an understatement. The session was moderated by Carolelinda Dickey, principal consultant of Performing Arts Strategies, working in international exchange (a former member of the NYC dance community and former presenter) and facilitated by Andrea Snyder, Executive Director of Dance/USA.

The four speakers were:
- Cees de Bever: Director of Performing Arts, Consulate General of the Netherlands
- Jennifer Barry: Director of Dance Down Under (Australia) and a producer of dance
- Mark Staub: Director of Dance for the Canada Council
- Mayumi Nagatosi: Director of AN Creative (Japan) and a producer of dance

I must stress that each speaker spoke about perceptions abroad and each was quick to acknowledge they were speaking in generalities. I will try very hard not to editorialize. Here's what they had to say:

Cees de Bever (Netherlands)
* Production values of American dance are very low which places our work at a competitive disadvantage in the market place. Cees was very quick to point out that he was very aware of the financial conditions under which we operate in the U.S.
* American dancers are not as well-trained or strong as they once were.
* While many countries financially support native companies to tour abroad; there was very little reciprocity for American companies.
* Since so few American companies are touring abroad, there is very little knowledge of the vast diversity of American dance.
* We are not helped by the current political image of America abroad.
Cees had some recommendations:
* Take a hard look at which American companies are really suitable for export.
* Study international exchange programs closely and adapt to American reality.
* Find the money to bring international presenters to the U.S. to build relationships just as many countries bring American presenters to see their work.

Jennifer Barry (Australia)
* There seems to be a huge focus on the body in American work and promotional materials (she mentioned having received hundreds of postcards from American companies prior to APAP and that every single one was a body image) as opposed to dance in Australia which is much more concerned with concept.
* American dance does not display a cohesive integration of design, lighting and music (production values again).
* Australians tend to resist American-style hype and "showbiz."
* There is much less reverence for the American "masters" - they are perceived as old-fashioned.
* There is a sense that American dance is overly concerned with "pretty" work as opposed to the character-drive, narrative work now popular abroad.
* Australia's subsidy system allows artists the freedom to make less commercially-driven work.
* There is the sense that American dance lacks humor and is very "earnest" with a preoccupation with, in her words, "the pure essence of dance."

Mark Staub (Canada)
* Many in Canada associate American dance as being of a very specific time (the 60's and 70's) and place (NYC).
* Dancers in Canada know the "masters," and many of them have studied with them, but have very little knowledge of what else is happening in American dance.

Mayumi Nagatosi (Japan)
* There is a sense in Japan that American dance's time is over and that in the last 15 years European dance has become more important.
* The current generation of Japanese choreographers have been influenced by European artists, not American.
* American dance is perceived, in her words, as "old-fashioned" and "boring."

I came away from the session with what seemed to be two major themes. First, the lack of production values in current American work coming, I think, from two sources - our chronic lack of money (if we can get a work to a stage in street clothes we consider ourselves lucky) and, as the Australian speaker mentioned, our focus on the body alone in space and our concern with the "essence" of dance. Let me be clear, I attach no value judgments to either of these viewpoints - that's what makes soccer matches. Secondly, that American work is perceived as old-fashioned and still beholding to our great pioneers and masters. Again, it seems to me, money is partly the culprit. We have so little export of current American dance nowadays that this perception is, in part, understandable. I also found it interesting to note that two of the speakers and many members of the audience also mentioned that they had all come to the U.S. (NYC in particular) for study and training.
It was quite a morning.
Bob Yesselman
Director
Dance/NYC
http://greatdance.com/danceblog/archives/conference/000709.php -- more info about touring

BUILDING ONLINE PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS FOR DANCE COMPANIES AND PRESENTERS
In this post I'm continuing with my coverage of the APAP Conference. Click here to read my other conference posts.
On January 19th, the Dance Working Group presented a 3-hour session, "International Perspectives on American Dance." During the first part of the session international presenters (non-US presenters) shared their perspectives about dance in the US. Then, during the second part of the program, there was a lively, facilitated discussion about how US-based dance companies can respond to the challenges of touring abroad.
Immediately below, I quote from Bob Yesselman's excellent write-up about this educational session, which highlights some of the limitations of US dance as perceived by international presenters. Bob Yesselman is the director of Dance/NYC and he gave me permission to reprint his notes from this session in their entirety, which you'll find at the end of this post. Then in the following section, I offer my suggestions on how US-based dance companies in conjunction with international presenters can use the Internet to increase exposure and touring opportunities abroad.
Session Recap
Bob Yesselman concludes his write-up of this program with the following passage:
I came away from the session with what seemed to be two major themes. First, the lack of production values in current American work coming, I think, from two sources - our chronic lack of money (if we can get a work to a stage in street clothes we consider ourselves lucky) and, as the Australian speaker mentioned, our focus on the body alone in space and our concern with the "essence" of dance. Let me be clear, I attach no value judgments to either of these viewpoints - that's what makes soccer matches. Secondly, that American work is perceived as old-fashioned and still beholden to our great pioneers and masters. Again, it seems to me, money is partly the culprit. We have so little export of current American dance nowadays that this perception is, in part, understandable. I also found it interesting to note that two of the speakers and many members of the audience also mentioned that they had all come to the U.S. (NYC in particular) for study and training. It was quite a morning.
Using the Internet to Increase International Bookings and Touring Opportunities for US Dance Companies
If the production and aesthetic limitations, as expressed by international presenters, of US dance companies holds true across the board, then there's not much that the Internet can do to help American dance companies get more bookings abroad. But as the panelists pointed out, they were generalizing -- so there are almost definitely many US dance companies that are not touring not due to difference in artistic approach but because of limited marketing budgets and poor communication channels.
Two questions shared by audience members struck me during this session - sorry I can't attribute them: 1) how do dance companies in the US find the right contacts abroad for exploring opportunities to perform in different countries, and 2) how are matches made between presenters and dance companies that are "aesthetically compatible."
Of course a conference like APAP with 1,000+ dance showcases and lots of face-to-face networking is a great forum for exploring booking opportunities abroad. But on a daily basis, as managers and agents seek new performance opportunities for their dance companies and clients, the number of available and inexpensive networking and marketing opportunities dwindle.
So here's my specific answer on how to use the Internet to solve these challenges:
First, professional-focused social networking sites offer a great way for US dance companies and international presenters to communicate, network and do business.
There's lots of talk about MySpace, a social networking site that many dance companies use. But MySpace is essentially a public forum. That's not what we need in this case. A better site is one such as LinkedIn - a social networking site for forming and managing professional relationships with "trusted contacts" and the contacts of your trusted contacts.
(I'm discussing LinkedIn in theoretical terms. I have not used this service yet, but I keep meaning to create a profile to expand my own marketing and networking opportunities).
In other words, you only communicate with those within the international dance world with whom you wish to do business. And over time, you expand your trusted network one by one so that you can increase networking and business opportunities in a focused and meaningful way.
This type of online marketing and community-building among trusted friends is very easy to initiate. It would only take a handful of dance companies and presenters to get started - actually, it would really just take two people. Then the initial participants could invite others they trusted to join their network of contacts.
Basic accounts are free and there are different levels of professional accounts that range from $60 per year all the way to $2,000 per year. I'm guessing that for what I'm proposing in this post, only a free account or a "Personal Plus" account at $60 per year would be needed, but I'm not sure and I'll have to find out more. Here's LinkedIn pricing information.
To get back to the two questions I mentioned above that resonated with me during the dance forum:
1) As this low-cost, international network of dance companies and presenters expands, it will become easier and easier to ask your trusted contacts who you should reach out to in order to pursue a specific business opportunity in a different country.
2) As this professional network expands, it will also be easier to find "aesthetically compatible" matches between dance companies and presenters. A new LinkedIn service called LinkedIn Answers makes this process even easier because you can post a question to all of your trusted contacts about any subject you wish - including finding the right match between presenters and dance companies.
But the process of bringing together presenters and dance companies online will be somewhat limited unless dance companies significantly expand and enhance the booking sections of their own websites. As things stand now, most dance company websites provide very little helpful information for presenters. On most "Booking Information" web pages, there is almost never a comprehensive overview of what performances and related offerings a dance company can actually provide. Plus, you'll very rarely find video excerpts from performances. So a presenter may be encouraged to learn more about a specific dance company via LinkedIn, but they will soon have to turn to offline channels due to a lack of helpful Web-based content. Nothing wrong about going offline, but it wastes lots of time and energy and usually requires that a dance company send DVDs to a different country before discussions can resume.
So for dance companies and presenters to truly take advantage of online networking and marketing opportunities, both a professional social networking site would need to be embraced and the quality and scope of dance company websites would have to be improved.

we are trying to get a grant for AUNTS from LMCC. below is our application.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Swing Space Application Worksheet

AUNTS IVE

Contact Information:

Ms. Jamm Leary
email: aunts.here@gmail.com
URL: www.myspace.com/aunts


Organization Information:

Jamm Leary
AUNTS


Recommendations:

Carla Peterson, Artistic Director, Dance Theater Workshop (former Executive Director of Movement Research), advocate, carla@dtw.org, 212-691-6500 ext. 380

Levi Gonzales, Dance Artist, advocate


YES – I have attended a session
Word of Mouth and Online Research

Page 2


Performing Arts
Self Produced Performance
Dance

Artist Biography

Artist Biography: (limit 500 words) Please describe your professional activities
and accomplishments including awards, exhibitions, performances, and
education (provide year of any degrees received). Describe your work and
artistic concerns. Provide a list of venues (name and location) that have
presented your work over the past three years minimum. If your activities are
too numerous to list in this space, select the most relevant or most significant.


The mission of AUNTS is to develop working models for performance events that communities can adapt for their own purposes. AUNTS is focused towards getting people excited about presenting work outside of the 'typical dance model'. Aspects of the 'typical dance model' that AUNTS works to change include the audience being required to sit quietly watching shows that artists routinely go broke producing. AUNTS creates alternative models for sustainable self-production where artists can present work that is current and relevant to their community. AUNTS addresses the dire financial reality of the state of the arts and works to transcend the notion that there are not enough resources available for artists. AUNTS embraces the freedom that accompanies an unregulated creative environment.

AUNTS founders Rebecca Brooks and Jamm Leary began curating performance events in 2005 with the first AUNTS Fall Bash. The Fall Bash was a series of five events at The Event Center, a community space in Bed-Stuy, and at the Coz, a Williamsburg loft space and rock show venue. In 2006, the AUNTS Fall Bash was reinvented as Aut 4 One, a series of four semi-monthly events at The Event Center. Aut 4 One carried forward the general situation of the Fall Bash, but placed the curatorial authority into the hands of the artists. Each event in the set of four was curated by the artists from the previous event. The AUNTS Late Show is another model, which occurred as three Saturday Night Live-Conan O'Brian-Pina Bausch inspired weekly events. The Late Show was hosted by Panetta Movement Center and Canada Gallery. The Late Show model included a resident dance team of thirteen and each weekly event featured a different dance captain, host, conversationalist, guest artist, DJ and band. In addition to producing innovative situations for performance, AUNTS also creates unique structures for community dialogue and impromptu performances. AUNTS was invited by Movement Research Open Source Festival curators to program the Bull Yard Bash, a panel discussion on the future of dance. Artists have also performed under the auspices of AUNTS in auxiliary events, such as AMBUSH, curated by Jonah Bokaer, and Build-Decay, curated by Lauren Rosetti.

In 2007 AUNTS continues its artist-driven mission to develop alternatives to the 'typical dance model'. AUNTS recently received funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Regrant Progam, to help support the 2007 Fall Bash. AUNTS was the subject of a Critical Correspondence interview through Movement Research in December 2006 and is also being featured in the Spring 2007 issue of Contact Quarterly for 'Favorite Alternative Performance Venues'.

AUNTS Dancing, The Tank, Tribeca, 2/17/07
STORM, Brooklyn Fire Proof, Williamsburg, 12/18/06
Aut 4 One, The Event Center, Bed-Stuy, 9/28/06, 10/19/06, 11/9/06, 12/7/06
AUNTS Half-Time, The Woodser, Williamsburg, 11/2/06
XXOX, 111B Conselyea Street, Williamsburg, 6/6/06
The Late Show, Canada Gallery, Lower East Side, 3/17/06
The Late Show, Panetta Movement Center, Midtown, 3/3/06, 3/10/06
Bull Yard Bash, The Tank, Midtown, 12/18/05
Fall Bash, The Event Center, Bed-Stuy, 10/19/05, 11/2/05, 11/16/05
Fall Bash, The Coz, Williamsburg, 10/5/05, 11/30/05

500 Words


Project Description


AUNTS seeks support from the LMCC Swing Space Program to support the development of IVE:

Individual Viewing Experience. IVE presents an opportunity for artists working in live performance to consider the unique value of their work within a contemporary community context.

One of the most important parts of any AUNTS event is the socializing that takes place before and after performances. IVE creates an environment where this social space exists in perpetuity, for the duration of the evening. At IVE the space is divided into two parts, (1) the entrance space, which features multiple video installations, and (2) the live performance space. The entrance space acts as an antithesis to the live performances taking place on the other side of the curtain/wall/screen. Audience members line up to enter the performance space, into which only one audience member is admitted at a time, in one-minute increments, to view the performances. The anticipation of entering the performance space becomes the basis for a fervent communal experience.

Collected from the artists performing that evening, the video installations offer a combination of old performance and/or recent projects. The videos may serve as an extension of – or a distraction from – the live work that each artist is performing that evening. The format and structure of the live performance is determined by the twenty artists invited to present work in each event. Artists are welcome to perform work that lasts anywhere from one second to beyond the entire evening. During the two-week residency that precedes each performance, artists will have the opportunity to explore these possibilities by developing their work in the space. AUNTS artists frequently perform simultaneously or in overlapping formats determined at the discretion of the other artists. The social, theatrical and architectural situation of IVE fosters the potential for artists to reformat their work in ways that would not be possible in a 'typical dance model.'

With Swing Space as its foundation, IVE forms a temporary community surrounding each bi-weekly performance event. The space will be monitored by an AUNTS ambassador during the two week residencies, which are also open to visitors welcome to engage with and observe artists during the creative process.

The first run of IVE is being presented March 30, 2007 at Space Space in Bushwick, the home of eagle-ager, a multi-media rock band. The tentative roster of curated artists for this production include: Anna Sperber, Biba Bell, Christine Elmo, Christine Shallenberg, Daniel Linehan, eagle-ager, Leah Morrison, Luciana Achugar, Maria Hassabi, Megan Byrne, Michael Helland, Neil Greenberg, Noopur Singha, Ray Roy, Regina Rocke, Robbinschild, Vanessa Anspaugh, Walter Dunderville, and more artists TBA. Artists performing in the next round of IVE will be curated in the Spring of 2007.



Key Artistic Personnel

Jamm Leary was born and raised in San Francisco, California and continues to be influenced in all aspects of her life by the need to engineer earthquake resistant infrastructures, buildings as well as water systems, models that are solid in their flexibility. She has lived in Brooklyn, NY for the past six years, has been assistant to
Karole Armitage, assistant to and performer with Sarah Michelson, apprenticed for the
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, costumed the work of RoseAnne Spradlin and Anna Sperber, danced for the late Mel Wong, and currently dances for Luciana Achugar, Walter Dunderville, Nancy Garcia and Nancy Meehan. With Rebecca Brooks, she started AUNTS (www.myspace.com/aunts). She put together Modern Garage Movement, a Summer 2006 West Coast tour of her own work in garages, packing sheds, and galleries, and is in the throes of planning another one for Summer 2007, (www.myspace.com/moderngaragemovement).

Michael Helland is a dance and performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York, and is a native of Seattle, Washington. While studying Community and Environmental Planning and Dance at the University of Washington, Helland began exploring the role of performance in contemporary society, and has developed a unique body of work that addresses the human body in relation to the communal body. He has been presented widely throughout venues in New York City and abroad, including Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, La Mama ETC, New Dance Alliance, Community Education Center (Philadelphia), and Studio 303 (Montreal), among others. Helland is also the recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant (2006) and the Field's Artward Bound Residency (2006) at Earthdance (Massachusetts). His choreographic work has been curated in programs by Miguel Gutierrez and Tere O'Connor and he was selected to participate in Form and Practice – an intensive choreographers workshop led by Dean Moss and Levi Gonzalez – at The Kitchen (2005) and in the Bessie Schönberg Laboratory in Composition – under the direction of Ishmael Houston-Jones – at Dance Theater Workshop (2006). Helland curates Brink, a dance series at Dixon Place, and has also been invited to serve on artist-based panels with the Brooklyn Arts Council (2004-2005) and the American Dance Festival/New York (2006). In 2007, he was a guest artist with the Sundown Schoolhouse in Dancing 9 to 5 at the Whitney and will be presenting work in Movement Research at Judson Church, in Catch at Galapagos (Williamsburg), and in the Visiting Artist Program at The Chocolate Factory Theater (Long Island City).

AUNTS Artists are rarely confirmed more than one or two months in advance of any event. This methodology supports the curatorial mission of AUNTS to foster a non-precious approach to making work outside of the 'typical dance model'. The works that are created reflect a sense of immediacy, cultural currency and a do-it-yourself mentality that acknowledges the economic reality of working in the arts. Artists on the AUNTS roster (as of February 2007) include: Adina Elena Grigore, Air Waves, Alex Escalante, Amanda Stevenson, Andrew Ulrich, Anna Craycroft, Anna Sperber, Anneke Hansen, Antonietta Vicario, Autumn Widdoes , Becky Serrell, Beth Gill, Biba Bell, Black Sounds, Brian Belott, Candice Gorman, Carla Peterson, Charlotte Gibbons, Chase Granoff, Chim, Chris Peck, Christine Elmo, Christine Shallenberg , Chrysa Parkinson, Claudia Cogan, Daniel Linehan, Danielle Charboneau, David Hurwith, Dawn Springer, DD Dorvillier, Deborah Gorman, Dillon de Give, eagle-ager, Ede Thurrell, Eleanor Dubinsky, Eliza Axelson-Chidsey, Emily Kaemmerlen, Emily Wexler, Enrico Wey, Erik West, Erika Hand, Errin Delperdang, Faye Driscoll, Felicia Ballos, Gelsey Bell, Geoffrey Nosach, Heart the Band, Heather Kravas, Hedia Maron, Inge Pop, Isabel Lewis, Janet Panetta, Jbird Leary, Jesse Alpern, Jessica Cook, Jessie Dessus, Jessie Gold, Jillian Pena, Jon Monianci, Jonah Bokaer, JP Schlgelmilch, Juan Alduey, Julie Alexander, Juliette Mapp, Justine Lynch, Karinne Keithley, Katy Pyle, Kayvon Pourazar and Malika Green, KJ Holmes, koosil-ja, Larissa Velez, Laurel Dugan, Laurie Berg, Lauryn Siegel, Leah Morrison, Leila Lee Dallion, Lights, Lise Serrell, Luciana Achugar, Lucy Yim, Luke Fasano/Tei Blow, Malcolm Rollick, Margit Galanter, Mark Creegan, Marla Hooch, Matthew Welch, Megan Byrne , Melanie Maar, Meredith Drum, Michael Helland, Michael Mahalchick, Michael Portnoy, Mike Pride, Milka Djordjevich, Molly Mae Macgregor, Molly Merkler, Moore Teeth, MYSTERY, Nancy Forshaw-Clapp, Nancy Garcia, Neal Beasley, Noopur Singha, Paddy Johnson, Peggy Gould, Phi Lee Lam, Phyllis Lamhut, Polly Motley, Randy J. Hunt, Rebecca Brooks, Regina Rocke, Renee Archibald, RobbinsChilds, Sam Kim, Sandy Williams, Sara Marcus, Sara Smith, Sarah Eaves, Sean McElroy , shearcon co., SKINT, Stacy Grossfield, Stephen Ellwood, Stosh, Tara Lorenz, The Brainstormers, Treva Wurmfield, Victoria Reina del la Luna-Rosenstein, Walter Dunderville, WILD LASERBERRY, Will Bowling, and Willa Carroll.

AUNTS is about having dance happen. The dance you've already seen, that pops into your head, that is known and expected, and unknown and unexpected. Dance that seeps into the cracks of street lights, subway commotion, magazine myth, drunk night at the bar, the family album, and the couch where you lay and softly glance at the afternoon light coming in through the window. AUNTS constantly tests a model of dance performance parties. A model that is meant to be adopted, adapted, replicated and perpetuated by anyone who would like to use it. A model where dance presses on the scriptures of the traditional theatrical setting and the frame-work it entails, if it wants; where in a performance setting, it can last five seconds or five hours; where it is considered temporally finished, never a "work in progress"; where it is backed by the "land of plenty" rather than "there is not enough"; where it confronts on its own terms the regulation of institution, capitalism, consumerism, and commoditization. A model that supports the development of this current, present, and contemporary art form. AUNTS is about being gracious. Thank you.

Reason for Seeking Temporary Space

Reason for seeking temporary space: (limit 500 words) Please describe any
special needs or opportunities that would be addressed if you received a Swing
Space. How would access to a Swing Space help you to meet your professional
and artistic goals?

Part of the success of AUNTS comes through the diversity of models for performance situations. Each set of events is always distinct from the others, particularly in regards to the way work is formatted and the structures for artistic involvement. Instead of finding something that works and perpetuating it, the nature of AUNTS is one of discovery and innovation. AUNTS actually hopes that people will steal our ideas and make them their own, empowering artists to produce their own events, or at least recognize the potential to do so. In order to continue the actualization of its investigative mission, AUNTS needs free temporary space to make these events possible. An LMCC Swing Space would ensure the viability of a Summer 2007 event series and would be the perfect container for IVE.

The first AUNTS Fall Bash, in 2005, was made possible by a generous grant from Ritual & Research, which contributed $1,600 towards the rental of The Event Center, a community space in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. This monetary resource provided the support to make the AUNTS initiative a reality. The do-it-yourself ethos of AUNTS has made it possible to continue producing successful events with minimal additional expenses. Most recently, AUNTS received funding from the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) Community Arts Regrant Program to support the development of the 2007 Fall Bash, which will take place as five semi-monthly installments at The Event Center from October to December. The curatorial model for this event will be an innovation on the Aut 4 One 2006 model, where artists from the first event curate an artist to represent them in the next event, and so on and so forth, so that an unpredictable artistic lineage is created over the course of the five events. In accordance with the mission of AUNTS, the exact curatorial model will not be fully realized more than a few months before hand. This method creates the space for permeability and responsiveness so that the programming and production model is relevant to the ever-shifting collective consciousness and social philosophy of our experimental artistic community.

A Swing Space would provide the necessary foundation for IVE. Together, IVE and the Fall Bash would comprise the two major AUNTS event seriates of 2007. IVE, in particular, is an excellent model to develop in a Swing Space because the format of this event can be adapted to suit a myriad of architectural situations and community settings. AUNTS acknowledges that part of the nature of acquiring a Swing Space involves a tentative waiting game, where finalists tread the water of a merit and feasibility-based waiting list. This component of the process, which could have deleterious effects on many projects, or at least become a point of tension and stress for many artists, is not an obstacle or hindrance for AUNTS. The resourceful and spontaneous nature of AUNTS is an asset to the Swing Space programming model. This is how AUNTS works.

496 words

Workplan

Work Plan: Please provide a project timeline describing the activities you will
undertake in the space. Provide relevant dates where appropriate. If you are
applying in the installation, exhibition, or performance category, please indicate
installation dates, exhibition/performance period and de-installation dates.
Inform us of the days and hours your project will be open to the public and
describe how it will be staffed.

AUNTS would benefit from a Swing Space self-produced performance during any period in the Summer of 2007. AUNTS can accommodate a flexible range of production dates, and with minimal notice AUNTS can swing into action and bring an entire event series into fruition with one to two months notice. IVE will require dedicated access to a Swing Space for a period of approximately six-weeks. Over this period, the programming of IVE will result in a three-part performance series and open-rehearsal residency for curated AUNTS artists. Participating artists will be curated at the appropriate time in the Spring of 2007.

Artists selected to perform in each event will have the opportunity to work in the Swing Space, collectively and individually, for the entire two-week period preceding their performance date. The space will be open for rehearsals from 10am to 8pm six days per week. During this period the space will be open to the general public and will be monitored by an AUNTS ambassador. The ambassador will be responsible for securing building access and greeting visitors to the space. The general public is invited to view artists in the creative process and to meet and engage with artists in a communal setting. The ambassador is also responsible for maintaining a daily blog entry on the AUNTS Myspace page, which communicates the events of the day through text, video, and photo documentation.

Each two-week residency will culminate in a one night performance event in the Swing Space. This performance will be formatted within the context of IVE – meaning that the space will be separated into live (performance) and dead (video) spaces and artists will decide how exactly these spaces manifest themselves (it could be different in each event). Over the course of the residency artists will have determined a program order, and a degree of overlap, isolation, or simultaneity between their performances. The show will start at 8pm and will be free and open to the public. The performance events will be staffed by AUNTS ambassadors with additional volunteer support.

The general public will be notified of the Swing Space performances and open-rehearsal periods through an aggressive electronic and print media campaign. AUNTS will send a press release to all major New York City print and electronic media sources. A poster/flyer will also be produced and distributed to a network of artistic community hotspots throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Additionally, the nature of AUNTS productions, which always involve a high volume of participating artists, is in itself a sophisticated audience development strategy. These artists help to get the word out by helping to distribute the poster/flyers and by forwarding the AUNTS promotional email to their personal community networks. AUNTS maintains a clean email list of over 1,000 artist constituents and also maintains a Myspace webpage where event bulletins and documentary blogs are posted to promote each event series.

AUNTS can accommodate a wide variety of production dates. However, the 2007 Fall Bash, at The Event Center in Bed-Stuy, is currently slated for October through December 2007, with exact dates TBA. Therefore, in order for a Swing Space to work in conjunction with AUNTS programming activities at large, a June/July 2007 Swing Space would be ideal.

AUNTS has self-produced curated performance events in a wide variety of spaces, from white box galleries to living rooms and basements. IVE can be formatted to work in any space.

Megan Byrne is a Brooklyn based artist who works primarily with dance. She is the lighting Director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and has a BFA in dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Performing with her will be Siri Peterson and Emily Stone. The trio will take place in a 5'x5' space. Repetition of movement shifts meaning to both the performer and the viewer.


All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching.
All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching.
All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching.
All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching.
All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching. All the while we are just moving. All the while you are just watching.