portal for creative expression
Today I am preparing for the arrival of a friend and colleague who is a prominent performance artist and curator from New York, Hector Canonge, who is arriving in Venice to perform a piece created especially for my off-site project titled SOMAGRAPHIKA
Both Maira and Miu are dancers who run Dance to the People, similar to the Yoga to the People, where they offer donation-based dance classes. Each class is run by a different dance teacher so you can learn different styles. I took a Ballroom Vogue class with them a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it.
Working on a project with a classically trained professional dancer pushes me to work out more and get back into my pre-pregnancy form. Her boundless energy and fun-loving energetic personality make the collaboration even more rewarding. Most importantly we are both moms so when our kids play together we get to plan our performances.
I have been asking: What is failure? How does failure relate to imperfection? We often think of failure as the opposite of success, however, in many ways, failure can be associated with eliminating expectation or a state of not ‘consciously’ aiming for pure perfection.
At the moment Laura has a solo project called NEU MA that researches the body as an instrument and the breath as control. She says, ‘The main interest of this research is to connect the physical manifestations to new technologies, transforming the performer into a complex interactive tool.”
First, she creates an armour over her red overalls by peeling layer upon layer of two blocks of unbaked raw clay with a string of dental floss. Her face is covered entirely, her body enduring the process, her hands searching and shaking slightly.
Improvised gestural forms have a visible sense of spontaneity, balance, symmetry, and flow. They feel very different to self-conscious and perfected ones. The difference is difficult to describe but I think it is the same difference between a self-conscious actor compared with somebody acting with their attention outside of themselves. Drawn marks reveal a state of mind.
As a civilization we have erased the cult of the creatrix, and denied women the role of cultural producers (…). The Capitalist system adds yet another layer of enslavement, with its absurd expectations of productivity, pink taxes, beauty and fashion industries, glass ceiling, gender gap, and in the US, a complete lack of free or affordable childcare, not to mention issues that arise from the economy of huge disparities and production towards destruction of humanitarian values and the environment.