Links We Like Friday

by Lydia Links We Like

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

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My Blog Hit List for Summer 2012

By Clover Morell

www.clovermorell.com

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

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

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

Photo by Cynthia L. Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BONUS:

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

 

Sunday’s mission for Monday

by Lydia Uncategorized

My dear friend Jill Tarpey really inspired me this evening.  We danced together in a company %^&* years ago, and I miss her dearly.  A wise and beautiful yogini, she has a blog I like to visit for inspiration and vegan recipes.  Tonight’s post for a beautiful tomorrow really struck me.  She shares this quote:

“Do more than belong: participate. 
Do more than care: help.
 Do more than believe: practice.
 Do more than be fair: be kind. 
Do more than forgive: forget. 
Do more than dream: work. 
– William Arthur Ward
Yes and yes and yes and yes and….

Links We Like Friday

by Lydia Links We Like

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

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

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

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

Phantom Cellphone Vibration Syndrome Is Real, Damn It

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

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

 

Yours Truly

and forever in artmaking and random links,

Lydia

The most current discourse on our art

by Lydia Uncategorized

What are your thoughts?

Here’s the first article on the financial state of dance– or rather, dancers.  Lightsey Darst writes of how little our culture (under)values dancers (and perhaps, how we undervalue ourselves) which has lead us to a place where most dancers walk the poverty line.  It’s like we’ve become replaceable in our society.   Yet experience, talent, and expertise rank us akin to other artists bringing in livable wages.

 

Here’s the response by dance community leader, Jennifer Edwards.

 

Here is what I see as her main point:

“Once upon a time, dance served vital purposes in the fabric of our societies: it brought rain, helped crops grow, made women fertile, brought victory to kings, solved international squabbles, brought people together, and solidified marriage vows. As new tools and rituals formed — irrigation for crops, drones for wars, TV night for couples, IVF for reproduction — dance, instead of innovating, instead of staking its claim, became the separatist art form: the one “no one understands,” the one that still wishes “things would just go back(ward) to how they used to be.” And we wonder why we are the poorest? We’ve made something, told people they won’t understand it, sequestered ourselves indoors, and complain that no one buys tickets or makes hefty donations. There’s a marketing model in there somewhere, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a good one. Now, I am of course speaking of the field in general — there are empowered, clearly focused, dance-makers out there, who are doing well and effecting change.

…The bottom line is that dance is no different from any other industry — we must innovate or we will fade away. One potential model, which is certainly not the answer, might be to grow our brand as kinesthetic intellectuals — something that this country desperately needs. Applied-physical-awareness would help leaders command respect, school children focus, laborers and health care workers to work physically with less injuries. If dancers owned their skills — if we built a program and marketed healthy, body-centered, self-awareness practices that grew organically from dance — then we could do our work, make our art, grow students/clients and audience simultaneously. All while growing generations that naturally understood and appreciated dance — we could once again have value within the social sphere. However, we would first have to value ourselves and believe in the value our craft.”

 

And to this we say, Frame is trying!  I’m getting down and artsy, thinking and planing through my next show at Fresh Arts.  Moving forward, making it approachable, making it approachable without sucking the art out of it.  That’s my runway.  Do read these articles, it’s important to know where our discourse is as a community.  And we have some super fine spokespeople.