Kickstarter

Hello, wonderful people.

Either you are seeing this and saying, "oh, here are those laggards!" or you have completely forgotten about us and this is a missive out of the blue. In any case, this is us saying hello and apologizing, fervently, for the delay of many of your Kickstarter rewards.

This past summer and fall were difficult ones for us. As previously mentioned, Shannon's hard drive had a complete meltdown, resulting in the loss of most of our photos and design work for A Thousand Natural Shocks. More personally, our grandma passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly. She had just traveled to San Francisco from Hawaii to see the performances. She helped with the costumes, made sure we ate well, told us stories, and was incredibly, glowingly happy to be here while we worked on something so enormous together. Then, a few weeks later, she was gone.

It was a difficult goodbye.

But, we are working again. We have a new project that we're exploring in the studio (it's about love songs and we're collaborating with an opera singer; I can't even begin to tell you how excited we are) and we're working hard to put together the rest of the Kickstarter rewards. We took fresh photos and are starting to design the books. Kat sent us a beautiful new short story that we'll be including and Shan is working on some illustrations. The DVDs are here, the t-shirts are nearly done, and the postcards (printed with new photos) just arrived this week. As we pull everything together, we'll be sending out surveys to collect any information that we still need.

We are so sorry for our immense lateness. We hope you all have been well and are sending you our very best wishes.

x. Megan

(New postcard designs below!)

(Carson)

(Josi)

(Kelvin)

(Megan)

(Sarah)

(Shannon)

Hello, splendid ones!

I'm sorry to have to say this, but there is going to be a bit of a delay on getting some of our backer rewards out to you. Shannon's hard drive recently decided to commit suicide (cruel, thoughtless machine!). We have mourned its demise and our now in the process of figuring out how we can use the loss of many of our photos and etc. as an excuse to make things better.

So, we are off to the land of more late night photo shoots and text editing and random treasure hunts. We'll report back once we have a better idea of how long things will take. In the meantime, I hope that life is treating you all with great benevolence.

x. M

(below, Carson endures yet another evening of facepaint and crayons)

Hello, splendid ones!

Just a quick note to point you to some short stories, if you have a hunger for that sort of thing. Kat, being a busy and brilliant woman, has THREE stories out in various publications this month. You can even read two of them online (lunch break storytime, anyone?). 

"Murdered Sleep" in Apex Magazine

"The Heart of the Story" in Fireside Magazine

"Breaking the Frame" in Lightspeed Magazine

Go forth and read! And have a marvelous day.

x. M

Hello, magnificent ones.

Last night, we performed the second (and possibly, though hopefully not, the last) show of A Thousand Natural Shocks. We raced through the speediest tech rehearsal ever (45 minutes of stage time for a 55 minute piece... hit it and quit it, kids) and after a rush of blowing up balloons, putting together brooms, slapping on makeup, and trussing ourselves in silk, we stumbled out into Del's gorgeous light and dropped into the piece.

We have been working on this for over a year. It's a privilege and a luxury to have such a long time to develop something. So many things happen in a year, and this has been one of my favorites, a roller coaster, whiplash, neon slice of time. This project and the people who make it up--Shan, Kat, Carson, Josi, Kelvin, and Sarah--have been the very best comrades, companions, and fellow adventurers that I could ever wish for or imagine. Last night, I felt a little bit like I was on the inside of either the very best or very worst film montage ever, with every piece of choreography trailing fragments of the year behind it.

We've sent out some surveys to collect your information so we can get your backer rewards to you, and we'll be sending out some more as we print t-shirts, make books, write stories, and get the DVDs back from Austin Forbord, our great videographer.

We'll probably post more updates as we put those things together, and we'll let you know if anything else happens with A Thousand Natural Shocks (future performances or incarnations). If you want to keep up with future Sharp & Fine projects, please sign up for our mailing list HERE or drop us a line at sharpandfine[at]sharpandfine[dot]com. We've already been dreaming up two projects that we'd like to do in the next year. The first is a combination live music and dance show inspired by songs like THIS and THIS. The second is an evening-length dance adaptation of Neil Gaiman's poem, "Queen of Knives" (pick up a copy of Smoke and Mirrors to see why this is one of my favorite poems ever, indelibly lodged in the back of my brain since the first time I read it... love and loss and the inexplicable way those things look when seen from childhood... a magic show... vanishing...). We're not sure yet how these things will come together. They're still hazy, wispy bits of desire, but we're already so excited about them and eager to gallop off in pursuit.

And we'd like to thank you (again) for joining us on this adventure. It's always a wonderful and rewarding experience to make art and dance, but to do so with a crowd of people cheering us on and lavishing us with support and enthusiasm and hard-earned money... well, that is both an honor and an extraordinary, life-changing pleasure. We are humbled by your magnificence. Thank you.

x. M

Hello, fine beauties!

This is the last day of our Kickstarter and I wanted to THANK YOU, in capital letters that would, if such things were possible, leap straight from the screen on which you are reading this and ravish you with hugs.

(Having read that sentence over, I realize it has great potential for creepiness. But, I'll let it stand because I do, truly, feel that much enthusiasm and thankfulness and happiness that all of you crazy, wonderful people have decided to be our comrades on this adventure.)

We are 163% funded. Putting on a live show in a theater is always an expensive, complicated thing, and being able to pay our brilliant dancers and comfortably cover our production costs is HUGE. So, thank you.

We'll be sending out surveys very soon to collect any information we need from you (addresses, t-shirt size, etc.) to get your backer rewards into your hands. Keep an eye out.

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On Monday, we'll be performing the second (and, at least for the foreseeable future, last) show of A Thousand Natural Shocks. If you're in the San Francisco area and want to see the show (or know anyone in the area who might), this is your chance to do it! Z Space, 8 PM. Be there. Say hello. We want to meet you.

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As I nattered on about in a previous update (HERE, for anyone who wants to read it), Shan and I have a side project called "Shot of the Day." It's a series of very short videos based on the idea that it's fascinating to watch someone pretend to get shot. I hesitated to include this here. Perhaps such a thing might seem callous or inappropriate in the wake of the sadness in Colorado. But, these little videos are also our love letters to people we like very much. The gimmick of pretending to be shot is our way of opening the door to surprise and drama and silliness and the hopeful capture of a tiny sliver of what makes each of these people so dear and admirable to us. And I think that is something worth sharing.

Shot of the Day No. 4: Daisy Ransom Phillips (gorgeous lady, brilliant dancer, wonderful friend, and one of the most magical, large-hearted people I know)

xo, M