Hello Dear E|MERGE backers!

Earthdance, E|MERGE, and the marvelous, incoming E|MERGE 2012 Interdisciplinary artists shout out a hearty THANK YOU to each of you!

YES, WE DID IT!  We successfully met our campaign goal ($5,000), with a total of $5,310.00!  THANKS TO YOU.

We will be in touch shortly to give you more information, let you know when you can expect your gifts, and to update you on this year's residency...

But, let us just take this moment to honor YOU, for having faith in the true power of INNOVATIVE, GROUND-BREAKING, GENRE-DEFYING, COLLABORATIVE, DISCIPLINE-CROSSING, (ie: really thinking about, examining and responding to our world) EXCELLENT, ARTISTIC WORK.

We salute you...or uh....humbly bow to you....and will do some turns, and twists and some cool upside down moves too, plus write some brilliant new performance work, create beautiful installations, and lots more....coming up February 14-26, 2012...at EARTHDANCE...

Come visit us soon, join us for some of the performances, or just come enjoy a workshop, retreat or Sustainabilty Sunday.  There's something for everyone at Earthdance!

with a nod, kick & a twirl,

your E|MERGE team

Below is a trailer for Uniformation Day from returning E|MERGE artist
Mary Pearson's international theatre company, Fool's Proof Theatre:

We've got 38 hours left to raise $945! We'd love your help! Post a
link to our campaign on your facebook wall and make requests to those who
support innovative genre breaking performance! Thanks for your support!
Enjoy the video!

 Here's some excerpts from an article Krista DeNio wrote for Kinebago based on interviews from E|MERGE participants about interdisciplinary art and being an artist:

On the Art of Interdisciplinary performance making:  Just what IS it? And what ARE you?

It seems a common theme, for those of us in the world who bridge different conversations, fields of study, genres, methodologies, etc., that we often find ourselves explaining (or attempting to explain) repeatedly why we are doing what we are doing.  Whereas in scientific fields, scientists are expected to experiment, in order to learn, grow, develop their theories and groundbreaking, life saving, solutions-- artists who step outside of our traditions or known & established forms, to work between disciplines, to investigate and experiment with different languages & media for our artistic expression, seem to need to explain our reasons for doing so repeatedly to the mainstream audiences, who often want to know what it is they’re getting themselves into when committing to any length of performance event/experience.  At the least, I think it’s fair to say that our reasons for doing what we do, are often in question to begin with as artists.  To then go beyond one’s realm of primary training, knowledge or an arena/ tradition/form that is identifiable to an audience, can leave us as artists standing in a sort of no man’s land, where neither our audiences, funders, educational institutions, nor the society at large can get behind us and/or into our work.

So, why do we do it?  And what exactly does interdisciplinary performance making mean?

Davina Cohen:  ...

I was talking to Amii (Legendre) the other day, and I was describing her as someone whose work and interest has gone beyond the convention of her original training and designation.  So I think that’s the definition of an interdisciplinary artist.”

Davina went on to discuss the particular location she’s arrived at, in her career:

I think that’s why I was so delighted to go to E|MERGE---I was thinking where in the world are there kindred spirits?  This is what was so satisfying about the E|MERGE residency. What I love about E|MERGE, is that somehow there is an environment where it does not feel like a contest between exploration and rigor, it instead feels like a marriage between exploration, freedom and rigor.  Maybe rigor is not exactly the word that I mean, but I mean that you can sort of slide in and out of the spaces that you know and the spaces that you don’t and there is a collective agreement that everyone is doing this and that’s actually great to be doing!

Then I wonder ---why does that feel so separate from my life as an actor?  It feels like an experience of great artistic freedom, which I need, as an artist.  So, I feel at this point in my life artistically free, but pedagogically & professionally confused. I feel really unclear about what I’m doing, besides making work.  And, I feel like that should be enough, but I’m not clear on what I’m doing…it’s not that I’m out of the game, or not exercising my creative impulses, or not producing work…”

No—she’s definitely not “out of the game”.  Check out her website for verification of her many projects, work as an actor, dancer, yoga educator.

Meanwhile, Davina suffers from similar confusions that many carry with us, as we cross disciplines, trainings, and attempt to make ourselves proficient in multiple fields in order to increase the capacity with which we have to express & make work that defies boundary- yes, maybe, but most importantly—really conveys what we are trying to express.

As an actor who has always had a huge physical life & many trainings, Davi has also recently begun delving deeply into dance training.  Now seeking to develop herself as a dancer, to the degree that she already has developed herself as an actor, she finds herself in one of those no (wo)man’s land gaps between MFA dance conservatory training programs, who don’t quite get someone like her, with immense skill sets, physical training, history & rigor, but still too far (in these institution’s eyes) afield from a traditional dancer/choreographer.  She finds herself struggling in the realm of theater, with the traditional director model, where her vast array of skill sets often are barely tapped, or maybe not further pushed/developed, by whichever director’s hands & work she’s placing her instrument into.

I listen to Davi talk about her struggles and respond back: “Me too.  I understand.  The same thing happened to me.  I know.  It’s so confusing,” more times than I care to hear myself repeat.  From my own experience as a dancer/choreographer first and theater performer / director second, with an emphasis on original, experimental work & a trajectory that includes tapping into Buddhist philosophy & an attempt toward sustainable living… there have been no straight forward pathways.  Or even close really…but that wasn’t our point was it?  We weren’t ever looking for the straight way.  We’re the explorers, the scientists of our fields, conducting experiments in what it means to speak multiple languages and interchange, sometimes intertwine them toward our best creative directives.

Katarina Eriksson:                  I’ve always seen myself as a bridge person. I can’t follow one path. 

I’m always interested in combining paths, and these are the kinds of people who are interested in interdisciplinary work.  To do this together, you have to somehow stay open minded.  You can’t have too many assumptions.  I really enjoy being around other people who have their own ideas, and are passionate about what they do, but there is an openness, willingness to hear one another’s ideas.

There’s less of a wish to conform or make another conform, but there’s more interest in a true diversity of ideas.  To really co-exist in diversity, be there & be different and really hear each other.

...

So why do we do all of this work to undefine ourselves and our work again?

leaf tine:                  One thing I LOVE about interdisciplinary work is the redirection of focus from medium and technique to process and content.   That’s not to say we eschew quality.  Well, we might.  If we DO, we’re doing it consciously as a practice, a tool, a device.We give ourselves permission to include anything that works, be it a traditional medium, a piece of fruit, or a roll of toilet paper.  We become explorers and adventurers: technically trained, creatively driven, and delving into our own new frontiers, whatever those might be.

YES.  Thank you, Leaf! 

New frontiers….that’s what we’re after.  So, from dance to puppetry, from theater to Contact Improvisation, from music to film to becoming a lobster, what threads of commonality bind us and/or propel us toward these frontiers?

leaf:                  I use movement to access non-ordinary reality.  If I move like a wolf, I start to think wolf.  If I move like a ball of string… the metaphor unwinds.  Story-telling, painting, music, they’re informed by the flavor of the propulsion.  Before I perform a service (e.g. marriage ceremony, ice-breaker, participatory performance) I often find a spot to be alone and move, following hints from self and surroundings, dropping in to a kind of open, tenuous connection with…? Spirit?  Awareness?  Interconnection?  If I do it right, I become more present to the moment, my sensitivity is heightened, and I'm engaged on what feels like a profound level.  These movement meditations inform the way I dance, teach, walk down the street for days afterwards.

Emmy Bean:                  I found I needed to be grounded in my body in order to reach outside of it, to connect with other people, and to go inside enough to create alongside other people as well. I remembered that it was a joyful thing, and a vital thing, to be in motion and to engage in movement as an experience and a research methodology. Movement releases my voice in bigger and more dynamic/flexible ways, movement wakes up my spirit, movement puts me in touch with the physical space I'm in enough to inhabit it more boldly.  

If I'm ever stuck on an idea or a feeling of inertia, doubt, or total insanity, I give it over to my body and try to move through it. I can move about it, or move around it, or just keep fucking moving until it starts to feel different. This is literally my best practice for overcoming my roadblocks, for getting out of my own way. 

Katarina:                    It takes us back to where we all started, as babies: unclever intelligence. 

Moving & studying movement and challenging ourselves in that form, puts us in a very intelligent place, from the body, very alive & present---here now.  Especially when you work with image, word, content that can take you way out in philosophical places, there is something about movement that always brings us right back here, and grounds what you’re trying to do.

AHA!  So, this is what I knew…of course (sneaky little laugh)! 

This is what I would propose, as a mover, dancer, performer, as a director, writer and a human:  Movement underlies everything, and is ultimately—no matter what forms we are developing, colliding or transmuting—the bottom line.

Being conveniently located in bodies, we seem to have movement as the underlying truth of every breath, every moment.  One of the things that contemporary theater is recognizing & pointing to is the use of the body as the first medium (underlying all other mediums).  There is a growing understanding that how we train & inform & direct the use of our bodies & physical energies directly impacts how we can relay information otherwise, emotionally, narratively, psychologically, through the written word, intellectually, visually, aurally, etc.

Having witnessed & participated in the interdisciplinary processes at E|MERGE, as an artist & producer/curator, it has been remarkable to witness the ways that artists of many media find themselves coming together (often) most readily through physical languages & training, as the shared foundation.  Even for those collaborations whose products (if you will) have been delivered via film, or photo, installation or other forms not based in live performance given by performers—one of the common threads or languages has been movement. 

But it’s not movement alone that we can point to as the common thread between all of us.  We could say that there is another, layer of inter-connected consciousness that is perhaps even more foundational or universal than movement itself………perhaps?

Sophia Remolde:

I have been beginning more and more in my life and work to deal with the issue of awareness... I hope that this is not too amorphous of an answer. But I think it is a tool. And one that needs to be developed and cultivated like any other technical skill. The art of practicing awareness is not one that appears to be highly valued in many aspects of our capitalist, consumerist society. But I believe in its ability to help generate a higher level of consciousness. Which is what art often strives to do, right?  There is so much to take into account in any given moment. But I think in order to be able to fully respond to those things, one often has to let go of preconceived perceptions and ideas. It is great and necessary to have artistic goals and aesthetics and plans. Without them, we can't dream of making art. But we also have to be just as able and willing to let those go. To stop and take a look around you and say, "Look at all of this information that I have at this exact moment. How can all of my own knowledge and talents and needs co-exist and collaborate with this new information?"

Speak it Sophie! (and she’ll have more to say next round too)…

So—there is this ongoing attention to presence/ awareness.  Presence in the body-mind, and how choices are made from here, our original palette, the canvas we must always begin with.  It’s comforting to recognize the foundations that we all have in common, when we find ourselves standing out in the no (wo)man’s land, straddling various forms & genres, and searching around (what sometimes feels like blindly) for the next best form for our present expression to take.  It seems that we can always come back to real time, present body,  & awareness as a tool itself, to give us access to the many channels or avenues we might pursue from there—allowing a greater ease in the choice making and trust in the creative process itself (and our own abilities to speak different languages across disciplines, and to navigate the various territories within our multi-faceted creative beings). 

Introducing John Leo, 2012 E|MERGE artist. This is a mini-documentary on his work as a  Big Apple Circus hospital clown and the human inspiration behind his work. John is a Gold Medal Winner in 2008 NY Clown Olympics and well rounded performance extraordinaire! This will be his second year at e|merge. His collaborative group is made of people he met at the residency last ear who wanted to continue their work together. Help us spread the word about the kickstarter! We've got $3,000 more to raise in 10 days! Thanks!

We're 2/5ths of the way towards our goal! Consider telling your friends about the kickstarter! Thanks!

In the meantime...

Let me introduce Cory Neale, a musician, architect, and visual artist we are excited to have join us for this year's residency. Cory has collaborated extensively in theatre and performance projects.

http://www.coryneale.com/music/

He describes his work so:

A unique experience of time and space. Crafted, sonorous space, that marks cadence and shapes moments. I use both acoustic and electronic means, in the traditions of classical and American music styles, as well as modern music and sound concepts, to create a tonal, rhythmic, and atmospheric hybrid, questioning and reevaluating the societal expectations of what music is, and what sound is. There is a mission to narrate, and the sound often finds itself in collaboration with other time-based media: propelling, and propelled by dance, film, and theater. I am contextually-driven, seeking to design experiences and compose emotions.

Check out some of his music on the link below.

http://www.coryneale.com/music/