Fuerza Bruta!!

I apologize for my lengthy absence. If you only you had known what the past two weeks have been like for me. Nonetheless, I'm back and life has reached a nice calm plateau for the time being. But anyway let's get to it! We have much to discuss you and I.

I had the privilege of seeing Frueza Bruta last Saturday at the Harris Theater. My friend scored free tickets and very sweetly invited me along. For those of you not familiar with them Frueza Bruta (brute force) is a crazy spectacle/circus/dance/performance collective from Argentina.


The first performer (a man running on a treadmill on a flat, rolling platform) terrified me to the point of nearly having a heart attack. As he started to run, the music sped up and got louder until a loud gun shot rang out causing him to stumble and a giant blood stain to appear on his shirt. When he straightened himself out, he removed his white shirt and another (bloodless one) was underneath.

The running man breaking through a wall.

This sequence continued possibly two or three more times and included him breaking through walls and trying to run while holding on to tables and chairs. In addition to a mild case of agoraphobia I am also very deeply disturbed by loud noises, particularly gun shots. I didn't realize that I was hunched over covering my ears until my friend stroked my arm reassuringly and tried to distract me by calling my attention to two aerial artists doing a very graceful routine against an aluminum "wall".


The second time I nearly lost it was during the water choreogaphy. Out of nowehere a giant pool appeared above us with a woman gracefully splayed out in a minimal amount of water.



More women entered the pool as it lowered over us and the crew members encouraged us to raise our hands up to touch it.

The pool being lowered over the audience. My favorite experience from the show but also the most terrifying.

The women at first interacted with the audience by pressing themselves and their hands against the pool. Towards the end of the routine, they began jumping and slamming their bodies against the pool as hard as they could!



I imagined the entire thing collapsing, leading to a bloody, watery death for us all but fortunately it was over before I reached my breaking point. But just when I thought things were once again safe, the running man appeared shortly after.

The running man again- this time with some friends!

The show ended with lots of loud music, flashing lights, and a smiling audience, soaking wet and dancing in damp confetti remnants. I had a great time. Go see it if you're in Chicago and in no way bothered by death-defying feats!

On semi- related news I got hired for my first non-Redmoon Theater related puppeteering gig! I am now a puppeteer for a sci- fi comedy web series entitled Human Resources. It's written by a sister writing duo (Kozi and Kyra Kyles) about alien abductions in the work place. You can read a little more about it here.

Also my friend just finished interviewing me for her Artistic Liberties series. I will post a link as soon as the interview is up and running!

Aside from that I am now two years shy from being a quarter century old and aerial classes start next week! Yay!

Caged Performance....I have lots of work to do.

I should actually be working on other things but I feel compelled to post, thanks to my lovely art history class.



Today we watched The Couple in the Cage, a video documentation of a collaborative performance involving Guillermo Gomez- Pena and Coco Fusco. It was an obvious satire in which Guillermo and Coco traveled around the globe, decked out in faux Amerindian costumes and posed as "savages" locked up in a cage.The cage was set up in the main lobby of various art and natural history museums, allowing the visitors to interact with the performers. If you payed fifty cents, Guillermo and Coco performed faux tribal traditions. Coco would do a "warrior dance" to a hip hop song while Guillermo told a story about his homeland in a made up tongue while holding a rubber snake. If you went up to their cage and enunciated the word, "P-H-O-T-O", they would even pose so you could take a picture with them.


The performance was very effective in that it had a very sophisticated way of being satirical and that was primarily due to the passive attitudes of the performers...which I totally commended because if someone tried to feed me a banana through a cage, I'd probably spit on them.


The video documentation was interspersed with images of native people being shipped off to Europe and America to be showcased in the circus like freaks. At first, I was irritated with the very didactic comparison but there was a moment when I kind of lost it and got a little emotional. What REALLY effected me was that there were still some people who didn't seem to understand that it was a social commentary. I distinctly remember a sailor from Chicago asking, "Who shaved her legs for her?".

ttp://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$misc?clips/COUPLEINTH.mov
(A small excerpt from the video)

back

My break was heavenly. I wish I could have somehow extended it, though I was actually quite relieved to start school again. I spent most of my time hibernating: working on my portfolio, some stuff for Etsy, and killing myself over internships. Luckily I managed to score an internship this semester with Blair Thomas and Company.

Blair Thomas is a visual theater artist that combines puppetry and pageantry with music and folklore. He is also the co founder of Redmoon Theater and I've been eyeballing his company for sometime. Most of the work I will be doing will be mold-making, sewing, and welding. His studio is located in a big warehouse type building in a seedy part of town.

Blair Thomas and Company's Cabaret of Desire

Blair Thomas and Company's The Selfish Giant

Since I've been spending so much time inside lately, I've been thinking a lot about having a studio. I want to live on my own so badly it hurts. I just don't have enough room for all of my stuff anymore and I don't have the peace and quiet I sometimes really need. I feel like Alice after she took a bite from that cookie and grew so huge she got stuck in her house.

Later in life

My live sculpture went very well. I was a live Christmas tree. I wore a green dress and green shoes and stood in a tree stand, while my friend painted me green, strung lights and decorations around me and hung ornaments in my hair. I held myself in that position for about 45 minutes, I could have gone longer but I didn't want to miss the other acts going on. The event was actually quite fun. There was a good turn out but there were more performers than non-performers so it wound up feeling like this event just for us.

I danced, I got to be in a fashion show (my first), I ate a shit-load of sweet potatoes, and I walked around with sick sticky green paint on my body for a while (I still gave out hugs anyway). So YES!! Too bad it was negative three that night.

Anyway, the holidays are troubling me. Only because I get to see all of my family and eat good food, and laugh, and work, and get good sleep and then it all ends and my sister has to go away again and then I get sad. Her flight left at about 6 this morning...

I've been productive. I've been embroidering, crocheting, sewing, writing, and reading like mad. Partly because of my portfolio and the other part because I'm behind on Christmas presents...sorry dudes, you know who you are. I haven't forgotten, I just suck.

I've been on this website religiously for the past three weeks:

http://www.etsy.com/index.php

I've also been reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. She's a book and paper artist based out of Chicago. She graduated from SAIC and now teaches at Columbia. Some of her work:

From The Three Incestuous Sisters (one of my favorite books)

Also from The Three Incestuous Sisters

...my mother almost named me Madison

Almost there...

It's about 2 o'clock in the morning and I'm still working out the details of my live sculpture. I'm thinking that it will end up being more along the lines of an actual, proper performance. I'm nervous. It doesn't help that I went back to Redmoon earlier and most of the folks there kept telling me that they couldn't wait to see what I come up with. Eeeep.

What has helped me is this artist named Bea Camacho. She does these wonderful crocheted and knitted sculptural pieces that are about isolation, concealment and self-preservation. She did this 11 hour durational piece called Enclose, in which she crocheted a huge cocoon for herself out of red yarn.

Bea Camacho, Extensions

Bea Camacho, Enclose

I am really tired. I'm going to take a short nap and then get back to work. I learned a lot this semester but obviously not how to manage time.

Inconvenient

I'm performing at my friend's event this Sunday. It's called The Hibernation Celebration and it's a benefit for her theater company, The Inconvenience. There's going to be bands playing, live paintings, solo puppeteers, and a live sculpture from me. I'm putting all of this unnecessary pressure on myself...but I shouldn't be. I just want to have fun.

Speaking of pressure, I haven't done any of my holiday shopping yet. Yikes. I'm also a little behind on all of the gifts I'm making. I miss my sister. I miss California. I have bad cramps.

2 reasons why I should have been a dancer.

Akram Khan Company & National Ballet of China
"Bahok"

The Peeping Tom Collective
Le Sous Sol

I am obsessed with movement and strong bodies and the feeling of having so much control. Plus they look like they're having so much fun! I have a slight problem with picking up on choreography, though.

My final performance is moving along. Of course I changed a bunch of things last minute and now I have to tweak all the movements to fit my concept. I got a little lost there for a second. I get kind of worried about whether or not my work is "interesting" or if people will respond to it. I think I've been really careful of not being too reliant on media or repetition to carry my piece. I'm sure that all will go well, if I play things honestly.

Critique week is fucking me up. This whole not having class thing has somehow put in my mind that I'm already on break, making it extremely difficult for me to get on the ball with my million other projects. I've even deviated from the schedule I've layed out for myself and I fear that I might have to conclude this semester with a week of no sleep. I am sooo looking forward to Christmas.