June 3 2013

Don Juan in Tech Rehearsal February 2013. Photo: Manuel Rotenberg. Dancers: Dancers of the San Diego Ballet. The second movement starts with a motif adagio step that is repeated in canon. The Women from the Past leave and are replaced by Don Juan's vision of the "Ideal", seen entering at the rear.

Daily Stuff:  Went to the San Diego SCPA and did a workshop for In The Heights. Two more to go. We reviewed the opening number and came up with some more base movement for the numbers 96,000 and Carnival de Barrio. Had quite a few absent, so I let them go early.

Then came to the studio to do a bit of office work. That's about it.

So back to the Arts Engagement story from yesterday...

After the trip to the AjA Project, I took a little tour of Vicki Leon's studio.

Vicki was also a Creative Catalyst fellow and her project had to to with creating pieces that refracted light. She has a lovely studio near Azalea Park (and sells jewelry as well, so go buy some earrings and support her). It was nice to talk with her about her process, both in life and art.

She is involved with an interesting initiative pairing artists with scientists. It was very cool.

At one point, she mentioned that certain ideas regarding art were being identified by the scientists and being given female names (Marilyn, Lucy, etc). My inner feminist popped up and bristled a bit. Only because too often I hear about the idea that we all have feminine and masculine sides. Too often anything that is "mysterious" or non quantifiable is designated as feminine. Which in the minds of scientists becomes a bit less "real" or "important." So that if work is being done and all of these female terms are being used, there is going to be a perception (due to prejudice) that the work is of lesser importance in real world application. It is not fair to either artists or women. So I told her that there should at least be one token male identifier (Joe or Ricky perhaps) just to keep people from falling into old habits.

Then she showed me her sandblaster :)

For more info on Vicki and her work, visit http://www.vickileonartist.com

June 2 2013

Don Juan in Tech Rehearsal February 2013. Photo: Manuel Rotenberg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. The first movement of the Dream section was sort of presented as a look at all of the previous women in Don Juan's life. Past girlfriends coming back to haunt him.

Daily Stuff: The main focus of today was meeting with Jan, my costume designer for SUDS at NewVillage Arts. It was the first meeting so we just went over the basics of what was needed by each character in the show and the style of the piece. I told her to think of a bottle of children's vitamins as far as the color palate was concerned. But as I was talking I also came to a realization about the show. The original designer, Gregg Barnes, did a wonderful job in creating costumes that pretty much summed up each character the moment they stepped on to the stage. Audiences would often laugh and respond as each character walked through the door. And that this visual "short hand" is important to the show. All that said, I wanted to make sure that Jan felt that she would have a bit of artistic wiggle room.

Continuing from my though track yesterday...

My first Arts Engagement assignment was a visit to the AjA Project to check out Brandie Maddelena's installation, "The Nature of a Door is to be Opened." 

Vicki Leon was volunteered to go down with me. Truth be told, I had not visited the first time because the place was not that easy to find. The website had neither an address, operating hours, or a phone number in an easy to find space. But this time I had a mission.

So after some searching on the website, I managed to find a number. A very nice person answered and told me that they thought that someone would be there until 2:30 or 3:00, but that I would need to pound on some interior doors to be let in. Already sounding like an adventure.

So I picked Vicki up at her studio (her car had burst into flames) and we made it to the AJA Project before the zero hour. I pounded on the door and was allowed entry.

Brandie's project is right in the foyer and easily accessed. The idea is 2nd graders relate and record an early memory which is then rendered by 5th graders. These "installations" are all housed in individual, connected cabinets. When you open the door to each cabinet, the recording starts. There are about 50 of them.

Very sweet.

All of the children are from the City Heights neighborhood where the AJA Project is situated, so it fits well with their mission.

Afterwards, I dropped Vicki off at her studio, but before I left I took a nice tour. Continued tomorrow.

For more info on the AjA Project go to... http://www.ajaproject.org/

For more info on Brandie Maddalena... http://maddalenaarts.com/