Featured Artist : Alexandra Elliott

Alex in action : a still from Overland

If you've read any of these posts or ever looked into the Freed the Puppet project at all, you'll recognize the name and face of the amazing woman who is this Spring's featured artist. Alexandra Elliott's tireless efforts with Freed have made the project what it is today, and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with this extremely talented dancer and choreographer. Alex and I began our collaboration in Winnipeg in 2006, at the very first Freed jam/photo shoot. She has been the face of, and usually the body behind the project since then, making time for shoots, rehearsals, meetings, travel, and performances all while maintaining her career as a Winnipeg based independent artist extraordinaire.

When Alex had to stop dancing professionally due to a knee injury, she continued to collaborate with Freed by modeling for photo shoots to generate video material, and consulting on the movement aspect of the project. In February 2010, and despite the bone chip that plagued her for three years, she flew out to Montreal to star in Overland, Freed's first foray into contemporary dance cinema. Alex finally received knee surgery in the summer of 2010 and spent the rest of the year healing and training. Last October she starred in the upcoming Jamusement.net production Off the Rails, a webseries exploring a character's experience with schizophrenia. Not a dance project, but movement based nonetheless, Off the Rails is scheduled for completion in September 2011.

In 2011, fully recovered from surgery, Alex exploded back onto the Winnipeg scene. She received a creation grant to remount one duet and choreograph another which she realized in January, and I was lucky enough to get to document her new work when the process was complete. In February, she choreographed a 20 minute work entitled Intima Punal (Intimate Dagger) with collaborator Renee Vandale for the Young Lungs Dance Exchange's annual review No Idling (February 11 and 12), and was engaged to choreograph former RWB performer Cindy Marie Small in a run of The Big Gravel Sifter for the StrindbergFest theatre festival, a performance that Uptown Magazine called "beautiful, beguiling". In March we were lucky enough to have Alex back with Freed the Puppet, working on the video material and choreography for the project's new performance and installation piece Fragmented/Fused. Currently, Alex is in rehearsals for a way in, a dance/theatre work by Natasha Torres-Garner, and I am looking forward to getting to Winnipeg in time to see Alex's on-stage comeback at the end of this month! In May, she will begin working again with Rennee Vandale on a show for 6 dancers (of which she's one) exploring the essence of tango. Renee and Alex will mount this new piece for Winnipeg's Fringe Festival, which runs July 13-24. With all that accomplished and on the go, you can see why I chose Alex to be our featured artist this Spring, and why 2011 is shaping up to be her year!

Fragmented/Fused : Ready for the Stage

Freed the Puppet's newest work, Fragmented/Fused is ready for performance and installation opportunities! I have been editing the video material slowly and steadily for over a year, and Alex and I worked through March on the sound design and choreography. I finally developed a passable Chroma Keying workflow in studio and in the editing room last summer, and shoots from last September and this past March provided enough base material to work up the show.

Freed the Puppet necessarily maintains a spirit of spontaneity and improvisation, and I have struggled with how to accomplish this with exported video material. The video projection is the most static aspect of a Freed the Puppet performance, and although I know it is possible to 'improvise' with video clips, I have neither the equipment nor the experience to make that happen. With Fragmented/Fused I chose to explore Chroma Keying so it would be possible to drop new backgrounds behind the figure in the video before a showing. That's why, in the trailer above the figure moves in front of sheer blackness or the blueness of the studio setup. Hopefully, without too much difficulty we'll be able to make the video aspect a bit more mutable this time around. The first mounting of a Fragmented/Fused exhibition is as yet undetermined.

Centering the Tangent in Vancouver

Tonight I headed down to Rhizome Cafe, at 317 E Broadway in Vancouver, for the closing celebration for Centering the Tangent. I heard about the event, and yesterday's conference, from last fall's featured artist Kim Villagante. The conference and celebration wrapped a month of artist explorations in community and movement building. The conference looked amazing, with local artists, community leaders and organizers giving talks and workshops on various topics centered around the role of arts in the urban community. Unfortunately, I failed to sign up to attend and when I finally went to check out specific talks, times, and places, the conference was full. I was able to glean the spirit of the conference at tonight's cabaret-style show however, and thoroughly enjoyed the mostly spoken word and hip hop performances. A beautiful mix of people filled the cafe to brimming, and I felt a huge rush as performer after performer enlightened and entertained. How inspiring! It was particularly thrilling to see Kim do her thing (as Kim Possible), as I have heard her amazing singing voice before, but hadn't yet been treated to her poetry and rhyme. Thanks Kim for making me aware of the event, and for your powerful words!

As luck would have it, longtime Freed contributor Karissa Fyrrar lives just around the corner from Rhizome, and she met me at the show for a brief catch up. Karissa is in the final stages of her dance training at SFU, and after her grad show in May she plans to head to Toronto for the summer and beyond, to continue her burgeoning dance career. Go Karissa!

Sound Unbound : DJ Spooky in Vancouver

It always amazes me how much action there is in Vancouver, every time I visit the city I find myself leafing through the Georgia Straight circling a dozen or more events I'd like to check out. I don't know why I always come here thinking I'm going to get work done on projects. In my opinion only Montreal rivals Vancity for accessibility and diversity of culture. This morning I noticed that DJ Spooky, a.k.a Paul D. Miller, is in town for a few days performing two of his multimedia works. Yesterday he screened Rebirth of a Nation "a daring remix" of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, which Miller calls "the DNA of American cinema". Today I caught his talk at SFU's Woodward's School of Contemporary Arts - Sound Unbound : DJ Spooky & the Digital Arts. The title of his 2008 book, Sound Unbound explores the concept of sampling and digital music in the culture of today.

In addition to discussing the history of sampling and the current technological developments influencing mixed media culture (including some very nifty DJ Spooky iphone/ipad aps), Miller described in detail his work Terra Nova : Sinfonia Antarctica. He travelled to Antarctica with a portable studio to film and 'sample' the ice, which he remixes live (with piano and string trio) in this large scale multimedia work. Miller considers Terra Nova propaganda designed to increase climate change literacy and instill a sense in the perceiver that another world is possible. For him, sampling is an art form, and the environment is an archive. "When I went to Antarctica I wanted to hit the reset button on my imagination". This 'refreshing' of the imagination is what a remix accomplishes, by triggering memory (familiar samples) and creating an acoustic portrait of reality. Both truth and fiction can be condensed into a media experience that is either believed or disregarded by the spectator, and this experience is the essence of today's "rip mix burn aesthetic". Although I was familiar with a few DJ Spooky remixes, Miller's writing and multimedia work is new to me, and after listening to his words, seeing his images, and hearing his sounds, I instantly became a huge fan. Terra Nova shows tomorrow (Saturday April 9th) at the Chan Center for the Performing Arts on the UBC campus.

Gilles has a Franco-esque freakout

Above, an excerpt from the "Waking Up the Neighbours" shoot. Gilles has a Franco-esque freakout during our late night shoot, and I just can't resist sharing. I spent the last two days on the train pouring over the footage and staring out the window. Inspired by some banter from one of the acts on the bill, and the dynamic of the two characters in the video, I penned the poem below.

The Magician's Apprentice

"I believe in magic."

she says,

while scattering her

fairy dust across the room.

I sneeze into my soup.

"I'm allergic to fairies."

I reply.

Later, with the dishes cleared,

the empty table

forms the space between us.

"I think you're a cynic."

she tells me,

as she turns her palms up.

"Nothing up my sleeve."

"Would you like to smell a flower?"

she inquires,

I slowly shake my head,

knowing there's a trick to it.

She stuffs the flower deep into the pocket of her dress,

"Maybe another time."

I offer.

"Don't you miss hope and possibility?"

she asks,

so I proceed to detail

the day's atrocities,

a catalogue of suffering and pain.

She plugs her ears with

coloured scarves.

"The whole world is an illusion."

I assert,

"I'm never fooled by the veil."

She counters, "Abracadabra."

And I believe in magic now,

for with these very eyes,

I watch her disappear.

Waking Up the Neighbours in Winnipeg

Wrapped a long winter in Winnipeg last night, and tonight is the first big fire of the warm season. Winter on the prairies is wicked long, but the result is a shared suffering that builds community. I've been soaking up said community for the last week, reveling in the dynamic creative relationships I both built on and discovered over these past few months living in my home town. We released Overland on DVD in early December, and I got to work over the holidays on the script and design of the webseries Off the Rails. I'm working on a September timeline for OTR, and managed to finish the script as well as find, audition, and record 2 of the 6 or so voice actors needed. In March I became busy with Freed the Puppet, working with Alex through the month on our stage show Fragmented/Fused. Alex has fully recovered from her knee surgery, and we are ready for performances of F/F, the first of which is to be announced. Then, and because it seemed so long since we'd worked together, I teamed up with Ingrid Gatin to shoot a music video for her song Waking Up the Neighbours, from her new album set for release in early May. I'll let the video speak for itself next month, but I'll say that when the editing is complete I'll really know my reds!

The next morning....

I'm off to Vancouver! Cherry blossoms and warm pacific breezes, not to mention my two beautiful baby nieces. I'll be hanging in Vancity editing and writing for the month, but profuse thanks to all the wonderful Winnipeggers that made this winter my best in peg city yet!

Thanks Winnipeg!