Mercy is a Warrior

From a recent photo shoot for Mercy is a Warrior.

Photo by Carlos Melgoza http://anima-nocturna.blogspot.com/

Thanks to http://www.inscapearts.org/ and Sam Farrazaino

SIFF

Wonderful news tracings will play SIFF!

http://www.siff.net/festival/index.aspx

May I suggest?

While I would never want a world free of intelligent review and critique I think it is sad that critical analysis is our default mode for viewing art. I know it makes us feel like we are an informed insider to be able to dissect and knockdown a piece of art but I find it heartbreaking and think that in doing this we, as audience, rob ourselves of being able to sit inside the creation.

A humble suggestion, occasionally suspend your disbelief and accept a work of art as you would a birthday gift. Even if it isn't exactly what you might buy yourself, it hardly matters. What matters is that someone took the time, energy and thought to give you something that they hoped you might gain some benefit from.

I think this is where most artists come from when offering up the fruits of their labor, so why do we insist on putting up so many barriers to our own connection with a work? What are we depriving ourselves of when we insist on pulling the wings off of everything we see in order to determine if and why it can/not fly?

I am not saying we should watch every thing in this manner for the rest of our lives. I just think it is a nice experiment to try in hopes of gaining fresh eyes. Remember when you first went to the theater (gallery, record store…) and everything was mind-blowing? Don't you ever mourn the loss of that perspective? I do.

Art is a gift.

Sometimes it is ok to just say thank you when someone gives you a gift.

Visit at VA Puget Sound

Thanks to the veterans and Anne Peterson at the Beacon Hill VA Puget Sound. We had a charming visit.

Highlights include meeting Jack who used to be a ballroom dancer AND played drums in a husband/wife band when swing dance drove ballroom out of fashion. You could see it in him too, long limbs and a certain presence even with his age.

Another bright spot was a sleepy vet that wandered right through the middle of the dancing to get to the coffee on the other side of the rec room. It was such a nice reminder that dance doesn't always have to be this precious thing pedestaled upon a stage but is really just another simple part of life.

As soon as I got home I got a nice note from Anne thanking us for our performance!

On a more serious side the experience let me to some further contemplation on the role of arts in the world. Upon first arriving at the hospital I feel shame. Who do I think I am trying to make a DANCE of all things considering mortality, loss struggle. Here I am youthful and ridiculously able-bodied in comparison to the residents, living a fairly sheltered existence.

Who do I think I am????

Of course none of the vets or the staff were thinking this. They are pleased that we have come, they are enjoying it. And I come to terms again as I have over and over with the truth that it is ok to be who you have become. Not everyone should be a doctor or a soldier and not everyone should be a dancer, and that is ok. It is ok that life places each of us in different roles. I am what this life has presented me, just as they are. I don't take issue with them for fighting wars that I don't believe in, they don't take issue with my years of plies and tendus and futile acts of movement.

They are happy to see us. Instead of guilt, I will feel happy to be seen.

I have a right to tell this story even if I am most likely farther from it than they. We all have a right to it. We all end up in it. We all have to watch those around us enter into it. It is OUR story. I just happen to have been placed in a position where I can tell the story. They were in a position to patch wounds or to fight and sadly to kill, but they rose to meet what they were given. I am in a position to be seen. I have a forum to 'speak'.

Maybe sometimes the graceful thing to do is to put aside our private neurosis, to not shrink humbly away on account of our own insignificance, but to do whatever thing we have been given with as much dedication and integrity as we can muster.

Maybe seeing a thing through is an honorable thing, regardless of what path you have stepped onto.

The A.W.A.R.D. Show!

Josephine's Echopraxia

is excited to be participating in this year's

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2011: Seattle

One Night Only!

Friday January 28th, 8pm

On the Boards, Merrill Wright Mainstage

100 West Roy St, Seattle WA, 98119

Tickets $15 http://www.ontheboards.org/special-events/award-show

or call 206.217.9888 Tue - Fri • noon - 6pm

The A.W.A.R.D. Show! is an experiment including dance audiences in the usually closed door process of arts funding, an acronym (Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance) The A.W.A.R.D. Show! gives audiences (along with a professional panel) the opportunity to award one deserving choreographer a $10,000 grant and two runners up $2,000.

Josephine's Echopraxia is excited to have another chance to dance upon On the Boards' beautiful and expansive mainstage. We have further developed our work from Northwest New Works and are bringing you the next chapter, Saying goodbye again and again and again and again… [stifle] While excited to be a part of this innovative performance and granting format we are focusing our energy on the truest expression of where stifle needs to go next instead of focusing on the competitive aspects of the show.

We would be honored if you would join us to take in these developments. Saying goodbye again and again and again and again… [stifle] will bring you performances by Marissa Rae Niederhauser (dancer and choreographer), Spencer Moody (musician and composer), Allie Hankins, Meredith Horiuchi, Meredith Sallee and Rosa Vissers (dancers) and Cameron Elliott and Eric Fisher (musicians).

We hope you will join us for this intriguing evening of dance that includes performances by Waxie Moon, Quark Contemporary Dance Theatre and tEEth with a Q and A and vote after the show.

To help bring Saying goodbye again and again and again and again… [stifle] to The A.W.A.R.D. Show! please make a gift securely online at

https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=30857. I have partnered with Shunpike, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, as our fiscal sponsor. This means your donation to Josephine's Echopraxia and Shunpike will be tax- deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

For more about The A.W.A.R.D. Show! please visit http://www.joyce.org/about/special_events_awardshow.php

Major funding for this program has been provided by The Boeing Company.

Saying goodbye again and again and again and again… [stifle] made possible in part by a grant from 4Culture and a smart ventures grant from Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Developed in part during a Flight Deck Residency at Open Flight Studio and at MLK Ballet.

Josephine's Echopraxia is an Associated Program of Shunpike http://www.shunpike.org/

The A.W.A.R.D. Show!

Friday January 28, 2011 8pm OTB Merrill Wright Mainstage - J's E. presents group work saying goodbye again and again and again and again... [stifle]

For more info

http://www.ontheboards.org/special-events/award-show

http://www.joyce.org/about/special_events_awardshow.php

or keep checking in here

2 pieces in the upcoming 12 Min Max at OTB!

Mercy is a Warrior

On the Boards has been very generous in allowing Josephine's Echopraxia to perform TWO pieces at the next 12 Minutes Max

There is some misinformation on the site so I thought I would write a little blog about the two pieces to be performed.

First is Mercy is a Warrior presented in the foyer elevator during intermission. For this I will be joined by Tobi Nussbaum. This duet is in effect dance as social protest and you will see the costuming is representative of powerless, isolation and deprivation and [while not sourced directly from] is in line with the dramatic images of protestors around the globe. I have long been experimenting with binding and bandaging in my costuming, this has occasionally been misconstrued as fetish wear and now is being loosely identified with some sort of comment on disability, while these are fertile performance grounds I am not sure I am the right person to address either one. I am more interested in this costuming as a metaphor for restriction and damage perpetuated upon an individual by social, political, economic and cultural forces.

Mercy is a Warrior will be the first time I incorporate blindfolding, gagging and earplugs. Like political protestors I am interested in intensifying the content by increasing the level of commitment [or risk or discomfort] of the performer. I first approached this sort of performance with On second thought maybe I don't want to be your trophy wife. In which the gender political message is underlined and highlighted by the physical trials of having chilled water poured over the performer's blinking eyes and grinning lips as industrial size fans bring visible goosebumps to the surface of a barely clothed woman teetering and shivering in ridiculous shoes.

However unlike political protests Mercy is a Warrior is not addressing a particular topic but the notion of mercy in general. The idea of individual vulnerability and the responsibility of community. How we are all at the mercy of one another in EVERYTHING WE DO, we are each individually powerless against the will of the collective. I have been thinking of how often in life one has the chance of granting mercy to another but how our 'grab what you can' culture encourages us in the opposite direction and how often we confuse strength with violence, aggression and competition instead of empathy and generosity. It takes far more strength to share and understand than it does to steamroll one another. It takes more strength to bite your tongue than to lash out. It takes more strength to withstand than to attack.

So this is not a fetish piece, not about transgender binding, this is not about impairment or disability or a gimmicky performance trick it is contemplating mercy and putting myself in a place where I have to rely on the mercy of others, in a position where mercy is the only option. A protest asking for us to consider the way we can increase mercy in every aspect of our lives and eventually hopefully in larger global ways.

The second piece is a solo originally created for the Unicycle Collective's Monolodge 6 in spring 2009 as Suppress now called Turn a blind eye. This solo is about domestic violence as the theme for Monolodge 6 was Love's Tangled Web.

There is no relation between the two pieces other than that they are both made by the same person.

Big Ups to OTB for letting me show not one but two short works!

Come see both pieces Mercy is a Warrior and Turn a blind eye. Be sure to come to the front lobby at intermission to catch Mercy is a Warrior in the elevator.

Next Sunday and Monday Dec 12 and 13 at 7pm at On the Boards Studio Theater, 100 West Roy St, Seattle WA, 98119,

Tickets for 12MM are $8 and are only available one hour before show time in the Studio lobby (No advance sales)

http://www.ontheboards.org/special-events/12-minutes-max-1

Also- Don't forget to make a year end gift to Josie! https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=30857

ps [added on 12/6] I would say this image by Hannah Wilke would have something to do with it too. Bandaging as a means of healing, but also protection- an armor against future attack. A visible representation of both the vulnerability of the self, but also the resiliency and potential for self-repair.

P:SA Closure

Photos from the breakdown of P:SA residency

GASLIT

Gaslighting

is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of

making them doubt their own memory and perception

October 14th,15th and 16th Josephine's Echopraxia (Marissa Rae Niederhauser) and Project: Space Available present Gaslit, with sound by Michael Hayes. Gaslit is the last of a series of three tableau vivants titled It doesn't matter if it has been said before some things bear repeating, created during a two month residency at

http://projectspaceavailable.com/

More exhibition than performance, audience members are invited to come and go or meander at will. The gallery will be open from 8-9 pm on Thursday, October 14th and from 7-8 pm on Friday the 15th and Saturday the 16th. Why not stop in before heading out for the evening?

Also on view will be the residual installation of previous tableau vivants, On second thought maybe I don't want to be your trophy wife, with videography by Dave Hanagan, and Your morality tales are ignorant and arrogant and I am sick of hearing them with videography by Corrie Befort.

Project: Space Available is located on 10th between Pike and Pine in the same building as SweatBox Yoga, just follow the signs or email projectspaceavailable@gmail.com or josephinesechopraxia@gmail.com

for more information.

Donations for Project: Space Available accepted at door.

Creation of this work was made possible in part by an Artist Trust Grants for Artist Projects (GAP). Find out more at http://www.artisttrust.org/

Please note this show involves difficult (but true to life) subject matter. It is not appropriate for children.

The Thursday showing is a special Arts Crush event http://artscrush.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=128

Special Thank You:

Greatful Bread Bakery, Project: Space Available, QFC, Vanessa DeWolf, Chris Lahoda, Jeremy Barker, Michael Hayes, helga hizer, Quentin DeWolf, Monica Mata Giliam, Alice Gosti, Corrie Befort,Tanya Card, Kevin Kauer, Artist Trust, and Shunpike,

MORALITY TALES

The second installment of It doesn't matter if it has been said before some things bear repeating, a tableau vivant titled Your morality tales are ignorant and arrogant and I am sick of hearing them will have open gallery hours Friday and Saturday 9/24 and 9/26 from 9:45-10:30 pm at Project Space Available in Capitol Hill 0n 10th Ave between E Pike and E Union in the same building as Sweatbox Yoga continue winding back and to the right following signs posted or email projectspaceavailable@gmail.com or josephinesechopraxia@gmail.com for a more detailed address.

More exhibition than performance, audience members are invited to come and go or meander at will.