SOUND OFF! Battle of the Underage Bands

The Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum is in the midst of it's 9th year of Sound Off! a competition between underage bands. Applicants to Sound Off! must all be 21 years of age or younger and from the Pacific Northwest. This competition gives young emerging music artists the opportunity to have their music heard by professionals in the area while they are still too young to play in local bars and venues that serve alcohol. In the past, finalists and semi finalists have included bands like, Dyme Def, The Lonely Forest, and Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (whom I adore). The winners of it all receive a performance at this year's Bumbershoot Festival and various other prizes.

The night that I volunteered, Semifinals Round 1, the lineup was Sea Fever, Apache Chief, (Sui-Generis), and Candysound. Of these, my favorite was Apache Chief who were described as;

"Influenced by garage rock, post hardcore and noise, Apache Chief is already known in their hometown of Tacoma for raucous gigs and unorthodox use of guitar pickups and reverb tanks. Seeped in the dirty lo-fi of The Stooges, this trio brutally rips through sets at top speed leaving the audience decimated and wanting more."

Or as their MySpace page says: Post-Progessive Banana Slam

These three kids from Tacoma were awesome. They had quite a fan base in the audience, some of which sported Apache Chief t-shirts. During the performance there was a couple of mini mosh pits that left the EMP security a little baffled. Despite they audience support and my love they did not emerge victorious. The winners of the first round who receive the opportunity to compete in the finals were the wonderful Candysound. A duo that I thought had kind of a Vampire Weekend sound. The wild card winners who receive the possibility of maybe competing in the finals were Sea Fever. Also wonderful.
Friends Kristen, Claire, and I stood around wondering; "What if we had had something like this in our hometowns?" But really it seems as though such an event may only work in a place like Seattle. Home to Hendrix, Pearl Jam, and so many other greats. And what a wonderful gift to offer younger music artists: opportunity. Even semifinalists remain on the Experience Music Project Sound Off archive list which offers them some level of notoriety.
The most wonderful part of the whole event is the infectious optimism of the kids. Post performance/pre - 'announcement of the winners' an Apache Chief member was talking to us and hearing our praises of his performance and his whole demeanor just lit up right in front of us. He was hurrying to get back to the stage but out of excitement turned to us with his arms in the air and exclaimed, "I'm just so happy!"
I will be at Semifinals Round 3 this Saturday and hopefully the March 6th Finals event. I cannot wait to find out who wins!

Battle of the Bards IV

Ghost Light Theatricals is a small theater in Ballard that is impossible to find. It makes me completely banana sandwich when my GPS tells me that I am standing on top of something that I cannot see. However this time it was right because the theater space was through a door, down some stairs and underground. Apparently it was formerly a strip club called Live Girls!
Ghost Light Theatricals has found a really unique and fun way to construct their season schedule of plays and simultaneously raise money for the theater. They hold a Battle of the Bards; 3 plays show different 30 minutes snippets over the course of a weekend and then appeal to the audience and their friends to support them in a competition that decides which one will be added to the theater's lineup. You receive one vote by purchasing a ticket and then money buys additional votes. $1 = one vote.

The three plays were modern adaptations of three classics: The Clouds, Fortinbras, and Metamorphosis.

The Clouds:
Written originally by Aristophanes and adapted by Alexis Holzer is the story of an alcoholic mother and her spoiled teenage daughter. After hearing an advertisement for a school that promises to turn the spoiled daughter into a useful money maker the mother goes to investigate and turns over her jewelry and shoes in an effort to be taught at the school. Then Socrates (the Greek philosopher) pops out from under a desk to tell her all about The Clouds which are 4 girls in togas that often talk in rhyme. Some other stuff happens that I don't remember. However I do remember that at one point during the production The Clouds take a few minutes to pass out free wine and appeal to the audience for votes. All that I got from this was a free cup of red wine.

Metamorphosis:
Written by Franz Kafka and adapted here by Stephen Ross is the story of a man who is awkward and transforms into an insect. See: The Fly starring Jeff Goldblum. The 30 minutes of this play was taken up by some odd occurrences between a carpet salesman and his family. Then a giant chunk of it was dedicated to a strange visual that I think was meant to explain his transformation. The salesman falls asleep in his chair while behind him projected onto a framed screen a scene unfolds. Behind the chair three people use an old overhead projector and black cutouts of insect people to reflect a world where everyone is an insect. Insect people doing insect things in their insect town. When the man wakes he is a bug which is reflected simply by him walking on all fours with his hands turned out. All that I got from this was the urge to procure an overhead projector.

Fortinbras:
The middle play was Fortinbras which I saved for last because it was my favorite. Fortinbras, written by Lee Blessing and directed by Shawn Bookey, is a kind of Hamlet II. Which is difficult sure, because everyone dies at the end of Hamlet. And Fortinbras himself is usually cut out of most Hamlet productions. But whatever. In this story Fortinbras has become king in the event of Hamlet's death and he is constantly haunted and plagued by all of the dead characters from Hamlet. Including Ophelia who seduces him and Hamlet himself who appears to him as a man in a wheelchair wrapped in a cape with his head inside of a TV screen. I really found this to be hilarious. TV headed Hamlet was so funny as he repeatedly barked at his subjects to be sure to NOT hit the On/Off button on the TV. The ghosts were also funny as a dead Laertes dressed in gym shorts and sweat bands really seemed to just want to play basketball with Fortinbras. This play was glorious and I would love to see it how it ends.

By the end of the event there was a tie. Unfortunately (for me) the tie was between Metamorphosis and The Clouds which will both be added to the 2010/2011 season. I am not sure if the Fortinbras cast simply did not advertise properly to their friends and loved ones to come out and support their efforts or perhaps I merely have bad taste in theatrical drama. Regardless it was a fun night of theatrics ending with a post-play dance party. And the Ghost Light Theater earned some well deserved revenue from their genius production of a Battle of the Bards.

Battle of The Bards IV:
Includes 3 video interviews with the directors of each play

Ghost Light Theatricals

Spectrum Dance Theater and Donald Byrd presents FAREWELL

Recently I was given the good fortune to attend a rehearsal for the piece Farewell which is soon to be performed by Spectrum Dance Theater at The Moore Theater downtown. Thanks to Josh Windsor, the new Marketing and Development Manager at Spectrum, I got a sneak preview of the show and heard a little about the inspiration and realization of the performance.
Donald Byrd, Spectrum's Artistic Director, has launched a three part initiative/series that addresses cultural awareness. Farewell is the second in the series and examines parallels between the events of 9/11 and the Tiananmen Square massacres. Byrd lists the novel, Beijing Coma by: Ma Jian, as a primary influence for the piece. The story is that of a graduate student who is shot in the head during the protests in Tiananmen Square. Like the novel, Farewell also features a coma victim who comes in and out of consciousness to discover that his reality is altered.
The dance features a mixture of martial arts and classical Chinese dance. Some parts included the dancers doing listless movements that made them appear to be bodies that were being moved around by other dancers. The combination of these movements and audio from actual interviews of students that witnessed the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre was moving. I could not help but thinking; these dancers are so young and the people who died in the square were also so young. It was a saddening realization.
The event will premiere February 18th, 19th, and 20th at 8pm and I am certain it will be even more amazing than the rehearsal, which itself was wonderful. The completed piece will feature photographs and imagery of both 9/11 and the events of Tiananmen Square as well as live music. During the discussion after the rehearsal someone asked about the different instruments being used and Byron Au Yong, the composer, mentioned a few instruments including a bicycle wheel. I thought that perhaps that was the name of an instrument and turned to ask my friend Kristen about it, thinking that she was more musically knowledgeable than I. But then Au Yong returned to center stage with an actual bicycle wheel in hand and described how the spokes of it could be played with a bow. I learn something new everyday.
I cannot wait to see the completed piece.

For Tickets to Farewell
* On this page there is a preview video that is really fascinating and shows interview snippets with Donald Byrd and Byron Au Yong. Also the dancer with really blond hair is a girl named Tory Peil and she is positively amazing. They are all really amazing but the way that she moves is absolute perfection.

About Farewell and Spectrum
About the Dancers
Beijing Coma by: Ma Jian

Henry Art Gallery Part 2: Vortexhibition Polyphonica

Cherry Bomb Vortex By: E.V. Day

Meanwhile downstairs at The Henry:

A not so permanent exhibit of The Henry's permanent collection. It seems like this exhibition is meant to change over the course of the... um... exhibition.
I am not quite sure what it means but here is the statement from the website: "Working with this innovative concept, Henry curators will select distinctive objects to act as conceptual “hubs.” These anchoring works will establish topics around which a constellation of other objects will orbit. Over the course of the extended exhibition run, the curatorial team will work with a call-and-response tactic to create new hubs with new supporting pieces. These groups will be integrated into the exhibition gradually: as some objects exit others will enter to reconfigure and re-contextualize the exhibition."

Regardless of what gets moved around or becomes a 'hub'. I wanted to mention an artist in the exhibit that stood out to me as particularly fabulous:

E.V. Day
Day is a NY based artist with an MFA from Yale. Impressive. She works in sculpture (though the piece that I saw might be difficult to consider as sculpture) and installation. Her piece Cherry Bomb Vortex was the first thing to smack me in face as I walked in to the gallery. It was red fabric suspended from the ceiling by clear wire and an elaborate system of hooks. The title of her collection that houses Cherry Bomb Vortex: Exploding Couture. I love this title. It is both descriptive and imaginative.
Any amount of my own description of this artist's work will not be able to paint quite as successful a picture as an actual....picture. (I cannot imagine the time that goes into this installation process. I would cry.)

Henry Art Gallery
E.V. Day Website

Henry Art Gallery Part 1: Polaroids: Mapplethorpe

Last Sunday was the last day of the Polaroids: Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. And after hearing Patti Smith discuss her relationship with the photographer I felt very compelled to see the work. I also took time to reflect on how much my thoughts about Robert Mapplethorpe have changed over the years.

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE AND ME
My first knowledge of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe came in my first semester at ASU in my very first art history class taught by my favorite; Dr. Eli Bentor, or as I call him The Human Library. We had to do group presentations about the topic of obscenity so naturally Mapplethorpe was an easy target as well as painter Georgia O'keefe and I also think photographer Sally Mann. I was in charge of the introduction of the presentation which involved me standing in front of the class with a Mapplethorpe slide projecting on the screen behind me. This Mapplethorpe slide: Man In Polyester Suit
It was from this time on that I had come to know him as someone whose artistic purpose was merely based on shock value. A Google image search of just his name will result in pictures that would make Larry Flint blush. Doing research on him has always left me with imagery that one cannot simply UNSEE. His content often involves portraiture of celebrities and his own lovers. They are often homo-erotic in nature and sometimes a bit sadomasochistic. They are typically in black and white however I have seen some of his work that is in color and they usually involve at least one body part that we as citizens are required by law to have covered when in public.
None of this even makes me flinch. I am mostly desensitized by art classes actually it was a few select female artists that were responsible for my inability to become shocked by the human figure. But there was something that never sat quite right with me regarding his portraits of nude children. To be fair they are all commissioned by the parents of the children in question. And who doesn't have that picture that their mom took of them getting bathed in the sink as a baby? But still I could never get past these things to see clearly into Mapplethorpe as an artist.
Other experiences I have had with Robert Mapplethorpe have included the time that my 8 year old nephew and I were at the Scene in America exhibit at The Mint which was focused around the contemporary image of the black man and Mapplethorpe's piece was a wonderful nude in which my nephew upon seeing replied, "Why is that guy naked?" To which I said, "Well, being naked in art is different than being naked in everyday life." Thank God he accepted that and we were permitted to move on.
I came across Mapplethorpe again in my Art Criticism and Theory class while we were reading Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes. This time the discussion surrounded the relationship of photographer to subject and the way that Mapplethorpe's subjects were almost always his lovers. We talked about what that meant for the image and whether or not it reflected in the photographs. In my opinion, it does. Blatantly in his case.
Another time I utilized Mapplethorpe for another discussion about obscenity in a paper/presentation that I did for my Philosophy of Art and Beauty class. I was critiquing his nude portraits of children in comparison with Sally Mann's nudes of her own children. The discussion was about small technicalities that determined Mapplethorpe's to be more offending to audiences than Mann's. This is a whole different topic but I presented copies of the paper to everyone in the class with an attached image of one of Mann's photographs and then separately I distributed a folded image of Mapplethorpe's Jesse McBride. My class responded to my presentation of the image as a sign that not one of them wanted to see it. I don't personally condone censorship as much as I myself, hate being surprised, and wished to give everyone the option of not permanently having the image burned into their minds.
My opinion of him was pretty low. It had become completely impossible to move past his subjects and content to see his artistic contribution to the world of photography. That all began to change when I saw a piece of his at The Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro. Up until this point I had only seen the images on computers, in books and never in person. The Weatherpoon image (which I have never since been able to locate) was an 8x10 of a man dressed head to toe in some sort of latex situation. Kind of reminiscent of 'the gimp' from Pulp Fiction. Disturbing yes, but something about the size and actuality of the picture made it somehow less frightening.

NOW
Patti Smith's apparent love and tenderness of Mapplethorpe made a huge impact on my perception of him. The way that she talked about him, his death, and her need to feel as though he is still around and a part of her own life, was not unlike the way that I feel about my friends. She talked about how they first met and the life that they had led together and suddenly I began to realize that he was just a person like anyone else.
The Henry show took my understanding of the man to a whole new level. The fact that they were all Polaroids made them seem so personal to his life. I kept thinking about how Polaroids are so different from the way that people take pictures today and how we are given the luxury of seeing instantly whether or not we wish to save a picture, take another one, or delete it forever.
The show also made it seem as though he had a multitude of lovers but the images of them almost seemed painfully distant and added to my idea that he was in fact very lonely.
Over time my idea of Robert Mapplethorpe, the man, has gone from being this semi-great photographer, maybe even child pornographer, who has less talent and more of a desire to shock and appall the public to something completely different.
Now he is just a human. A person like anyone else. He seemed to fall in love constantly with the whole that is a person. His photographs leave little to the imagination because that is what people permitted him to see. I cannot imagine the personality that one must have in order to persuade others to be that visually open with themselves and their bodies and their love affairs. Now he just seems brave.

Henry Art Gallery / Polaroids: Mapplethorpe
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

Images (from top):
1. Self Portrait
2. Marianne Faithfull
3. Robert and lover Sam Wagstaff
4. Arnold Schwarzenegger (obviously)
5. A self portrait for the publications for one of his exhibits in NY.