Showing posts with label Jennifer Hicks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer Hicks. Show all posts

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Jennifer Hicks (& Matt Samolis)
- Country Shoes May 25 2009







photos: Bob Raymond (MAG)

Jennifer Hicks (former MAG) and Matt Samolis
"Country Shoes"
Mon May 25, 2009: butoh performance with live music

Video of Jennifer Hicks and Matt Samolis "Country Shoes"

Jennifer Hicks / Matt Samolis : Country Shoes @mobius 05-25-09 from MobiusArtistsGroup on Vimeo.

Jen's in depth study of Butoh and other forms of movement are a natural pairing for Matt's unusual flute style which also draws largely on eastern cultural influences.

The politics of shoes is the politics of leather, which is the politics of meat, which is the politics of land use and corn and fuel and hunger and of poverty. It is of confinement and freedom, allowing one to do something one could not do otherwise, while also restricting so much on another end. But this is a simple dance in a complicated world, a series of movements which will be performed in shoes made of only wood and rope from China. These are shoes of the land and shoes of the poor and shoes that limit ones movements.

Jennifer Hicks M.F.A., R.Y.T, director of CHIMERAlab Dance Project, is a performer, choreographer, teacher and visual artist. She received her MFA from Naropa University in Contemporary Performance, her BFA from Tufts University and Degree in Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. She is a guest artist for the 4th year at Naropa University in the MFA Contemporary Performance Department directing The Embodied Poetics Project. Jennifer has won several prestigious awards for her work including The Traveling Scholars Award from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Franklin Furnace for an installation/performance about medicine called “Training For Uncertainty”. She is an alumni of the experimental performance collective called Mobius and a founding member of the former Pan 9 in Boston.

As a dancer, Jennifer studied ballet, modern and jazz since childhood but began her interest in Butoh back in the mid 1980's. She began to study Butoh seriously in the early 1990’s at the San Francisco Butoh Festival. Her main performance influences are Tatsumi Hijikata, KATSURA Kan, Maureen Fleming, Wendell Beavers, Barbara Dilley, puppet work, early cartoons, nature and silent films. She has been dancing in KASTURA Kans International Dance Company for over 8 years and has her own company based in Boston and Boulder CO. She has been teaching movement, creating original work and performing for over 25 years. Ms. Hicks is a certified Shintaido Instructor, certified TranceDance International Facilitator and a Yoga Instructor registered with the National Yoga Alliance. Her training also includes graduate level training in The20Viewpoints with Wendell Beavers, Roy Hart Vocal Training with Ethie Friend and Jonathan Hart, Body Mind Centering® principles with Erika Berland, Suzuki Actors Training with members of SITI Company, Contemplative Dance with Barbara Dilley, Vocal Training with Meredith Monk, Lecoq Neutral Mask with Amy Russell, Grotowski Based Physical Theater with Stephen Wangh, Performance Art with Marilyn Arsem (founding director of Mobius) and Moment Work from Moises Kaufman and Leigh Fondakowski.

She has also studied shiatsu massage and acupuncture at Boston School of Shiatsu and New England School of Acupuncture. She studied her puppetry with Julie Szabo ( who worked with Bread and Puppet for over 10 years) and Julie Morrison (who trained at the University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts Program). Both Julie’s enjoys “putting an edgy twist on traditional forms of puppetry, as well as exploring connections between the puppet, the audience, and the performer”. This work translates into puppetry techniques for the body which Jennifer uses as a tool in choreography.

Links:

http://www.fragilecreep.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxG9Q99izZE

http://www.archive.org/details/TrioImprovisationsForVoiceFluteAndPreparedCelloOpenCircuits

Friday, June 19, 2009

Matt Samolis
- Composer/Musician May 24,25 2009

video still
photo: Bob Raymond (MAG)
photo: Bob Raymond (MAG)

photo: Bob Raymond (MAG)


video still



Matt Samolis - Composer/Musician

May 24, 25 2009

Matt Samolis - The Politics of Shoes @mobius from MobiusArtistsGroup on Vimeo.



Matt Samolis has been working in sonic and visual mediums since 1987. He began studying flute, and later composition and tenor banjo. He has worked with ensembles at New England Conservatory, Brandeis University, Berklee, and Tufts, as well as Open Hand Theatre, Pilgrim Research Collaborative, Mobius, Roy Hart Theatre, and numerous other projects. Currently, his primary work is with his collective, The Metal & Glass Ensemble, freelance photography, flutist, and as old time songster, Uncle Shoe.




Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Notes from the Curator #2
- Thanks to ...

THANK YOU

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank those artists and people behind the scenes (including ones not in the show) who gave their extra help to make this exhibition and set of performances happen and basically helped me keep from collapsing in a heap many many times. Hopefully I didn't forget someone - please forgive me if I do forget.

First though, an explanation of why this show was thrown together so quickly:

I had been thinking about putting together an exhibition with related site-specific performances at some point on The Politics of Shoes since December 2008. As many of you may know, Mobius the space has been up in the air for some time due to a huge property tax bill, the troubled economy and discussions of whether to stay or not, or buy or not. Basically we the Mobius Artists Group have been operating by the skin of our teeth for some time, not knowing if we will have to move within a week or stay for an extra month. We have thus been under the unfortunate burden of having to book month to month since we had no idea if we'd even be in the space the following month.

At one of our meetings late in April 2009, we decided we would stay through May 2009. We all felt that given that circumstance, we needed to book May as much a possible and try to fill every weekend with events.

Since none of the other artists were available to book something for Memorial Day weekend, I decided to finally put together The Politics of Shoes that long weekend even though I'd already planned to be in Italy from May 11-22nd. The fallout from that was that I needed a LOT of help to make this thing happen.

Therefore - Extra Special Thanks to:

1. Ian Colon: Ian gamely agreed to co-curate the performance art part of the show even though he was about to graduate and had twenty zillion things he had to do simultaneously. He was fine with just trying to work around whatever I booked for the three nights and fill in where he could.
Before I left for Italy, Ian said he had two proposals and hoped to get some more while I was gone. We agreed to meet and so on when I got back and he was willing to MC all three evenings.
When I got back from Italy, I saw an email from Ian saying that the two artists who had submitted proposals didn't work out and no one else had submitted proposals. I immediately called Ian on the phone and asked what happened with the two artists? Ian said that what they proposed would be destructive to the installations. I said, I could work around that by giving them more gallery space and moving the installation to the sides of the gallery, and what is it that they proposed? Ian replied that one artist wanted to flog himself with paint and walk all over the gallery - I replied ok, you're right, that won't work - what about the other artist? Ian said that artist wanted to get the entire audience to PEE ON THE FLOOR OF THE GALLERY...

Needless to say, at that point I had to agree with Ian that those two performing artists would not be appropriate for this site-specific installation led set of performances.

2. Jennifer Hicks: for throwing together a poster and some PR last minute and putting me in contact with an Italian Online Magazine all while she was driving across the country (?!) and for bringing in additional performers to the mix.

3. Sandy Huckleberry (MAG) for checking the politicsshoes@gmail.com and answering questions from artists while I was away, handling any late proposals and offering to let one of the out of town artists stay in her house.

4. Cathy Nolan (MAG) for trying to organize the mass (mess) of emails which were in random order into something that made sense for this blog, for artist profiles and for keeping up with the mobius facebook related information.

5. David Chin (honorary MAG and miracle worker and all around great person) for taking wonderful photographs for the SOWA Art Walk, posting a facebook page for this event and for taking on MC duties last minute all three nights (which included being a stage manager/ tech/
and putting the program order together the last night) and for helping with putting artists bios and statements together to be printed for the exhibit.

6. Bob Raymond (MAG) for his awesome photos of all the performers and the installations.

7. Margaret Bellafiore (MAG) for her considerable help both mentally and physically in putting up the installations.

8. Kate Hanrahan (one of the guest installation artists) who drove in from Brooklyn, NY with her beautiful installation and asked "how can I help" - she also worked on the artist profiles and dressed two stacked speaker cabinets in white craft paper to display another artist's installation.

9. Marilyn Arsem (MAG) for patiently making the program for the last evening of performances.

10. Joanne Rice (MAG) for moral support and enthusiasm when it was most needed.

11. Matt Samolis for performing with three very different choreographers/performers and for taking on extra tech support at the last minute.

12. Charles Daniels for running my ultra-flip cameras for me the last evening and for also taking some fantastic photos with his own camera - simultaneously...
www.charlesdaniels.us

13. Liz Roncka and El Putnam for surviving all three evenings intact and for tackling some last minute mayhem and whackiness.

14. G, S & J...

and finally Milan Kohout (MAG) without whom this show would not have even been conceived.