Kira Seamon/ Matt Samolis - dance/live music May 24 2009

video still: Jane Wang (MAG)







fd1024 - referred to in email below

photos: Bob Raymond (MAG)

Kira Seamon and Matt Samolis
Untitled
May 24, 2009 - choreographed dance performance with live music

Videos of Kira Seamon's Untitled piece:

Part 1:


Part 2:



A dance/spoken word and sonic exploration of foot-binding as a function of the politics of China, from the Dynasty era to the Communist era, when the practice of the foot-binding was finally prohibited. The dance piece will use highly specialized movements to highlight the nature of the cramped foot position and then grow into a "healthy dancer.”

Excerpts from Wikipedia:

Bound feet became an important differentiating marker between Manchu and Han. The practice continued into the 20th century, when a combination of Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform and a true anti-footbinding movement emerged. Educated Chinese began to realise that this aspect of their culture did not reflect well upon them in the eyes of foreigners, social Darwinists argued that it weakened the nation, for enfeebled women inevitably produced weak sons and feminists attacked it because it caused women to suffer.^[2] At the turn of the 20th century, gentry women, such as Kwan Siew-Wah, a pioneer feminist, advocated for the end of female foot-binding. Kwan herself refused the foot-binding imposed on her since her youth so that she could grow normal feet. Through the centuries there were unsuccessful attempts to stop the practice of footinding. Various emperors issued edicts to this effect but they were never successful. The Empress Dowager Cixi issued such an edict following the Boxer Rebellion to appease the foreigners, but it was rescinded a short time later. In 1911, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the new Republic of China government banned foot binding. Women were told to unwrap their feet lest they be killed. Some women's feet grew a half inch to an inch after the unwrapping, though some found the new growth process extremely painful and emotionally and culturally devastating. Societies developed to support the abolition of footbinding, with contractual agreements between families promising their infant son in marriage to an infant daughter that would not have her feet bound. When the Communists took power in 1949, they had the power to maintain the strict prohibition on footbinding, which is still in effect today.

Kira Seamon is an award-winning dancer/choreographer who has produced concerts in the Cambridge area, specializing in unique, original choreography and live music. She was named to Capezio's list of Rising Stars and am also on Dance Magazine's List of Active Female Choreographers. She recently auditioned for a Reality TV show and was sent an email from the producer after the audition, which stated in part: "We are creating a list of all the acts we loved in Boston and you are on that list!" Kira trained across the US and in Europe and has an extensive music background as well. She was a State winner in piano performance and have received gold, silver and bronze awards for my playing. Kira was thrilled to have played the keyboard at the Harvard Theatre Collection as part of a long-term research project by the composer Lugwig Minkus. Kira was born in Hawaii, and is familiar with Asian History and customs.

Email from Kira Seamon about the creation her piece (mentor: Danny Swain):
"I love all the pix, but think my favorite for the blog might be this one, fd1024...I like that it shows me sitting by the pathway created by the shoes, which illustrates walking towards the future....I know Danny Swain liked my idea but kept yelling in rehearsal "Make sure all the shoes are going in the same direction!!"

...The ending was a combination of Danny, Matt and my own ideas.. At first, I just sort of quickly shoved the shoes in 2 lines, thinking I've got to get it done and get up to do the walking through part...Both Matt and Danny realized the moment would be more meaningful and powerful if I slowed that down and looked at the shoes as I placed them, like I was really remembering those women who wore them..Matt even sent me the link to Joanne Rice's awesome stone installation @ Trinity Church, to show what the pace could be like....I thought Joanne did a beautiful job, and I definitely thought of her as I placed my shoes...In fact, I was "so in the moment" of my piece, that at the end, when I walked away toward the windows, it took me a couple of seconds to "come to", as I actually got lost in thought and remembrance...Finally, my brain kicked in and I said, "oh yeah, turn around and take a bow"... "

"Chinese Hair" by Kira Seamon's hairstylist: Blake
photo: Eva Seamon


Notes from the Curator:

1. Matt Samolis will be profiled on a separate Performer of the Day post.

2. Joanne Rice (MAG) has been performing the durational piece "The Human Cost of War" every day at noon since October 2007 at Trinity Church in Boston. The performance will end on Oct 6th, 2009. If you get a chance to see this beautiful performance live, please do so. You may read about Joanne Rice and her performance at http://www.mobius.org

MAG = Mobius Artists Group member

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.