Posts Tagged ‘Sarah A.O.’
A.O.'s Production Blog: Business model/SIDE project.
So before we get into the pre-production goodness, there is, in the true fashion of all things dance, an update that affects, well, everything. To start, my soloist dancer Julia has a major neck injury/illness, and won’t be able to move for a while (probably somewhere around three weeks). So that’s something. Additionally (perhaps for the best) a sudden rain/snow leek at the production co’s office directly on top of my work station and computer put us behind a few days (although, wouldn’t you know it, that little G4 took the water like a pro, and is back up and running!).
So there’s that. However, while i can’t fascinate you with all the exciting post-production details that we’ve yet to discuss at our yet-to-be meeting, i can take this post to tell you about the general structure for this piece, and the side project that’s developed off of it.
A.O.'s Production Blog: the project starts
I’m back, and ready to dive in with you and bring you up to date on this new project/piece/film/thing that i’ve been working on. To give you a little context about the piece as a greater whole:
I’ve been working with my company, the A.O. Movement Collective, since the beginning of September on a new piece. Through Dance Theater Workshop’s Van Lier Fellowship, i was awarded 100 hours of free rehearsal space at Topaz Arts in Queens (an awesome studio, if i may say so) which we’re just finishing up this month. We’ve been through a lot already – cast additions and subtractions (and additions and subtractions), improvising, brainstorming, making, editing, throwing out, remaking, renewing – the works. The piece in itself (and i’m going to talk about it broadly here, but you can find more on my blog) is comprised of many small sections (“spots of time”) that will eventually all be connected by a non-linear narrative. Rather than working on a section at a time (which, we see very clearly now, would have been much easier to schedule and more economically viable) we’re making all of them at once, inch by inch and layer by layer. Working on them in this way means that they all continue to inform the others and continue to grow. I’ll be talking more about that process, and other Epic Work at my program at Chez Bushwick this Wed. night at 7 (come!!!) but that’s clear enough for now. All of this is to say: there are many sections (“13 variations on a car crash”, “Muerte Chiquita“, “fat fingers”, “Rock Solo”, “Slow lift evolving”, “eyes closed”, “gun to face”, etc) and this one is called “Glass Tree in Harlem”.
Negotiating the Epic with Sarah A.O. Rosner
As part of their Wednesday night Visual and Media Arts programming, Chez Bushwick is holding an Artist Salon on the fourth week of the month moderated by different guest artists. Coming up next Wed. Feb 25th at 7pm, choreographer and media artist Sarah A.O. Rosner will moderate an evening entitled “Negotiating the Epic.”
Whether you define ‘epic work’ by it’s length, detail, or literary definition, epic work has proved to be some of the most engrossing, groundbreaking, and problematic work ever created.
The evening will feature screenings, interviews and discussion about epic work as well as an open invitation to YOU the audience member to bring in questions, stories, artifacts or material to add to the conversation.
Sarah will start by looking at a few examples of epic art across genres – Joyce’s Ulysses, the computer game ‘Myst’, and the marathon dances of Sara Rudner to name a few, and then open it up for discussion and showing.
Once the decision has been made to create an epic work, what are the pros, cons, and questions that arise out of the process that follows? Why is epic work appealing, important, or sometimes the only option? What about epic work is rendered problematic by our current modes of working and art-making structures such as funding, process, performance, and audience? What are our options for negotiating the creation of epic work in the current artistic and economical climate, and how does it affect the work itself?
To show video/media works, please email Sarah at srosner[at]gm.slc.edu with a brief description of your work. We can only show work on DVD and clips must be under 5 min in length. We look forward to negotiating the epic with you!
DIRECTIONS: L TRAIN to Morgan Avenue
Exit the BACK of the train, Turn LEFT outside the station,
Turn LEFT onto Boerum Street
(Chez Bushwick is roughly 80 steps from the station)
Click here for Google map
Well it's lovely to meet you too. (Sarah A.O. joins Move the Frame)
Sarah A.O. Rosner with The A. O. Movement Collective
Hello there!
I’m Sarah A.O. – Anna has been kind enough to invite me to blog on Move the Frame on a regular basis. So, yes, i’m thrilled to be here! I guess you could say i’m a dance blogger. You could also say that i’m a choreographer, and dancefilm-maker, as well as newmedia lover/developer. You could also say that I am a lumberjack, but you, my friend, would be wrong on that last one. My company, the A.O. Movement Collective, is a contemporary dance co. based in NY, in love with and dabbling in many things: the aesthetics of mess, epic work, new media programs, and dancefilm being some of them. My blog, the Urgent Artist, is a digital space for some of those ideas and questions, as well as a space for anyone who “lives by their art” to throw down some good old fashioned knowledge, questions, or heartaches. I also work as a producer/editor for reels4artists, a video production company for the arts, and as an artist services intern at Dance Theater Workshop. But enough about all that.
Since Anna approached me about writing for her blog, i’ve been thinking about how to structure my time and space here. Do i blog theory, or about performances and screenings, or maybe turn my attention to the economics of dancefilm versus performance? I find them all vast and interesting, but luckily there’s a fairly easy answer already in place.
