Spill: Overspill

The festival is over, but it's still worth checking out this blog.

Spill: Overspill is a tailor-made critical writing programme, designed by Open Dialogues and produced in association with Pacitti Company. The programme is located at the heart of the Spill festival and explores the event of criticism in relation to performance.

The aim of Spill: Overspill is to respond critically to the work shown, and to create a realtime discursive context for the Spill festival: one that spills out of the usual confines of a festival to a diverse UK and international audience.

The methodology

Open Dialogues works from a position of reciprocity with art and artists in which criticism or critical writing is an intellectual encounter between writing and art. It is writing on, for, about, and as art. Spill: Overspill is produced within this methodology and is overtly embedded, collaborative, critical and located in close proximity to performance. The Spill: Overspill programme will explore this relationship and its critical implications.

The community

The Spill: Overspill community consists of 8 London based writing and performance practitioners. Together, the group will gain access to behind the scenes and rehearsal sessions, develop collaborations with individual festival artists, devise textual interventions, take part in Spill Think Tank activities and publish writing in response to the festival. This writing will appear on this blog, in the forthcoming Spill Festival publication and in a range of UK and international journals.

Liz Lerman Lecture: Parts 1 - 5

Discussing the creation of her latest dance piece that deals with genetics.



Parts 2 - 5 here.

National Dance Week Begins Today

Check out the activities list to see what might be going on where you live. There is a kick-off celebration in Union Square in downtown San Francisco starting at noon today. It's a free event and features performances by local dance groups.

I'm kind of in awe of this event. At least the level of organization of it where I live. The local company where my daughter takes ballet is participating by offering free classes on the weekend. How great is that? Now I can go check out that hip-hop class I've been meaning to take.

Seeing all this, begs the question - why isn't there a National Theater Week?

Big List of Theater: Addendum and Final Edition

I neglected to include these two shows in my latest Big List. Ms. E is going to be very busy indeed.

S.O.S. - Big Art Group @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco

Old Times - TheatreFirst @ Gaia Arts Center, Berkeley, CA





This is going to be the final edition of the Big List. If it appears again, it will likely be in another format. As I've said before, the list is for me - a way to keep track of shows I want to see. And to be honest, I kinda like the random picture collages.

All that Jazz/ Apocalpyse Now

I rediscovered this film a few years ago. I first saw it when it came out and remember seeing it many, many times. Not just because it's amazing in all it's cheesy, dark glory, but because it was the only movie playing near my home for like maybe a couple of months. In December of that same year came, Apocalypse Now, which I also saw repeatedly. It's an understatement to say they made huge impression on me.

Fosse Fosse 1! Fosse Fosse 2!

5 Things: Questions I'm Contemplating Edition + 1

1. Do I want to be a theater blogger? Why or why not?
   
2. Is Hal really as smart as everyone says he is? How does his intelligence manifest itself? Are these manifestations really signs of intelligence or just idiosyncrasies that masquerade as intelligence? If he is smart, how is that working out for him?
3. Will I get up @ 5:30 am to write tomorrow?
   
4. Will Mister Marshall Plan be permanently scarred if I go to Phoenix for a day?
5. Does the cannon at the house in Phoenix weigh more than 5o#? Can I lift it? Can I get it home on the plane?

+

1. I like the way this review is written. Just a simple, descriptive view of one person's experience. Simple as in elegant, not simple as in easy.
   

Wrighting the Play: An Organizational/Structural/Plot/Story/Content/Theatrical No? (Yes, but is it still theatre?) Flow Chart

How-To-Write-for-the-American-Theatre (h/t Enrique).

Criticism: Click to Enlarge

Big List of Theater: Where Have You Been Lately? Edition

Yeah. Where have you been Elizabeth? Like where has the love gone? Here's the thing, folks. There's this notion of priorities. At the beginning of the year, my priority was to show my support to the theater companies or production companies or individuals who are making the kind of theater I want to see more of and/or who are coming up with innovative ways of creating theater and/or bringing the arts to their community. So my theater-going dollars went directly to supporting them, in the form of smallish donations. That meant that I didn't see any theater for awhile. Which, honestly, is a trade-off that wasn't too hard to live with sometimes.

Then there's this matter of time. I have three kids: a two-year old who is particularly cling-onish to his mommie. And well, if you saw his little face and heard the plaintive way he says "Mommie," you'd wet your pants (or you'd given birth to three kids). Love would literally ooze out of your many orifices. Hmmm. Alarming visuals.

Moving on.

Finally, I've been deeply entrenched in my job at my daughter's co-op nursery school. That job being one of the chairpersons for the school's annual fundraising auction. The auction was last Saturday and now, except for a few minor tasks, I am back to procrastinating on my thesis. As for the auction, I could tell you war stories, but I'll just share a couple of the highlights. Yesterday for example: I had to file a police report because someone stole over $400 dollars worth of donations from the event site. It's a big bad world out there: someone acutally stole from a preschool auction. Finally, on a more uplifting note - we raised over $20,000. This in spite of theft and a bad economy. Families at the school and local businesses were very generous.

Oh. And there was this matter of reading Infinite Jest. As if you couldn't tell, I've been a tad preoccupied with that for the past three months.

So now the Big List. I don't know how many of these I'm going to get to, but will try hard to see most. I have my Phoenix tix already. So definitely going to that one.
Under Construction
Siti Company
April 18, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Thom Pain (based on nothing)
Extended through April 19, The Cutting Ball, Exit Theatre

The Kite Runner
Through April 19, San Jose Repertory









Small Dances about Big Ideas
Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
April 18 & 19, San Francisco JCC.

Confessions of A Refrigerator Mom
Through April 25, Marsh Studio Theatre Upstairs.

War Music
Through April 26, American Conservatory Theatre

Stern Grove: Spirit of Place
May 3, Anna Halprin, Stern Grove

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Rethinking Creative Genius

Okay. This is really quite wonderful. So wonderful and inspiring I had to post it on both my blogs.

Two Interesting Dance Sites

I'm constantly amazed at how much further ahead of the curve dance appears to be. I thought it was a local thing. I was wrong.

SARMA

Sarma is an artistic and discursive laboratory for criticism, dramaturgy and research in the field of dance and beyond. Sarma collects and organizes discursive practices. By compiling author based or thematically related text anthologies, published online on our website. But also by curating festivals, by providing dramaturgical assistance to performers, by organizing workshops, discussions, lectures, installations and research projects. Sarma is a breeding ground for artists and theoreticians to collaborate on shared problems and premises. Sarma aims for artistic work- and presentation formats that are inspiring to all.

Critical Correspondence

is an artist-driven project of Movement Research. We launched the first iteration of Critical Correspondence in March 2006. The publication was conceived as a platform to activate and develop critical discourse on dance and movement-based work.

For Mead