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Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance

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TRANSITION FEEDING CLUSTERING now DISTRIBUTING

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wow. Moving quickly here. The morning was amazing! The image text above is a definition of improvisation Susan Sgorbati used in the panel this morning.   A lot of amazing sharing.  Will have to post later. Just barely enough time to eat, chat, and try to come up with a method and fail at it. Phew. Heading out to PLOT with PLOTS (public laboratory). Looking forward to learning a co-equal technique outside. Being within the world in a performance model. Woo hoo.

Eliot posted a link to the iLANDING method and to Victoria’s presentation from the morning panel. So please check that out. More than I can say…. Oops. Out on the street already literally….. Getting instructions on exploration on the way. The balloon that will loft the camera for the aerial mapping is governed by the wind.  See how your movement and other things are interacting with the wind. Look for the crooked lines. They tell you the story.

Getting Ready for a Big Day

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Yesterday’s symposium opening was a thankful warm-up as I think towards the prospects  for today.   Arriving, really arriving, for a conversation about interdisciplinary collaboration, plunging into  the gathering together,  receiving information, and sharing across our mem-branes is a process to grapple with in itself.   I describe myself as an architect and a conversant around dance that engages site and process and I am arriving from California.  This is an amazingly vibrant community to come into and witness.  It is thrilling to think about reflecting back to this community and think about taking away a socially embodied sense of the workings to my spaces.   I hope that this writing (during and after the symposium) can add to/begin to encapsulate, spread apart, and distribute the knowledge and intensity of working around the ILAND practice that is manifested through this symposium.

We used a lot of words in the warm-up day.  (except that one…)  This was an extremely welcome focus laid out by Phil Silva, Executive Director of ILAND as facilitator of the Open Space Discussion: Moving Forward with Science and Performance.   Language, discipline specific terms, these are important ways of communicating within our disciplines that can keep us from hearing or collaborating with other disciplines.  Setting things apart, and bringing them together.  The discussion really turned into a workshop around how to notice and develop common interests of engagement through overlap in terms and describing how the disciplines do not do the same thing where terms are missing.  Finding where the conversation is interesting and necessary for both disciplines is a way to build collaboration.   The beautiful thing is that this is an on-going discussion.  This can be done again and again to keep referencing the ways in which we are moving the conversation,  we are communicating with, and conversing with each other.

Narrative context:  we were (and will be again today) on the 5th floor of a New School building at 65 West 11th Street.  This is a beautifully renovated gathering room that, despite sitting in for already 4 hours, was only made known to me through the practice of an ILAND method in the PLENARY period.   To start the gathering,  after welcome remarks by Founder/Artistic Director Jennifer Monson  we used an ILAND method to move and engage with the space and with each other.  This was not a meet and greet or an ice breaker.  It did that too, but it was an incredibly quick way to be completely in the process.  We researched through our own movement intuitions and through crossing paths and clustering we were able to transfer perceptual information about space time and embodiement.

Kate Cahill (previous ILAB resident and now Board Member) and Eliot Maltby, Board Member,  offered their work around the ILANDING, an iterative matrix and selected aphorism to afford the elastic presence between residencies and between ILAND and the related community and general public.   Thankfully they are going to post a link to their presentation.   It is too important to pass off a summary right here.   Can’t wait to talk more about it!

I will have to come back to writing and reflecting on the so much more that has already happened:   the landing into the New School through Ivan’s Senior Seminar class with a rehearsal and a performance of a new score by Ben Carson.  (So much more to say about that work.)  Really great talk by Ben about Radical Empiricism.

And the presentation of the most recent ILAB residency PARK,   really left me thinking about ways in which we receive the landscape and the incidental practices of documentation that are not part of a method.   The video of the wandering across a landscape made indeterminate by the literal accumulation and burial of a very human practice (making and processing ‘waste’) will stay with me as a way to reflect on the process of marking invisible time.

Scales of involvement. (How does this work at a scientific level.  How does this work through an art/movement practice process. How does this work in ILAND?  There have now been 11 residencies with 26 residents over 7 years.   That in itself is an elastic body of reflection and engagement over time and multiple spaces.)

The City/Urban environments.    We are going to talk a lot about this today in the morning panel.  Very excited!  But the city as a collaborative partner and an indeterminate process to be a basis for process practice was initiated.

Making the process visible. (documentation?)

Simultaneous reflection (intuition and improvisation.)

Position of self as researcher, artist, in relation to systems.

How are we going to talk about indeterminacy.  We’ll see what happens today.    Looking forward to more making sensable!

Gretchen

The 2012 iLAND Symposium Begins!

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We’re off to a great start with the 2012 iLAND Symposium: Moving into the Out There.  These annual symposiums give us a taste of the interdisciplinary research community that iLAND is creating.

As is often the case with iLAND, many conversations are started that open onto much bigger discussions that we do not have time to continue in the confines of the Symposium.   Stay tuned for blog posts by Gretchen Till, who will be blogging throughout this year’s Symposium; we hope you will join the conversation in person and online.

See you tomorrow, inside the New School and Thrown Outside for transects and weather balloons!

Live Dancing Archive Informal Showing

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Join us for an informal showing of Jennifer Monson’s new work, Live Dancing Archive during APAP.  The performance will take place at Eden’s Expressway, 537 Broadway between Spring and Prince at 4:30 pm on Saturday, January 7th.

This is a solo performance that mines the documentary footage of the BIRD BRAIN Osprey Migration as well as Jennifer’s long history of improvisational practice to explore the ways in which dancing produces and elicits place, systems of relations and a history of presence.

Please note: we are no longer accepting reservations for this event.

OPEN CALL: E|MERGE interdisciplinary artist residency

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INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST RESIDENCY: February 14-26, 2012 at Earthdance, Plainfield, Ma www.earthdance.net
OPEN CALL DEADLINE: November 7th

E|MERGE encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration toward forging new creative relationships, that bridge known and unknown territories.

This residency is ideal for those interested in collaborating and cross-pollinating ideas with artists from other disciplines and backgrounds. Many of the collaborations begun during this residency have continued to develop into rich & ongoing artistic relationships. E|MERGE is a residency that has grown into an organically developing network of highly skilled artists.

Past residency projects have included: a Museum of Narrow Spaces taking place in multiple locations throughout the Earthdance grounds & physical landscape; a performance installation performed for one audience member at a time, centered around a remote cabin; a photo shoot and participatory installation in our lodge kitchen; a video installation in a library loft; an experiment in creating an improvisational group animal without the use of language; a multi-media piece on self & isolation; and so much more.

To learn more and apply visit: http://earthdance.net/programs/emerge12.htm

Branch Dances at Wave Hill

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Merián Soto returns to the Bronx, her artistic home, to develop Branch Dances at Wave Hill, through generated@wavehill a commissioning program that provides artists the opportunity to create temporal work for the grounds. During this year-long residency she will create four outdoor performances, one each season, and will participate in the Winter Workspace Program. The first performance takes place Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 3PM.

This new project borrows from the seasonal structure of Soto’s award-winning, One Year Wissahickon Park Project presented in Wissahickon Valley Park, a wooded section of Philadelphia’s famed Fairmount Park. Soto uses both choreographed and improvised movement to transform everyday life experience, memory and history into innovative works that create a heightened awareness of emotion, expression and consciousness.

Branch Dances at Wave Hill performances are slow and meditative, yet powerfully communicative. Soto works with her team of five dancers―Beau Hancock, Shavon Norris, Jumatatu Poe, Olive Prince and Marion Ramirez―and percussionist Robert (Tigger) Benford, to connect body, mind, place and elements to stillness. For each perforamance Soto selects locations that respond to seasonal aspects of the landscape, taking advantage of Wave Hill’s brilliant foliage, sweeping vistas and sculptural trees. Audiences are invited to slow down and enter a state of heightened receptivity to nature.

http://www.wavehill.org/arts/branch_dances.html

Guapamactaro Interdisciplinary Residency in Art and Ecology

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The Guapamacátaro Interdisciplinary Residency in Art and Ecology is a site-based and community-oriented program for artists from different disciplines, scientists, educators and activists, aimed at fostering socially and ecologically-conscious cultural development in the area where the Guapamacátaro hacienda is located (Michoacán, Mexico).

http://www.guapamacataro.org

NEXT RESIDENCY DATES: June 7-24, 2012
APPLICATION DUE: November 1st, 2011
ACCEPTANCE NOTIFICATION: November 15, 2011

TO APPLY: Please download and carefully review the RFP online for details:

http://www.guapamacataro.org/apply

iLAND Benefit UPDATE

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iLAND’s Benefit + SOIREE is only a few days away and we still have work to do!  We need your help to achieve our goal of raising enough funds to support an additional iLAB Collaborative Residency in 2012.  We have some wonderful items up for auction in addition to an exciting raffle which you are automatically entered in when you buy a ticket.

We are almost half-way there – come celebrate with us on October 17 and support the growth of iLAND’s programs!

Monday, October 17 from 6-10pm at Superfine, 126 Front Street in Brooklyn.

Click here for details on tickets, performers and the silent auction.

2012 iLAB Collaborative Residency Request for Proposals

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iLAND is now accepting proposals for the 2012 iLAB Collaborative Residency Program.

Important dates:
Dec. 1st: letter of inquiry due
Jan. 3rd: notification of second round advancement
March 1st: full application due
March 30th: final notification

This year iLAND is restructuring the application process for the iLAB Residency.  Come learn more about the program and new guidelines, and meet potential collaborators at our upcoming information session on October 15 from 3-5pm.  Location: 475 Atlantic Avenue between Dean and 3rd Avenue on the 3rd Floor.

Email info(at)ilandart.org to RSVP for the Application Seminar.

Download the complete application guidelines here.

iLAND SOIREE + Benefit

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Join us on Monday, October 17 for a SOIREE and Benefit to Celebrate and Support the work of iLAND.  Food, drinks, performance, collaboration, silent auction and raffle!

  • 6 pm – Mingling, researching and collaborating
  • 7pm – Opening remarks – Jennifer Monson
  • 7:30pm – Collaborative performance based on the research and collaboration gathered from our guests.  Followed by a reading by Eileen Myles
  • 9 pm Silent Auction and Raffle 

MC CARMELITA TROPICANA | Performers include: Sean Meehan, Mina Nishamura, Jon Kinzel, Will Rawls and Carolyn Hall

Tickets:

To purchase tickets online, select your level above, or email info@ilandart.org to make a reservation and pay at the door.  

  • Food by Athena Kokoronis
  • Wine donated by David Bowler Wines
  • Food donated by The Anthill Farm

E.J. McAdams reads this Wednesday, August 10th

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The Center for Book Arts: Text Form iLAnd Board Member E.J. McAdams will read this Wednesday, August 10th at 6:30pm as part of The Center for Book Arts Summer Reading Series.

Other guests include Andrew Rahal, Anwyn Crawford, Camille Ikalina Robles and Stefanie Simons.  The evening is hosted by Jen Bervin & Mariette Lamson
$10 Suggested Donation/ $5 CBA Members

for more information visit: http://www.centerforbookarts.org/events/

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: ‘ON ECOLOGY’ Deadline: Oct. 1st

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS
PERFORMANCE RESEARCH 17.4 (AUGUST 2012):
‘ON ECOLOGY’
PROPOSAL DEADLINE: 1st OCTOBER 2011 (see below for details)

Issue Editors: Stephen Bottoms, Aaron Franks, Paula Kramer

How do we live on earth?

Over the last several years, a broad and growing range of theatre events
and performance processes have sought to re-imagine – in varying ways –
the question of our relationship, as humans, with the non-human
environment. These range from site-specific engagements with particular
localities to mainstage plays about climate change, from activist protest
inter-ventions to experiments with sustainable staging, from environmental
dance practices to performative philosophising around concepts of process
and relationality. These develop-ments (and more) have been complemented
by a performative turn in geographical thinking, which has brought renewed
attention to the material body and its lived experience of space and
place. Similarly, where the social and natural sciences meet, a growing
self-reflexivity about ‘the performance of science’ has become evident.

But in what ways, and to what extent, do these various practices and
concerns intersect? Is it possible to trace the outlines of a growing
ecological consciousness and connectivity in performance studies and its
related contexts? Or are we, instead, looking at a disparate range of
activities and discourses that remain largely isolated from each other?
Are these various developments testament merely to a vague sense of
concern about ‘the environment’, as a threatened backdrop to our human
drama? Or are we developing a potentially more progressive sense of
being-in and of the natural world? What might be our toeholds and launch
pads – metaphorical and earthly beginning points – for what cultural
geographer David Crouch calls simply ‘holding on and going further’?

“[We need] to bridge the great wellsprings of human understanding –
including the natural and social sciences, philosophy, religion and the
creative arts – to ‘re-imagine’ how we live on earth.”
–    Matthew Nisbet et al, “4 Cultures: New Synergies for Engaging Society on
Climate Change (2010)

On Ecology will begin a mapping – or, if you prefer, a rhizomatic
entangling – of these various questions and strands of praxis. The
objective will be to cherish the diversity of different approaches while
also apprehending their relatedness – to seek integration without capture;
holism without monism. We are therefore seeking proposals that respond to,
but are not limited by, the terms of this call.

Indicative themes include:

.    In what ways are experimental engagements between (for example) form and
content, dramaturgy and site, performer and spectator, serving to develop
environmentally attuned performance modes?

.    What are the sites, locations or ‘habitats’ of ecological performance,
and how are they being moved through, lived in, materialised,
historicised? To what extent can ongoing processes of environmental change
be comprehended, and engaged with, through performative framing an
intervention?

.    What constitutes ‘best practice’ in terms of theatre / dance /
performance that seeks to reduce its environmental footprint and render
itself sustainable? And to what extent should sustainability be conceived
not only in terms of pragmatic, material solutions, but in terms of
performative critique of our unsustainable addictions to capitalism and
consumerism?

.    What role does the notion of agency play in this field of acting with,
and being acted-upon by, the non-human environment? How might concepts
such as Bateson’s ‘ecology of mind’ or the ‘flat ontology’ of Deleuze or
DeLanda manifest themselves in embodied performance experiences – for
performers, witnesses, participants, and perhaps other in/organic actors?

.    An increasing and uneasy awareness of collective human endangerment of
our shared eco-system has prompted cultural responses ranging from
scepticism to despair. Critical thinking, wary of propaganda from either
direction, may risk becoming a prolonged ‘deliberation on mourning’
(Rancière, 2004:9).  But might our uncertainties and ambivalences also
provide the raw materials we need to reimagine the future – using the
lived, sited, awkwardly material facts of performance as our medium?

.    Some geologists have dubbed the current era the ‘Anthropocene’ – a label
that could be read either as scientific hubris or as an appropriate
reflection on human impacts within the in/organic world. To what extent
can – or should – performance question its familiar status as an
inherently ‘anthropo-scenic’, human-centred medium?

On Ecology extends, in part, from the deliberations of the UK-based
research network project ‘Reflecting on Environmental Change through
Site-Based Performance’ (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council, 2010-11). See www.performancefootprint.co.uk for details. The
network engaged with a wide range of practitioners including PLATFORM
London, NVA, Dead Good Guides, Fevered Sleep, Julie Laffin, Dee Heddon,
Baz Kershaw, Mike Pearson, Phil Smith, and others. It is hoped that this
edition of Performance Research will extend the nationally-focused scope
of the network, to embrace a truly global, cross-cultural range of
perspectives and practices, both ‘major’ and ‘minor’.

The format of Performance Research allows for artists’ pages and other
visual representations alongside articles, interviews, documents or
reviews. Proposals are invited from all disciplinary viewpoints, and from
artists and writers, theorists and fieldworkers.

SCHEDULE
.    Proposals: 1st October 2011
.    First drafts: 4th January 2012
.    Publication date: August 2012

ALL proposals, submissions and general enquiries should be sent direct to:

Becci Curtis: rec12@aber.ac.uk

Issue-related enquiries should be directed to the issue editors:

Stephen Bottoms: S.J.Bottoms@leeds.ac.uk
Aaron Franks: afranks.ges.gla@gmail.com
Paula Kramer: kramerp@uni.coventry.ac.uk

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

Proposals will be accepted by e-mail (MS-Word or RTF). Proposals should
not exceed one A4 side.  Please DO NOT send images electronically without
prior agreement.

Please note that submission of a proposal will be taken to imply that it
presents original, unpublished work not under consideration for
publication elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) agree
that the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article have
been given to Performance Research.

Internship Available

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iLAND is looking for an Program Intern to help produce the organization’s annual Benefit SOIREE at Superfine in Brooklyn on October 17, 2011, and to implement a new database structure currently under development. The position is part time, requiring 5-10 hours/week beginning early August through late October.

Intern job description

2011 iLAB Resident Artists

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iLAND  is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2011 iLAB collaborative residency:

PARK 2011 residency At Fresh Kills, New York

choreographer Kathy Westwater, poet Jennifer Scappettone, architect Seung Jae Lee, and trail-builder Leigh Draper

iLAB, now in its sixth year, is a residency program supporting collaborations between movement-based artists and scientists, environmentalists, urban designers/landscape architects, architects and others that integrate creative practice within different fields/disciplines. The goals of iLAB are 1) to invigorate and re-imagine relationships between the public and the urban environment through kinetic experience, 2) to engage artists and practitioners across the disciplines of dance, art, and the ecology of physical interrelationships such that we create and investigate innovative approaches to science, infrastructure, urbanisms, and architecture within a performative context, and 3) to support the development of process in engagement over product such that process is itself a product for artistic and public action.

Each year iLAB provides collaborator teams with support including a $5,000 stipend, resources to document the residency, mechanisms for disseminating their research in the science and art communities, and mentoring throughout the process.  This year, in addition to participating in the residency activities, the iLAB recipients will be engaged in the development of the iLAND Process a dynamic structure of best practices that will foster in-depth and effective collaborative processes for the iLAB Residency program. Defining the iLAND Process will create a replicable model for interdisciplinary collaboration with a strong emphasis on the role that dance and somatic practices play in environmental and aesthetic understanding.

PARK 2011 Residency At Fresh Kills, New York

PARK is about what we destroy in order to create. Existing as both process and performance, it expresses forms of making and unmaking that engage wilderness, post-industrial spaces, and everyday landscapes. PARK locates the convergence of nature, industry, and individual experience of the wild and mundane daily life at large at Fresh Kills, New York.

Geographically situated away from the view of many of the city’s inhabitants, Fresh Kills, once the largest landfill in the world, is currently undergoing a 30-year conversion into a park.

Collaborators include choreographer Kathy Westwater, poet Jennifer Scappettone, architect Seung Jae Lee, and trail-builder Leigh Draper. Their research includes exploring the translation of wilderness practices to the urban landfill-to-park site.

PARK seeks to activate the landscape, articulating the site’s mutating topography, infrastructure, mass, and scale while evoking notions of proximity and distance between the public and the largely invisible contents of the landfill, collapsing our individual and collective remoteness from its obscured function in the life of the city.

As New York continues to create a new use-value for the Fresh Kills Landfill, the PARK residency project – which culminates in a public event in Fall 2011 –represents an unprecedented engagement for project collaborators and the public with a unique site that has been largely inaccessible until now, though it is crucial to both the history and future of the city. PARK invites individual participants to enter into awareness of their own connections to this place, a monument to cycles of consumption in which we are all complicit; it invites the public to enter a zone of visceral intimacy created within this expansive and alien, yet familiar landscape.

Culminating Public Event in Fall 2011

Symbiotic Art & Science

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reblogged from Art Works the Official Blog of the National Endowment for the Arts

March 1, 2011
Washington, DC

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in The Matter of Origins by Jaclyn Borowski_3

The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange performing The Matter of Origins. Photo by Jaclyn Borowski

At the National Science Foundation building in Arlington, Virginia, an exciting conference has been taking place over the last two days on the intersection of life sciences and arts: Symbiotic Art and Science. Bringing together scientists and artists (and some who wear both hats), the conference looked at innovative collaborations that have taken place between the arts and sciences, and asked some important questions, like What motivated you to cross disciplines and how did you do it? Or, What do artists gain from working with scientists, and what do scientists gain from working with artists?

We have asked some of the participants to talk about their experiences in these types of collaborations, their experience with the conference, and their thoughts on some of these questions. We will run the guest blogs each week over the next month; to start us off is choreographer and dancer Liz Lerman, founding artistic director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Lerman has had plenty of experience in art/science collaborations: her piece Ferocious Beauty: Genome explored genetic research through modern dance and her new piece, The Matter of Origins, looks at physics inspired by her visit to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Here’s what she had to say:

Introductions at the Symbiotic Art and Science meeting took an interesting turn as one person after another acknowledged their split personality or hybrid research tactics. I found myself remembering…read more.

iLAND’s perceptual alchemy

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by Adrian J Ivakhiv
rebloged from Immanence: thinking the form, flesh & flow of the world: ecoculture, geophilosophy, mediapolitics

Some of today’s most important eco-artists — people like Patricia Johanson, Betsy Damon, and others — work on a landscape scale with interdisciplinary groups of participants to render socio-ecological change into aesthetically tangible and artistically significant forms. Experimental dancer and choreographer Jennifer Monson’s work falls into this category as well, though, as dance, it tends to be more ephemeral and less product-oriented than even the most process-based of eco-art.

Monson, who is based at the University of Illinois but currently a visiting professor at the University of Vermont, is also artistic director of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature, and Dance (iLAND). Like other performance laboratories (such as Jerzy Grotowski’s theater endeavors and their many spin-offs), iLAND works on the personal and collective process of making change through the arts, but it distinguishes itself by collaborating with the sciences more directly than do most such efforts. It does this, among other ways, by sponsoring collaborative and interdisciplinary residencies called “iLABs”, and through organizing an annual symposium at which iLAB participants present their work to the public and open it up to critical discussion of project goals, methods, and broader implications.

This year’s symposium took place last weekend. The three iLAB/iLAND projects that presented their work engaged interdisciplinary mixes of artists (including dancers, musicians, architects, and others), scientists (mostly biologists and ecologists), environmental activists and regular citizens in projects that included public performances and workshops of one kind or another. I was invited to comment on the projects on Friday and to facilitate and participate in Saturday’s workshops and discussions. A few brief observations follow. Read on…

Barter Dinner + Performance @ Trade School

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Saturday April 2nd
6:00-8:30pm
32 Prince Street, NYC

Organized by past iLAND Residents Caroline Woolard, Athena Kokoronis and Kate Cahill.

THIS Saturday from 6-8:30pm, BRING chocolate, a drawing, a bike light, a gesture, or handmade clothing IN EXCHANGE FOR a performance dance work and a dinner that will include fermented foods, seeds, soup stock, leaves, and dessert. *Choreographed by Athena Kokoronis. Performers include: Christina Andrea, Karen Gleeson, Julia Handshu, Kate Cahill, Brianna Kalisch, Emmet McMullan, and Meredith Ramirez Talusan.

SIGN UP at: http://tradeschool.ourgoods.org/#class189

Symposium Moderator Bios

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We’re very pleased to announce the moderators for Friday evening’s portion of Slow Networks, the 2011 iLAND Symposium at The New School. For more information on the Symposium, check visit HERE and HERE. We look forward to seeing you there!

Paul Besaw, independent choreographer, has a primary interest in the development of original dance/theatre works. With collaboration as a vital goal, he often works in a setting that includes composers, designers, theatre-makers, and visual artists. He is the founder and co-artistic coordinator of The Solo Workshop, a multidisciplinary group of artists exploring the solo mode and premiering new evenings of performance. He is also a founding member of New Agnes Orange, a performance collective devoted to original, collaboratively devised theatre projects. Paul holds a BA in theatre from Keene State College, and an MFA in dance from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Currently, Paul serves as associate professor of dance at The University of Vermont where he coordinates the dance program, and teaches classes in contemporary dance technique, choreography, and dance history.

Selene Colburn is an Assistant Library Professor at the University of Vermont, where she serves as Dance Liaison and Assistant. to the Dean of Libraries for External Relations. Her teaching focuses on the intersection of research and performance. At WGBH Educational Foundation, she was Project Archivist for the New Television Workshop Collection, which included over twenty-five years of seminal works of video art and dance. She has also worked in the archives of the Shelburne Museum, the St. Johnsbury Archives Collaborative, and the University of Vermont. Her performance works have appeared at venues such as the International Festival of Art and Ideas, the Bay Area Dance Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, and the Scope Art Fair

Adrian Ivakhiv is an Associate Professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, where he coordinates the graduate concentration in Environmental Thought and Culture. With a background in the arts (as a musician and music director) and in the study of religion, culture, and media, Adrian’s work features an interdisciplinary scope that cuts across the sciences and humanities, the theoretical and applied arts. He is the author of Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (Indiana University Press, 2001) and Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature (forthcoming from Wilfrid Laurier University Press), and Executive Editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (Thoemmes Continuum, 2005). He has been interviewed on Krista Tippett’s syndicated radio show “Speaking of Faith” (now called “On Being”), is on the board of directors of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, and blogs on environmental and cultural issues at Immanence.

Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants, and The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship. A contributing editor to Vogue, he is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. His work has also appeared in Condé Nast Traveler and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

How Fisheries Can Gain From The Lessons of Sustainable Food

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As agriculture and energy production have made strides toward becoming more sustainable, the world’s fisheries have lagged behind. But restoring our beleaguered oceans to health will require an emphasis on diversification and conservation — and a more sensible mix of fishing practices.
By John Waldman (iLAND Board Member)

In The Dark, Blue Sea, Lord Byron famously stated, “Man marks the earth with ruin, his control stops with the shore.” That in 1812 the land side of the shore was already being compromised was not in doubt. But two subsequent centuries of misuse have demonstrated just how mistaken he was about the inviolability of the oceans. Man’s control beyond the shore today is not complete, but it is profound. The sea’s noteworthy denizens — its finfish and shellfish, always major food sources — have felt this control through overharvesting and habitat destruction, so that today many species are in sharp decline or at perilous levels.

Two hundred years of marine environmental degradation have coincided with evolutionary trends in the public’s relations with seafood. In the U.S., much of the fish the average person now eats is made up of a handful of species captured by factory ships that turn their catch into processed fish sticks and other mass-produced forms of convenience; the end product of such corporate fisheries seems far removed from a sleek, scaly creature with fins.Read more…

4X4 Dance Body And The Environment

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With Guest Artists: Jennifer Monson, Simon Whitehead and Angus Balbernie

18th – 29th April 2010

4×4 is an eleven-day event on the theme of dance, body and the environment for dance or movement artists, choreographers and artists working in related art-forms.

“Somewhere in the midst of ‘sustainability’ lies an inspiring vision of transformation. As movement artists we will take our dance and choreographic practice into this territory, developing and deepening our sense of the self within the body, to inspire and engender a vital reconnection between humanity and the planet”.

Artists of any discipline and level of experience are welcome to participate in all or just part of the event.  read more here.

RSVP / Registration for 2011 Symposium

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Interested in attending Slow Networks: Discovering the Urban Environment Through Collaborations in Dance And Ecology on March 25 & 26? To RSVP, email info@ilandart.org. We’ll put you on the list and send you a link to our secure PayPal page for purchasing tickets.

We look forward to seeing you at the symposium!

What, exactly, IS a “Slow Network”?

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iLAND recently announced that the theme of its spring symposium this year will be Slow Networks: Discovering the Urban Environment Through Collaborations in Dance And Ecology. The theme is clearly focused on two popular but rarely paired ideas. First, we have the idea of slowness, a pace that has captured the imagination of everyone from sustainable food advocates to poets in recent years. Mashed up against slowness is that ubiquitous 21st Century phenomenon: the network. From telecommunications to the tools we use to keep tabs on our friends, we look to networks for efficiency and speed. So what are these slow networks? And what do they have to do with iLAND’s devotion to productive collaborations between art and science in the realm of the environment?

Let’s start talking, shall we?

OPEN CALL: Bunker Festival Deadline March 31st

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BUNKER forms part of the network entitled Imagine 2020 – Arts and Climate Change, which tackles the issue of environmental challenges through the prism of artistic actions and by means of certain other instruments of production.

The aforementioned initiative precipitated production of performance by Betontanc Ltd: SO FAR AWAY introduction to ego-logy in 2010 and also gave rise to a grass-made installation by the British artistic tandem Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey entitled On the field, which had been featured on the platform next to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in the framework of The Mladi levi Festival. Both works of art illustrate our specific approach to the issue in question, namely flexibility as to genre and theme, since our understanding of art defines the latter as the field of arising questions instead of that of already laid-down answers.

We are opening a call for production of artistic works, predominantly addressed to young artists coming from the fields of performing arts (this, however, is not a necessary requirement) to submit their projects, which in one way or another tackle the issue of contemporary environmental challenges in the widest sense possible.
Bunker will choose one or more projects applied and support it/them in terms of production, promotion and finance as well as by arranging their guest-staging or its/their introduction to the international sphere.

We kindly invite all interested parties to send a short outline of the project proposed (one page), a reference list and a budget estimate to info@bunker.si by February 28th. Any further information may be obtained at info@bunker.si or 031 694 559. Applicants will be notified of their application results by 31stMarch.
Kindly invited!

Symposium Workshops Announced!

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It’s been a few weeks since we posted the themes of the 2011 iLAND Symposium workshops. Now we’re pleased to follow up with some deeper descriptions of each experience! Take a look; it’s never too soon to start choosing which experience you’ll participate in during the symposium this year.

Stewardance
Stewardance is an ongoing project exploring how city dwellers make sense of their place in an urban forest through movement, dance, and collaborate street tree stewardship. Developed through an iLAB Fellowship by Jackie Dodd and Philip Silva during the spring, summer, and autumn of 2010, Stewardance continues to inspire alternative and innovative approaches to experiencing the community of trees found on any city street. This workshop draws on insights and experiences developed in Stewardance workshops to introduce participants to the urban forest in Greenwich Village. Participants will move deliberately and mindfully on a hike through the forest and dance through the labor of caring for an ailing street tree. Location TBA.

SIP
Combining the fields of dance, music, and architecture, Jennifer Monson, Maggie Bennett and Kate Cahill will share the processes they developed in last summer’s SIP (sustained immersive process)/watershed project. Workshop participants will engage in simple scores that interweave listening, observing, moving, diagramming and drawing. Concepts of scale, containment and transformation that emerged from the collaborator’s immersive research will be shared through an intimate series of creative exchanges. Location TBA.

River to Creek
River to Creek was a roving ecological study of Newtown Creek, a waterway that straddles the 
border of Queens and Brooklyn.  River to Creek explored and exposed the past and 
present natural history of the land around the Creek through scientific research, movement, and 
participatory sensory activities. The iLAB residency researchers and 
presenters Clarinda Mac Low, Carolyn Hall, Kathleen McCarthy and Paul 
Benney “discovered” Newtown Creek from June to October, 2010 and 
shared the area’s history and their research methods in public events 
focused on land/plants, water/fish and air/birds.  In this workshop the participants will discover the urban 
ecology of the grounds of Solar One at Stuyvesant Cove Park, 
observing its environment, wildlife, ecosystem and the juxtapositions 
of “urban” and “nature.” We will bring all into our research process and develop an idea for a public event using awareness 
exercises, physical explorations of the space, artistic projects that highlight the natural qualities of 
the area, and simple scientific data gathering to deepen the 
knowledge of the local ecology.

 

 

Flipbook in movie format

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I finally edited our materials into a short sequence of images that reflect some ways that we were thinking about time, space, scale, perspective and movement. Be on the look-out for hard copies of The Flipbook. More details coming.

iLAND Symposium 2011: Slow Networks: Discovering the urban Environment Through Collaborations in Dance and Ecology

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Slow Networks: Discovering the Urban Environment Through Collaborations in Dance And Ecology is iLAND’s third annual symposium on dance, movement, and the environment. The two-day event in the heart of New York City brings together dancers, choreographers, designers, ecologists, advocates, and scientists for interactive panel discussions, field workshops, and networking opportunities. This year’s symposium features an in-depth conversation with recipients of last year’s iLAB residencies, kicking off another dynamic year of iLAND programming.

March 25, 2011 | 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
The New School – 66 West 12th Street, Room 510

  • Presentations by iLAB 2010 Residents River to Creek and Stewardance
  • Presentation by Jennifer Monson, iLAND founder and Artistic Director
  • Panel Discussion with audience and special quest moderators to TBC

March 26, 2011 | 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
The New School – Location TBD

  • Morning workshops exploring movement and urban ecology at sites throughout NYC
  • Networking lunch provided by The New School Urban Forestry Club
  • Afternoon break-out discussions

Slow Networks will highlight the insights and discoveries of the 2010 iLAB residencies along with recent work by iLAND founder, Artistic Director, and award-winning choreographer Jennifer Monson. Workshop presenters and panelists will include personnel from:

Stewardance, a collaborative exploration of the relationship between street tree stewardship and mindful movement through the urban environment.

River to Creek, a participatory research project drawing attention to the geographic and ecological connections across the industrial landscape of North Brooklyn.

SIP (Sustained Immersive Process)/Watershed an investigation into the NYC Regional watershed viewed as a meta-choreography of the historical, geological, and cultural layers of the interaction of built and natural phenomena of water in the region.

The Symposium’s Friday evening session will include presentations from each of the participants with a general discussion panel following. The Saturday session will feature hands-on workshops out in the urban landscape, run by our three presenters, followed by a collaborative discussion period.

River to Creek Bike Ride!

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On September 11, 2010, River to Creek celebrated the diversity of the New York City landscape with a bike ride through the industrial wilderness along Newtown Creek, at sunset.  A flock of over 20 bikes, in feathered helmets and wings, took to the streets along Newtown Creek in Queens, accompanied by a bird specialist, Peter Joost, and a Newtown Creek fact machine, Ryan Kuonen.

One flocker, Samuael Topiary, took a gorgeous set of photos of the event.

More soon!

Art, science, activism and bicycles

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In honor of the upcoming River to Creek bicycle tour on September 11, I’d like to share some thoughts that came up during a tour with our accompanying expert, Ryan.

On July 11, 2010 I took a bike tour of the Newtown Creek with Ryan Kuonen of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG), a volunteer-based community planning and environmental justice organization that has worked in North Brooklyn waterfront communities for many years.  The tour was offered as a course at the School of the Future.

Ryan is stuffed full of knowledge about the history and ecological state of the creek, and led us to unusual access points along the creek.  Some interesting tid-bits  from the smorgasboard of information she offered:
–    There is an oil spill under the creek that is bigger than the spill from the Exxon Valdez.
–    The Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant has a visitor’s center which was designed by Vito Acconci and New York City DCA Percent for Art brought us the George Trakas sculptural habitat on the grounds of the treatment plant.  This habitat, a large public area that contains gardens and a unique spatial design, is hidden away at the end of Paidge Avenue and surprisingly uninhabited, given its unusual and gorgeous nature.  It has been a stop on some the River to Creek research tours.
–    In the past 400 years, the area around Newtown Creek has gone from productive wetland to farmland to heavy waterfront industry to light functioning industry with less waterfront activity and is currently transforming, albeit slowly, into residential areas with waterfront access.

Here are some photos of some flora and fauna along the creek, and some waterfront views from the bike ride:


The ride and the talk started me thinking about the intersection between art, activism and science.

Ryan, a passionate advocate for environmental justice, had a plethora of scientific knowledge at her fingertips.  This type of knowledge is essential for a certain type of activism.  Activism aimed at our ecological survival (aka survival of life on Earth) requires science.

Where does art fit?  In a                                                               space.

Ideally, art brings the message home, under the skin and into the tear ducts, through the soles of the feet and into the blood stream.

Perhaps art is the intersection of information, education and understanding.

Art acts in this space not just by presenting information in an attractive manner.  It is the intermediary between the raw experience of the world/event that is eventually translated into “information” and the information it becomes.  It is privileging our sensory and other perception, our nuanced intuition, and it allows us to become utterly engaged in a situation.

I propose:
Environmental activism needs science to be effective as information and it needs art to be effective in creating true understanding. Also, environmental science needs environmental activism so that it can remain vital and connected to everyday life, and environmental science needs art so that there is a connection between analysis (taking the world apart into its constituent pieces) and synthesis (putting the pieces back together in unusual ways).  And—environmental science stimulates art to create a connection between ideas and physical reality, while environmental activism has given rise to some of the many of the most interesting expressions of artistic creativity in the past decade or so, giving the creative process a boost into a socially engaged yet esthetically rigorous realm.

Comments welcome.  And we look forward to seeing you on Sept. 11 for a vigorous ride through the wilds of the industrial Creek, crazy environmental facts and discussion, and birdwatching.

Clarinda for River to Creek

Update on the Remote and the Immediate

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We’ve been looking at practitioners of different disciplines to see how they treat time in their work. Choreographer Merce Cunningham used a stopwatch. He expected the dancers to perform each work in a specified duration without any sound cues or other external time-keeping devices. The novelist Jonathan Safran Foer manipulated the speed and direction of time in his story-telling. In Everything is Illuminated, he juxtaposed the forward-moving narrative of small town with the story of a backward-looking, history-seeking protagonist. Both narratives move along until they collide and collapse in one pivotal moment. Historians, according to Michel Foucault in The Archeology of Knowledge, are, in the modern age, interested in disruptions and interruptions in historical narratives, as opposed to their predecessors who posited totalizing theories of linear historical narratives. Former finance consultant Nassim Nicholas Talib, in The Black Swan, shows that history does not happen in the linear narratives which we often study in school. Instead, he says, “history jumps.” The unexpected alters history more than any other event. Thus, it is impossible to predict. John Malkovitch closes The Dancer Upstairs by juxtaposing a young girl’s dance (to Nina Simone’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”) with her father’s delayed reflection and rapid facial reaction to a long hardship. Some earth scientists and archeologists speak of eras and eons, time periods delineated by major historical or geological events but also somewhat arbitrarily defined.

These varied practices, theories and understanding of time show that narrative is often our way of framing and thus understanding time periods. Whether it is the sun passing over the sky or the growth of a sunflower, we need a story to help us sense the passing of time and the amount of time passed. Documentation helps us capture and/or tell the story.

If I want to understand a 25-year period of urban growth in New York City as well as the time it takes my lungs to fill and empty with air, perhaps I should document and juxtapose these two stories.

We’re working right now on capturing narratives through images. We’d like to put 2-4 of these narratives together in one flipbook. These flipbooks will be in both video and hard/paper format. The videos are easy to distribute and share with you; the hard copies allow you, the flipper, to determine the speed and direction of the action as you flip through the pages.

We’ll be posting a bunch of photos and links to videos on theremotetheimmediate.wordpress.com. Feel free to comment or offer your own ideas of narratives and juxtapositions.

One large questions looms.  How does one capture the experience of movement in images? We’re working on it . . .

River to Creek Walk: oyster shells, corn planting and your own personal marsh

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The walk through Greenpoint from the East River to Newtown Creek attracted a crowd of about 20 curious and intrepid citizen researchers.  We took people on a historical and tactile tour of the area, overlaying present, past and future with imaginative, factual and sensory data.

We were accompanied on the walk by Steve Glenn, of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, who gave us a history of the flora that thrived in the area prior to settlement, and a sense of what had landed there now (everything from re-introduced scrub oaks to the ubiquitous Tree of Heaven, a non-native tree seen everywhere in New York City).

There’s a whole slew of photos of the walk (below are some highlights), and coming soon are some selected questions and observations garnered from our researchers during the walk.

River to Creek: come to the first open research trip

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Saturday, July 17, 2010, 5 PM
Meet at the India St. exit of the Greenpoint Ave. G stop.

Come to a research walk through the wilds of North Brooklyn, with an informal talk by Steve Glenn from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and a historical tour of the land.  This event is FREE and open to the public.

Wear comfortable shoes, bring a hat and water!    RSVP and questions to tryst@culturepush.org.    Call 917-306-6363 if questions on the day of the walk.

River to Creek:  A Roving Natural History of North Brooklyn is a participatory research project and art action that draws attention to the geographic and ecological connections across the industrial landscape of North Brooklyn, from the wild empty lots at the end of Newtown Creek in Bushwick to the East River at the edge of Greenpoint.

There will be three public hands-on research tours–July 17, August 21 and Sept. 11–and a final presentation in the beginning of October.

Stewardance Calendar

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Join us as we dance through the urban forest this summer. Jackie and Phil will be leading groups of street tree stewards on Saturday afternoons this summer. All friends of trees are welcome to explore the relationship between movement and the urban environment!

Prospect Heights Location:
Prospect Heights Community Farm
Saint Marks Avenue between Vanderbilt Avenue & Underhill Avenue

Park Slope Location:
367 5th Street between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue

July 2010
17 July 2010 :: 1 pm to 3 pm :: Park Slope
24 July 2010 :: 1 pm to 3 pm :: Prospect Heights

September 2010
25 September 2010 :: 11 am to 1 pm :: Prospect Heights

RSVP appreciated: jcaradodd@gmail.com

Stewardance Days: Find the Forest

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Howdy folks. This is the most succinct description we have to date. What do you think?

Not many people know that street-trees need to be cared for. But think about it- in the forest of urban street-trees, there is hardly any open ground to soak up water and nutrients, and roots have to compete with concrete and pipes! Street-trees need our help to grow tall and healthy; we can break up compacted soil, mulch around trees with woodchips, water, and even become citizen tree-pruners to trim dead branches before they become diseased.

However, the trees aren’t the only ones in need. New Yorkers need help from street-trees, too. We need to slow down, appreciate the air, sunlight, and rain in our city, reclaim our tall, strong posture from our workdays at the computer, and talk to our neighbors…

When you join us for a Stewardance day, we’ll do all the normal stewardship activities, but that’s only half of it. We will also be stewards of ourselves. Come learn how to tune in to the dance of your own body as it calls for physical activity, exertion, stretching, relaxation, air, water, and sunlight. Respecting the naturalness of ourselves, we can better realize the naturalness all around us; we can find the forest of New York City.

River to Creek gets started

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Jump right in. Join us as we figure it all out…how do we get from here to there in North Brooklyn?  What will we find along the way?

On Saturday 6.19.10 Carolyn (Hall) and Clarinda (Mac Low) went on a trip by foot and bike from Greenpoint to Bushwick.  Along the way:

–  We visited India St. pier, gathered samples of plants there.  The concrete slab has shifted since we were last there, decaying further into the river. We found tiny little barnacles on every kind of surface. There were four cormorants diving and then drying themselves on the pier pilings, a gaggle of geese, and several birds we have not yet identified that we called “sea sparrows.” (Click on the picture for more photos of India St. and the events of the day) [Read more…] about River to Creek gets started

Intro to the Remote, the Immediate

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Some text to get us started . . .

I’m a dancer. I like to understand things through personal experience. Dance has been my way of consciously seeking and discovering information and cultivating an understanding of the world and of myself. The knowledge I gain is palpable, felt, immediate.

I’ve been making site-specific dances, informed by history, cultural studies and architecture, for the past couple of years. I wanted to work with a geoscientist who could give me another perspective on place. I found Christopher Small through his website.

Chris works with remote sensing, among other tools. He creates images, based on the amount of sunlight reflected off of the Earth’s surface, and can consequently measure the amount of urban vegetation in a place like New York City. He can then compare images from different times and look at the amount of vegetation growth or depletion that’s happened over a span of up to thirty years. [Read more…] about Intro to the Remote, the Immediate

PARK @ Fresh Kills

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PARK @ Fresh Kills

“PARK is about worlds we create and worlds that disappear.”

choreographyKATHY WESTWATER, poetryJENNIFER SCAPPETTONE, visual designSEUNG JAE LEE

performanceMAGGIE BENNETT, REBECCA BROOKS, REBECCA DAVIS, URSULA EAGLY, MELISSA GUERRERO, BELINDA HE, KAZU NAKAMURA, JEREMY PHEIFFER & ENRICO WEY [Read more…] about PARK @ Fresh Kills

2010 iLAB Residents

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

iLAND – interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2010 iLAB collaborative residencies:

RIVER TO CREEK: A ROVING NATURAL HISTORY

Marine scientist/dancer Carolyn Hall, ecologist/visual artist Kathleen McCarthy and Clarinda Mac Low andPaul Benney, members of TRYST

STREET-TREE STEWARDANCE: Urban Forest Stewardship as Movement Practice

Choreographer Jaqueline Dodd with Philip Silva, Urban Environmental Steward

JUXTAPOSING THE REMOTE AND THE IMMEDIATE

Dance artist Diana Crum and geophysicist Chris Small

[Read more…] about 2010 iLAB Residents

Notes from the 2010 Symposium

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On March 26 and 27 a group of artists and scientists convened at The New School for iLAND’s second annual Symposium. The event opened with presentations from renowned public artist and key note speaker, Mary Miss, followed by iLAB residents – StrataSpore; StEM, Phil Silva and Timon McPhearson’s urban forest mapping project; and iLAND’s own Artistic Director Jennifer Monson.

Workshop at Solar One

Pod Casts – Download audio from the lectures:

MaryMiss
StEM
StrataSpore
Jennifer Monson

Day 2 of the iLAND Symposium began with workshops led by Jennifer Monson, StEM and StrataSpore; the following is an overview of the small group discussions that followed the workshops.  We invite you to help keep this dialogue moving forward by contributing your thoughts to the iLAND blog: [Read more…] about Notes from the 2010 Symposium

iLAND receives Gotham Green award

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iLAND receives a Gotham Green award for Green Community based Non-Profit!

Gotham GREEN is a sub-group of the Gotham City Network for people interested in the green business sector.  The Gotham Green awards recognizes organizations that are working in the forefront of the green movement.  iLAND was nominated for the award by Joel Chadabe, founder and director of the Eletronic Music Foundation and the Ear to the Earth festival.  A special thank you to Joel for your generous acknowledgement of iLAND’s work!

View the e-program from the awards luncheon.

The iLAND Symposium is coming up Friday, March 26 & 27

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Friday’s event includes a keynote speech by renowned public artist Mary Miss followed by brief presentations by iLAB residents – Strataspore, investigating the phenomenon of mushrooms in the city, StEM, Phil Silva and Timon McPhearson’s urban forest mapping project and Jennifer Monson, engaging watersheds and ground water through dance in the Mahomet Aquifer Project. On Saturday we will offer workshops on site in the city, lunch and small group discussion. [Read more…] about The iLAND Symposium is coming up Friday, March 26 & 27

Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway

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Rob Pirani, the Region Plan Association’s Director of Environmental Programs, presented at iLAND’s March symposium on plans for the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, which is a 14-mile bike and pedestrian path along Brooklyn’s waterfront that is being planned and conceived by the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway

NYC From a Native Plant’s Perspective

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iLAND Symposium attendees were treated to a presentation called NYC From a Native Plant’s Perspective: Mapping NYC as Native Flora. This was a collaboration between choreographer Lise Brenner, Brooklyn Botanical Garden Native Flora Curator Uri Lorimer, and landscape architect and visual artist Katrina Simon. These three individuals were the iLAB 2007 residents, who worked on their residency from July through October 2007 in NYC. [Read more…] about NYC From a Native Plant’s Perspective

Opening Remarks from the Symposium

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photo by Bob Braine

Last month’s symposium had a great turnout and a variety of thought-provoking presentations. Over the next few weeks, the presentations will be posted online so that they can be shared with a much wider audience. For starters, here are the opening remarks from artistic director Jennifer Monson. An excerpt is below:

“Both art and science are fundamentally creative fields where there is a strong desire to investigate the unknown. Often the only way we can develop our understanding of something is by making a creative leap that dislodges our assumptions of it. This is part of the nature of experimentation and innovation – to put things together in an unexpected alchemy.”

Stay tuned for the next post – on NYC from a native plant’s perspective.