Monson

Jennifer Monson live, indoors, at The Kitchen

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Wallace Heim writes: Tomorrow, at The Kitchen in New York City, the movement artist Jennifer Monson starts Live Dancing Archive, a week of live performances, video installation and a digital archive.

One of the first stories on the Ashden Directory in 2000 featured Jennifer’s project BIRD BRAIN Dance, a dance touring project following the migratory pathways of birds and grey whales in the northern and southern hemispheres. Jennifer’s work in the UKcontinued with Water Log, an outdoor movement project across the sands of Morecambe Bay. She returned to America and now is director of iLAND (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance), developing collaborative art and environmental projects.

The New Yorker previews her show:

‘For more than a decade, this esteemed improviser has done most of her dancing outdoors, following the migrations of animals and exploring the connections between dance and scientific research. In Live Dancing Archive, she reconstructs some of those outdoor experiences, attempting to reveal the traces a place might leave on a body. But the work is equally, if even more obliquely, about Monson’s history as a dancer, a queer performer, and an ever-questioning mind’.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.

The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

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Live Dancing Archive at The Kitchen

This post comes to you from Cultura21

From February 14 – 23, The Kitchen and iLAND, Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance, present the New York premiere of dancer and choreographer Jennifer Monson’s Live Dancing Archive, a visceral exploration of the dancing body as physical archive of experience and place.

The piece, which marks Monson’s return to The Kitchen after 15 years, comprises Monson’s first-ever evening-length solo performance, a video installation by Robin Vachal and an online archive. Performances will take place Thursdays through Saturdays, February 14 – 23 at 8:00 pm while the full video installation will be on view in the theatre Tuesday through Friday, 12–6pm and Saturday, 11am–6pm from February 15–23.

The video installation plays as repeating 4-hour loop with viewers invited to view to drop-in at any time for any length of time. Although the video can be viewed on it’s own, it was made in conversation with the performance and on-line archive. A daily viewing schedule for the video will be available at the Kitchen and online starting February 14th.

Monson’s new work proposes that the body has the possibility of archiving and revisiting multiple scales of experience. Specifically, Monson looks at how experiences of environment and ecological dependencies are registered through physical movement. Live Dancing Archive negotiates and explores what a queer ecology might offer for dancing bodies and rapidly shifting conceptions of place. Furthermore, the piece looks at how Monson’s navigation of her own queer, feminist and animal-like body has shaped relationships to cultural and social phenomena.

For more information, visit thekitchen.org.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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Arts and Environment Symposium

This post comes to you from Cultura21

A two-day colloquium to facilitate dialogue about the role of art in environmental education and stewardship. Participants will look at bridges that have been built across the divide of the arts and environment and will image in others that might be created.

Saturday, March 19

6-7:30 p.m.: Arts and the Environment Colloquium Keynote Lecture. Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium – 525 South State St. Sponsored by: Office of the Vice President for Research, Department of English Language and Literature, Department of Dance, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art

Keynote Speakers: David Abram and Jennifer Monson

The public is invited to this event as part of a two-day Arts and the Environment Colloquium exploring the role of art in environmental education and stewardship.David Abram is an American philosopher, writer, and cultural ecologist and the award-winning author of Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and The Spell of the Sensuous. Jennifer Monson is a professor in the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and founder and director of iLAND- Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance.

8-8:30 p.m. Arts and the Environment Colloquium Multimedia Performance. Museum of Art, Apse – 525 South State St.

Sponsored by:  Office of the Vice President for Research, Department of English Language and Literature, Department of Dance, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Created by: Sara Adlerstein (UM School of Natural Resources and Environment), Evan Chambers, Jessica Fogel, Joseph Gramley (UM School of Music, Theater and Dance), and Keith Taylor (UM – College of Literature, Science, and the Arts)

Beginning in 2008, an interdisciplinary team of University of Michigan faculty members and students worked collaboratively to create a unique and multilayered performance based upon the element of water entitled Mapping the River. Taking the cycle of water from rain to earth to river to lake to ocean to clouds to rain as its overarching structure, and focusing on our local water source the Huron River as a central narrative, the work features live music, dance, video, and spoken word. At the Arts and the Environment colloquium, the team members will present an adaptation of Mapping the River specifically designed for the UMMA Apse space.

Mapping the River music is composed by Professor Evan Chambers, chair of the Composition Department. Professor Joseph Gramley, chair of the Percussion Department performs with his students. Writer Keith Taylor, Lecturer in English Language and Literature and editor of The Huron River: Voices from the Watershed, contributes text. Choreographer Jessica Fogel, Professor of Dance, creates choreography for the work, performed by UM dance majors. Video is conceived by all of the original team members including graphic designer Doug Hesseltine, Associate Professor of Art and Design, and filmed and edited by Emmy Award winning videographer Christie Vedjes. Sara Adlerstein, Associate Research Scientist in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, contributes scientific conceptual frameworks, and also her paintings of bodies of water, which are integrated into the video. Lighting design is by Mary Cole, Staging and Lighting Supervisor of the U-M Department of Dance, with costume designs by Suzanne Young.

Sunday, March 20: Building community and future planning for sustained activity and collaboration

  • 9-10 a.m. Opening session. Panelists include:
    • Joseph Trumpey (Associate Professor – Art and Design)
    • Robert Grese (Professor -SNRE)
    • Paul Webb (Professor -SNRE; director, PiTE)
    • Leslie Sobel (Local visual artist)
    • Laura Rubin (Director, Huron River Watershed Council)
    • Evan Chambers (Professor – Music, Theater and Dance)
    • Jessica Fogel (Professor -Music, Theater and Dance)
    • Keith Taylor (Lecturer – LS&A)
    • Sara Adlerstein (Associate Research Scientist – SNRE)
  • 10 a.m.-noon Breakout session: State of the Art: Where we are
  • 1:30-3:30 p.m. Breakout session: Envisioning the future: Where we want to go
  • 3:30-4:30 p.m. Summary session

Registration: artsandenvironmentcolloquium@umich.edu

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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4×4 Dance Body and the Environment

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Bodysurf Scotland is organising a major event 18th – 29th April 2010 entitled 4X4 Dance Body And The Environment with Guest Artists: Jennifer Monson, Simon Whitehead, Helen Poynor, Angus Balbernie and Simon McPherson.

4×4 takes place at two distinctive locations:

The Findhorn Eco-village – a major international centre dedicated to personal and planetary transformation, with access to The Universal Hall Arts Centre theatre, dune-lands, gardens, woods and coastline.

Dundreggan, Glen Moriston, Scottish Highlands – a 10,000 acre estate, owned and run by the charity, Trees For Life, who work to help restore the Caledonian Forest.

See web site for details on participation.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.

Go to EcoArtScotland

4X4 Dance Body And The Environment

This post comes to you from Cultura21

18th – 29th April 2010

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

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”.

More information on the website of bodysurf scotland

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

APInews: Mary Miss to Keynote 2nd iLand Symposium, N.Y.

Landscape artist Mary Miss is keynote speaker at the second annual symposium by iLand (interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance) in New York City. The March 26-27, 2010, symposium is titled “Connecting to the Urban Environment: Creating embodied and relational approaches to environmental awareness.” Mary Miss developed “City as Living Lab,” a framework for making issues of sustainability tangible through collaboration and the arts. Miss has collaborated with architects, planners, engineers, ecologists and public administrators on projects like creating a temporary memorial around the perimeter of Ground Zero, revealing the history of New York's Union Square Subway station and turning a sewage treatment plant into a public space. The event also features iLand Founder Jennifer Monson, choreographer, who will present her recent work on aquifers and waterways in relation to urban development.

via APInews: Mary Miss to Keynote 2nd iLand Symposium, N.Y..