Collapse

On my flight from Toronto to Seattle, I watched the documentary Collapse. Airplane seats are a confining space to “enjoy” movies, especially now that seat belts must be strapped whenever one is seated. Have you noticed that the movie selection always includes terrifying and seemingly inappropriate flicks about the world ending?

I chose to watch this documentary not realizing how captivated I would become. Michael Ruppert was an investigative journalist. I was fascinated by his calm urgency and insight into how to survive inevitable revolutions. I was touched by his breakdown in thinking about President Obama. I was heartened to hear that his solutions included growing food and strengthening local networks.

Author Seth Godin recently wrote:

¡Note! Like all revolutions, this is an opportunity, not a solution, not a guarantee. It’s an opportunity to poke and experiment and fail and discover dead ends on the way to making a difference. The old economy offered a guarantee – time plus education plus obedience = stability. The new one, not so much. The new one offers a chance for you to take a chance and make an impact.

I think about Collapse and Godin’s call-to-action. Increasingly, the idea of infinite growth promised by advanced capitalism leads to devastation. I am thankful to be in a neighborhood with vegetable gardens surrounded by folks who take pleasure in digging and planting. I listen to my chickens and notice the breeze or birds overhead. Could the revolution be quiet or will there be riots on Main Street USA?

 

Thoughts about the TBA Festival opening weekend

Last Thursday, I hitched a ride to Portland for PICA’s annual TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival. Close to midnight, I wandered through the free opening night party at Washington High School (built in 1909/closed in 1981). The ominous brick venue was renamed THE WORKS (yes, all caps, dunno why). TBA Fest volunteers were a harried bunch like chaperones at a party where they’d rather be drinking.

Some volunteers abused their black PICA t-shirts telling visitors to clear out of art installation rooms. Other folks were too polite, leading me down hallways searching for a coat check that didn’t exist. Eventually, I found myself outside the main auditorium where punksters Japanther and Nightshade shadow puppeteers tried to out-rock the crowd.

The audience won. Halfway through Japanther’s set, auditorium lights went on and the crowd stormed the stage and tore the shadow puppet sheet down. The flimsy separation between art and life was revealed.

I was in the beer garden where the concert was projected through a cyclone fence. Watching from this vantage point with the ambient audio of drunken conversations plus aroma of the nearby taco truck was an auspicious start to this year’s festival.

I didn’t intend to write so much about the opening, yet this encapsulated the first weekend of performances for me. With an empty high school as festival headquarters, an adolescent awkwardness and curiosity whetted my apetite for what was to come.

Artistic director Cathy Edwards describes the theme of TBA 2010 as “storytelling.” This is an apt description. (Read more in Portland Monthly, where writers Claudia La Rocco and Anne Adams have been posting insightful entries about the festival.)

Performances I attended ranged from the highly-saturated, multiple narrative threads of The Wooster Group’s interactive 360-degree film collage There is Still Time… Brother and Dana Hanson’s work-in-progress absurdist-rock-dance-theater-elegy Gloria’s Cause to the singular narratives of Jérôme Bel’s direction of dancer Cédric Andrieux in a work about Cédric Andrieux dancing and Mike Daisey’s heart-opening tirade The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Daisey and Bel’s work touched me with their no-nonsense staging and direct deliveries. Andrieux performed on a bare stage with a bottle of water and gym bag, Daisey performed seated at a table with a few sheets of paper.

One more note from my experience last weekend – for those of you at Mike Barber’s Ten Tiny Dances 22, you’ll remember the orange. For those of you not there, Ten Tiny ended with Daisey spitting an orange into the sold-out crowd. Need I say more? GO. The TBA Festival runs through September 19th in Portland.

 

Go to Hong Kong and Shanghai

This year the Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum will be held in Hong Kong and Shanghai from 15-22 August 2010. The theme Exploring Shanghai and World Expo — Building our Future provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to network with future Chinese leaders. I was a delegate in 2006, for In the Footprints of the Dragons — A Study Tour on the Silk Road (Report PDF).

The Dragon 100 is an annual program launched in 2002. This year the 100 lucky nominees from around the world go to Hong Kong and Shanghai (!) to meet with government officials, academics, and professionals. Delegates, age 18-35, gather to discuss world issues, explore their Chinese heritage, and reflect upon contemporary China. Additionally, they visit major socio-economic and cultural development projects. Most exciting are action plans garnered from seminars and discussions with university students and young professionals. These ideas provide innovative ways to improve the world through a focus on China.

Being selected by the Dragon Foundation | 龍傳基金 was an incredible honor. I continue to keep in touch with many delegates plus my artistic philosophy and music will forever be influenced by my experience on the 2006 Leadership Forum in Hong Kong and Xi’an.

Nominate an outstanding young Chinese leader by June 15, 2010.

• Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum Poster (PDF)
• Dragon 100 Young Chinese Leaders Forum Nomination Form (PDF)

Questions?
Contact The Dragon Foundation | 龍傳基金
T (852) 2811-2779
F (852) 2811-2669
E dragon100 AT dragonfoundation DOT net

 

Stuck Elevator workshops in NYC

Back from New York with good news:

Aaron Jafferis and I will be Artists-in-Residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University. Aaron and I have been working on Stuck Elevator, an operatic solo performance about the Chinese delivery man who was trapped in a Bronx elevator for three days. I am excited to workshop this super-heroic stationary journey with A/P/A.

In New York, A/P/A greats Laura and Alex took me to the Chen Dance Center and Museum of Chinese in America. At CDC, H.T. wowed us with his performing carp and intimate venue.  The black box theatre was surprisingly quiet given that it was in New York’s Chinatown. I look forward to interacting with the audience during our workshop performances about an undocumented Chinese immigrant from New York.

Cynthia and Beatrice at MoCA discussed programming possibilities in the new Museum designed by Maya Lin. Touring the space under construction was phenomenal. Surrounded by glass, concrete, steel, and wood is a central courtyard with natural light. The walls of the courtyard are the original brick from the former garment worker’s building. Lin has created a place in New York’s Chinatown that reinterprets the meaning of the Chinese home in a city known for immigrants.

Aaron and I begin Stuck Elevator workshops this September.

 

murmur

Here is a cool project that my friend Shawn Micallef is involved with…

[murmur] is a documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations. They collect and make accessible people’s personal histories and anecdotes about the places in their neighborhoods that are important to them. In each of these locations they install a [murmur] sign with a telephone number on it that folks can call with a mobile phone to listen to that story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being right where the story takes place. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.

[murmur] was started in Toronto and is in Vancouver, Montreal, San Jose, and other cities. Walter Benjamin would be excited. Perhaps one day [murmur] will be in Seattle.

I hear of similar projects using cell phones, such as the Bike Bin Project curated by Mike Min.

I’m so lucky to know all these creative people who combine audio with geography. Do you know of other sound in the street projects?