Meditating on Creative Placemaking

When I envisioned Acts of Arriving as a multi-site, site-specific workshop and performance event across the Metro DC region I had not heard of 'creative placemaking'. But, when I read about the concept I knew immediately that that is what I was moving towards with this project - thinking about how can we facilitate a discussion about community, home, and their implications in an evolving and changing city.

On the website www.83degreesmedia.com author Sheena Lyonnais writes "placemaking is often at its best when it connects people and places" - which is exactly the core of what we aim to accomplish with Acts of Arriving.

In creative placemaking artists are the catalysts to engage communities through artistic endeavors from painting a mural, to creating a performance work, to establishing a community gallery, to offering creative workshops for residents and constituents. 

At www.artplaceamerica.org, a leading funder of creative placemaking, they describe creative placemaking as, among other things, contributing "to a mix of... people that makes places more diverse, more interesting and more active, thus making spontaneous interaction more likely". When people come together, to share an experience, it fosters a closer sense of community and belonging. 

contributes to a mix of uses and people that makes places more diverse, more interesting and more active, thus making spontaneous interaction more likely. Intensifying and mixing activities creates the promise that visitors can stumble onto the fun, mingle with other people, or happen upon opportunity. - See more at: http://www.artplaceamerica.org/articles/principles-of-creative-placemaking/#sthash.ah5xPcmb.dpuf

…contributes to a mix of uses and people that makes places more diverse, more interesting and more active, thus making spontaneous interaction more likely. Intensifying and mixing activities creates the promise that visitors can stumble onto the fun, mingle with other people, or happen upon opportunity. - See more at: http://www.artplaceamerica.org/articles/principles-of-creative-placemaking/#sthash.ah5xPcmb.dpuf

…contributes to a mix of uses and people that makes places more diverse, more interesting and more active, thus making spontaneous interaction more likely. Intensifying and mixing activities creates the promise that visitors can stumble onto the fun, mingle with other people, or happen upon opportunity. - See more at: http://www.artplaceamerica.org/articles/principles-of-creative-placemaking/#sthash.ah5xPcmb.dpuf

So, I've been thinking a lot about place, home, leaving, arriving, becoming apart of a community, and how to make a big mix of things to offer to the communities in which will be participating.

Some questions include:

What are the histories of specific performance sites?

Who lives there now? Who lived there previously? One generation ago? Two? Three?

What is the landscape?

Is the community stable or changing?

Do people live there, work there, both?

And, what about the personal histories of the performers - how do they get intermingled into the work with the communities?

There are many threads, many possible avenues for research, discussion and creation. We are sorting through the threads as we continue to create Acts of Arriving, discovering what creative placemaking means for us, and how we can connect and celebrate the communities in which we will offer our workshops and performances.

Until July 10th we are raising funds to support Acts of Arriving - we need to raise $4500. Please check out our campaign site and consider supporting this endeavor. Thanks!

*Photos of two sites which Acts of Arriving will engage communities: Top is of Meridian Hill Park, bottom of Mount Rainier, MD and one of our supporters - Art Lives Here.

"insert [ ] here sound experiments"

This weekend I am performing as a guest artist as part of Sharon Mansur and Nick Bryson's insert [ ] here at the newly renovated Dance Place. For my part, I will be performing a solo which begins in the new dressing room and then moves to the office, surrounded by the new colored glass corner. The work, among other things, explores our visceral response to space. And, Dance Place is a lovely new and familiar space to respond to. 

One of the other elements I will be exploring in this performance is having a direct, manipulative relationship to the sound and music. I asked composer/DJ/multi-media artist Alvin Hill to collaborate on creating a sound instillation I could adjust within the performative context. We asked: how can I, as the performer, respond to the sound, but also change it? Manipulate it? Filter it? 

I think we came up with a unique solution combining current technology with a little retro, leaving me room to both manipulate and respond to it. Alvin created 5 different sound tracks, from an effected variation of my voice to a sparse piano solo to a sound-scape reminiscent of trains, tones and subtlety - all so beautiful. We put each track on its own MP3 player connected to an FM transmitter (like you might use to listen to your iPod in the car) and set them to different frequencies. (see photo below for equipment) I then swooped down on local second hand shops and bought all the clock radios I could find (7). In performance I will be changing frequencies on the clock radios throughout the performance to layer the sounds in different ways - sometimes playing one track, some times many tracks at the same time.

This set up is an interesting contrast between these unfamiliar tracks Alvin created, things you wouldn't hear on the radio, and hearing them with the crackles and static listening to a radio entails. Seeing me, and hearing, the changing of radio stations. Seeing me shift my movement qualities in regards to the changing sound. This all becomes a world of sound and movement familiar in some concrete ways, but unfamiliar in many ways. A juxtaposition between the everyday and a performance. Much like the the overall performance you'll see from Sharon, Nick, and guest artists - a mix of the mundane and the extra-ordinary. 

Visit us June 21 & 22, 2014 at Dance Place. More info here: http://www.danceplace.org/dance-performances/nick-bryson-sharon-mansur/