Category: Fusebox 2016

Day two of Waffle Chats brought together four artists, Luis Garay (choreographer), Daniela Libertad (visual art), Rachel Mars (performance maker) and Anna Rispoli (filmmaker and one third of art collective Zimmerfrei). Moderator Leslie Moody Castro quickly picked out themes that all four approach in their respective practices, she also prodded Luis into sharing personal stories from his childhood. All four artists are investigating limits in related but different ways. Libertad is conceptualizing the limits of form via the triangle, simplifying the study so much that it becomes infinitely complex. Her residency at MoHA has just begun, but already there are collections of clean lines and geometric questions lining and intersecting on the white walls tucked behind the stage.

Mars’ work seems to be pushing, pulling and testing a multitude of limits; the line between comedy and theater, emotional potential and the ability to discipline oneself properly, humor and despair. Last night at Our Carnal Hearts I found myself chuckling at the same moments that I wanted to go draw a bath and turn out the lights because I was ashamed of how much I related to her enraged envy.

Luis Garay admitted a similar feeling to me in the car after the waffle chat. He is one of those totally brilliant people that can come to a talk hung over and nervous but still spit out some mind melting metaphysical ideas about ritual, religiosity and running away.  His work Maneries  shows Sunday. Stay tuned for an interview with The Walker that I overheard him give, or just catch him in person to find out how this work is inspired by French philosopher Giorgio Agamben.

As for Anna Rispoli, I need to write a whole separate post about the limits of utopian living and the connection between her film Hometown Mutonia and the magical east Austin venue that it screened at tonight.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-m-barker/fusebox-waffle-chat-7april2016

Every song I've ever written: band night #fusebox2016

A photo posted by Jeremy M. Barker (@moptop745) on Apr 7, 2016 at 2:10pm PDT

I’m sure I’ll have more on this later, but I was pleasantly engaged in the notion of “interpretation” by the shows I saw last night, the Royal Court’s Manwatching and Jacob Wren’s Every Song I’ve Ever Written: Band Night.

Whatever else they’re doing, both shows are explicitly playing with the materiality of interpretation of some sort of source. In Manwatching, it’s a long monologue on a woman’s sexuality that’s performed by a male comedian who’s never read it before. In Wren’s piece (the first part of a quartet) it’s the result of handing off five of his songs (songs he wrote when he was young, which–he seems to acknowledge–may only have value to him) to be performed by five different bands who then talk with him about why they chose what they did.

Leaving aside any personal feelings about how successful either enterprise was, I thought the pairing was a great way to kick off the festival as they both dealt with these issues of where “art” actually exists. While both pieces rely on a previously authored text, they both exist as a result of a distinct performance, muddying the idea of “authorship” in a provocative way.

The kickoff Waffle Chat at #Fusebox2016 got to the heart of things real quick. Panelists Kee Hong Low ( West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong), Matthieu Goeury (Vooruit, Belgium), and Cory Baker (The Long Center, Austin) joined Ron Berry for some real talk about the state of international arts funding, the role of arts centers in local communities and future aspirations for their institutions.  Kee Hong Low, the Head of Artistic Development in Theater for the massive new Hong Kong Arts district, West Kowlhoon, jokingly referred to arts centers as monsters that require a lot of food. He was alluding to the huge amounts of investment money taken to build a center, but his analogy surpasses the financial. Arts centers constantly need to reinvest in their communities, as new Vice President of the Long Center, Cory Baker discussed with a local Austinite. The long Center offers a residency program that gives local artists access to rehearsal space, marketing and other perks, but in 2015 no one applied. This speaks volumes to the disconnect between artists and the resources at The Long Center. With the loss of several key performance venues in Austin this year, such residencies will be crucial for presenters. The question that faces Baker is how to make The Long Center feel more accessible to the local arts community. As she said, it’s not about bringing new work to Austin, but about how to engage with what’s already here.Matthieu Goeury, on the other hand, is looking ahead to a future community in Belgium that will be quite different than the current patrons of Vooruit. He is faced with an influx of young non-white immigrants that will largely reshape the demographic in Belgium. He wonders how to plan ahead for a different audience. I wonder what strategies Vooruit is using, and how those might be in conversation with the ones we are having in Austin and in other regions? How can local artists and art centers, like the the Long Center, engage with one another more effectively? How can a large scale district for the arts  be developed in a way that feels like home for locals?

This talk got me thinking and wondering. Have a listen, comment here or come find me IRL (I’m the gal with purple hair) I’d love to keep ‘chewing the fat’ together.

https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-m-barker/fusebox-waffle-chat-6-april-2016

Last night at Fusebox Eve, Paul Lazar described Fusebox as “equisite for an American city” while discussing the importance of Fusebox and other festivals for the American arts community. There is something about dining together, with colleagues, artists, new faces, locals and out-of-towners, that made that importance tangible. Or as Aaron Sanders put it “holy hell you should have been there.”

Here’s to the beginning of #Fusebox2016!

hi everybody! I'm in Austin to cover #fusebox2016 so if you see me say hi

A photo posted by Jeremy M. Barker (@moptop745) on Apr 6, 2016 at 12:44pm PDT

It’s 77 degrees Fahrenheit and I’m sitting outside, listening to the chirping of birds and getting acculturated to Austin. Having just flown in from New York–where we enjoyed one last stab of wintry cold as spring opens up–it’s a bit of an adjustment. I’ve already received a bit of an introduction to Fusebox audiences courtesy of Tim Braun, my erstwhile editor and project organizer, but I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself and share what I hope to have happen during my time here at Fusebox 2016.

For the duration of this festival, myself, my collaborator Christine Gwillim, and the others we cajole or invite into offering their insights, experiences, and opinions, will be trying to engage in an ongoing conversation. Sometimes that conversation takes place online, either here or on social media, which we will link to from here. Sometimes it takes place IRL, in which case we’ll do our best to share it here for those who couldn’t be part of it. And then–hopefully–readers and audience members will take that and continue the conversation with us, online or IRL. If you don’t know me, feel free to reach out and we can meet in person. I’ll be as Twitter-savvy as possible for the next week, and you can follow me @jeremymbarkerNY. Christine is on Twitter @clgwillim. And in general, track #fusebox2016 to keep up.

By way of a personal introduction, I’m a contemporary performance critic based in New York. I’m passionate about dance, experimental or non-conventional theater, visual art performance, and so on–a whole host of alternative (or, in Fusebox’s preferred vocabulary, “hybrid”) performance practices that I lump under the rubric of “contemporary performance.” While I’m based in New York, which has an amazing performance scene, I don’t like to think of myself as a “New York critic.” Indeed, I’ve only lived there six years (as of yesterday, come to think of it!), having grown up in Portland and spent some seven years in Seattle. Having moved to New York at the age of 30, I never quite had the romantic experience of joining the New York art-scene; I was too old. And furthermore, having come of age outside the cultural metropole, I moved there knowing that there’s a whole wonderful world of art being made outside of New York that was every bit as deserving (and occasionally decidedly more deserving) of attention than what happens in the Downtown art world.

I first got to come to Fusebox back in 2012, when I was editor of Culturebot.org. Andy Horwitz, Culturebot’s founder and visionary, and I presented a few events as part of the supplementary programming, and got to see a lot of great art and eat a lot of great food. I look forward to the chance to do so again.

By way of closing, I wanted to share a quick anecdote that I think illustrates what I hope to help accomplish with this project on this blog. The year I moved to NYC, I took a trip home, to Portland, in September, to see my family and to cover the TBA Festival, Portland’s own Fusebox-style festival. One of the shows I caught was a dance/movement piece by Maria Hassabi, a New York-based choreographer whose work is (IMHO) remarkable. It’s also not very “dance-y” if by dance you expect musicality, lots of leaps and footwork, and so on. Her work is slowly, contemplative, beautiful, and challenging. Outside the theater, after the performance, I saw more than one couple walk away chatting, bewildered or bored. I wanted to get the chance to talk with them about their experience of something new that maybe wasn’t part of their art vocabulary. Because that’s what a festival like Fusebox is for: Being exposed to something new, and creating dialogue and expanding our vocabularies for talking about art.

One of the great blessings of my life is how much I’ve gotten to engage with this sort of work, and I love sharing it with others. I would love to have that conversation (which I couldn’t have after Maria’s show) with people here in Austin. So Tweet at me, or meet me for coffee or a drink. Tonight I’m seeing Manwatching tonight at 7 and Every Song I’ve Ever Written at 9. Around 8 I’ll be at the festival hub, where Tim Braun promises to kick my ass at bowling (a likely event). So you know where to find me.

I look forward to getting to chat soon.

Wanna support #fusebox2016? pic.twitter.com/9DmiXCrU9d

— Wendy Mitchell (@myownroom) April 6, 2016

I, alas, missed the kickoff last night (and nearly my connecting flight in Dallas-Ft. Worth), so I don’t know exactly what this means yet, but it sure makes me regret not having been there.

A quick round-up of some of the preview press for Fusebox 2016.

• The Statesman has a really extensive preview with info on the visiting and local artists showing. It also makes the case for Okqui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic which I left out of my own quick preview for no other reason than simple omission. That’s a remarkable show I can’t recommend enough.
• The Chronicle has a slightly less informative preview, too
• Austin Monthly has a bit more on My Barbarian’s show and their local collaborators