Yvonne Rainer and my divorce from painting

The Big Intensive has been mind shaking so far. Words about that are on the way, in the meantime, Dance UK, the national voice for the dance sector, have published my third article about visual arts and dance.

Here is an excerpt from the article, titled Falling in Love With Another Artform, Yvonne Rainer and My Divorce From Painting:

'As an artist with integrity, you have to be prepared to follow your line of enquiry to the end wherever it may take you. This very situation stared me in the face three years ago, and it was heartbreaking to realise that my love affair with painting was over. After basing my identity, and whole world around striving to be the next great painter, I had fallen for another art form - dance. What is more I wasn’t trained in it and I was 25. However, as anyone who has fallen out of love will know, you just can’t ignore that pull of something that makes you feel life is meaningful again, offering you possibility to move forwards. So in 2008 I shut the studio door, leotard in hand and ran away with dance.

Yvonne Rainer similarly moved from dance to film. She was co-founder of The Judson Church during 1960’s in New York, where she first became intrigued by the relationship between the performer and audience, the political and the private in everyday life. In the 1960’s she rocked the conventions of the dance world, introducing pedestrian movement and using people as props. Her works were task based and looked to the uneducated eye, like someone doing Ballet badly.'

All the three articles and the introductory text that goes with them are collected here on my Artists' Newsletter project blog:

www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/797558

Here is a video of Yvonne Rainer's Trio A in 1978:

Working alongside international artists at Sadler's Wells from the 13 December

I have been invited by Sadler's Wells to be part of this year's Big Intensive from the 13 December 2010. The Big Intensive is a weeklong choreography lab. I will be joining 15 other international artists: Zoi Dimitriou, Mark Smith, Riccardo Buscarini, Charlotte Spencer, Arno Schuitemaker, Yuyu Rau, Linda Remahl, Nic Chalmers, Anna Melander, Lucia Tong, Flora Wellesley Wesley, Robbie Synge, Rachel Birch, Petra Söör, and Elena Jacinta who I trained with in 2008.

A weekend at the Southbank for 'MOVE:Choreographing You'

I am just getting ready to go back to the Southbank for day two of MOVE: Choreoghraphing You, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal.

It has been an inspirational weekend so far, and it is drawing together people currently working in the field. Last night Susan Sentler (Laban and ex Martha Graham), Rosemary Butcher and I stood in the Siberian cold outside discussing the days events until we could stand it no more!

Simone Forti blew me away, rolling down and then up some stairs without changing her dynamic even slightly, and she is 75! More about her here:

Rosemary Butcher's reconstrcution of Alan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 parts, was fascinating and very well done, more about her here: www.rosemarybutcher.com/

Anna Haplrin's show Parades & Changes, Replays, reconstructed by Anne Collard, was spectacular, funny and very high quality. The cast undressed and ripped up huge sheets of paper, furling it round them like a bunch of Reneissance cherubs, with gentleness and joy that I recently saw during a festival hay fight at the Secret Garden Party. More about Anna Halprin Here:

The aesthetic remindeds me of Jessica Stockholder, my favorite artist. More about her here: http://art.yale.edu/JessicaStockholder

I can't wait for more today!

Dance Uk publish my second article about art and dance

www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-two-coffee-stephanie-rosenthal-curator-move-choreo

Alexis investigates: A coffee with Stephanie Rosenthal, Curator of MOVE Choreographing You, Hayward Gallery. October 2010.

Dance UK publish the first article in my series about art and dance.

http://www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-one-visit-siobhan-davies-dance-company/

Alexis investigates: A visit to Siobhan Davies Studios. October 2010.

Three drawings made about the experience of walking at a pace through Venice.

Dance UK To Publish A Series Of My Articles About Dance and Art

Dance UK, the national voice for the dance sector, will be publishing a series of my articles about art and dance at www.danceuk.org/news. Titled 'Alexis Investigates: Dance and Visual Arts' the series offers 'ways in' to the complex conversation that is happening between the two art forms. The influence of dance on other forms of art has recently been highlighted by a series of major exhibition and events programs: 'Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909 - 1929' has just opened at the V & A, 'Move: Choreographing You' is on at the Hayward Gallery and over recent years choreographer Siobhan Davies has orchestrated an ongoing program of events and conversations, including ROTOR -new work and commissions from artists working in other art forms which opens on the 3 November 2010 at Siobhan davies Studios and The South London Gallery.

I have worked and trained in both dance and visual arts, as a maker and also as a manager in both mediums. Dance is spending more and more time in the territory of the visual arts and what is more this started as far back as the 1970’s (some might argue long before that). I am writing this series of articles as a ‘way in’ to this particular area of artistic activity because I believe that dance is a highly influential media and that the knowledge base of its practitioners can bring insight to many other realms. Dance is evolving in many different ways and it is key to the growth of dance that we, the dance community, realise the potential in cross-disciplinary relationships.

The first in the series will be about my revent visit to Siobhan Davies Studios to see rehearsals for ROTOR. Got to run- I have a meeting with Staphanie Rosenthal, Cuator at The Hayward Gallery, to talk about 'MOVE:Choreographing You'.