Auto Mobile Body Works: 2014 Schedule
June 20th-Somerville, MA 8:30p. Meeting location: Alley between ice rinks at Veterans Memorial Ice Rink on Somerville Ave. For more information about the Dancing in the Streets festival presented by the Somerville Arts Council go here.
July 12th- Easthampton, MA 6:45 Meeting location: Old Town Hall steps, Main St. Part of the Easthampton City Art’s ART WALK event.
Aug 2nd- Detroit, MI Time: TBA. Sidewalk Festival of Performing Arts is an outdoor celebration of site-specific performance and installation art, in the heart of Detroit’s Old Redford/Brightmoor Neighborhoods.
Sept 5th- Pittsfield, MA- Time: TBA. In partnership with Pittsfield’s Office of Cultural Development and the Arts & Industry Initiative
October 10-12th- Manhattan, NY- Time: TBA. As part of the Art in Odd Places Festival, an annual festival along 14th Street from Avenue C to the Hudson River.
Auto Mobile Body Works is a space-specific adventure in action-based art that both imagines and reveals an integration of human and auto bodies. The Creatures of Habitat Physical Poetry Public Performance Project utilize video projection, movement, music, and vehicles in outdoor paved spaces, parking garages, lots, alleys, abandoned industrial atmospheres and car wash bays to bring persistent metaphors to life. Sculptural regalia and intentional visual limitations for all the bodies present transport the viewer into a mythical world of blurred lines between real and imagined. The audience are active participants traveling to 4 separate locations to view the work. Auto Mobile Body Works is like a breathing chapbook of individual physical poems that are bound together by a vocabulary versed in intimate texture, dystopian concept, female fierceness, and cultural investigation.
Original video by Stefanie Weber and Greylock Productions
Choreography by Stefanie Weber and Creatures
Sculptural regalia by Stefanie Weber
Music used by permission of Thomas White/Electric Soft Parade
Performers:
Ione Beauchamp, Diane Firtell, Dawn Meltzer, Shira Wohlberg
and Stefanie Weber
Scene 2, Manual Transmission, photo: M. McKay
auspicious site visit signposts
While traipsing around and photographing potential sites with Gregory Jenkins, Executive Director at the Somerville Arts Council, for Auto Mobile Body Works presentation in Somerville in June, I came across this auspicious sign. I think we may have found one of the locations for the 4 scenes!
June 20th, 2014
Creatures of Habitat Physical Poetry Public Performance Projects: Auto Mobile Body Works in Somerville, MA as part of the SOMDANCE festival.
transparently present
transparently present is a visual partnership of image space and (suggested) motion. The (suggested) motion exists between layers, time, and the near far field.
February 15th
Rhythm Tap Dance Workshop
Saturday February 15th, 2-4p, $20
with action-based dance artist Stefanie Weber
Northampton School of Dance, 141 E. Damon Rd., Northampton, MA.
Register: 413.281.6734
Stefanie@fertileunivserse.com
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Performance to follow
Tap & Blues
with Blues Woman Robin O’Herin
and Tap Dancer Stefanie Weber
Studio rEvolution
221 Pine St. (Arts & Industry Building) Florence MA Studio #422
7-8p, $10
Live in Nairobi
Join action-based dance artist Stefanie Weber (USA) with collaborative dancer/choreographers Adam Chienjo (NRB) and Sara Kwala Opondo (NRB) and special guests from VOCAL, Shangilia, Ghetto Exposed and more for a showcase of performance work featuring the fusion, growth and development of the American vernacular art form of Tap Dance in Nairobi with Kenyan-based musicians, dancers and image-makers.
Photographer Monika Pizzichemi (USA) partners with guest photographers from Nairobi to project images throughout the event that investigate the theme:
The Space To Transport Time
Nafasi Ya Kusafirisha Mda
Ukumbi Mdogo
Old Concert Hall
Kenya National Theater
300Ksh
Reserve tickets in advance:
CALL 0737466971
Sponsored by
THEY DANCE FOR RAIN
They Dance For Rain: Slideshow 12/15
The Whitney Center for the Arts, 46 Wendell Ave, Pittsfield MA announces the presentation of They Dance For Rain: A Slideshow on Sunday December 15th 2013 at 5:30p. The event is open to all ages and there is a suggested donation of $10 which goes directly to the continuation of the project in view.
They Dance For Rain is a dance-making project that works with arts-for-social-change organizations in Nairobi, Kenya. It is created and directed by action-based dance artist and Pittsfield native Stefanie Weber in collaboration with fine art photographer and Pittsfield’s Empty Set Project Space co-owner Monika Pizzichemi. The slideshow coincides with a photo exhibit up until December 21st at The Lichtenstein Center For The Arts at 28 Renne Ave in Pittsfield.
Since January of 2012, They Dance For Rain has brought Tap shoes and the art form of Tap Dance to people with an interest and need for this unique kind of artistic self-expression. They also bring hoops to dance with and teach others the skills of making long-lasting dance hoops. They bring visibility to an otherwise unrepresented population of slum and ghetto dancers and dwellers through photography and film. In this area of the world, Tap Dance is still quite young and the eagerness to learn it is immense. Through this continuing global exchange of artistic dialogue They Dance For Rain inspires a new generation of Tap Dancers. These dancers will innovate the form through use of their own culturally distinctive ideas and styles.
The slideshow will feature select photographs, videos and stories from Weber and Pizzichemi’s 2013 residency in Nairobi working with four organizations that support the performing arts in underserved areas: Shangilia Child Rescue Center, VOCAL (Voices of Change All Over), Banjuka Dance Program and GoDown Arts Center. The artists will take time to answer questions, announce further upcoming plans, promote their active fundraising efforts and explain the artistic expansion of the project.
The Whitney Center for the Arts was established by Pittsfield native Lisa Whitney in 2012, saving and creatively reusing the historic Colt House in Pittsfield’s Upstreet Cultural District. Named in honor of her parents, the arts center features changing art shows, intimate theatre and music performances, and other special events, and has upstairs offices and studios for rent.
This newly established arts center aims to provide a platform to established and up and coming visual and performing artists to showcase their talent and promote arts and culture in Pittsfield. For more information contact Ghazi@thewhit.org
They Dance For Rain is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. To learn more about They Dance For Rain, visit www.rockethub.com/projects/34186-they-dance-for-rain-2014 or contact Stefanie@fertileuniverse.com or 413.281.6734