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Dear Friends,
A brief summary of last year’s events for Cilla Vee Life Arts.
Most of my time and energy over the past two years has been absorbed into renovations and programming here at The Center for Connection + Collaboration – the home of Cilla Vee Life Arts in Asheville NC
However, I have still managed to push the extra mile to produce some creative projects in 2022 and I’d love to share some highlights with you …
APRIL
Smoke & Mirrors
at Black Mountain College {Re}Happening #10
After a two-year pandemic delay, the tenth annual {Re}Happening ‘happened’ at Lake Eden, the historic site for American contemporary arts of the FIRST “Happening”.
Smoke & Mirrors is a multimedia collaboration of CillaVee (movement) with Geo Lynx (generative video) and Pax (sound) – creating illusions quite literally with the use of smoke and mirrors.
https://youtu.be/KavWX-jM_8M
Smoke & Mirrors video capture by Kimathi Moore
Smoke & Mirrors images album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/114531261@N02/albums/72177720309094289
JUNE
TEMPLE
performance / ritual / installation with Elisa Faires
at Revolve – Asheville NC
Temple was a culmination of work created with long-time friend and collaborator Elisa Faires, along with Nina LaFerla, during Elisa’s time as artist-in-residence at Revolve art space in Asheville’s River Arts District throughout 2021/22. Elisa created a mystical environment using layers of digital audio-visual with live performance and installation.
On the very same night I was virtually in two other public events:
Circle Modern Dance 30th Anniversary concert at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville TN
A celebration of thirty years for this dance company that I was a co-founding director of for a decade in the 1990s!
My presence here was in a screening of Resplendent (art video collaboration with composer Debbie Danbrook and video artist Sara Baird)
moveMINT NFT group show at Lavan 541 gallery NYC
Here my dear collaborator visual artist Martha Skinner was presenting our video collaboration Red, part of her Asphalt Drawings series.
(Other presentations of our Asphalt Drawings collaborations took place over the year at: Adelia Art Gallery - Liverpool UK sponsored by TIME Magazine, Super Chief Gallery - Los Angeles, CA and Upstairs Artspace - Tryon, NC)
AUGUST
Smoke & Mirrors at CCC-AVL
Another opportunity to present this piece, this time on home turf as part of the Center for Connection + Collaboration summer programming.
SEPTEMBER
Modus Operandi at Story Parlor – Asheville NC
A fun comedic audience interactive improvization project with Elisa Faires since 2008, this iteration of Modus Operandi was presented as part of Story Parlor’s AVL REVUE: On Air where local Asheville arts and culture radio hosts could invite artists they wanted to feature. CillaVee was invited by Matt Peiken of BPR (BlueRidge Parkway Radio – our local NPR station)
https://storyparloravl.com/calendar/avl-revue-on-air
OCTOBER
Legend of Sekmet at Surreal Sirkus – Asheville NC
Taking one legend out of the Temple installation project with Elisa Faires and Nina LaFerla and condensing it down into a narrated story-line, we presented the Legend of Sekmet as part of an all day Surreal Sirkus event at Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville.
NOVEMBER
How-Long-is-a-Piece-of-String?
Ready Made Humans at Thang – Somerville Armory MA
My friend and collaborator Robyn Thomas (in Providence RI) and I have a duo project we call The Ready Made Humans through which we explore a performative version of Duchamp’s readymades concept. In November we gradually invaded the space of the Somerville Armory during the day long event Thangsgiving: Mashed Potato Gravy Reservoir Edition produced by Paul Kafka-Gibbons (who produces two Thangs a year – goodTHANGpassing at Passover and THANGsgiving for Thanksgiving) By the end of the day our installation of objects connected by red string was surrounding the event participants, who we then invited to interact with it.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/114531261@N02/albums/72177720309094624
DECEMBER
Psychosomatic Transformations
– RAW MATERIAL / Living Art / Motion Sculpture
at STOA Center for Body Arts and Studies – Sirince, Turkey
Psychosomatic Transformations - workshop information blog:
https://psychosomatictransformations.blogspot.com/2022/10/workshops-with-cillavee-at-stoa.html
In December I spent two weeks facilitating a workshop series at Stoa Center for Body Arts and Studies up in the mountains of the Izmir Province of Turkey. It was part of a longer six week Butoh dance intensive including workshops offered by Julie Becton Gillum and Joan Laage.
My work focused on movement meditations, environmental site work and durational performance utilizing my Living Art performance pedagogy with an emphasis on Motion Sculpture movement and the Raw Material modes of inquiry.
Turkey images album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/114531261@N02/albums/72177720309073929
CENTER for CONNECTION + COLLABORATION
Over the past couple of years I have been converting my Asheville NC home into a small, grass-roots creative community center – as well as functioning as a home-base for Cilla Vee Life Arts.
I’ve been working hard to get the ball rolling by producing regular community programming here … my hope is that now local community members will pick up the ball and run with it, using the space to present their own projects – as I need to re-focus my energies back into Cilla Vee projects!
Here is the CCC 2022 news report:
THANK YOU so much for taking the time to read this year’s epistle!
If you would like to support CVLA and the CCC our renovations fundraiser is still open and our goal still not yet reached …
CCC - Renovations Fundraiser link:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/create-the-center-for-connection-and-collaboration
"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." - Maya Angelou
“Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.” - Austin Kleon
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” - Edward De Bono
“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working." - Henri Matisse
