Cilla Vee Life Arts – REPORT 2023
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| RAW MATERIAL: Re-Wilding The Body - public art installation at NY Port Authority |
Greetings!
Thank you for taking a moment to catch up with us and see what we’ve been up to …
2023 Cilla Vee Life Arts artistic projects included:
Participation in local Western North Carolina annual events –
+ Asheville Fringe Arts Festival
+ Black Mountain College Museum’s {Re}Happening on Lake Eden
As well as –
+ The Readymade Humans at goodTHANGpassing in Boston
+ The “Weird Yoga” Tour with Elka Bong around the South East USA
+ Roanoke Virginia’s annual AfterMAF marginal arts counterculture fest
And then a large scale CVLA produced public art installation project –
+ RAW MATERIAL: Re-Wilding The Body at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal
MARCH
Asheville Fringe Arts Festival
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| CillaVee the DaDa GoGo Dancer for Peacock Planet Party Band |
Coming out of winter hibernation in time for the local Asheville Fringe Arts Festival I was jolted into action by being a DaDa GoGo Dancer for Peacock Planet Party Band at the festival opening party!
ASHEVILLE FRINGE WEBSITE:
https://www.ashevillefringe.org/
PEACOCK PLANET PARTY BAND FACEBOOK PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/PeacockPartyBand/
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| Peacock Planet Party GIRLZ - The Marquee - Asheville NC |
APRIL
Cactus Care at [Re}Happening
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| Nina the Cactus Carer - Re-Happening - Lake Eden, Black Mountain |
Since the first {Re}Happening in 2010, CillaVee has usually had a presence at this annual event on Lake Eden celebrating the spirit of the revolutionary Black Mountain College. This year I was invited by fellow Transart Institute alum Gwen Charles, who travelled from New Jersey to bring her environmental project Cactus Care. She enlisted Cilla Vee Life Arts to provide some local artists to perform to the cactus! So I recruited a couple of the usual suspects. My dear friends and collaborators Elisa Faires, Julie Becton Gillum and Nina LaFerla joined Gwen in an absolute deluge of rain performing with our spiky friends!
CACTUS CARE ON GWEN CHARLES INSTAGRAM:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq6QRpRundz/
REHAPPENING ON BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE MUSEUM WEBSITE:
https://www.blackmountaincollege.org/rehappening/
The Readymade Humans – Observations of the Infra-Ordinary
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| a Listener and a Seer in action on the streets of Somerville MA |
Also in the spring CillaVee performed in absentia as part of the on-going duo project The Readymade Humans with Robyn Thomas (who is also my Re-Cultivating Compassion project partner).
Observations of the Infra-Ordinary was a guided audience action piece for Paul Kafka-Gibbon’s THANG series goodTHANGpassing at the Somerville Armory in Massachusetts. These events take place twice a year and are a full day of art happenings.
LINK FOR ROBYN’S PROJECT REPORT ON RE-CULTIVATING COMPASSION SITE:
https://www.re-cultivatingcompassion.com/2023/04/observations-of-infra-ordinary.html
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| Listener and Seer pairs preparing for action |
MAY
Elka Bong “Weird Yoga” Tour
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| Well we said it was "Weird Yoga"! - at Banditos - Richmond VA |
Elka Bong is usually the duo project of the seasoned avant-garde sound-and-otherwise artists Walter Wright and Al Margolis. Occasionally Elka Bong expands to include others, such as for the Weird Yoga Tour – with electronic noise by Tom Law and “Weird Yoga” by CillaVee.
We had a delightful time touring the South East in Tom’s camper van and performed at: Bandito’s – Richmond VA, Art Rat Studios – Roanoke VA, Pilot Light – Knoxville TN, 711 Saluda – Columbia SC, Field Trip – Greensboro NC (where we were joined by my fellow Weird Yogi Cambria Storms.)
WEIRD YOGA AT ART RAT ON YOUTUBE:
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| The Gang in the van: Tom, Walter, CillaVee, Al |
In the middle of the tour Elka Bong landed in Asheville for a three day residency at the CCC to collaborate with locals: Mark Hosler, Kris Gruda, Richard Brewster, Elisa Faires, Liz Lang, Ivan Seng and Scott Gornick.
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| Elka Bong at the CCC-AVL |
JUNE
Marginal Arts Festival – Roanoke
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| The Art Rat |
I have lost count of how many years this intensive explosion of Neo-dada-ism has been going on now, but in its current form AfterMAF offers a full weekend of truly original out-of-the-box thinkers really getting out of the box!
For AfterMAF 2023 the CillaVee contribution was “I’ll Be There”. This was basically an offer of availability throughout the festival to collaborate with any presenter who wanted to take me up on it! Subsequently I ended up collaborating with: Okapi Duo, Wayne Llywelyn’s Trash Coven, C. Mehrl Bennett, John Bennett’s Be Blank Consort, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE’s Pinball and Olchar Lindsann with “Not Walter”!
ART RAT FACEBOOK PAGE:
https://www.facebook.com/ABnormalRoanoke/
tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE’S 5+ HOURS DOCUMENTARY OF THE FESTIVAL:
CILLAVEE WITH OKAPI DUO AT AFTERMAF ON YOUTUBE:
https://youtu.be/-KPX6EbVrLY?si=6XYy5FOzeXrUc42Q&t=1297
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| CillaVee with Okapi Duo - AfterMAF at Art Rat - Roanoke VA |
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| Be Blank Consort under the direction of John Bennett - AfterMAF |
AUGUST / SEPTEMBER
Re-Wilding The Body at NY Port Authority Bus Terminal
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| Re-Wilding forest section - Lauren plus hand sculpture by Shio |
RAW MATERIAL: Re-Wilding the Body was the natural evolution of my on-going RAW MATERIAL project. Installed inside Chashama’s New York Port Authority Bus Terminal open fronted gallery space, we transformed it into a nature environment oasis in the middle of one of the world’s busiest transit hubs. Fusing live performance with technology, a multimedia immersive experience was created. We partnered with six NY based environmental organizations to create a Call To Action.
Re-Wilding the Body was open to the public during evening rush hour times Monday thru Friday for three weeks.
My artistic team: CillaVee, Fred Hatt, Stewart Hoyt, Hisayasu Takashio, Sarah Pope, Lauren Vroegindewey, Marianne Giosa, Gwen Charles, MaryLinda Moss, Susannah Pryce.
Visit the link below for a complete detailed project report …
RE-WILDING THE BODY PROJECT REPORT:
https://rawmaterialrewilding.blogspot.com/2023/12/
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| Re-Wilding water section - Stewart and CillaVee |
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| Re-Wilding - Stewart as an Earthbody in the forest section |
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| Re-Wilding - Lauren as a Waterbody |
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| Re-Wilding - CillaVee creating live sound |
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| Re-Wilding at Chashama - the audience at NY Port Authority Bus Terminal |
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The Center for Connection + Collaboration
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| Fringe Festival Open Mic at the CCC |
Meanwhile here at the CCC – the home base of CVLA – we’ve had a packed year of events. This included:
SPRING
Open Mic Coffee Morning for the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival
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| attentive audience at the AVL Fringe Open Mic |
Earthday Birthday Potluck Yardsale Spring Open Day Fundraiser
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| a sunny Sunday yardsale scene at the CCC |
Bad Ties – multimedia beat poetry
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| Bad Ties with the CCC pet dragon Idris |
SUMMER
SoS – Summer of Sound – featuring:
tACoS#8 – the Asheville Cesspool of Synths
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| Ivan Seng and Elisa Faires at tACoS |
Deep Listening Day
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| a Deep Listening Day soundwalk with Curt Cloninger |
The Frere family – artists in residence
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| Sunny developing her own collage method |
Bobbi Rose – Storytelling SoundLab
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| Bobbi's storytelling SoundLab |
Community Sound Installation
AUTUMN
Rent Romus from San Fransisco with his band Actual/Actual
Brandon Quinn performing local Southern Appalachian Native American flute and drums plus original Mountain Murder Ballads
Our annual November 5th Guy Fawkes British Bonfire Night
WINTER
Modes of Process – an all day writers’ symposium in both real and virtual space/time - with special guest David Barratt
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| Garland Wells new book |
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| Modes of Process writers symposium - Zoom crew |
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| Modes of Process writers symposium - in house crew |
For details about those events please visit the CCC NEWS page on our website …
CCC NEWS PAGE:
CCC WEBSITE:
