 |
| Light Body/Shadow Body at Emersion - photo J Smilanic |
2018 CVLA winter
newsletter
 | |||
| Fe at BMA - photo by Debra Wood |
Greetings from the misty winter mountains of
North Carolina!
The past year has been an eventful one for Cilla
Vee Life Arts.
This letter includes reports of:
X Fest USA 2017 in Holyoke MA
Nothing Fest at SVAD (School of Visual
Arts and Design) Lahore Pakistan
Who’s Your Daddy? Trio at Wayne-O-Rama
Chattanooga TN and Mammal Gallery Atlanta GA
AfterMAF (Marginal Arts Festival) Roanoke
VA
Asheville Cesspool of Synths (2nd
and 3rd meetings) NC
X Fest UK 2017 in the British Peak
district
Skronk Series – London UK
Light & Shadow Tour – South USA (plus
residency in Marfa TX)
Emersion performance installation event in
Asheville NC
Asian Heritage Festival at BMA (Birmingham
Museum of Art) AL
So if that piques
your interest, please read on ….
 |
| Amalgamata Sonata at AfterMAF |
X Fest USA
(March 2017)
2017 was the
ninth year of the annual improvised music, dance, video, performance festival X
Fest. Originating at 119 Gallery in Lowell MA as the brain-child of Walter
Wright, the festival later moved to the City Hall ballroom of Holyoke MA and is
run by a collective.
The format of the
festival is to throw together various groupings of musicians, dancers, video
and performance artists and allow them twenty minutes of playtime – on the
spot.
This year
however, Cilla Vee took on a different role – a collaboration with DJ Rob Kopi,
who plays the most amazingly wonderful obscurities to be found on vinyl. In
between the improv sets we performed as DJ
Robo Rob & Cilla Vee the DaDa GoGo Dancer – with a costume change for
every set!
(Thanx to Bonnie
Kane and Scott Prato for being great housing hosts)
X FEST LINX
X Fest Website X FEST WEBSITE
Facebook Event X FEST 2017 FACEBOOK EVENT
Flickr – images
by Ras Moshe and Robyn Thomas
 |
| Cilla Vee the Dada Gogo Dancer at X Fest - photo Ras Moshe |
 |
| Cilla Vee the Dada Gogo Dancer at X Fest - photo Robyn Thomas |
 |
| Cilla Vee the Dada Gogo Dancer at X Fest - photo Robyn Thomas |
Nothing Fest SVAD – and Pakistan
(April 2017)
To give some
background for this event …
Going to Pakistan
was a personal pilgrimage for me. I was born in Lahore in 1967, my Father was
teaching there at Foreman Christian College during that time. We left when I
was only a year old, so I have no conscious memories of the place. I have
always desired to return and see the place of my birth, and my fiftieth
birthday seemed the most significant time.
Most fortunately
I have some dear Pakistani friends who were my peers at the Transart Institute-
the international program through which I did my MFA.
One of them just
happened to have a family wedding on my birthday!
Now Pakistani
weddings go on for about a week! So I had the most exciting experience of a
week in Karachi with a jam-packed wedding itinerary – including participating
in the Mendhi dance.
But back to
Nothing Fest …
Also amazingly
serendipitous was the fact that my Transart connections led me to faculty members
at the School of Visual Art and Design at Beaconhouse National University in
Lahore. And that they just so happened to be having a festival during the time
I would be there. And that they invited me to be one of their guest artists to
present a talk and a workshop/performance.
The festival was
entitled Nothing Fest. As well as a week of talks, workshops and performances
by guest artists, the undergrad students were also exhibiting their final
projects. I was impressed by the skill and scope of the student work there – it
is a very high standard. I was
warmly received and welcomed.
(Big thank yous
to Rashid Rana, Risham Syed, Rohma Khan, Unum Babar, Iman Sheikh, Mustafa Shah
at SVAD as well as to all the Tariq Khan family from Karachi and Ayesha Durrani
in Islamabad)
NOTHING FEST LINX
The Mariam
Darwood School of Visual Arts and Design at Beaconhouse National University –
School Website BNU SVAD WEBSITE
Facebook Page NOTHING FEST FACEBOOK PAGE
Video of my talk
(almost half was cut due to images of nudity)
(double click to
open video in order to watch it)
 |
| at SVAD Nothing Fest with festival director Rohma Kahn |
 |
| workshop students performance at Nothing Fest |
 |
| workshop student performing at Nothing Fest |
Who’s Your Daddy?
(June 2017)
What happens when
you put together Cilla Vee, Davey Williams and Evan Lipson?
And then what
happens if you put them in a bizarre, surreal environment of larger-than-life
cardboard beings? … Well take a look …
Wayne-O-Rama is a
museum dedicated to housing the work of Chattanooga-born Wayne White – creator
of such famous movie and TV sets as Pee Wee’s Playhouse!
We had a blast!
Here’s what
Wayne-O-Rama had to say about us:
“We won't soon forget this wild evening of
music, movement and madness (with potatoes, power tools and more costumes than
you can shake a stick at)”
Presented by the
Shaking Ray Levis Society.
A couple of weeks
later, we continued the madness at Mammal Gallery in Atlanta.
(Thanx to Ernie
Paik for all your work and for hosting us, thanx to Bob and Flo at Wayne-O-Rama and to Jeff Crompton and all the guys at Mammal Gallery)
WHO’S YOUR DADDY?
LINX
Wayne-O-Rama
Website WAYNE-O-RAMA
Facebook
Event
Press
– Chattanoogan WHO'S YOUR DADDY? TRIO - PRESS
Flickr
– images by Ernie Paik
YouTube
(complete set 1) – video by Ernie Paik
 |
| Who's Your Daddy? trio at Wayne-O-Rama - photo Ernie Paik |
 |
| Who's Your Daddy? trio at Wayne-O-Rama - photo Ernie Paik |
 | ||
| Who's Your Daddy? trio at Mammal Gallery |
AfterMAF (Marginal Arts Festival)
(July 2017)
Who’d ever have thunk
that lil’ ole Roanoke, Virginia was the home to one of the most genuine pure
and true old-school Dada/Futurist (minus the fascism)/surrealist scenes to be
found?
Originating as
the Marginal Arts Festival, based at the Community High School where most of
the production collective members teach, it grew into a citywide event
supported by local funding. However, much of the work being presented at the
festival was becoming more and more edgy and less suitable for the school
audience where it was based. Subsequently, the past four years have produced a
smaller but more focused event – AfterMAF.
Cilla Vee has
been part of this event both before and after the change – albeit sometimes
remotely. This year I was able to participate in full body!
For this festival
I spontaneously altered my original plan about half an hour before the
performance to utilize the fabulous industrial setting of the venue – (Art Rat
Studios)
(Thanx to Ralph
Eaton for hosting me, Crank Sturgeon and Jack Wright – FUN!)
AFTERMAF LINX
Art Rat Studio Facebook
Page ART RAT STUDIO
Facebook Event AFTERMAF 2017 FACEBOOK EVENT
Archive Press
– Roanoke Times
YouTube –
excerpts of Cilla Vee's Amalgamata Sonata – video by Catherine Mehrl Bennett
 |
| Amalgamata Sonata at AfterMAF - photo Catherine Merhl Bennett |
 |
| Amalgamata Sonata at AfterMAF - photo Catherine Merhl Bennett |
Asheville Cesspool of Synths
(July and August
2017)
Since then, many Ashevillians have proudly
owned that title - making T-shirts and other merch to declare it!
Asheville also happens to be lousy with synths! .... You can't go anywhere without some kind of amazing synthesizer action - from Moog to Make-Noise.
So this event celebrates both aspects of Asheville ... its Cesspool-ness and its Synthy-ness! It began last summer in my garage as a meeting pool through which individuals could share, present, experiment and synthesize. This year there were two meetings, both well attended and eclectic.
Asheville also happens to be lousy with synths! .... You can't go anywhere without some kind of amazing synthesizer action - from Moog to Make-Noise.
So this event celebrates both aspects of Asheville ... its Cesspool-ness and its Synthy-ness! It began last summer in my garage as a meeting pool through which individuals could share, present, experiment and synthesize. This year there were two meetings, both well attended and eclectic.
(Thanx
to Mark Hosler, Richard Brewster, Xambucca/Chandra Shukla, Vincent Wren, Auracene/Liz
Lang, Kima Moore, Dave Jones, the infamous Block Rainbow/Elisa Faires &
Cheryl Barnes – and all who came to share your stuff!)
CESSPOOL
OF SYNTHS LINX
Meeting
#2 Facebook Event
Meeting
#3 Facebook Event
X Fest UK
(September
2017)
X
Fest has become transatlantic – thanks to the love life of one of the original
board members! Y Sok from X Fest’s
home in Lowell MA USA married a man from Manchester UK, together they started a
Cambodian restaurant and vinyl record store in Stockport and are now producing
X Fest Europe. Each festival will take place in a different European country
and serve as a vehicle for US and European artists to network and collaborate.
The first one being just outside of Manchester in England’s beautiful Peak District.
X
FEST UK LINX
Facebook
Event X FEST UK FACEBOOK EVENT
YouTube
– Saturday afternoon (complete set) Cilla Vee, Michael F Dailey, Sue Lynch, Jeff
Lipsky – video by Jess Schumann
YouTube – Friday
night (short excerpt) Cilla Vee, Jack Wright, Anton hunter, Adrian Northover –
video by Jess Schumann
(Further credits
given on YouTube site)
Skronk
(September
2017)
Straight
from X Fest, saxophonist extraordinaire Bonnie Kane and I headed down to
London. We had been in touch with Rick Jensen, who runs the Skronk series at
New River Studios. There are a number of different Skronk series, depending on
the genre of performance – so far all of them sound/music based … but inspired
by the idea of music and dance collaboration that we were proposing, he decided
to start a whole new Skronk series; Skronk
Dance - and our show was Skronk Dance #1.
(A shout-out to
our host Billy Hautot – thanx)
SKRONK LINX
Skronk Series Facebook
Page SKRONK FACEBOOK PAGE
Facebook Event SKRONKDANCE #1 FACEBOOK EVENT
Light & Shadow Tour / Marfa Residency
(November 2017)
The Archaeology of the Frivolous is a book by philosopher Jacques Derrida,
it is also an artist residency in Marfa TX founded by two Transart Institute
alumni Allen Ferguson and Andrea Spaziani.
But more on that
later ….
Going to Marfa TX
was the impetus to create a tour. I wanted to continue celebrating my fiftieth
year and travelling, creating and collaborating seemed like a good way to do
it! I’ve been looking at the effects of simple light and shadow recently and
wanted to explore that as a theme for my work on this tour. So I packed up my
old Saturn Station Wagon with various gadgets, objects and costumes and hit the
road.
TOUR LINX
Flickr – Light
& Shadow Tour project images
(Photo credits
given on Flickr page)
 |
| Archaeology of the Frivolous flier |
 |
| everybody at Archaeology of the Frivolous in Marfa TX |
Chattanooga TN
Frequency Arts in
Chattanooga is a grass roots local gallery that presents experimental work.
They hold regular performance events that often present both touring artists
and local talent. I was part of a night of noise music and visual projections produced
by Chocolate ChooChoo and
collaborated with the audio-visual duo Tape Baby and Tape Canvas.
(Thank you Ann
Law and Bruce Kaplan at Barking Legs Theater, for hosting me!)
FREQUENCY ARTS LINX
Frequency Arts Facebook
Page FREQUENCY ARTS FACEBOOK PAGE
Facebook Event CHOCOLATE CHOO CHOO FACEBOOK EVENT
 |
| Light & Shadow at Frequency Arts - photo Ernie Paik |
Birmingham AL
Here I spent a
delightful evening with LaDonna Smith at a studio session in her basement,
which is fully equipped with a permanent sound installation of instruments from
all over the world. Joining us were percussionist SI Seasoning and his
ten-year-old musical genius son Aidan (or ‘U’u).
New Orleans LA
A “Serious Convergence”
(as NOLA musician Rob Cambre described it) happened in New Orleans – at Mudlark
Public Theatre on Bonfire Night. The show was on November 5th, which
is British Bonfire Night – so I wanted to combine my touring theme of Light and
Shadow with the idea of Flame and Fire. How it all came together is a long and
convoluted story … suffice to say that the result was a convergence of Cilla
Vee Life Arts with Death Posture (Rob Cambre, Donald Miller and Chris Robert)
and NOLA based dance artists Cypress Atlas and Emmalee Sutton, as well as some
familiar faces on the improv music circuit – Jack Wright, Evan Lipson and Zach
Durrap – touring as Roughhousing. With video projections of work by NOLA artist
Kook Teflon. It was a night of fire-spinning and magic!
(Thanx Pandora
Gastelum for having us)
BONFIRE NIGHT
LINX
The Mudlark
Public Theatre Facebook Page
Bonfire Night Facebook
Event BONFIRE NIGHT FACEBOOK EVENT
 |
| Bonfire Night in New Orleans - photo Cree |
Austin TX
A quick stop to
check out the scene and see Roughhousing play a gig.
Marfa TX
Archaeology of the Frivolous (the residency) continues in a similar vein
to Transart in that its objective is pedagogical and its format is a schedule
of artist presentations. Presentations can take any form of experience for the
participants: a talk, workshop, demonstration, performance, meditation, field
trip – you name it. Whatever it is, it’s a shared experience through which
learning and development occurs and a good time is had by all. Put that
together with Allen’s Hard To Watch
film festival every night and delicious meals shared in the kitchen, it was
well worth the trip. The venue, Building 98, has a fascinating history as an
old fort, housing for German POWs and the International Women’s Foundation.
Marfa TX itself is quite surreal – the Native American and Hispanic cultures
are mixed with a modern history of Hollywood Westerns and, more recently, the
contemporary art world – thanks to Donald Judd. (If you see the TV series I Love Dick, you’ll get the picture!)
Other artists
included: Allen Ferguson, Andrea Spaziani, Christopher Danowski, Susan Obermeyer,
Meagan O’Shea, Fatimah White, Brian Coleman – music by Adam Torres – Skype
session with Linda Duvall – visit from Marion Wasserman
(Thanx
Fergie-Spaz!)
ARCHAEOLOGY OF
THE FRIVOLOUS LINX
Residency Facebook
Page AOTF RESIDENCY FACEBOOK PAGE
Facebook Event ARCHAEOLOGY #2 FACEBOOK EVENT
 |
| Fatimah White's workshop at AOTF |
 |
| Andy Spaziani's workshop at AOTF |
 |
| Andy in the courtyard at Building 98 |
For the residency
I created a series of Light & Shadow explorations to be performed for one
hour on separate days at different times of day.
One of these was
to create an interactive Shadow Installation where shadows moved on a wall
during the hour before sunset entitled Late
Afternoon Long Shadows.
 |
| Fatimah White at Late Afternoon Long Shadows shadow installation |
 |
| Allen Ferguson at Late Afternoon Long Shadows |
 | ||||||||||||||
| Paul Ferguson at Late Afternoon Long Shadows |
Santa Fe NM
A visit with a
dear friend and a trip to Meow Wolf. (Thank you Ana McArthur)
Flagstaff AZ
A cool scene is
happening in Flagstaff AZ – it’s called Interference. The Interference Series
is run by Rob Wallace, Owen Davis and Tyler Neidermayer. From what I gather,
venues can vary but events happen mainly at The Hive – a funky downtown venue,
often in conjunction with a talk or workshop at Northern Arizona University in
the case of visiting artists – like me. In the morning I gave a
Lecture-Demonstration that focused on my Sound of Movement project and history
of improvised dance and movement collaborations and methods of working. In the
evening was a performance at The Hive, where I lead some audience participation
explorations on Light/Sound/Action and then enjoyed what felt like a mythical
journey with Rob Wallace on percussion.
(Thank you to Rob
and Kara for being fabulous hosts)
INTERFERENCE
SERIES LINX
Interference
Website INTERFERENCE SERIES WEBSITE
Interference
Facebook Page INTERFERENCE SERIES FACEBOOK PAGE
Interference Fall
2017 Newsletter INTERFERENCE SERIES NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Event
 |
| conversation with Rob Wallace before our performance at The Hive - photo Tyler Neidermayer |
After all that I
spent a day at the Grand Canyon before hitting the I-40 to take me all the way
back to Asheville.
 |
| Grand Canyon south rim - photo Claire Elizabeth Barratt |
Emersion – Acting Like Humans
(December 2017)
Light Body / Shadow Body is a performance installation about the
liminal moment of the human soul leaving the body … will it go to the shadow?
Or will it go to the light? Except there’s something different about this scenario
– it’s a robot experiment on the subject! … And it’s just one of many robot
explorations of humanity taking place simultaneously in a book store – at
Downtown Books and News in AshevilleNC.
Grayson Morris is
the creative mind behind the Emersion series. Inspired by surreal performance
installation experiences like New York’s Sleep
No More, she recruits a cast of performance artists to create
self-contained installations based on a theme and then structures an audience
experience. For Acting Like Humans,
she joined forces with Cory Howard of Campfireball to co-produce the event.
(Thanx to Diana
Brewster, Nina Furrini and Chloe Harnett-Hargrove for being my robot assistants!)
EMERSION LINX
Emersion Website EMERSION THEATER WEBSITE
Emersion Facebook
Page EMERSION THEATER FACEBOOK PAGE
Event Page (CVLA)
CILLA VEE LIFE ARTS - FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
Event Page
(Emersion) EMERSION THEATER - FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
Flickr – images
of entire event by Bren Photography
Flickr – images
of Cilla Vee by J Smilanic and Bren Photography
YouTube – video
of Cilla Vee by AD Weighs
(Sound,
installation and performance by Cilla Vee)
 |
| Light Body/Shadow Body at Emersion - photo J Smilanic |
 |
| Light Body/Shadow Body at Emersion - photo Bren Photography |
Fe – (iron) – Birmingham Museum of Art
(January 2018)
Butoh has been
happening in Birmingham AL for about twelve years, thanks to Deborah Maudlin
and Bearing Light Butoh. For this
year’s Asian Heritage Festival, the Birmingham Museum of Art invited Bearing
Light to give a Butoh dance presentation of Butoh
in Birmingham. As a guest artist for this event I had to consider what
about the city I felt inspired to respond to. I knew I wanted to collaborate
with ‘U’u (Aidan – the gifted child I’d played with at the studio session there
in November). Having been to Sloss Furnaces there several times – including an
iron sculpture festival where I got to witness the spectacle of the iron pour,
I thought that something a ten-year-old boy and I could both get really into
would be being “iron people” – representing Birmingham’s iron industry by
embodying the element of iron itself. We performed this as an installation as
the audience was entering the auditorium to begin the show.
(Thanx to Johnny
Williams from Alabama Arts Casting for a fabulous tour of the old ironworks at
Tannehill and for the loan of iron pieces. Thanx to Alan and Debra Wood for
hosting me.)
BUTOH IN
BIRMINGHAM LINX
BMA Website Event
Facebook Event ASIAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL - FACEBOOK EVENT
Flickr – images
by Debra Wood FE (IRON) FLICKR IMAGES
YouTube – video
by SI Reasoning FE (IRON) YOUTUBE VIDEO
 |
| Fe at BMA - photo Debra Wood |
 |
| Fe at BMA - photo Debra Wood |
Other
Artistic events
of note:
A visit with
Linda Montano – who was my MFA project advisor and a guru in the practice of Living Art. After X fest in Massachusetts
I drove over to Saugerties NY where Linda has her home and archives. We spent a
wonderful couple of hours laying on the floor in a conversational visualization
meditation and then having homemade potato pancakes.
A talk at UNCA –
to Dr. Wayne Kirby’s Intermedia class, giving examples of my work in
performative intermedia collaborations. Dr. Wayne was especially excited to see
a piece I’d performed at Phil Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia in NYC, as he
had attended some of the early shows there back in the day!
Ballet classes –
I continue to teach an Adult Beginners Ballet class at Weaverville Yoga Studio,
where I am blessed to be able to use the studio for my own practice and presentations.
(Thank you so much Barbara Schauer)
Future
The immediate
future holds a lot of screen-staring, as it is now priority to up-date websites
and administrative information.
But look out for
more Cilla Vee Life Arts projects soon …..
Additional THANK YOUS for fundraising, support and assistance:
Janet & David Barratt
Alan & Debra Wood
Patricia & Paul Jamie
Diana & Richard Brewster
Anita Durst
Y-Sok & Jonathan Scofield
Myk Rushton
Steve Lansford
Emma & Gary Watt
Gerry & George Bedard
Greg Congleton
Marc Dale
Kraig Grady
Lesley & Russ Howell
Laila Alamiri
Randi Janelle
Igor Roussanoff
Samir Bitar
Tracey Schmit
Tina Cook
Chandra Shukla
Elisa Faires
Additional THANK YOUS for fundraising, support and assistance:
Janet & David Barratt
Alan & Debra Wood
Patricia & Paul Jamie
Diana & Richard Brewster
Anita Durst
Y-Sok & Jonathan Scofield
Myk Rushton
Steve Lansford
Emma & Gary Watt
Gerry & George Bedard
Greg Congleton
Marc Dale
Kraig Grady
Lesley & Russ Howell
Laila Alamiri
Randi Janelle
Igor Roussanoff
Samir Bitar
Tracey Schmit
Tina Cook
Chandra Shukla
Elisa Faires
