The Rules: Susan Rose sends us the original score for "IN P"

Hello people!

So with this amazing follow-up for the Metered Dance International Dance Day Challenge, I launch a separate blog just for the event. I have room for 99 collaborators on here. Let me know if you want to be the "Editor" for your particular piece of the planet... Anyway, let's get those rules out:

From: roses
Subject: Re: Your parking meter dance and Dance Day
Date: April 15, 2009 9:09:26 AM PDT
To: anna

ok. so the rules for the piece are this:
pay for your space and dance till your time is up.
the dance is over when the group occupies one whole block with dancers, no
cars.

the strategy is to notice when spaces open up, move into them by dividing the
group into enough parts, smaller and smaller, to keep the spaces full.

it gets trickier when there are less dancers in spaces, as the cars get bolder in
their efforts to occupy the same space.

this piece "IN P" was first done in 1972 on westwood blvd. that is the footage
you saw. i'll look around and see if i can find that. i have given the
original film to the lewitzky archive, as bella is in it, as the first car to leave
parking space. i was always so impressed at her willingness to not only
participate in her student's piece (me) but get there early, secure a parking
space, and get the whole thing rolling.

for me it was a time/space study, an assignment from one of her comp classes.
buy the time, occupy the space.

in that version, there were no directions about what to do in the space. just a
duration thing. somehow, i still seem more concerned about when than
what.

more later,
s.

Okay y'all there it is! Notice that the best strategy is to actually start with a dance-friendly car. Now my version was kinda chicken! If you can get the numbers, go for the entire block, baby!!! And btw, you do NOT need to be a dancer to organize one of these.

Idea: partner with a green business, esp electric car to get the word out.
Better Idea: talk to your local public transportation board to make this mobile!

April 29th is Dance Day. How you gonna shake it?
in love,
-Anna

ps: more madcap adventures from VISCERA are on the way for Dance Week, stay tuned along with a money action/investigation from Afrologica. Follow me on Twitter @doctoradancer

CHALLENGE: Metered Dance, an International Dance Day intervention

Below is the original post launching this action from my newsletter: AFROLOGICS. The archive can be found in the blog: afrological.blogspot.com.


So Dance week is upon us here in the US. Usually a series of somewhat hokey studio offerings, this event was initially planned by UNESCO as a one day dance intervention. There was to be dancing on the sidewalks, in public plazas and buildings, parks and thoroughfares. Dancing literally in the streets if one could manage it.

So I'd like to bring that energy back.

My colleague and friend Susan Rose made a piece back in the 1970s for parking meters. It was very intense and extremely instructive on many levels. Therefore, I am issuing a Metered Dance Challenge to you all.

How it works: on International Dance Day, April 29th, with a team of at least 6 dancing bodies (in the footage of Susan's work, teams of 3 were often ignored and in danger), scope out meters on a busy street. When a car leaves, pump in your change, and proceed to dance there for the amount of time you have purchased. Don't forget to videotape and upload here, vimeo and on YouTube. Extra bonus points if you join afrologic.ning.com and post there, too.

I will curate a sampling of the videos on a blog celebrating our investigation of the "value" of dance.

Tag me on Twitter if you think you want to do this: @doctoradancer . Follow on Twitter via #meterdnce . I would like as many places on the planet as possible to participate.

I'll see about getting a DVD transfer of the Super8 film of the original dance uploaded for all to check out.

thought in motion::love in action,
Anna