Base camp: Creative Seeds!

WOW!!
The momentum is incredible! I was heading up to Creative Seeds to teach an intro class for Community Dance Week there and had the thought, "you know what, just do the park there, just do it." I walk into the studio and on the wall is a petition for an actual park at Saturn Elementary School. Amazing. I am just the vessel.

So we are ON to set up a park with Creative Seeds and the parent association, Rings of Saturn. Hopefully the Neighborhood Council for Pico Blvd will come on board with some free water etc. Ashley Thompson, owner of the movement studio Creative Seeds, reports that the neighbors are already getting excited. The tentative set-up time is 11 AM, park opens at 12 noon. The studio might need to open the park earlier. I'll have more info later this evening.

I just scored some free plants for the pop-up park and they will remain there awaiting the actual park. Many thanks to Thea Mercouffer, director of Heather and Goliath. Now, does anybody have a truck because one is ten feet tall!

You will notice on the Park[ing] Day LA map that ours is the only park in the area. In fact, there is no park in that area of any kind for a 3 mile radius. Don't you want to come and sign the petition to get a park?

As far doing the Metered dance, this means we will have to drive to the other parks to get our groove on. I have an invite from some fellows on Abbot Kinney to come out and dance in their park, but there are no meters on that blvd. I will start there at 10 AM. Or a super secret park in an area I cannot disclose until day of...I also got a call from Marcus Quiland-Nazario to bring the Metered Dance out to CAARS' spot in Korea Town around 2 PM.

If you want to meet up with me, follow me on Twitter, @meterdance for updates. Tomorrow night, I will post a route calendar to let you know approximate locations and times for the Metered Dance. We will definitely be in Echo Park by 4:30PM.

Command the Dance will jump out of their office cubicles and into pop-up parks int he downtown district. If you are in their vicinity, you definitely want to join in.

Come and get limber with me in my FUNdamentals of African Dance class at noon, then we head out to the meters for some fun. After that...we shall see the sights of Angelenos' creativity and desire for greener spaces. Don't forget your cameras and some food! We'll have a late lunch on the "green."

more to come.

Labor & Park(ing) Day LA

Hola Amigos!

It is time to plan for September, a big month for dancing at parking meters.

So, Labor Day:
This one is not so obvious why I would want to have people dancing at meters, I mean, it's a meter holiday, right? Well, yeah, but we get the day off to celebrate workers and their contributions to the economy. But for as many in-roads as dance (and dancing) seems to have made within the last three years, the labor of dance is still grotesquely undervalued and it is still incredibly difficult for dance laborers to join unions (think insurance, nobody is gonna retire given this economic downturn).

I am proposing that dancers across the city scope out meters and begin dancing at them on the afternoon of Monday, August 31, in preparation for Labor Day.

I will contact some dance teams, crews and companies I know who might want to be in on the fun. If you have done dance flash actions before (I LOVED the Hammer Time take over of the jean boutique), please contact me and let's get busy! With the number of dancers in LA, we should be able to have the city literally dancing in the streets.

Please go back and read the very first entry of this blog for the rules on how The Meter Dance works.



Now, Park[ing] Day LA , SEPTEMBER 18, 2009
Bummer! They had their first meeting today at noon, and I just found out about it! I hope to get the notes. This is a FABULOUS way to do the Meter Dance, and a GREAT way to bring attention to: 1) missing open space in a lot of the neighborhoods where artists tend to end up living; 2)the fact that art is often hidden away from our everyday lives; 3)your company.

Please follow the link to their website and sign up for their mailing list. This will make sure you get info on how to get your permit for your space; unlike the Meter Dance, which is a direct action, Int'l Park[ing] Day is a movement that follows civic rules. There are a few edge-riding activities planned for all you adrenaline junkies.


How you can make your park relate to dance:
Well, you can put down linoleum, dust off your boom box and bring some old skool funk. Or, you can make a grave yard and dance on some one's grave, maybe Golda herself. You can create a cabbage patch and do suggestive dances and every so often find a CabbagePatch kid, or you could just do the Cabbage Patch in the patch. You could go hippie, lay down faux lawn and some flower garlands and reenact scenes from Hair. The possibilities are endless!

Staging:
It is best to put together a team, then come up with a theme. Scope your spot. Then get permits for spot. Design the staging around the locale (this one is important). Make sure you follow the permit rules. And make sure you have plenty of space in which to dance.

Think recycled materials, reused materials. Here on the Westside, we have the reDiscover center. You would be surprised how many folks have odds and ends of faux lawn that they donate. Get it now if you can store it. The website has some lovely examples of parks that people put up.

As soon as you know where you're going to be, please let me know! @meterdance on Twitter. I'll try to get folks to come and dance in your park! How fun is that? Also, we can time it just right so that a Metered Dance Action happens adjacent to your park and ends in your park. More details to come as we get closer.

So get into gear! It's time to have some fun!

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