Seen Performance

seen open a success!

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:25:00 +0000

Friends!
David, Shana, and I want to thank you for coming out to celebrate seen performance's first year! We were so excited to bring new and old friends alike into our performance, and were rewarded by everyone's ready questions and your readiness to share them. Some of you were asking about the original video from Box Shy -- you can see the original "complete" version that includes Shana's animation and David's composition, here.

The evening garnered a little bit of press attention, and you can read about us in the LIC Journal "On the Record" and on LiQ City.

Thank you the generous donations, which mean so very much to our budding performance collective. When our new website is up and running (soon!), we'll be thanking all our donors publicly and into perpetuity!

Most importantly, we had a blast and are looking forward to another great year with you!

Yours,
seenperformance

photo by the lovely lindsey wolkowicz

Seen Open - celebrate one year with us!

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:48:00 +0000

March 2009 will mark the one-year anniversary of Seen Performance's first performance together and our beginnings as a performance collective.

To celebrate, we will be gathering at Rèst Âü Ránt, a local favorite in Astoria, for drinks and cheer (which we could all use more of these days!). We'll perform a work from The Party Project (it is a party after all) and be open for questions about Seen Performance, our work and visions. We'll also be selling some artwork to help raise funds for our project These Walls Sing.

Please save the date and join us when it comes around!

Seen Open - Annual Anniversary + Benefit Party
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 7-10p
Rèst Âü Ránt
30-01 35th Ave in Astoria
Free with donations to support the creation of new work warmly accepted.

Rèst Âü Ránt has a rich wine and beer menu, and their food is fantastic. They'll be doing beer flights for us, so come ready to try 'em all!

We're looking forward to celebrating with you - see you March 10!

Seen Open is, you guessed it, open to all and free with donations warmly accepted. All donations support the creation of new work. Not in town? Show your love for Seen Performance with a donation of any size, here.

Seen Performance is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Seen Performance may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

these walls sing

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:55:00 +0000

These Walls Sing explores the relationship of music and architecture by breaking a musical whole into its component parts and distributing it across a built space. By exploiting the similarities in the constructive processes of architecture and music—both layer repeated elements to construct the whole, both deal with the proportion and relationship of their constituent parts—These Walls Sing connects the experience of one with that of the other. The audience listens to the music not by
sitting in one place while it passes them in time, but by moving through the space (and thus through the music). Sonic and spatial cues guide the audience through the entirety of the work and perform their listening experience.

In order to construct a "multi-room" song, the music for These Walls Sing consists of five separate sections built from layers of looping patterns. Each layer contains one instrument or part of one instrument (e.g., piano chords, piano melody, piano counter-melody). Different combinations and versions of these layers will appear in each section of the song, making each section distinct. Throughout, all layers will play back in synch, creating the song's continuity by keeping the musical pulse constant.

The design of space in These Walls Sing corresponds directly with the structure of the music, resulting in five distinct rooms, one for each section of the song. The audience travels from room to room in a fixed order that follows the song’s basic story. Each room, and the music that fills it, is composed to encourage the audience to explore what they’re hearing and sensing, through which they find the details to the narrative in their experience of the sound and space. Layers of music are
mapped into the spatial design that in turn guides the viewers to become listeners, and as listeners, to move with their surroundings.

Since the audience moves through These Walls Sing to experience the piece, they become
performers of the work. Thus, they are, like a cast of dancers, limited in number at any given time. This also ensures that the audience encounter their co-participants not as distractions but as part of the work.

These Walls Sing is designed to adapt to different venues. The number of musical and spatial sections and their conceptual relationships is fixed, but the physical proximity, size, shape, and internal configurations will be adapted for each new venue.

The PARTY PROJECT

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:26:00 +0000

The PARTY PROJECT is in your neighborhood.

Our current project takes performance out of the black box and into your party. We are developing short works that will join in the social mingling at local house parties, challenging where we see performance.

Follow our process and development at the Seen Performance blog.

other side performs on pier 36

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:06:00 +0000

We're taking our show on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing to the water!

Performed by Amiti Perry + Jen Painter
Saturday, 9/13 at 2pm on Pier 36

Community Board Three presents: ART FESTIVAL on Pier 36!!!

For more information on our artists, schedule and location, please check the blog: artsonpier36.blogspot.com

Body Connections with Esther Palmer

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:26:00 +0000

Classes are currently on hold, but we hope to resume in 2010.

DANCE IN ASTORIA/LIC!
Beginning level
a great class for movers new to modern dance

Classes are at Green Space Studio in Long Island City
N/W or 7 to Queensboro Plaza or F to 21st/Queensbridge.
Visit greenspacestudio.org for walking directions.
If coming from Astoria, the N/W 36th Ave stop is closest to the studio.

My class focuses on exploring personal strengths and handicaps through movement exercises built from Bartenieff fundamentals, improvisation, and tai chi practices.
I emphasize finding and nurturing fluid connections throughout the body, as well as continuosly re-investigating strange and familiar pathways alike. Through improvisation and set phrases, I encourage students to access a range of movement control. We will begin class with a gentle warm up and build towards dynamic phrase work that focuses on inversions.

My dance training has been influenced by various dance and movement techniques, including Bartenieff, improvisation, Cunningham, yoga, pilates, and tai chi. I am interested in exploring connections through the body with students from a variety of movement and dance backgrounds. I received my MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University in 2006, and have since been making work and performing in New York.

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on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:58:00 +0000

Our first official project, on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing, is a show about fashion and boxes, a place where inside is out and outside is in, where self perception melds with your perception. It is a place for tumbling into frames, rhythms, and patterns – and getting lost in the seams. Under Esther's creative direction, we first presented this piece March 6, 2008, at Dixon Place.

on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing is a project about the role of fashion in one’s self-perception and in the outside perceptions of that same self. It is about the open crevices of identity and the intimate arena of exposure.

personnel:
Esther Palmer – choreography & performance
Amiti Perry - performance
David Morneau – music composition & performance
Elle Chyun - costume design & construction
Shana McKay Burns - set design
Kris Diehl - set construction
Tate Evans, JoLayne Morneau, Christie Newman - FOH ladies

Watch video excerpts:

more photos

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shana mckay burns

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:24:00 +0000

Shana's goal is to tell stories, be they linear and plot-driven, stylized mood pieces, or abstractions. As a set designer for stage and film, Shana aims to support the telling of these stories through the design of their environments. Shana views Seen Performance as a place to collaborate with her peers, and as a place to explore new types of environments.

Shana first worked with Esther and David at Ohio State University where she studied Digital Animation. Her thesis work there included a comparison of the set design process in theatre, film and animation. Shana also holds an M.F.A in Set Design from New York University's, Tisch School of the Arts.

Visit Shana @ http://shanamburns.com/

David Morneau

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:20:00 +0000

David Morneau does not compose his music with a ‘poetic power’ that emphatically discharges from his work enchanting you in a hallucinogenic state of borderline exaltation. He does not intensely attempt to infuse symbolism into his work and shows no melodic motivation whatsoever. This is not David. So you ask, ‘Well, then what does this so-called proclaimed musical talent propose to do?’

David is a composer of an entirely undecided genre. Among his diverse projects are 60x365 – a year-long podcast project for which he composed a new one-minute piece every day, Boop Boop Beep – a solo performance for Nintendo Gameboy, Three Questions – an experimental graphic score for any performer(s), and The Rhythm Variations – 12 variations on Gershwin for solo piano (winner of the 2004 Ruth Friscoe Prize in Composition). David’s current projects include a short concert-opera based the classic Simon electronic game and The Amen Variations – a series of music videos for a dance in collaboration with Amiti Perry.

Do not think of him as yet another one of those ‘unique composers’ but rather a provider of exclusive unprecedented experiments. He carries his charm and alarm, the glamour to make standards stammer, the appeal of the unreal. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Mr. David Morneau…also available at http://5of4.com.

[written by Anna Morneau, 01.2009].

Esther m Palmer

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:37:00 +0000

Esther m Palmer is exploring how performance heightens philosophical connections between people. She founded Seen Performance with David Morneau and Shana McKay Burns to help define this process through cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Esther received her MFA in Dance and Technology from The Ohio State University where she developed an approach to creating performance through methodologies borrowed from disciplines outside dance. She fell in love with the idea of dance as a broader art from through improvisation, which was introduced to her as a method of performed composition by Penny Campbell (at Middlebury College). Esther carries this spirit of improvisation through all of her performances, relying on each specific situation to feed choices. Esther has performed and presented work in Chicago, Columbus, and New York. More at esthermpalmer.com. You can follow her current investigations at her new blog, electromagnetic pulse (at esthermpalmer.com/blog)

other side photos

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:01:00 +0000

photos by Eric Bandiero © seen performance

send us a message

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:15:00 +0000

email: info@seenperformance.org

We'd love to hear from you. Send us any comments, questions, and suggestions that you have. Or just say"hi".

what we do

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Seen Performance creates performance collectively, using a process that draws on the experience, skills, and background of everyone involved. Our goal is to make inherently collaborative work through cross-disciplinary methods. The cooperation of ideas and techniques from different art forms results in new and innovative performance. We are made up of performing and non-performing artists currently from music, dance, and design. We take turns initiating projects, through which the disciplinary and stylistic focus of our work varies from piece to piece. Over time, we will invite additional artists into Seen Performance, thereby bringing in more disciplines.

We are building community around our work. Putting our process and dialogue front and center through our blog, we share the development, performance, and critique of new pieces with our community of friends and supporters. By bringing education, exposure, and conversation to our performances and the surrounding community, we hope to engage people in a way that will give them confidence to approach unfamiliar art. Our primary goal beyond making performances is to grow into a visible fixture of the Astoria community. We expect to rely on strong partnerships with local businesses to reach a broad audience. Connecting to the community will help enrich the structures of support on which we can depend.

Seen Performance gives its individual artists a means to experiment with new techniques and methods that challenge us creatively. Our process of experimenting begins with research, discussion, and a willingness to explore unfamiliar territory. Our very existence is a solution to the problem of being solo artists whose visions extend beyond their own disciplines or abilities. Our work together has become a call and response – and re-call and re-response. It is a process in which we are continually evaluating and revising each other’s work, our contributions, and the results, a whole that we strive to make greater than its parts.

be our friend

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Seen Performance is active in several social networks! Add us to your friend list to receive updates about our work.

facebook
MySpace
YouTube

You can help us grow!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Seen Performance is growing! Now is the perfect time to help us do it.
It's a fact that emerging performance companies receive most of their funding directly from individual contributions. And every little bit makes a big difference. Please support us today! Read on to learn how.

Your cash contributions will help to cover expenses such as these:
.. $25 - space for 2 hours of rehearsal
.. $150 - performance photo + video documentation
.. $325 - equipment rental for performance

Seen Performance is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Seen Performance may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

You can make your online donation using Fractured Atlas's secure form, here.
You can also mail your donations to us. Make your check payable to Fractured Atlas with "Seen Performance" in the memo line (that detail is important!) and mail to: Seen Performance | 3426 34th Street, Second Floor | Astoria, NY 11106
And many thanks!

Your in-kind support through donation of materials + equipment will help us reduce our cash costs:
.. Sound + video equipment
.. Materials for sets + costumes
.. Refreshments for post-show gatherings and benefits

Through Fractured Atlas's sponsorship, we can offer you a tax deduction for the market value of any donated equipment. Please email us for details.

Please volunteer to help us during this growth stage - participate in running our shows smoothly and getting the word out about our work!

Want to see a show created or presented in your space?
We love working with local businesses and are always looking for donated or low-cost spaces to build new work in. These can be traditional or unusual performance spaces for site-specific and repertory pieces. Email us today!

Please email us at info@seenperformance.org for more information - and thanks!

what is performance, anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:45:00 +0000

Some thoughts from your friendly Seen Performance on... performance.