Alfred Summer Arts Festival - Making Meaning in an Uncertain World
Alfred University, Alfred, NY
Alfred University is piloting a unique summer festival for interdisciplinary collaboration designed as a creative incubator for you to interact with other artists. Directed by Stanzi Vaubel, PhD, of The Indeterminacy Festival, the intention is to create opportunities to encounter the methodologies of practitioners and discover how these methods can inform your work. Expect to bring your own creative practice into this forum of choreographers, dancers, writers, composers, musicians, and visual artists with the opportunity to think through your process in new ways. Located in the countryside setting of Western New York you will cross-pollinate with other creatives more informally in our residential housing and over locally catered meals. Look forward to spending the week immersed in expanding your craft, attending special nightly events in a salon setting, all while preparing to share or perform your discoveries at the end of the week's festivities. More information at: www.alfred.edu/about/arts-at-alfred/alfred-summer-arts/summer- arts-festival
MORNING MASTERCLASSES Sandy Silva // Rhythm, Movement, and Voice Sandy Silva was among the first to combine body percussion techniques and contemporary movement with percussive dance. Her work stands at the vanguard of contemporary artistry in traditional music and dance. Over the past three decades, Sandy has developed a personal vocabulary of movement and sound based on the percussive dance practices of Hungary, Appalachia, Cape Breton and Andalusia, and the idioms of circus, contemporary dance, and theatre. This class will connect voice, movement, and percussion to explore different ways we can perceive, organize, and shape music through our bodies. Visual and sonic body music language will be introduced, enabling us to inhabit musical concepts drawing from intercultural rhythmic dance/vocal forms.
Kathy Kennedy // Low-Watt Radio and Echolocation Learn to explore and even navigate our environment through sound. Echolocation is a process of determining where objects are in a space, by listening to their sonic reverberations. We will begin by exploring our voices and how sound is made in our bodies, and then outdoors, learning about how sound travels differently in unique spaces. This kind of attention to our environment through our voices allows for a new kind of spatial orientation. Gradually we will develop our own sound maps and add devices such as low-watt radio and geolocation to enhance this inquiry.
George Ferrandi // Still A Ray sculpture / performance / collaboration Participants in each three-hour session will fabricate and decorate an elegant paper lantern using processes from a traditional Japanese parade-sculpture technique called Nebuta. This workshop will teach methods for building the wire frame and applying the delicate washi paper. Together we'll divine a lovely, luminescent presence in the festival parade. Melanie Aceto // Animating Materials mixed media How do we transform objects such as rope, water or 3,000 square feet of plastic into animated materials that communicate meaning, message, and beauty? In this workshop participants will learn how to "brainstorm" with materials to reveal their meaning making potential. We will start by getting to know our materials and use this discovery to inspire our relationship to movement. A background in movement is not necessary.
AFTERNOON MASTERCLASSES
Jonathan Golove // Learning to Play Experimental Instruments This workshop will be held in Collaboration with: Matias Homar and Bill Sack. Explore new approaches to music making. Participants will be introduced to tools and devices that have been designed by artists and composers to facilitate discovery of sounds free from pre- existing rules and techniques. These novel instruments will help enhance a sense of play and reward individual and collective creativity. Composers and sound engineers experienced in experimentation will lead participants in a week of musical exploration from experimenting with pre-existing instruments, to building an instrument, to an end of the week ensemble performance.
Bill Gilbert // Walking Constellation Maps social practice In the attempt to connect earth and sky we will bring the constellation Cygnus the Swan down from its place flying the Milky Way in the night sky and walk it onto the ground in Alfred, NY. As we progress along our path, we will document each star point in a photograph, a journal entry, and a gathered sample material/object. After successfully locating each star point, we will return to campus to construct a presentation of the walk based in a compilation of the photographs and journal entries and a physical rendering of the constellation using our materials/objects to mark the various star points.
Vincenzo Di Nicola // The Manifesto in the 21st Century writing Since the 19th century, the manifesto has been a vehicle for protest in the form of an announcement - a manifesto - literally, a "showing" from the Italian - implicitly or explicitly of a rupture/hiatus and a call for change. We will explore the manifesto in art (Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto), in politics (Marx & Engels' Communist Manifesto vs. Mussolini's Fascist Manifesto), and in culture (Di Nicola's Slow Thought Manifesto) and therapy (Di Nicola's Slow Therapy) in the spirit of community and conviviality (Illich). In the workshop component of these explorations, participants will be tasked with writing their own manifesto to be shared by the end of the week.
EVENING SALONS Sunday July 10th Opening Night Party Cohen Center for the Arts 6pm-9pm Hosted at the Cohen Center for the Arts and the "Cohen Barn", this evening will kick off our festival week of workshops and events. Come have a bite to eat, grab a drink, and mingle with the visiting and emerging artists. For your entertainment there will be live jazz and music by The Badgemen, as well as the opportunity to prepare your lantern for the parade later in the week with artist George Ferrandi.
Monday July 11th Creating an Open System Miller Performing Arts Center, Dance Studios 7pm-9pm This event is an informal opportunity to learn more about the creative methods of this year's visiting and emerging artists. Expect a variety show format which will offer you the chance to peek inside the processes of these artists. From projected work, to musical interludes, to readings, to creative invitations, you are invited to watch and participate.
Tuesday July 12th Commedia Dell'arte and Other Influences Susan Howell Hall 7pm-8pm Inspired by early Italian comedy known for the variety of improvised sketches and exaggerated characters, this evening of Commedia Dell'arte and other Influences will introduce us to scenes from commedia as well as folk inspired imagery. Join us for an evening of music including Beethoven, Debussy, Britten, and Schumann. Pianist Jasmine Nagano and cellist Ana Kim will guide us through this music with commentary throughout the evening's performance.
Tuesday July 12th Selections from the Light Matter Film Festival The Bandstand Curated by James Hansen and Eric Souther 9pm-10pm
Wednesday July 13th How to: Slow Down Miller Performing Arts Center, Dance Studios 7pm-9pm Joining us for this evening is the writer of "The Slow Thought Manifesto", Vincenzo Di Nicola who will serve as "MC" for this event in collaboration with choreographer Melanie Aceto and composer Thélonius Garcia. The evening will offer us a variety of creative methods for...slowing down. Taking on the big questions: "What makes new things possible?" and "How do we seek transformation and find renewal?" The manifesto offers one simple starting point: "Take your time." For this evening, we invite you to slow down with a little help from the words of Di Nicola and a performance created by Aceto and Garcia.
Thursday July 14th A Letter from the Treetops + Dance Party Cohen Center for the Arts 7pm - 10pm Join us for this special evening with Jessie Chandler where he will perform new work from his solo album "A Letter from the Treetops". When Chandler is not working on his own albums you can find him performing with Midlake and Mercury Rev. This event was developed during his residency at Alfred and the performance will integrate collaborations with visiting and emerging artists. Party to follow DJ'd by John Lewis, so wear your dancing shoes to this event.
Friday July 15th Be Coming Birds Main Street and Village Hall 8:30-10:30pm How do we be come birds? It all starts with paper and a method called Nebuta. Leading into the festival week artist George Ferrandi will teach participants this handmade process. On the evening of July 15th these creatures will take flight in a parade down Main Street accompanied by low-fi radio music orchestrated by Kathy Kennedy. Join us to release these illuminated birds into the night sky or grab a radio and join Kathy in the musical creation. Together we will make our way towards the Village Hall, where choreographer Sandy Silva and her ensemble will usher us into the space filled with rhythm, voice, and movement.
Saturday July 16th Making Meaning in an Uncertain World Cohen Center for the Arts 6-9pm How do we make meaning in an uncertain world? Sometimes it can help to look skyward as artist Bill Gilbert suggests. Inspired by his masterclass "walking constellations" this will be an evening dedicated to the process of making meaning by going outwards into the unknown. Whether this quest takes the form of walking or material finding — these artists are guided by the unexpected encounters created within their environment. Spend the night witnessing how the star points of constellation Cygnus the swan is mapped on the ground by Bill Gilbert and collaborators. Watch and see Melanie Aceto and her dancers transform ordinary objects into animated choreographic potential. Listen and witness Jonathan Golove, Bill Sack, and Matias Homar find musical harmony in the unlikeliest of sources. Join us for what is sure to be a memorable closing night.
