Leaving the island...and going to the bigger one

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Leaving the island...and going to the bigger one
2008-07-02 1:46PM / 標準BLOG / 會員可以看
3個評論
Today marks my last full day on the tiny island of Britain...headed for the much larger island of the Americas! I'm finally feeling prepared and ready for this...ready to re-integrate into the Californian culture...and wreak havoc on it with all my crazy (and relatively new) 'Russian' ideas. This blog will not be about my drama...though...so, moving on. I read an article today published in the New College (a division of Oxford University) Journal about the influence of Russian writers and choreographers during the late 19th/early 20th century on the modernist writers in England...the essay was mostly about the ways in which the English looked to the wild and savage east for soul and culture that no longer existed in the defiled west..etc...nonetheless I digress once again - the essay was mediocre, and disappointing thinking that it's coming from a student doing her PhD in English Lit at Oxford...I suppose my expectations were too high??? NEXT The new project I'm devising will stay under wraps until it launches, but I need support in doing research and field world. I'm really interested in three, "c's"....Capitalism, Consumer Culture, and Complacency.....the roles that these three C ideas have in America, how they've come about, been developed and cultivated, how and whether the public feels that they 'consume' art by buying a ticket for a performance or a museum. How does complacency tie into 'normal' 'average' lives in the states...what does it mean to be an active member of society? What are the intellectual ideas surrounding late capitalism, post modernism, and all that wonderful Lyotard and Jameson stuff. I need recommendations on readings, writings, viewings...blogs that I should check out, films I should see, musicians I should listen to...I'm trying to get a feel, basically, for what the state of ART is in the United States at this exact moment, and how that state ties in with the three C's mentioned above (yes, I realize there are actually 4 C's). So...what is art, how do we define it, what do people do with it, how do they experience/consume/value it...what role does it have in society and what role should it have in society...what's the difference between art and entertainment, who gets to make the judgement regarding that difference, and why does noting a difference matter at all. I've been suggested a novel called 'Liquid Love' and also a film in which some artists/sociologists/anthropologists built a fake supermarket, did PR for it for 6 months, and then on opening day, filmed thousands of peoples' reactions when, after waiting in line for hours and hours, they all realized it was a hoax. I need to finally get my think tank of artists and intellectuals up and running - I suppose this could be it.

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rottendoubt
留言於2008-07-05 2:25AM [举报]

have a good trip back!!
Marie Jost
留言於2008-07-02 6:44PM [举报]

Art and society--as far as I can tell, art has absolutely no impact on society at large.  I can think of no example where the public at large has any sense of art playing any role whatsoever in their lives.  Mostly, art is seen as this alien thing created by supervise and dangerous radicals designed to criticize and undermine the American way of life.

I don't have a single academic source to back up this statement.  This is just what I have observed and the reaction I have personally received when I have discussed some of the artists and art I have been engaging with in recent months.  Even reasonably educated and politically progressive people (active in local political parties, advanced university degrees, travel overseas, etc.) have told me very bluntly that they think some of these artists and their works are disgusting, scary, weird, etc. and are not be discussed in the workplace.  Furthermore, they, personally, don't want to hear about them anywhere.

So, if that is the reaction I get from the politically engaged democrats working hard to get Barrak Obama elected, I can hardly imagine the reaction I would get from the more mainstream American.

Perhaps the bottom line is that Americans don't really know what art is.  It is also clear to me that most Americans don't care about art, believe (perhaps rightly) that is it a challenge to their beliefs and way of life, and wish that art and artists would just go away (and stop being given public money to produce their "filth").

Sorry my take is so negative, but I was really burned by the reaction of my co-workers and almost lost my job over my interest in some contemporary art.  I didn't have the heart to tell them that what I was  looking at was terribly tame by the standards of this art.  There is no way they would have understood.
JRS
留言於2008-07-02 4:15PM [举报]

When I read the title of your blog, I thought you'd been somewhere tropical...like Hawaii! But, 'tis only Britain....

Well, have a great flight....and welcome to the hell we're in over here called $4+/gallon fuel pricing. Blah.

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Charles Slender

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Charles Slender is a San Francisco-based international dance artist who has performed, made choreography, and taught in the United States, Russia, Hong Kong, Poland, Latvia, Mexico, and France...
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Charles Slender is a San Francisco-based international dance artist who has performed, made choreography, and taught in the United States, Russia, Hong Kong, Poland, Latvia, Mexico, and France. He is the founder and Artistic Director of FACT/SF - a contemporary dance-theater company based in San Francisco. His choreography, with commissions from art galleries, universities, and dance companies, has been described as "balancing on the edge of kitsch and something more serious...paradoxical and interesting" (Natalia Kurumova, dancenet.ru) and as "sexy...vicious...bizarre" (Ariel Soto, SF Bay Guardian). In addition to his work as a choreographer, Charles teaches contemporary dance technique at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, California and continues to perform, most recently in works by Jesse Hewit, Laura Arrington, and Todd Courage. He was also visiting faculty at the American Dance Festival in 2009 and 2007.

A California native, Charles has continued to work both at home and abroad with commissions by Electric Works Gallery (San Francisco), Dialogue Dance Company (Kostroma, Russia), Acid Rain (Chelyabinsk, Russia), and the Yekaterinburg University of the Humanities (YUH, Yekaterinburg, Russia). In 2007, The Fringe Club (Hong Kong) presented three new works Charles developed in collaboration with Emily Woo Zeller. In 2006 and 2007, he performed with Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, under the direction of Tatiana Baganova. With Provincial Dances he toured internationally, taught company and master classes, and collaborated on the creation of new works.

Charles graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, with degrees in English Literature and Dance and Performance Studies. While at Berkeley, Charles received the Chancellor's Eisner Award for "highest achievement in the creative arts" and the Hickman Undergraduate Scholarship for "continued excellence and achievement in dance".
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