Mentorship and Creativity
I attended a performance/presentation/lecture at the Margaret Jenkins Dancelab www.mjdc.org, of CHIME LIVE!, a mentoship program that provides grants and cost-free studio time to support an exploration between professional chorographers interested in learning from one another. I went because one of my favorite dance teachers, Amara Tabor-Smith was a recipient of this amazing award. I wanted to see what her one year experience was like working with Ellen Sebastian Chang, a theater director http://www.kitka.org/calendar/ellen-sebastian-chang-bio.html and I was interested in learning more about how fields outside of the visual arts promote and nurture creativity. I must say the world of dance is very different from the world of painting. Perhaps i only see the best people when it comes to dance; they are the warmest, kindest, most supportive, most positive people i know. And perhaps i only see the worst people when it comes to painting; think of the people portrayed in the film "Art School Confidential" and i would say it was pretty accurate except i would add that the people were much more nasty and negative in real life. I also think that when one works collaboratively like in dance, sculpture, photography, printmaking, you have to know how to get along. Not so with painting, a solitary pursuit which seems to attract some of the meanest and most insecure people i've ever met. But i digress...
What was interesting was the time they spent together which was sometimes about reading poetry, just hanging and talking, seeing performances, and because Ellen has the theater background brought a completely different perspective. She pushed Amara and her company, Deep Waters Dance Theater http://deepwaters.ning.com/ to do things that were uncomfortable, like singing or chanting. They performed a warm up exercise that seemed to be a chanting, singing, perscusive piece mixed with free style dance that allowed each dancer to improvise and interact with other dancers. They also performed 2 other works in progress.
Now, how does that affect my art making? I and 4-5 other artists meet on a regular basis to talk about art, our work, and to exercise our creativity by coming up with "assignments" to focus on. Getting the gang to show up and meet hasn't been difficult but getting them engaged to challenge each other has not garnered much enthusiasm. Some enjoy doing the assignments but others, and understandably so, have other commitments. I did force the issue at our last meeting and our next assignment is based on the following:
...a line is a line is a line.
I am looking forward to working on this!
But hearing about CHIME (Choreograhers in Mentorship Exchange) makes me want to participate in something like it in painting, either as a mentor or a mentee. I actually had a mentor (a paid one) but he hasn't been available for some time now and he was great! Wahh...
What was interesting was the time they spent together which was sometimes about reading poetry, just hanging and talking, seeing performances, and because Ellen has the theater background brought a completely different perspective. She pushed Amara and her company, Deep Waters Dance Theater http://deepwaters.ning.com/ to do things that were uncomfortable, like singing or chanting. They performed a warm up exercise that seemed to be a chanting, singing, perscusive piece mixed with free style dance that allowed each dancer to improvise and interact with other dancers. They also performed 2 other works in progress.
Now, how does that affect my art making? I and 4-5 other artists meet on a regular basis to talk about art, our work, and to exercise our creativity by coming up with "assignments" to focus on. Getting the gang to show up and meet hasn't been difficult but getting them engaged to challenge each other has not garnered much enthusiasm. Some enjoy doing the assignments but others, and understandably so, have other commitments. I did force the issue at our last meeting and our next assignment is based on the following:
...a line is a line is a line.
I am looking forward to working on this!
But hearing about CHIME (Choreograhers in Mentorship Exchange) makes me want to participate in something like it in painting, either as a mentor or a mentee. I actually had a mentor (a paid one) but he hasn't been available for some time now and he was great! Wahh...
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