Art galleries have been a fertile place for performance installations in San Francisco. I LOVE capturing live moving art in the gallery setting, it wakes up the room(s) and atmosphere and utilizes the space in ways that allow the audience be in a gallery location differently. It’s also interesting to see what a gallery space does to a piece built for the traditional theater setting. Wonderfully, many Bay Area artists come to LRRP to capture these kinds of performances. In 2011, Avy K Productions produced a series of improvisational performances at SOMArts called The Book. It was ambitious, with live music, live painting (by Vadim Puyandaev!) and virtuosic dance, directed by Erika Tsimbrovsky. For each night, the company invited different musicians and a guest performer to join the piece in a totally improvisational way. Documenting improvisational work is a particular documentation experience that is a strength of LRRP – it requires being on the same level as the performers in terms of presence and awareness and breath. There were some beautiful and sometimes risky chance happenings that occurred from this set up and the imagery was stunning. And it was a rockin set of Bay Area dancers to boot!
Here are a few excerpts from one of the evenings:
Check out Avy K’s blog entitled dreammapping if you’re interested in spying on ideas floating around and between the brains of Avy K and their international collaborators…