Of Mendelssohn and Soundtracks...

I am lucky to have a very nice and indulgent friend, Steve Holtje, who kindly rehearsed and performed Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worter, no. 16 for me.  In my Fairyland Project, I am including a solo dance, "The Return of Spring," from Fifty Figure  and Character Dances by Elizabeth Turner (1925).  The dance is set to the Mendelssohn piece, and I was unable to find a copyright free version of it to add to my soundtrack.  So Steve foolishly offered to play the piece for me and I took him up on it.

I have the soundtrack to the whole project planned out.  The opening titles will have a recording of a music box that my grandfather gave my grandmother as a gift.  The music box plays "Pretty Blue Danube," "Humoreske," and "Il Trovatore."  The main part of the video will be set to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  During the "Spring" section, I will include Lieder ohne Worter, no.16, for the dance.  I wrote my song, Among the Ferns/I Hear Voices for the closing titles.  There will also be a brief section at the beginning (during the dedication) where there will be no music, just a voice over.  I think roughly, the video will be 50 minutes in length.

A BIG thanks to Steve, and for Alan who recorded the music and took the photos!  S-L-O-W-L-Y, piece by piece, my project is coming together.

Better Late Than Never...

Alan and I played in Philly in November:

Fire Museum Presents:

Alan Sondheim/ Chris Diasparra/ Azure Carter Trio

Bhob Rainey & Chris Forsyth

Cotton Poodle

Saturday, November 17th 8:00PM
Highwire Gallery
2040 Frankford Ave
Philadelphia, PA
$6-$8 sliding scale

 Here's a link to an audio file and video clip of the event: http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/978.

We also played in NYC in January:

Downtown Music Gallery presents:

THE DOWNTOWN MUSIC GALLERY 'FREE IN-STORE PERFORMANCE SERIES'
At 13 Monroe Street in NYC!
http://www.downtownmusicgallery.com/Main/index.htm

Sunday, January 27th Double-Header: 6pm: ALAN SONDHEIM / AZURE CARTER /
JACKSON MOORE / CHRIS DIASPARRA! Weird Ethnic Instruments / Vocals /
Saxes! Flute!
7pm: HANS TAMMEN / JOHN GROSS / JONAS TAUBER / BILLY MINTZ! Analogue Synth
/ Tenor Sax / Bass / Drums!

Here's a link to an audio file of the event: http://lounge.espdisk.com/archives/1032.

Here's some photos: 
http://www.alansondheim.org/dmg03.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/dmg10.jpg
http://www.alansondheim.org/dmg14.jpg

Portrait of My Desk

I always have too many things to do and not enough time.  Now I am a teaching assistant in a First Grade class, and that has been claiming a fair chunk of my energy.  Judging by my lack of posts, one might assume I don't get much work done on my projects, but I manage to slowly keep picking away at them.  Alan took some photos of my desk about a month ago, and they're a pretty fair example of what my desk looks like at any given time.  For all my organization, I am prone to piles of stuff, and a lot of shifting of piles has to go on before I can clear a space to use my laptop.  In my defense, I don't have a lot of room in our New York City-sized space.


In these photos, my laptop has been moved back so I can work on my Fairyland Project.  I have sort of an unspoken goal of finishing all my masks, headwear, and footwear for the project within the next year.  Here's my completed mask for the Storm King (the one with clouds) and an early idea I had for Persephone (the pink flowers), mixed in with a calculator (don't remember what that was for), my ipod and case (helps to listen to music while doing all this time consuming sewing), my calendar/planner (largely neglected), extra felt, scrap paper, lubricant for my paper shredder, and a take-out menu for a place with really good tofu bahn mi.


This photo shows the paper patterns I made to cut out my masks, the cord elastic to hold the masks on and the Cutter Bee scissors I need to use to cleanly cut the eye holes out of the felt.  I tend to store small sewing projects-in-progress in ziploc bags like the one beneath the patterns.  It helps keep all the pieces together, and most importantly, keeps the dust off them (there's a lot of dust in the city).


The black felt mask at the bottom is for my Moonbeam Fairy.  This is when I was laying out the decorations (mirrors and sequins and rhinestones) to see what patterns I wanted to place them in.

 At the top of the page, resting on my laptop, is the edge of my project "bible."  It's a 2 1/2" binder that lays out the scenes, script, costumes ideas, and prop ideas for my project.  I also have two 1" binders with research on Opal Whiteley (besides several copies of her book and books on her) and 1" binder containing a copy of The Fairyland Around Us that I cut and pasted and printed from online (it's never been reprinted and few copies exist).  Then there's a notebook with notes I took on Whiteley while I wrote a paper on her at NYU and a three hole folder with my Master List (a sort of portable Cliff Notes for my project).  I also have a 2 pocket folder with large images of birds that I have saved and imagined using as decorations if I ever get around to having a performance and/or screening, a 1" binder of ideas for a reception and misc. notes and info related to my project, and a 1 page shopping list of items I need for my project.

Dance New Amsterdam Costumes

These two photos are from a couple of years ago, but I just stumbled across them, and had never posted them.

In January 2010, Foofwa, Alan and I presented "Involuntaries" at Dance New Amsterdam in Manhattan.  We gave three evening and one matinee performance.  In "Involuntaries," Foofwa and I changed costumes for each section of the piece and nothing in the performance occurred hidden offstage, so we did our quick changes at the edge of the space.


Here are my costumes, laid out in the order I needed them, from left to right.  I also paired my costumes with the lyrics of the corresponding songs I would sing while wearing them  (I didn't sing in the bright pink dress on the right, just performed).  There's also a bottle of water for my throat, and usually there's a bag of lozenges for my throat.


The previous photo is clearer, but this photo shows me wearing my first costume in the upper left corner.  (Alan is taking the photo, and the staff is dismantling the flooring Foofwa used for a solo dance piece, "Musings.")

The red and purple plaid dress I am wearing, and the black and white polka dot dress, are from Forever 21.  The light pink dress on the far left is from the Salvation Army.  The light pink dress next to it is a handmade ballet costume that I found at a thrift shop in Southern California.  I bought the bright pink vintage dress at a stoop sale in Brooklyn for $5.

Props: A Lighted Globe

Even though it may seem like I haven't been working on my Fairyland project these past two years while I went back to school, I was busy accruing props and thought I'd share a particularly pleasing one I got this winter at the Brooklyn Flea (aka hipster heaven).  

At the beginning of my video there will be a dedication that Opal Whiteley included in her book.  It starts off saying, "little children over the world, who are dreaming of a fairyland far distant...", and I want to shoot an image of my narrator asleep in bed, under a quilt and surrounded by toys, and with a lighted globe illuminating the darkness of the room light a gentle, celestial night lite.  I also thought the light globe would look great in the live performances.  There's something very magical and dreamy about a lighted globe.

 

Daytime Globe

 

Nighttime Globe

I actually shot both photos in the middle of the afternoon with the curtain closed, but you get the idea...

Organizing Fabric

I've collected a lot of fabric over the years, especially given the size of our space.  Unfortunately, during the past two years of grad school, I haven't had any time to sew or to organize, so the result was that I couldn't remember what fabric I had or where to locate it.  So right after graduation, I pulled out all my fabric and started phase one of organizing it.  Now, I've worked in a costume shop, and I've read several books on managing costume shops for small theaters, but that is really overkill for the amount of fabric and costumes I have.  So here's what I've devised to organize my fabric so far...

I have an 18 gallon plastic bin filled with solid color fabrics, and a 15 gallon bin filled with the fabrics I am using specifically for my Fairyland project (I didn't take pictures of these).  Then I have 8 small plastic bins.


This row has holiday print fabrics (I want to make some reusable gift wrap) and the printed stuffed animals I am going to make for the Fairyland project.  It also has a bin for more solid color fabrics and 2 bins for fabrics with prints.

 
This row has a box filled with various notions (like velcro, zippers, pom-poms, trims, etc.), one that has the fabrics for a medieval costume I am making (my mother got me a Halloween costume on sale, and I've deconstructed it and am embellishing it), another box of prints, and a box that has the fabrics to make a Christian LaCroix inspired Regency gown and a Pierrot costume.


As I sorted the fabrics into boxes, I cut a 3x3 inch sample out of each piece and stapled it to the upper right corner of a blank 4x8 index card.


Then I bought two 4x8 index card holders and created dividers for them.

 
One box is divided into fabric samples that are predominantly "green," "blue," "purple," "white," "black," "silver," "gold," and the ones I am using in my Fairyland project.


The other box is divided into "brown," "yellow," "orange," "pink," and "red."  I only have one orange piece of fabric; clearly that is not my favorite color.

Eventually, I would like to number each of the bins and write the number location of each fabric on the index cards, as well and listing the yardage I have of each fabric.

With the card file system, I can see quickly all the different fabrics I have and I can pull samples to take with  me when I am shopping or experiment with color choices without having to drag all my fabric out.  At the moment, this system seems like it will work well for me.

July 6th Performance

I will be performing in Chelsea at Churner and Churner gallery with Alan and Chris on July 6th.  The gallery is hosting a retrospective of Project Inc., which was a exhibition space in the 1970s curated by Paul McMahon.  Alan was one of the artists he showed.  Details below:

July 2-7: Project Inc. Revisited

Friday, July 6, 6-9 PM: Performances by Alan Sondheim with Azure Carter
and Chris Diasparra, Linda Montano, and Paul McMahon

Azure, voice; Chris, baritone; Alan, cura cumbus, oud, violin, sarangi.

Project Inc. Revisited is accompanied by a publication featuring a text by
Paul McMahon and photographs and documents of the original Project Inc.

There's also a nice catalog available.

205 10th Ave at 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011
(212) 675-2750 info@churnerandchurner.com