Miriam Aziz - The Artist is at Large

Corner of 86th Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, January 25, 2012

miriamaziz — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:16:13 +0000

This just in: I’ll be teaching a workshop during the week of February 7th, as part of Professor Nitin Sawhney’s Civic Media + Tactical Design in Contested Spaces course at the New School for Social Research here in New York. I will be addressing Invisible Social Conflicts. Anxiety and anticipation accompany me for a walk through Central Park to stand beneath a pine tree as I am reminded of the Villa Borghese and a booking for an apartment in Paris that I need to confirm for march when I’ll be teaching at the Université Paris Dauphine. University teaching as performance art, I muse as I turn around with my hands above my head as I am taken hostage by an afternoon of scheduled phone calls and list making, going to great lengths to avoid primary concerns of the dishes, picking up laundry and refilling the fruit basket.

The neighbour’s child is a six months born again Janis Joplin as I strum my guitar to the five and dime spoken word by dwarf dog who someone forgot under dress circle seats two floors up. Sirens are carousing Yorkville’s carolinian carousel and the man upstairs wears the patience of the parquet to a size 0. I call M. who reminds me of our appointment tomorrow morning in Union square as a way to break even during these days of working from home that leave solitude standing in line for a one way ticket to Rome as home and M says, “You could always go to the supermarket” to which I laugh and say,”Tried that”, as I take note in doodle-long hand: Who are you calling invisible? What’s this I hear about social? Where did I last see conflict? And when’s for dinner? It’s like R. said earlier this afternoon: it’s all about the questions you ask rather than a destination you call answer. We were talking about law and my syllabus for Paris after which I went to stand out in the garden to admire the tenacity of bamboo trees as I thought this: it’s also about the questions you don’t ask, either because they simply slipped out of your mind for a packet of cigarettes or because they daren’t spin a bottle that may or may not stop at nothing to steal a kiss from truth. There is nothing like when exactly do you plan on getting around to adding “gardening” to saturday’s list? to get you going from [A]. the garden to [B]. back to your desk. Or [C]. None of the above as you care to forget that today is the day after Valerio’s birthday that you hope was happy all the same, your amnesia notwithstanding. You promise to ask yourself who’s birthday is it today? each day at a time from now on. You hear a voice that sounds remarkably like dwarf dog from upstairs saying, “Mine! Mine? Mine!” You agree not to disagree; after all, it’s the thought of asking that counts.

Corner of 89th Street and 3rd Avenue, NYC, January 25, 2012

miriamaziz — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:13:43 +0000

It’s ’round midnight and I am out walking my mobile phone as I receive confirmation from Galya Benarieh-Ruffer, Director of the Center for Forced Migration at Northwestern University that I have been accepted as an affiliate member of the Center. I will be leading a class on Human Rights and Performance Art in July as part of their summer institute as well as contributing research on creating an interactive digital archive on testimony for the Center. It is a necessary pleasure to be able to exchange ideas and insights with someone with whom there is no need to remain on tip of the iceberg speaking terms. I make for the park on 88th where I practice pirouettes as we continue to set out our ideas, as the neutrinos step aside as we compare observations of the mind-altering effects of technology on legal scholarship. I pull up a collar as I let a man, who bows his head beneath a hooded sweatshirt as he unlocks the back door of a car within which he will spend another night, go.

Corner of Union Square and Broadway, NYC, January 18, 2012

miriamaziz — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:23:57 +0000

Off to the Circus – Care to Join?

I was recently invited to act as an advisor for a new feature film called Am I Don Quixote? by Jimmy Ferguson which he has been shooting over the past year and a half around the country at Circus Flora and Il Circo Zoppé. Please take a moment to watch the trailer. The film is a study of storytelling that merges both fact and fiction as well as exploring Jimmy’s fascination with the circus and those who cede to its siren call. Who has not dreamt about running away to join a circus? Are those of us who give in to the quixotic desire to join a circus more foolhardy than those who resist? This is the film’s central theme: the borders which shape the way we seek our place in the world, navigating the dire straits of illusion, idealism, passion, desire, delusion and confusion as we embark on the odyssey of finding out who we are…

Jimmy is now back in Brooklyn engaged in post-production and distribution for the film as well as continuing to fund-raise for this exciting project which is aimed at a wide audience who believe in the power of storytelling and art. As an independent production company, every dollar counts. Please join me in supporting this important project. You may “Like” the film on Facebook and follow via Twitter @amidonquixote. Or donate now by going towww.indiegogo.com/Am-I-Don-Quixote. For example, for a $25 donation you will receive a digital copy of the film. For $50, you will have the chance to be a pre-screener and help shape the final movie. There are also a variety of works of fine art and backstage circus access on offer… so check it out and become part of the filmmaking process! Or simply tell a friend about the film… any amount and any show of support is truly appreciated.

Jimmy also has a blog that you might like to check out from time to time to see how we’re getting on…

Corner of E 67th Street and 2nd Avenue, NYC, January 8, 2012

miriamaziz — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:36:48 +0000

Press Release – Artist (s) at Large Mission Statement

To make dances, to compose and choose the music, direct the movement around themes that are part of, but not the whole, story. Performance of those dances, sometimes dancing, sometime speaking, at others looking straight out over the audience’s shoulder at everything in particular.

Sometimes, on the walls, there will be extracts from short films. Maybe other dancers will carry those films projected onto their backs. Would you like that?

To make short films and who knows, one day, films which go to great lengths to feature essays on the beauty within which we rarely (ex) and (juxta) pose. Those films will be written, directed and edited though not necessarily in that order.

To collaborate with a group made up of dancers, musicians, actors and accountants in one and all over the place where we will live for most of the year, where we shall practice and where we may live. Then travel with and through project based work and not on a whim unless there is a need to press .

To make people laugh, remind them to cry and to sit still, and maybe sometimes they might, say, stamp their feet or wave their fists or whistle stop tour their way from the east to west coast of a lullaby.

“More light”, said before final curtain Goethe.

They say that Béjart said “More dance.” before lights out.

We don’t say anything at all as the work should speak for itself as we invite you to raise your glass:

“Here’s more to Life.”

Corner of E 88th Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, January 6, 2012

miriamaziz — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:03:13 +0000

We went to see genius in suspended animation. That was more than a week ago. One of us went back for a signed copy of the catalogue: “To Paolo“, Maurizio Cattelan wrote, without pausing to look up as Paolo expressed interest. Another of us left for Buenos Aires shortly after, deflecting my appeals as a laissez passer as a perfect traveling companion. The one who stayed behind went to see Maurizio’s retrospective again during a lunch break and for a moment was thankful for not having left for Buenos Aires nor Miami to avoid the thankless task that is the month of January in New York.

Corner of E 20th Street and Park Avenue, NYC, January 5, 2012

miriamaziz — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:58:20 +0000

Technically we’re the 4th and we’re out to celebrate my birthday, which melancholises as well as euthanises the hopes of temps perdu. A line in an email received days earlier: “Are you living your dream?”, he asks. Who has time to dream these days? Tempus fugit! We order a bottle of French wine called the nose of the muse as I take in the chasing grace of choreographed Sous Chefs to my right at this place they call the Gramercy Tavern, which cajoles the chill out of my bone marrow that chastised the moment it took to underestimate today’s wind chill factor. We leave the restaurant sunny side of midnight with the present of a notebook with a leather cover that burns a hole in my bag and which will no doubt ease the writer’s block that hibernates the opening line: once upon hurry up please it’s time.

Corner of 28th Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, January 4, 2012

miriamaziz — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:34:35 +0000

Corner of 8th Street and 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NYC, December 29, 2011

miriamaziz — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:53:49 +0000

Port de Hyères, France, December 22, 2011

miriamaziz — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:45:05 +0000

Corner of Rue Bosano and Boulevard Desaix, Toulon, France, December 21, 2011

miriamaziz — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:38:24 +0000

I was invited by Alexandra Clément (dance teacher / choreographer / writer) to teach a Workshop or an Atelier to her students at Studio Danse Sylvie Hecq in Toulon, the South of France. The 15 participants were trained in ballet, jazz and theatre and were aged between 10 to 65. The average age must have been 15 to 16 years old. It was a poignant moment as I began to explore dance under the tutelage of Alexandra in 2005 during a sabbatical in Hyères. Alexandra has placed pupils at the Atelier Rudra Béjart; Palucca Schule Dresden; London Studio Centre; E.N.S.D Marseille; C.N.S.M.D Lyon; Ecole Rosela Hightower Cannes; Conservatoire d’Avignon as well as in dance companies such as Béjart Ballet Lausanne, Preljocaj, and Chemnitz.

The dancers had no idea what to expect when they turned up for the three hour atelier. I was struck by how polite they all were, and how they called me Madame and addressed me in terms of Vous…ah yes, age, gets to us all in the end…

The exercises centred on paying attention to the other – I often paired them in twos and threes; one would dance, while the other would tell a story, though the dancer had to embody, carry and become the voice. One dancer held the “voice” as though to restrain it, while the voice would attempt to set itself free every so often. Sometimes the story teller would walk around the room while the “voice” would dance, trying to keep up. At others, the story teller was being dragged across the floor as though wanted for questioning.

One highlight was carrying one ten year old story telling dancer on my back whilst another dancer had to follow, all the while, dancing to what she heard. I gave them sentences that they had to improvise around e.g. “Vous permettez?”; “Ne me quitte pas des yeux“; “Je suis naufragé“. We also adapted tango exercises in leading a dancer whose eyes are closed with the tips of your fingers, which was so disconcerting for one dancer that she froze – organised chaos surrounded her and yet her struggle was so clear that I had to stop what I was doing just to watch for a moment before I went to see what we could develop out of a moment of shutting down, of not knowing, or being terrified that you are going to get it wrong; “Use it, play with it, if that is how you feel, stop but don’t be too afraid of it”. So there’s a fourteen old classically trained, technically highly proficient dancer, who starts to try to find her movement to music that she is having a hard time hearing with all of the commotion around her – people are dancing, talking, falling over eachother, laughing, running, and she is trying to find something that nobody else can hear – what the doubt within looks and sounds like. Little by little, the dancers started to stop what they were doing, and gave the girl the space she needed to experiment and through the hesitation, we see what she has to say emerge, both in and out of time with the music. She is flushed and afterwards when everyone starts to clap I can see that she is a little embarassed and unsure, though there is no time to get caught up in that as we move on with more exercises; we only have three hours, and I leave for New York in a few days. I tell them that I’d like to take them with me which I will for I am, as Tennyson wrote,…”a part of all I have met” to which this piece “Were you with Me?“, composed across borders with a moveable feast of dancers, actors, musicians, innocent bystanders and people who happened to be passing through, bears witness.