1440: Moan

Taking inspiration from a sound that straddles pleasure and pain, Moan features art work in a variety of media by UCCS Visual Art faculty and students as a part of the City Dionysia Festival. A maelstrom of violence, The Bacchae is a potent source for examining the heart of revelry, intoxication, and vengeance. Opening reception: March 4, 6 – 9 pm. Closing reception (with a live performance of excerpts from the Bacchae score): April 2, 6 – 9 pm.

COMPLIMENTARY PARKING IN LOT 3 PROVIDED BY UCCS PARKING SERVICES.

Featuring work by:

Carol Dass
Aaron Graves
Claire Rau
Kim Lovelace
Corey Drieth
Laura Bearl
Erik Schubert
Taylor Stamp
Mariya Zvonkovich
Amber Marchlowska
Matt Barton
Courtney Matthews
Olivia Lundberg
Elizabeth Raitz
Pauline Foss
Brett Wilson
Valerie Brodar
Dom Puleo
Erin Elder
Lisa Cross

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AWOL: Rotozaza

The Gallery of Contemporary Art and THEATREWORKS are proud to host the world premier of the ENTIRE Autoteatro Series by Rotozaza, a UK-based performance group. Three works make up the series: ETIQUETTE, GURUGURU and WONDERMART.

BUY TICKETS or call 719.255.3232 to make reservations.

ETIQUETTE by Ant Hampton and Silvia Mercuriali
Etiquette is a half-hour experience for two people in a public space. There is no-one watching – other people in the cafe or bar are not aware of it. You wear headphones which tell you what to say to each other, or to use one of the objects positioned to the side. There is a kind of magic involved – for it to work you just need to listen and respond accordingly. Etiquette is theatre at its most raw; it is live, insightful, philosophical and incredibly unique. The participants are both the actors and the audience, and the show offers the fantasy of being able to speak without having to think what to say.

GURUGURU by Ant Hampton with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustaliov
You have been told what to do every moment of the day, for years on end. The voice in your headphones has understood who you are and gives instructions which mirror what you’d be doing anyway. A life free of dither and uncertainty! In your job, this voice is a career-saver… but the day has come when you need to come ‘off the headphones’. You need help.

Five audience-participants enter a brightly lit room and discover chairs positioned for them around a screen. As they each follow different instructions via headphones, they find themselves at the centre of an oddly familiar dystopia, and that they’re wearing headphones permanently, ‘for their own good’. Proceedings are led by an on-screen, animated character whose twin roles of marketing and spiritual Guru are confused by his reliance on untested and accident-prone technologies. The overproduced, digital sheen of this focus-group world begins to crack, as the group edge towards the dangerous situation of having to think for themselves. In true Rotozaza style, a beautifully orchestrated chaos develops, exposing today’s consumer-mad inability to distinguish between what we want, and what we need.

WONDERMART by Silvia Mercuriali with Tommaso Perego and Matt Rudkin
Wondermart takes a mischievous swipe at the dominance of supermarket culture and consumerism. This interactive audio tour takes you on a journey of rediscovery through the familiar surroundings of the supermarket. Wearing headphones and anonymous behind your trolley, you are guided around the aisles immersed in a private world, as the carefully constructed soundscape overlays a fictional world that blurs the real with the imaginary.

Here’s what the press has to say:
“Wondermart is an absorbing journey into the heart of modern consumerism.” The List (Wondermart)

“The concept is clever and the result an altered engagement with the commonplace.” Irish Times (Wondermart)

“gripping… If the line between audience and performer seems blurred, Rotozaza’s Etiquette erases it entirely.” New York Times/Herald Tribune (Etiquette)

“This is a magical, unthreatening experience… the act of relinquishing responsibility for thought, word and action is unique and the effect is unmissable.” British Theatre Guide (Etiquette)

“Hugely entertaining… This smart, mysterious exercise in programmed thinking and collective chaos is strange but exhilarating.” The Times (GuruGuru)

“You may find yourself frantically looking for yourself again in the moments after the performance has finished.” The Guardian (GuruGuru)

MORE INFORMATION ON ROTOZAZA CAN BE FOUND ON THEIR WEBSITE: www.rotozaza.uk

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Winterim Course in LONDON!

This interdisciplinary course is designed to create an opportunity for students to explore and experience visual and performing arts in London and to form critical responses to select exhibitions and performances. Course work will be completed in galleries, theaters and museums across London. This course is an all access to pass to the arts in one of the most fabulous cities in the world. All students, including extended studies students, are welcome to enroll.

$2165*
Includes roundtrip flight from Colorado, lodging, daily breakfast, guided excursions, theatre performances, art events and one amazing way to earn college credit!

You can register for this course with SPRING 2010 registration in November, a $500 deposit is dur on November 30. ROLE OF THE VIEW will be led by Gallery of Contemporary Art director Caitlin Green & THEATREWORKS executive director Drew Martorella. More info on our FACEBOOK PAGE.

Questions? Call 255.3232 or email cgreen@uccs.edu.

*Does not include airport taxes and fees or tuition

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Interview with Fernando Llanos {DELICIOUS.COM}

No one dons the moustache like Fernando Llanos. He’s a video artist, a musician, a writer, a blogger, a curator, he makes drawings, he’s the über macho-looking Mexican guy who walks around the city with a chihuahua in his bag. He also produces tv shows, a competition of animation movies, and the moto of his own radio programme is “There’s no need to talk about art in order to talk about art”.

Read full article at wemakemoneynotart.com

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This Clown Had an Art Exhibition (And Why You Should Care) {About.com}

http://www.apocalypticnightmare.com/

The gent in the pink jumpsuit and clown mask is known as Shawn Crahan on his driver’s license. To metal fans, he is known as “Clown” (or sometimes “#6″), a percussionist in the Grammy winning band Slipknot. Three days ago, Crahan turned 40–a milestone for all of us, but especially so for a heavy metal musician. He celebrated “art, music and growing old” by staging a free, one-night exhibition of his photography and paintings at the Moberg Gallery in Des Moines, Iowa. As you have doubtless guessed, I think everyone should make art, so would like to offer both an “Atta boy” and a “Many happy returns” to Mr. Crahan.

Read more

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Intersections Film Festival

IFF 2009 features award winning films and documentaries from Turkey, Iran, the Arab Middle East, and North Africa which explore the theme of women’s lives and experiences. The films document contemporary realities of the Middle East from honor killings to drug addiction and sexual abuse, from sharing intimate stories and frustrations in a beauty parlor to waiting for the return of one’s migrant working spouse. Experiences further include the challenges of pursuing one’s film studies in a war-torn city and getting married in a zone of conflict. Post-screening discussions/Q&As follow five out of the seven featured films and documentaries.

IFF 2009 is part of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) support of cultural programming along the Front Range expanding an already vibrant fall film festival line-up. MORE INFORMATION.

We are pleased to be working with:

- ArteEast, a New York-based, international, non-profit organization supporting artists from the Middle East and North Africa
- Moon and Stars Project, a non-profit organization promoting Turkish culture and arts
- Fictionville Studio, LLC, a Brooklyn-based independent film production company
- Arab Film Distribution and Typecast Films, Seattle-based
- ANS International, Abdullah Oguz’s Istanbul-based production company

The SCHEDULE

Opening Night, Friday, October 16th at UCCS Dwire 121

6 PM
Opening Reception
6:45 PM
Welcome Statement – Dr. Carole Woodall, IFF Executive Curator
7 PM
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (France 2007), 95 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Rashna Singh, Department of English / WEST at UCCS

Saturday, October 17th at UCCS Dwire 121

10:30 AM
Hiba Bassem’s Baghdad Days (Iraq/UK 2005), 35 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Aditi Mitra, Department of Sociology / WEST at UCCS
Screening held in conjunction with the 4th annual Woman-to-Woman Dialogue Series “Women’s Experiences: Surviving and Thriving” sponsored by the American Association of University Women and the Matrix Center.
Noon
Yasmine Kassari’s L’enfant Endormi [The Sleeping Child] (Morocco/Belgium 2004), 95 minutes
3 PM
Abdullah O?uz’s Mutluluk [Bliss] (Turkey/Greece 2007) 126 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Sölen Sanli, Department of Sociology at Metro State
6 PM
Hamid Rahmanian’s The Glass House (USA/Iran 2008), 92 minutes
Q&A with director, Hamid Rahmanian, and producer, Melissa Hibbard

Sunday, October 18th at the fine arts center

4:30 PM in the Music Room
Hany Abu-Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (Palestine 2002), 90 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Livia Alexander, Executive Director of ArteEast
6:30 PM in the Lobby
Closing Reception
7:30 PM in the Upper Gallery
Nadine Labaki’s Caramel (Lebanon/France 2007), 95 minutes

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Next milestone in Christo project expected in June {CS Gazette}

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAÑON CITY — A draft statement of environmental impacts of two artists’ proposal to suspend miles of fabric over the Arkansas River should be available for public review in June.

The Bureau of Land Management says the final environmental impact statement for the proposal by husband-and-wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude is scheduled for release in January 2011.

The artists say that means the earliest their “Over the River” project could be installed is 2013. They want to suspend about six miles of fabric over sections of the river, between Salida and Cañon City.

The artists’ previous projects include erecting thousands of fabric panels in Central Park in New York in 2005.

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Art to Make You Laugh (and Cry) {IHT}

WHEN it rains, geysers of water have been known to erupt from the floor drains of the art collective here known as Fluxspace, which makes its home in a mammoth former textile mill in the northern part of the city. The building has no air-conditioning, and on the harshest winter days its heating system borders on notional. It’s also a bear to find: one morning this week a taxi driver on his way to it ended up taking several unintended detours down trash-filled alleys, cursing the calm voice issuing from his dashboard G.P.S.

But the three-year-old collective is becoming known in the Philadelphia art world for its monthly exhibitions of work by its members and other artists. And “we actually get awesome turnout for our shows, considering the location and everything,” said Danielle Ruttenberg, one of 25 young artists who either pay for raw studio space in the building or take on chores in exchange for it. (The current exhibition, of bird-centric prints and drawings by a local artist named Tory Franklin, continues through Sept. 13.)

Read entire story.

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Art on the Streets organizers want you for People’s Choice Award {08.06.09 Colorado Springs Gazette}

Everybody’s a critic.

We all have opinions about the yellow ribbon thing on the median at Cascade Avenue, the giant red paperclips on Tejon Street and the other 11 entries in this year’s “Art on the Street” project.

Now it’s time to let those artists know what you think.

For the first time, project organizer Community Ventures, a branch of the Downtown Partnership, will give a People’s Choice Award.

Read the entire article and see the pieces!

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Art goes AWOL at UCCS {08.06.09 Colorado Springs Gazette}

Caitlin Green wants to bust art out of the gallery.

How far?

How about films projected on the walls, objects and trash of a downtown parking garage?

“Site specificity means taking film out of the black box, art out of the cube and theater off the stage,” said Green, director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, which will present “Displacement: Cinema Out of Site,” a series of experimental cinema events today through Sunday. “There’s an element of discovery that I like, with that can come a conversation about the role of arts in the city.”

Her love of discovery is shared by Christopher May, director of The International Experimental Cinema Exposition, or TIE, a Denver-based nonprofit cinema group that’s collaborating with Green. May called the downtown parking garage at Nevada Avenue and Kiowa Street a perfect venue to explore expanded or displaced cinema, avant-garde films shot with 8- and 16-millimeter film.

“Expanded or displaced cinema is projected onto numerous surfaces from more than one projector,” he said. “The idea is three filmmakers projecting on whatever’s available. White concrete walls and broken glass will be creating new images and introducing new ways of viewing film,” Green said.

The subject of the films runs perfectly with that free-form theme: parkour.

Mainstream America glimpsed this free-form, running, vaulting thing in the movie “Casino Royale,” but it’s been a YouTube phenomenon for longer.

“Parkour is an athletic and spiritual practice of getting from Point A to Point B using urban obstacles,” Green said.

May said parkour is different from “freerunning,” a similar practice that highlights acrobatics.

“In parkour, you do everything to be useful; traceurs (parkour practitioners) emphasize the practice of becoming stronger to be useful to society. The practice is noncompetitive and community-based. There’s a firm belief in mentorship. The motto is ‘to be and to laugh.’”

In total, “Displacement” consists of a series of six lectures by filmmakers, theorists and traceurs, and a screening tonight that includes the work of three filmmakers.

There also will be an audio experimentalist who creates rhythm and melody with recordings of traceurs’ hands and feet slapping concrete.

“Displacement” is one of six projects under the gallery’s umbrella program “AWOL: Art Without Limits,” created by Green to bring art into the community.

“Community-based projects create a forum for discussion on public process and they invite participation from diverse audiences, expanding the population that interacts with the art,” Green said.

All of the “AWOL” projects invite discourse and rely on collaboration with other organizations, as well.

For “Flaunt: Evolution,” Green worked with Amber Coté, director of FutureSelf, and Drew Martorella, executive director of TheatreWorks, to create a multimedia fashion show with video art.

While dates have been set for “Displacement” and “Flaunt,” Green is still working to solidify details on the four remaining projects including “Etiquette,” an interactive project in which the participants follow directions from a pair of headsets, all within a public restaurant (Green has been talking to the owners of Shugas).

Green sees “AWOL” as an opportunity to break the barriers between gallery space and public gathering. “This program expands our mission to outside the gallery walls.

It has the opportunity to grow an interest in the arts and to facilitate a dialogue in the arts about community.”

Displacement:
cinema out of site
When: After dusk today
Where: Parking garage at Nevada Avenue and Kiowa Street
Admission: Free
Something else: Reception and lectures at City Hall, 6:30 p.m. today-Sunday

Flaunt: Evolution
When: 7-11 p.m. Sept. 12
Where: under Colorado Avenue Bridge
Admission: $30

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