Danceability: Experiencing Ourselves, Each Other, and the Room
A Workshop presented by Artist/Activist Tom Kilby
DATE: Thursday, July 1, 2010
TIME: 6:30-8:30
PLACE: Jubilee Community Downstairs Room (Enter from Patton Avenue next to Jack of the Wood)
COST: Free (Suggested Donation to the Presenter of up to $20.00 per person)
AUDIENCE: Adults and Children of any ability
Please bring with you whatever support you need to participate in our community
Agenda
1) 6:30-6:45- welcome circle and description of Danceability
2) 6:45-7:00- warm up
3) 7:00-7:10- warm up space
4) 7:10-7:30- initial partnering work
5) 7:30-7:35- feedback
6) 7:35-7:50- larger group design work
7) 7:50-8:00- showing larger group work
8) 8:00-8:15- full group improv
9) 8:15-8:30- fulfillment, feedback, closing
Workshop Overview Attention, imagination, sensation, intention are all basic components to danceability and I would add to that curiosity. These will be the basic fundamentals for the exercises which we will employ. Our warm up will have us inhabiting our body and exploring it through some initial movements which will be imaginal and then will proceed to the almost perceivable. Gravity and sensation of bodily release will be the path and the air of our breath will be the mechanism. Warming up the space will have us inhabiting the room we find ourselves in and the cognition of the different elements of room, including other persons. Initial partnering work will have us engage in some witnessing and some touch work, between 2-3 exercises, sculptural and call and response in the body. Feedback is in place to allow for challenges which participants may be experiencing and adaptation as necessary. Larger group design work will divide us into 2 or three groups, depending on the number of participants, utilizing the principles which have been introduced in the workshop, and showing will be our opportunity to see ourselves. Full group improv will enable us to experience the fullness of our group and the gestalt which we will have become in this evening and feedback will give us the opportunity to reflect and consider where we may wish to go from here.
About Tom Kilby The early work which I did relative to art was associated with my BA obtained from Columbia College, Columbia Missouri, in 1983, where I received a degree in English, specializing in Poetry with a minor in Photography. The greater significance to me relative to art making was the following 4 years when I participated in a open ended collaborative group of about 50 artists; who made work together, an art zine, poetry readings and performance art events and supported a rich local music scene. I have been doing mixed abilities performance work since 1987, when I began doing care provision for Bob Kilby, my brother. Bob and I lived together until 1996 and during this time we used our time creatively doing dance, video, photography, instillation, performance art, poetry and using our life together as a point of departure in these mediums. While I was living with Bob and doing care provision I also attended California Institute of the Arts and The University of South Florida in Tampa where I achieved a degree of MFA in Fine Arts. The work which Bob and I were creating as the foundation and substance for my thesis. During this time Bob and I became acquainted and influenced by Alternate Roots, where we continue to maintain membership and which in the recent past years have been venue and advocate for the work which Bob has continued to do, in which I’ve participated. In 1996 after Bob and I ceased living together and after I’d finished my degree program I attended a teachers training program in Eugene Oregon in danceability. This was a mixed abilities program which emphasized improvisation and contact improvisation, both of which I’d studied in my degree program and by which I’ve continued to be influenced. in 1997 I moved to Asheville NC. Here I did work with a senior improv group for a year and a half through the new studio of dance, conducted a weekly dance class at Liberty Corners, again for a year and a half, collaborated on numerous performance art pieces, some dance based, some mixed abilities based, performed at the fringe festival four times; once with my family, once solo, once with Bob and once with Julia Taylor doing a contact improv piece. I’ve participated in performance pieces at Roots annual meetings with Bob during the last two years, being responsible for video components last year and dance and video the previous year. Much of my creative energy over the last ten years has gone into my family. We have done several performances together as a family; dance, performance art, and singing; my son and I have collaborated on a show on URTV for a year and a half which was biweekly and was called Ian’s World, then of course there is the path of life as art which I feel I have been engaged in all of these many years, changing diapers and attending Ian’s school included.
