Readers respond to thoughts on the Nothing Festival
A couple of responses this morning on yesterday's post on the Nothing Festival at Dance Theater Workshop: Jessica Fogel recalls Daniel Nagrin's solution to the grantwriting conundrum and Nothing fest curator Tere O'Connor exclaims over how jaded we are.
From Jessica Fogel, who teaches dance at the University of Michigan:
We just had Daniel Nagrin here in Ann Arbor for a three-day residency, and in conversation with him I recalled a dance he performed back around 1980, in his loft, in which he performed his glee in receiving a grant.Within the solo dance, his grant was displayed in a slide projection on the back wall. In the grant application, he described his work as being "about Spring, or not about Spring." (I may not have the wording exactly right, but it was something to that effect.) He had been so frustrated with having to describe his work for grants, and with being repeatedly turned down, that he decided to go this route. After many years of grant rejections, it was with this grant that he was finally successful!
Clearly his artist peers on the grant panel empathized with his frustration at having to describe a work he had not yet embarked upon.
From choreographer Tere O'Connor:
Holy negative spin, Batman!The first paragraph of this is so jaded, who could stand a chance? "Provocateur," "the city that always seems to need one more festival," "funny, I thought that was the way it always worked."
Yikes!!
I don't want to provoke--that is a perception you have. I do want to create a discussion around these ideas. Apparently this is old hat for you, but for many of the people who stayed for the discussion, it was quite interesting.
Tere
Categories:
AJ Ads
AJ Arts Blog Ads
Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.
Advertise Here
AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssspecial
the blog of the National Performing Arts Convention
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Douglas McLennan's blog
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Public Art, Public Space
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog

Leave a comment