Last Saturday afternoon's Poetry Salon at Urban Gallery was lovely! Except for some equipment malfunction (a video camera mic did not work and so I missed my main feature, Michael Mirolla and two of the open mics), it went beautifully.
Here are some photos and the videos of one of the features and the open mic-ers I managed to salvage (yours truly included). Michael Mirolla and Claudio Gaudio featured, and they were followed by Andrew McLeod (in the blue cap), JD Kruger (in the touque), Margaret Code (with the purple scarf), Jacques Albert (in the leather jacket), Norman Allen (with his painting beside him), and moi.
My Video Review of the Readings of the Two Features, Michael Mirolla and Claudio Gaudio:
Ok, yeah, I dance in my living room during or after yoga sets a few times a week. My preference is classical music to get the old bones moving and the energy up. When I mentioned in a comment on Facebook to Pierre-Marie that I was planning to dance to his latest concerto, N°13, he replied, "wow, I'm anxious to see that." So I set up a camera and put on his music and with nothing planned, started moving. There is no sound because I inadvertently turned it off when I was attaching an external mic. I downloaded his Concerto from SoundCloud and added the track.
A sweet young feline joins me - she is so adorable! My Aria. Usually she stalks and attacks my ankles when I dance but Pierre-Marie's music seems to have calmed her and she mostly purred.
I added some lighting effects to diminish the busy background and seem to have faded myself out too. Lol. And I left in the times I quizzed the camera. It's all a bit embarrassing. But neva mind!
In the spirit of fun, good exercise, and deep listening, a woman can tromp however she likes alone in her living room.
Pierre-Marie's music is beautiful to dance to. I hadn't heard this Concerto before and so nothing was pre-planned - simply allowing the music to move me.
My cat goes for a twirl! She's adorable and loves to get in on the action when I dance.
___
Pierre-Marie posted the video to his Facebook page with the comment: "Painter, poet, performer, among other things, and she dances too.
My Friend Brenda Clews is a thousand facet woman, but first, she is a complete artist, expressing herself from head to toe, and even with her guts if it is necessary to achieve her goal. Nothing stops her… well… no, nothing up to know or to my knowledge.
It is he second time she uses my music, just for pleasure here, and I had a 25 minute smile looking at her dancing, her cat wanting to be part of the fun. You are so full of life Brenda, I love you my Friend."
So, like whew! I didn't want him to feel embarrassed that a woman was prancing around her living room/studio to his finely wrought music! And was about to un-list the video, but...
I wrote: "I'm ever so glad you found the video charming in some small way, Pierre-Marie. Of course it doesn't do justice to your music, which I love! I posted it publicly though despite how dumb I look not just because of your beautiful and moving Concerto, but because little Aria stole the show. She is so cute! And I know you love cats... !"
What I did rather late last night. Suddenly jumped up from my books, poems, drawings and created a scenario - metal leaf background, black cloth, stool, lazy susan, sculpture. Set my DSLR on high speed shooting, started twirling Clay Lady, and then I had a whole bunch of .jpgs. Earlier I had found a YT tutorial on how to make timelapse in FCP X, so imported the photos, fiddled with settings, did some cropping on one series, and ended up with this, which I am quite happy with. Having purchased the cheapest keyboard a local music store sells on sale last summer, I have, now, made myself compose two 'sonic tracks' for videopoems. I can't do music like a musician; I can only create sonics like a poet - thick sound streams full of the unsyncopated. The FCP X titles (which I normally don't use) were a bit of a strain since the background was white but I found some instructions by Googling that explained how to send a title to Motion to adjust it and so managed to delete the white background altogether and then imported it back in. It all took hours of course. I ran out to see the Tanaquil Le Clercq documentary too. Hopefully tonight I can try shooting video and turning that into .jpgs for timelapse just to see how reversing the process might work. I am, in these small projects, working on composing different visual elements for the videopoem I am working on, 'Clay Lady.'
monochroma #1, Brenda Clews, 11.5" x 16.5", India ink, Moleskine sketchbook.
Last night I finally released myself to drawing or perhaps doodling in my big Moleskine, whiling away the hours while I browse the NET, watch art house films, chat with family or friends. This self-permission has taken about a year and a half. Don't ask why. I don't know.
