I’ll Be Your Sous-Chef, Baby!

Posted on 2013/05/22 by HipHarp

If you know about the museum in my kitchen, you know that I’m not asked too cook often.

But I love to sous-chef for my husband, and wrote this song about it, which my Creative Admin-Guy, James, claims is one of the world’s raciest G-Rated songs.

In my search to create a definitive version of the song, I’m making this blog so I can post versions and get your comments – so let me know which ones you like best and why!

1. Here’s a 47-second video version from my studio:

2. Here’s an audio version I made as a demo for a Cabaret Series:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

3. And here’s the first performance of it the Cabaret Series folks did (a nice twist as a duet!), which they’ve also added to their summer cabaret at the Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA:

More  to come …

Posted in Burnt Food Museum, Food, Recordings | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Confessions of an Online-Course Junkie

Posted on 2013/05/02 by HipHarp

Online-Course JunkieIt started about 3 years ago.  My husband told me I should consider taking an online course.

Which I thought was ridiculous.

But it was a course in Social Media marketing specifically for musicians – and I didn’t even know how to post on my own Facebook page.

I couldn’t argue with him.

I really needed that course.

Well, 12 weeks later, I was creating widgets, writing a blog … and I even knew how to re-Tweet.

It was online! Who’d expect the teacher would be so present, the course so well-organized, that I’d have an amazing amount of personal interaction with the instructor? Online.

I was hooked.

After that I signed up to study Orchestration (yes, I know I got a Grammy Nomination for my orchestrated music – but I’d never actually studied orchestration and I wanted to fill in some of the gaps), and that was great, too.

Then I signed up for a couple online courses I really didn’t like … and I started to realize I know what works and doesn’t work for me in an online course.

I started getting opinionated.

I took online courses in business, in video editing, in media relations, in creating your own TV studio – and when guitar legend Steve Vai invited me to go on tour as a member of his band, I took an amazing 12-week online course in “guitar techniques of Steve Vai” (you can see one of my homework videos from that course below).  I learned to Tweet-and-Retweet, to Uplevel my Life, to Uplevel my Business, to build my Media Moxie …

I was an online-course junkie.

And then one day … I took an online course in how to create online courses.

Now I was really hooked.

And four weeks later … I had designed my own online course, “Arrange Yourself.“

I knew exactly who I wanted to teach:  people like me.  Harp players who want to play a new version of themselves that they don’t even know yet.  And I knew how I wanted to teach.  And I knew what I wanted to teach.

And finally, only because of the internet, I knew how to reach my students – my community, which is growing, but still thinly populated around the world – my “HipHarp Nation.”

I started imagining what my students would be able to do at the end of the course – actually fantasizing about the moment they played this new thing for their husband or cousin or cat, how excited they’d feel, how people would look a them differently, hug them, congratulate them.  And that got me really, really excited.  It felt like I was creating a carnival ride, or a celebration – like concocting a marvelous something that would make it possible for someone to change their own life - to do a specific thing they hadn’t been able to do  4 or 5 weeks before.

This is the magic of it – the transformation.

Yesterday I launched my second course, “BLUES: Harp-Style!” – which begins May 13 (the day after Mother’s Day) … and I can’t wait to see comes out of this new transformation.

Posted in Coaching, Teaching, Students & Learning, Tech | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Dear (Contact First Name),

Posted on 2013/04/26 by HipHarp

Last night I sent out a email through Constant Contact, a multi-mail-sender-outer-service, to a small group of people who are my “First to Know” mailing list – about my new online course, along with a special code to get a major discount.

This list is a handpicked list of people who’ve either taken one of my courses or asked about my courses, so they’re a precious group to me – the people most likely to be excited about what I’m most excited about right now: my new online Blues course.

So, I wanted to do it all myself, because these are really important people to me, many of whom are students who I really love.  I wrote the email, personally, put it in the email software (something my assistant usually does) – and since I really feel personal about this, I wanted to be as personal as I could, and use their names, and so I added the field that puts in people’s names. Something I normally avoid in e-newsletters.

Normally I let Beatriz oversee those details, because she’s … well, she’s really good at it.

But … I mean … it was a realllllly simple email. And I really wanted it to be from me.  And what could go wrong?

Well … if you read the title of this blog, that’s how each email showed up in people’s in-boxes.Dear [Contact First Name] Email

So, this reminds me of a marriage proposal I once got …

My college boyfriend had gone off to medical school in Boston, I was still in California, things were heating up in the relationship and one day I got a letter from him that – along with general news – proposed marriage. He was a wonderful writer, so it was a lovely proposal.

Except he spelled my name wrong.

I used that as an excuse to say no. But the real reason was that I wasn’t ready to get married.

But I noticed how, when we do something very personal – something we’re excited about, we often focus so much on reaching out, and making that personal connection, that we can get some ‘essential detail’ wrong.

Not something essential in the message itself, but something in the details of  how we deliver it that seems to work against the very connection we’re trying to make.

And I also noticed that when we take umbrage at an incorrect detail and decide to make that mistake the point of refusal, it’s a good sign we really aren’t ready for that thing.  

So, this morning, when Beatriz emailed to tell me about the mistake in my I-really-want-this-to-be-personal email to my “First To Know” list, my first feeling was … Ohhh, no —  that’s sooooo icky!!

And then I started thinking … well, but I DO make mistakes.  And these, of all people, need to see me making mistakes, because I’ll be expecting them to make mistakes in this course — and they need to know that’s really OK.

And then I realized how cool it’ll be that I’ll be able to refer to this email in the course, to remind them about this mistake, to put their own mistakes context.

And I started thinking: “What an interesting mistake!”

So, now … do I still wish I hadn’t made the mistake?

Well, yes.

But I’m also really interested to see what happens now that I have.

Posted in Coaching, Teaching, Students & Learning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Stitching a Connection

Posted on 2013/04/26 by HipHarp

Last Friday, instead of creating my normal weekly enewsletter, I just sat down and wrote a letter.

I went into Constant Contact (the program that lets me send out individual emails to the 7,000 people on my email list each week), I pulled out all the bells and whistles, the ‘click to see this in your browser,’ the ‘post this to social media,’ all the images and the links … and just wrote a letter about what was happening in Boston and how disconnected I felt, here in a Boston satellite town.

I just needed to really connect.

I even changed the font on the email so it looked like a letter to me, using the old Courier font that I loved from things I wrote as a kid, on typewriters like the dusty old Royal that sits on my studio shelf … with its incongruous, marvelous beveled window on the side so you can see the mechanics of its keys at work – and its keys sticking like they were hoping you’d start writing.

The old typewriter in my studio

Last Friday was a moment I needed to step out of my role as performer, composer, orchestrator, online-course-designer, whatever — and just reconnect as human-to-human.

And what happened afterwards helped me stitch my life back together.

After the email went out we got the usual flurry of “out-of-office” responses … but then real responses began coming in.  Some simple, some long.  Some with stories about the writer’s own feelings and disconnect, or about their family; some with just ‘My heart is with everyone in Boston.’

And instead of listening to the news, or checking the Twitter feed, I just sat there and wrote back to each person.

Email after email, each one like a stitch with silken thread.  Each email brought me closer and closer to connection.  I could feel it happening.  Like sewing a strong patch over a big hole on a beloved pair of jeans – each stitch, each email, made me more able to fit back into my own life.

I wrote nearly 80 emails that day, and every one was a tiny stitch in my sense of connection.

So … thank you.

To everyone who reached out to me via email, or Facebook or Twitter or my blog, and to the others who reached out in spirit … thank you.

Thank you for being part of that thread.

 

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The Nightingale – Download Sheet Music for Harp

Posted on 2013/04/24 by HipHarp

“The Nightingale” is one of my most-requested songs.  I wrote it in memory of my mother’s voice. On this page you can purchase the sheet music via download, listen & share the audio, see my “Behind the Scenes” video about the song and see YouTube performances by other harpists.

Download the Sheet Music

“The Nightingale” Sheet Music

Listen & Share the Audio (Widgets)

The first widget below lets you download an MP3 and  join my mailing list (if you’re already on the list, it doesn’t put you on it twice).   Sometimes it takes a few seconds for the widget to appear on your screen.

This second widget should let you just listen to the song and share it on Facebook & Twitter.  If you want to just email it to a friend, or include it in a Mother’s Day greeting to someone, cut and paste this link:  http://app.topspin.net/widget/test/196552

Behind-the-Scenes Video

I play this song with symphonies and in solo shows.  Here’s a clip from the “Behind the Scenes” movie by Rick DiGregorio from my DVD project “Invention & Alchemy” where I talk about the symphonic version of the song.

Play it Yourself

“The Nightingale” Sheet Music

A few years back, I published an arrangement of the song (I sell the sheet music book from my online store) and now it’s my most highly covered song on YouTube (and I love seeing other people’s YouTube performances of it!).

And as of today, we finally have a download version – so, no matter where you are in the world, you can download it right now and start playing it on pedal or lever harp – with or without a singer – no matter what level of player you are!

BECAUSE – this download includes THREE  versions for instrumental players (for beginner to intermediate) and additional versions for singer and harp.

SO YOU CAN CHOOSE whichever arrangement is best for you – or play them all – or start with the simplest and then work up to the concert version. You get all 7 versions in the download. And then YOU can upload your performance to YouTube, too, like the videos you’ll see at the end of this post.

Here’s that link again:

“The Nightingale” Sheet Music

If you want a hard-copy of the sheet music or any of my other CDs, DVDs & Sheet music you can find them at my online store.

YouTube Performances of “The Nightingale”

I told you that I love hearing versions of this song on YouTube, so I’ve included some of my favorite YouTube covers below.

This video is from a French television show featuring a Harp-Cello duo (Mladen Spasinovici, cello & Roxana Moisanu, harp)

Voor Deborah!!!! By Mariefleur in the Netherlands. Love this!

Performed on March 7th, 2010 at Harp Plus, University of Nevada, Reno. UNR harp ensemble included Tara Arnold, Sushi Aquino, Brittany Iverson, with guest artist alto MaryAnne Stashevsky-Ashley.

Here it is performed by Sachiko Komiya.

Do you know her name so we can add it here?

Athy ElectricHarper, from Argentina, Buenos Aires performing at the MAGIACELTICA Festival in Italy 2011

Posted in Composing, Harping & Harpists, Harps, Instrument (My Instrument), Mom, Performance | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Dumb is Deep

Posted on 2013/04/24 by HipHarp

Back in the 90′s I was touring Germany with an all-German band (except for me). My German was elementary, and I couldn’t understand 99% of what my band members said.

Wait – let me clarify.  I was touring with an all-Bavarian band.

For those who’ve never heard Bavarian, it’s like a combination of thick Southern drawl and Valley-Girl … in German. 

With my German band on ZDF TV

Deborah Henson-Conant & Band on ZDF TV - Germany

One night, a friend of the band, Hans, took me to visit his mother outside Munich.  We sat on a picnic bench in the twilight and I told Hans’ mother the story of the 3 Bears, which she listened to as if she’d never heard it.  She claimed she hadn’t.  I thought they’d actually lived in the Black Forest, which I reckoned to be pretty close to where we were.

It was uproariously funny. I’d never realized how funny.  I’d never told the story of the Three Bears to a serious adult listener as an adult teller.  And I was telling it in German. And she was listening and responding in German, as if I was telling her a story about three people I knew who happened to be bears. And I understood everything she said. And she me …

(Although it just occurred to me, considering how much she was laughing, that I might not have been telling the story I thought I was.)

But never mind.  I was speaking a foreign language and experiencing what felt like true communication – the first moment of communication in German I’d ever felt.

As Hans and I drove back to Munich, I mentioned how odd and wonderful it was that I could understand nearly everything his mother said, and he said, “She’s being very kind to you. She’s speaking very clearly.”

I suddenly realized why I didn’t understand my band members – not because I couldn’t understand German, but because they were committed to speaking their own dialect, even though they knew that made it nearly impossible for me to understand what they were saying.  As if it undermined their identity to speak in a way I might understand.

Deborah Henson-Conant & Band on ZDF TV - Germany

Deborah Henson-Conant & Band on ZDF TV - Germany

Hans’ mother spoke to me as if I were a child.  A foreign child.

And it was a huge kindness.

The kindness of speaking so that people can understand what you’re saying, the kindness of enjoying that limitation, the kindness of dumbing things down and sharing that dumbed-down beauty … is a deep kindness.

Fast forward to 2013.

I have a technical-director-type person on my team – the guy who actually gets my online courses online.  He’s a very smart person, kind, honest, dedicated.  Knows a lot.  Great guy.  Love him.

And I can’t understand 90% of what he says.

I’m sure other people can.  I can’t.

I keep asking him to ‘dumb down’ what he says to me.  To ‘talk to me like an 8-year old.’  To ‘remember that I’m clueless.’ 

I see him try – he’ll get one or two dumb-downed sentences out and then he slides right back to technical jargon as if it were his native dialect and he couldn’t speak everyday words.

Well … it does take more time to explain things so non-techies can understand.  It does slow down your  pace.  I can believe it’s tough to find a way to so “restricted user access options” so that I would know instantly what you’re talking about.

That’s what Hans’ mother did for me.   It is a great kindness to ‘dumb things down.’  To speak to someone in a way they can understand.  In a way that doesn’t make them feel stupid.

Because you can dumb things down.  And there’s a wealth of revelation down in the dumb.

It’s one thing I love about talking to non-musicians about music.  Searching to find common metaphors, to be forced out of the lingo and shorthand musicians use – and to discover what music truly means … outside of musical context.

And what I find – when I work to ‘explain it like I’m talking to an 8-year old’ – is revelation.  A window into what something truly is, versus the glib terms I use daily in the music biz or the composer biz.  A thing truly on its own, in plain language.

Technical jargon is impressive – no question.  Lingo proves you’re in the club.

But dumb … dumb is deep.

 

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | 18 Comments

Why Silence?

Posted on 2013/04/22 by HipHarp

The Boston area just observed a moment of silence for the victims of last Monday’s bombings.

I went to the kitchen with my husband, and turned on the radio to be silent with everyone else, wishing we were down at Copley, standing quiet and still with thousands of people.

My thoughts went in spiraling prisms, from the painful to the earthy to the ridiculous, like human thoughts do. I’d like to say I was only thinking of the victims of last Monday’s bombings, how their lives are changed forever. Or lost. Forever.

I’ve thought so much about that in the last week.

But the truth of my human mind is that, in the silence, I began to think …about silence. And then about noise.

I wondered why there is never a moment of noise. Screaming, yelling and foot-stomping.

I know there’s plenty – in sports events, family arguments and at Kindergarten naptime. Just like there’s silence when we forget what we’re saying.

But silence or noise as a response or non-response to something is so different from a moment dedicated to silence – or noise – just for itself.

And then I remembered my last concert, in Asheville, N.C., two nights before Marthon day.

At the end of the performance, for the encore, I came out into the audience and played one of the simplest and non-impressive-virtuosic tunes I know: Danny Boy. Wrestled from the cliché of itself, it’s a song about loss, about the permanence of death and of love. It’s simple. And it’s a song I never expected to love.

It all comes down to this – I wanted to say -- no matter what we learn, or do, no matter how bombastic, impressive, cutting-edge, famous, rich, poor, successful, wealthy, old, virtuosic … no matter what we become – it comes down to this: the gift … or the loss … of human connection.

When I ended the song, I stood perfectly still, because I didn’t want to end the moment – that moment between music and non-music, when the silence becomes its own world. It’s a rare, and precarious, and stupendous moment.  It’s hardly ever allowed.

My strings rang and faded and I didn’t move to damp them. My eyes were closed and I didn’t open them. As if I were completely alone.

And nobody clapped. All of us suspended together, in a trust of silence that was deeper, more spectacular, more moving than any note or any thunderous applause could ever be. That silence was the greatest thing we could share. To be together in that silence.

So, I think … I think I just answered my question.

One-fund BostonThe One Fund Boston was set up to aid the victims of the tragic events that happened at the  Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. You can donate by clicking the button.

Posted in Performance, Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Being in Boston in Paradox

Posted on 2013/04/19 by HipHarp

Living in Boston has been a paradox experience this week.  The marathon bombings still resound emotionally (my blog about from Marathon day). Waves of breaking news play against the backdrop of perfect April days, and it’s a strange disconnect, especially since I listen to the news mostly when I’m out running – stories like the one about this image below, that are both moving and deeply disturbing.

Carlos in teh Cowboy Hat / Story by Robin Young WBUR / Photo Charles Krupa/AP

Last night when I finished writing this story and went to Twitter to get the links, I fell into a maelstrom of Tweets about more bombs and police and firefights in a town adjacent to mine.

This morning at 8AM our phone rang with a message from the town manager saying  the subway system is shut down, and to avoid leaving our homes.

We’re not on lockdown, but Cambridge, the next town over, where my husband’s audio mastering studio is,  is locked down, along with many other communities – and people outside Cambridge have been asked not to enter it.

Busses, subway … even taxis is Boston are shut down.

The story I wrote last night, and my state of mind then, is so different at the moment, that it feels like a time-warp to post this, but here’s my state of mind 3 days after the bombings and minutes before I learned about the murder of a young MIT policeman that began a huge police action between the bombing suspects and police.

This is what it was like living in Boston yesterday:

Our local NPR station airs stories I don’t know if the rest of the country gets to hear – not strictly news, but very human stories that move me – because of the stories themselves, and because of the grace and sensitivity of the interviewers, women I hear every day on the news like Sacha Pfeiffer talking to trauma surgeon Tracey Dechert talking about the difficult decision to amputate and Robin Young in her beautiful interview with “The man in the Cowboy Hat” .

And watching how prepared emergency responders were, how they immediately tore down barricades to avoid crowds being trapped – I was so moved by that.

And I never thought I’d be proud of … well, being a part of the Boston sports community. I always felt that, as a slow runner, I didn’t really belong, didn’t have a place in the community. But my perception of belonging changed in the last week.

And I never thought I’d feel proud listening to a Steven Colbert monolog  (warning: mild swearing).

 Colbert reports on Boston

And the way President Obama spoke yesterday here in Boston about Boston had me in tears…

Obama speaks to Boston

… somehow all these things made me realize that I truly have made this place my home.  And that new awareness of personal connection against the sense of tragic loss that I know others are experiencing … I don’t really know how to connect that.

But I do know one thing clearly – how much I appreciate all the messages of care and concern everyone has sent to all of us in Boston in the past 4 days and my admiration of the people who are acting swiftly and deftly in the midst of this.  From the man in the cowboy hat, to the surgeons in the hospitals, from runners to radio interviewers, the President of the United States, to my own personal Facebook community –  thank you for your work, your actions, your messages.  Every one of them fills me up with respect or pride, surprise, admiration.

I live in a town Paul Revere rode through on his midnight ride. Uncle Sam, Sanuel Wilson, was born in this town – seriously.I pass his statue – the one on the right below  — every day when I run.

I was NOT born in Boston, but this week, I realized it’s become my home after 30 years.

And the man in the hat on the left … the way I feel about him … the humanity behind the hero – the pain and heartache I know him to have  … I wonder if, at some point, once, the man with the hat on the right had that kind of flesh-and-blood persona for the people who shared the time he lived in – long ago, before he was  carved in stone.

Men in Hats / Left Photo Charles Krupa/AP

 

So … that was yesterday.   This morning, the firefight, the lockdowns in neighboring towns, the stories about the bombing suspects,  – who may have lived here for years, and attended school with our neighbors —  I don’t even know how to start processing that yet.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Yesterday. Boston. The Marathon bombings.

Posted on 2013/04/16 by HipHarp

Yesterday.  Boston.  The Marathon bombings.   At home outside Boston, I was in my studio.  Waiting from my husband to ride back from the Marathon, where he’d gone to cheer on friends.

Tense moments, not able to reach him, panicked, ’til I saw his bright yellow windbreaker outside the window.  Then my personal relief streamed off into thoughts about people who were still panicked, hurt, already knowing their loss or waiting to know.

And even in the shock there was comfort and connection.

There was information.  There was information about what to DO.  There was information about what was HAPPENING, and it was from varied sources: moment to moment on Twitter, including advice about how to contact beloveds who you couldn’t find: “Don’t call, text, because it uses less bandwidth” or uses less something – it didn’t matter because it was simple advice I could follow immediately.

Then more information:  No more blood needed now … but plan to come give blood in a week or two.  Housing needed for people stranded in Boston. Go here to add your name.

There was also confusion – seemingly multiple sign-up documents for places for people to stay, conflicting reports about the explosion at the JFK Library.  Times when the chief of police seemed to lag behind the Twitter feed.

But there was communication.  Multiple points of communication.  Multiple points within each point.  Different voices from the radio, and different kinds of voices – reporters, public officials, witnesses.  And many voices on Twitter.

Some Tweeters immediately seemed to take ownership of the event as if deciding to lead their tribe thrugh it via their own emotions and messages; Some – further away – offered aphorisms – many of which felt inappropriate, as if they wanted to box up the event, the feelings, the experience, the fear, the pain, the loss – package it and go on.

My husband and I sat at dinner inside long swathes of silence that neither of us noticed.   As if it mattered, we discussed whether either of us would have been finishing the marathon at that moment, had we run it.

Dazed.  Disconnected. Connected.  One beautiful day.   One tragedy we personally escaped the immediate shrapnel of.  And no idea how close or far we really are from that shrapnel.  Knowing it’s still flying in ways we can’t know.

Horrified.  Shocked.  And in the midst of it, grateful for our connection to each other and grateful to be able to know, to be told,  to hear from radio, Twitter, Facebook, phone.

The importance of knowing.  Of being told. Of knowing how to help. What to do.  Where to go.

Even though none of us really knows how to to get through this.  Or even what it is.

One-fund BostonThe One Fund Boston was set up to aid the victims of the tragic events that happened at the  Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. You can donate by clicking the button.

Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

How I learned the Physical Zoom

Posted on 2013/04/10 by HipHarp

Last weekend I broadcast my first Livestream studio shows – LIVE from my own TV-studio.

Meaning … my livingroom.   Facebook Comment Livestream

It was an experiment. I was beta-testing the new  VideoHouseConcerts.com and preparing for this Saturday’s live show in Asheville, NC.

I LOVED the comments of the people who joined me from all over the world …Facebook Comment about Livestream Show

Even the folks who were scratching their heads a little:Facebook Comment

What I personally  loved most about the show was what I learned. 

Not when I was ‘trying’ to learn, but spontaneously in the middle of the performance: The Live-Body Zoom and the Hat-Fashion-Show.

It’s the moment of transformation for me: The moment when I learn to use the medium to reshape the art.

It usually happens like this:  I get the idea of ‘how this thing works,’ and try to make it do what I’ve always done.

It’s like when you first put on rollerblades and you try to ‘walk’ in them – because that’s what you do in things you put on your feet: walk, right??

But in rollerblades that’s awkward, clunky and inefficient.

Then you discover glide.

And what was hobbling you suddenly becomes glorious.

(Well, OK, on skates it’s glorious until the moment you fall on your butt, but that doesn’t deny the glory.)

The medium opens a new door, a new way of expressing and experiencing.

In this case, my old way of thinking was: this is supposed to be a lens people watch a live show through and the lens is not supposed to affect the show – it’s only supposed to reveal it, so if we just get the best audio sound and the best lighting, the lens will simply open a window to that.

But after our initial sound and video tests, we discovered limitations in both audio and video that we hadn’t expected:  I had to keep a certain level of sound to avoid the signal completely disappearing and my high-def camera didn’t want to play nice with the Livestream interface.

So my first thought was:  Aaagh! We just lost a major level of everything that lets me connect with the audience: I lost a huge level of dynamic expression in audio, and we lost the ability to have a high-quality visual image.

In other words, I was focusing on everything that made this ‘less’ than a live show.

I was oblivious to its advantages.

Those appeared in the middle of the show and in large part because I was searching for ways to reach the audience, an painfully aware that my ‘normal’ way (through sound and visual) was technically inhibited.

My desire to reach the audience was the constant.  My standard way of doing it was inhibited.

Here’s what happened in my brain:

Aaaaagh – I really want them to see what I’m doing, and I KNOW they can’t because the camera’s not hi-def and the screen’s small but I really, really, REALLLLLLY want them to SEE this!!!

And so I moved towards the camera.

Boom.  Window opens.  I realize this medium gives me the chance to create a spontaneous physical zoom that allows me to play with the medium in a way I wouldn’t have thought of if I could have relied on my old ways of connecting.

I started improvising with the medium, zooming myself closer to the camera for closeups of string bends or strums.  And I could respond immediately to my own impulse to show them what I was doing instead of having to indicate to a cameraman that he should zoom  on, or to practice it beforehand.

A new level of response and improvisation suddenly entered my performance through the limitations and opportunities of this new medium.  And it happened on a spontaneous, visceral level: through my desire to connect to my audience no matter what.

So, thank you limitation.

As for the hat-fashion-show…

That was the second way the medium shaped the art, which came through a question.

Someone asked me a question about when and why I cut off my multi-color braids.  I explained it was a sudden decision, followed by “short-hair remorse” followed by the purchase of many – and often ridiculous – hats and wigs … which I suddenly realized were scattered around my studio — right behind me. 

So I grabbed them and created  a spontaneous hat-fashion-show, starting with the sedate bowler … and progressing through the two helmuts: feather and space,  to the rabbit hat, and finally the green-snake-medusa.

Circumstance turning to opportunity. Medium shaping art.

OK, this time, I admit was a pretty silly shape.

Many thanks to the folks who helped me with this project: James Arthur (my tireless creative admin), Beatriz Harley (my lovely assistant), Jonathan Wyner (my inamorata and audio guru), Betty Widerski (tech diva), Scott Lewis (video genie), friend Judy (an excellent audience), Kaity Smith (our wonderful new intern), Tony Kahn (story comrade) and Dana Sussman (muffin maven).  This is the Saturday show crew.

Why the lab coats?  Well, it was an experiment, right?

 

Posted in Events, Performance, Projects | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments