Tonight I’ll be improv-VJing at a spot in NY called Le Royale. Every Thursday night friends of mine from Waking Dream & Light Harvest Studio provide visuals for a party called Sheik N’ Beik. Tonight will be my first time joining, so come check it out if you’re in the neighborhood. I’ll be there from 11PM into the early hours..
New projects are underway for upcoming summer festivals and collaborations. One that I’m particularly excited about is a project called Chrysalis. It’s an inflatable, multimedia dome, which stands at 100′ in diameter. 12 projectors will be affixed and mounted on the inside to create a 360 degree live video performance. DJs, VJs, musicians, dancers, and puppeteers will be performing from within, and will create an incredible, experimental, interactive, multimedia experience. The project was conceptualized by my friends of Waking Dream and Light Harvest Studio.
Tonight I designed a flyer to promote a few upcoming fundraiser dates for the project. I’ll be projecting visuals in the dome on Saturday July 18th, with Waking Dream, Light Harvest, and Levitation Theory.
Make sure to mark your calendars for July 17th, 18th, and a pre-event fundraiser at the House of Love on July 11th.
Monkeytown with the Cutlery
Thanks to all who managed their way to the couches of Monkeytown last night! The haunting jingle jangles, clarinet, record player, typewriter and banjo strings of the Cutlery ominously echoed the walls and brought a sultry, nostalgic mood to the shadows.
The room had a nice mellow feeling of serenity throughout our set, and was a lot of fun to edit live in my spontaneous ways of vision. I planned to have the visuals take you on a journey through time. We spent most of the evening floating between the 1920s and 1930s. Flappers, poetic meanderings, dramatic romances, cryptic cartoons and a side of Charlie Chaplan. In addition, lately I’ve been missing one of my very best friends, Zora, who passed away a few years ago. Her and I had just begun to collaborate on beautiful things together in the year before she passed. I know she would have loved the type of work that I’m doing these days. I always wonder what we would be creating today if she were still around. In our short time together we collaborated on one stopmotion film, Fascade Filosophia (also posted below), a few bare experimental tests of painted waves (will be posting soon) and animated sand.
Fascade, full of dark puppetry and mysterious castles, was a big hit last night from what I heard after the show. It felt amazing to have her with me last night, breathing through the walls. I’ve been missing her something fierce and showing that film reminded me that she’s still here inspiring me everyday. For me, last night’s set was dedicated to her.
That venue is so intimate and personal, I wish I could project visuals there more often. It’s absolutely my ideal space, and motivates me to make better and better work.
Yesterday morning, I packed up my car with my new portable screen, my laptop, mixer, cables, gaffer tape, wires & hard drive, and headed south to hit J&R’s Summer Expo.
At noon Kodomo and I set stage amongst thousands of CDs in the back of J&R for an afternoon set promoting his album, Still Life. While projecting under fluorescent lighting makes for a difficult performance on my behalf, it was a lot of fun and ultimately a successful rainy afternoon for both of us. I didn’t realize how much I missed being amongst all those records & CDs, and I always love performing. Especially for a good old fashion record store audience.
I really miss the experience of going to my favorite local record store on any given afternoon and spending hours wandering in the aisles. Record stores have always felt like design museums to me. Album covers spanning years of musical history and varieties of style, art and culture. Since downloading has been so easy and accessible in the last few years, I’ve watched all of my favorite music stores close down one by one, and many more musicians releasing digital downloads instead of putting money into tangible albums.
These days if I want the experience of picking up an album I have to either drive an hour north to Culters in New Haven or an hour south to my NYC spots. My preference these days is Kim’s Video, or my latest favorite, Ear Wax in Brooklyn. J&R was a first for me, but they had quite a collection, and it was cool to be a part of it. Happy Summer Solstice!
Don’t forget, this week I’ll be at Monkeytown, Thursday (Jun 25th) projecting for the Cutlery. 8PM Showtime. Just make sure that if you plan on attending that you shoot your info over to Monkeytown’s reservations. You can do that by clicking here. See you Thursday!
Photo by Holly Danger - Theatre Ste. Catherine
Firstly I want to thank Warper folks for such a fun event in Montreal a couple weeks ago. I’ve been a little out of the loop with documenting on here since I’ve gotten back and have been in the midst of planning for the next few shows.
Just a heads up, but I wanted to leave a quick note to say that there are two shows on their way in the next week. One is with the Cutlery at my favorite venue Monkeytown on June 25th at 7PM, and another with Kodomo for a daytime promotional event & Summer Tech Expo sponsored by J&R Electronics, June 20th at noon. New footage is in the works for both, but I won’t give much away. Working on footage for 10 songs with the Cutlery this time, and excited to once again project on the 4 encompassing Monkeytown screens! Hope to see you!
Warper Party May 26th Theatre Ste. Catherine Montreal, QC
It’s official! I head out in less than a week to make a trek to the lovely & charming Montreal. I’ve taken off a few days of work following Memorial day, and am ever so tempted to use a few more days and stay out there to make another visit to Toronto while I’ve gotten that far. Especially since there is another Ghostly International tour happening the day after our show that I would looove to be at. It would involve some last minute maneuvering, but I’m tempted!
As it stands, Kodomo & I will set stage at 6pm at the Theatre Ste. Catherine in Montreal on May 26th to be part of the Warper / PreMutek Party. I’m a little nervous about the early time slot, but we’ll make the best of it. Very much looking forward to another journey, and see what may happen along the way..
Driving home from yoga, Saturday morning sun. Canon SD780.
I finally received my new digital camera in the mail last week, the new Canon SD780. My last camera was my absolute favorite, the Olympus Camedia 5050z, and I’m looking to resurrect it from it’s death one day. However, for now it’s all about life through a new lens. I’ve been without a point and shoot for nearly a year now, and I think it’s finally time for me to open up my eyes again. I’ll be doing a series of test shoots over the next few weeks and collecting them here. We’ll see how she fairs next to my old trusty Olympus.
Here is the live video from last week’s show as promised!
This was our first collaborative gig at the Warper Party on May 6th at the Delancey. Minus the unmistakeable red hue that lit the screen throughout the night, the scraggly tape that held the sheet to the wall, and the discoball that sprinkled little lights on top of my visuals, I’d say it all came out great! I’m so glad that I decided to document. After watching this I completely see what I need to work on to make an even better set as we move forward. This show really solidified that we can put on a great performance together, and we’ll be looking to seek out more gigs very soon. If any of you have a heads up on places to play, please leave comments here or send me an email.
Music written & performed by Kodomo. Live Visuals by me, mixed, made and collected from various places. Some are my own, some are sampled, some manipulated. RT: 36 min.
Thanks to all who made it to our first collaborative gig together last night at the Warper Party!! I’ve been eating, sleeping, breathing those visuals for the last 3 months and it felt amazing to have a room full of people there to finally share it with!
I am VERY happy with how many people showed up from all over (much appreciated!), the energy of the place, and our performances went better than I could have even expected. There were a few personal flubs that were probably unnoticeable to anyone other than myself, but it will just fuel the fire to keep doing this and get better and better. This was the first gig that I’ve actually rehearsed visuals with a musician beforehand, and designed different concepts around each song specifically. The results, to me, are far more exciting and stronger than anything I could have ever improvised.
Right now I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting the time to digitize footage from last night. Check back tomorrow and I will have a full posting of video from our gig!
We are currently looking into the possibility of playing a show in Montreal during the Mutek festival that is happening at the end of this month, but need to see how we should go about doing it. If you, or anyone you know has any insight to Mutek and/or booking shows during that week up there, please let me know! I can’t wait for the next show!
Work in progress of a series of Danger pins that I’m currently creating.
Just a quick reminder that I’ll be at the Delancey Wednesday this week, projecting in collaboration with the music of Kodomo. We’ve been working hard for the last few months to get things ready and this will be our first performance together, and my first choreographed video performance. Should be a great night, especially with the dozens of other musicians booked for that evening! I’m excited and hope to see many of you guys there! 9:30 sharp, 40 min set.
Also, I wanted to note a change in dates for the June gig at Monkeytown with Cutlery. Instead of June 11th, we’ll be there June 25th. Sorry for the mistake!
In other news, I’ve been busy feeling the motion of seasonal changes and moving forward on some new projects. Soon you can expect to see an updated portfolio reel from me and possibly an upgrade to the Danger identity that I’ve cultivated for the last few years. Hopefully a full launch of my site is around the corner as well. For now, the process of revising my portfolio has officially begun after building my last round two years ago. It’s amazing how quickly time passes, and how quickly the showcase of your work becomes outdated!
I’m also currently working on making tiny 1 inch “DANGER pins” that I intend to give out at shows, and am having a really fun time with designing them. Right now they are based on the concept of “dangerous things that you’re afraid of”. If you have a special request, please leave comments here!! I’m open to suggestions! What are you afraid of? Above is an early rough example of one that I’m making for someone who has a fear of giant squids!!
Lastly, I’ve got a new toy that I’m excited to get started playing with. I finally purchased a new digital camera after my beloved Olympus Camedia 5050z died half a year ago. I am now toting a Canon SD780 and looking forward to my memory card showing up any day now so I can begin to experiment! Keep a look out here for massive photo posts to come!
Copyright © 2009 Holly Danger. All Rights Reserved.
