#stokes.

Petra and I went to see something called "Scratch Night" at the Live Arts Studio in Philly last night. Once called 2nd Thursdays, the event is basically a night of free beer and works-in-process. I had no idea what I was getting to, but I liked the concept- an audience comes, gets a little tipsy (aka honest) and artists get feedback about their piece. Minus the beer, this is definitely what Petra and I have planned to do with our "Open Rehearsal" idea. But there is something interesting to be said about seeing art in which the "process" is more like a lesser quality final product. 

As you saw in my introduction video, I am in love with process. I feel like a product can never be finalized- I mean, if it was then why would people want to put it up again? Performance, I believe, is always in a further stage of process. It's a lot more "in the moment", more truthful, more about discovery- for the actors and the audience. That's why I love improv and TO. 

Anyways, I don't know where I'm going with this exactly. But I do know that I am excited to see how Petra and my process develop, and how our piece stays true to our process. I think "multiverse..." is going to be a good way to literally put stages of our process (notes from our rehearsals, etc) on the stage. But the final piece- I don't want to lose all that work. 

Hmm... those are my thoughts. I don't know if they quite make sense, but...

So I went to a cabaret in Philly in the early fall. I was hoping to find good, inspirational performance... and for the most part, I didn't. But! I did meet an awesome black queer performer by the name of Jazzmen Johnson. She had a great energy and performed what she called "folk hop"- she sang and rapped while playing her acoustic guitar. It was awesome. 

Jazzmen recently sent me the link to her band's latest EP. I got to say, it's definitely worth listening to. The band, Folk Told Me, describe themselves on their bandcamp as "a band of melodic sankofa martians, spinning stories like hip hop griots doomed to this place called earth, traveling in sound sparring with myopic modes of being…freeing. . ."