The Bad Version is a quarterly print literary magazine and is “dedicated to beginnings: to pieces that are taking risks, trying to broach new ideas, experimenting with new forms, starting new conversations”. What caught our eye was this idea of new conversations? What are they trying to develop? What type of conversations print magazine in this age of digital communication generate? We started our own conversation (ha, ha) with Art Director, Trevor Martin, at their second issue launch party, held at BookCourt in Brooklyn, and tried to figure out what good (or bad) these guys were doing.
The team utilized the concept in the screenwriting process of a “bad version” to frame their efforts as ‘directors’ to help young perspectives develop their voices and create an open-ended community to foster discourse as opposed to the isolated experience that writers face (at least for the most part). At the moment, developing this ‘in-process relationship’ is, well, still in process. But that’s perfect! And hopefully we’ll be privy to this relationship in the coming months.
Besides developing the writers, The Bad Version also aims to transform audiences and the way they interact with print magazines. Traditionally, readers just see a piece of writing as finished, final, complete – end of story. However, this view of writing as a final product is a disservice not just to the writers, but to the process of writing and to readers themselves. As a print magazine, it doesn’t seem to deviate significantly from traditional formats as of yet… but to quote Trevor, the idea is to change “a little at a time, but often”.
For example, the cover of the 2nd issue is a cluster of speech bubbles that No, it is not because they’re cute (sorry Harvard Crimson, you need to check your sources), but as the first visual impressed upon holding a copy in your hands, the hope is that readers begin their own dialogue with the piece and “fill in” the speech bubbles with their own thoughts. Well it seemed to work for us, since our first reaction upon seeing the cover went something along the line of: Wait what is this clump of things? Worms? Smileys? Sperm? OH they’re speech bubbles. Where are they floating off to? What are they trying to say? Oh. What ARE they trying to say. Yes, we sometimes takes a while to process things. In any case, we’re eager to see how they integrate their print and online platforms, and how the team continues to develop this engagement with the audience.
Basically, everything is still in the works. We’ll check back with these kids the next issue or so and see what next is being changed. But if the energy from the launch party from the editors, writers and attendees alike is any indication, we’re gonna get some buzz going on.
The Bad Version can found here and they’re on practically all social media sites, so check em out.
That was a sizzle reel (yum) created by Choreographer Marcus Foo himself, of a piece called Transit back in December of last year. It’s been a while since we’ve watched Marcus’ work and so we jumped at the opportunity to to sit in through one of his last rehearsals.
Marcus tends to choreograph about subjects that are personal and “close to home” and this piece began with ‘Travel’ as the initiating concept for the choreography. As the dancers had 6 weeks to put up a show, it was a challenge to come up and polish an entirely new piece during that time span (keep in mind, there were other items that dancers were involved in). One thing we love about Marcus is his commitment to creation: rather than taking “the easy way out”, he resisted the temptation to simply pull from his old repertoire of work.
Despite the time crunch, Marcus was still keen to collaborate with and involve the dancers as much as possible. Sitting down with the dancers individually, he would elicit their responses to the word; Based their thoughts, he gave them a structure of how he wanted to see the movement travel or be executed.
For example, one dancer, Sarah, spoke of her search for identity when she travels to different countries but ultimately, she returns to Singapore feeling like she’s home. For her solo, Marcus gave direction for her to be in act of retrogradation - to retrace her steps and move back with the same movement - to illustrate these sentiments.
Dancers were given room to improvise from the choreography and to develop the material as rehearsals went on. ‘Transit’ became a natural conceptual progression in the development of the piece.
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What is travel? To leave a familiarity of space and culture and step into a different world and relations. Not just the act of getting to point B, travel is valuable in the movement itself. To travel, to be above the clouds, to switch from one to another frame of reference, to be in the state of moving - all these are moments of conscious transience. Transitions are inherently unstable and while we are always focused on getting to the next checkpoint, it is important to accept this liminality. We are all transient. This speaks strongly to us at wefoundnothing because that’s exactly what we’re trying to encourage: being in motion! the key focus being on the verb, to be in action.
Ultimately, this piece speaks of a very personal journey of “finding courage to take the big leap, to take risk, to do what we truly need and letting go of past issues in order to move forward” and “capturing the pivotal moment before we make transit”.
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After rehearsals, we talked a little about the piece and in the process, spoke about generic what-we-are-doing-in-life-type things. It’s hard to recall exactly what we did talk about (hands can only write down so much at such speed), but there was definitely things about hesitation, possibilities & direction… And we managed to scribble down this one gem:
“As cheesy as it sounds, never say ‘Never’. Even if you know, or if it seems like, it’s not feasible, don’t just shut it out. Let that empty space be there because one day, you just might need that empty space.”
Yup. This boy is going places, that’s for sure.
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The dancers: Anthea, Shu Mien, Sarah, Yi Ming, Nicole, Jacqueline, Hui Yi & Samuel.
Robert Zaleski is what Jack of all trades would be if he actually put in some effort. Rob is probably best known on campus for his unrehearsed antics as part of Duke University Improv (DUI), but when he is not on stage making people laugh, Rob is off stage making people laugh, or singing. Or acting in videos, or writing (usually poetry or satirical prose)… Or he is drawing, or dancing, or freestyle rapping. In this video, Rob is doing several of these, but mainly the latter.
We tried to get Rob to rank these pursuits in order of preference and passion, but the exercise was pretty much an exercise in futility and tautology – sometimes, it was hard to make distinctions, like between his poetry and his freestyle raps, or between his freestyle rap and improvisational comedy. He likes to describe his endeavours as “different hands on the same elephant,” alluding to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, where a group of blind men who are touching different parts of an elephant are led to believe that they are touching different objects, when in fact these ‘objects’ are connected to one and the same, larger entity.
Along that same vein, Rob says he likes to “build a network in his mind,” and the transitions he makes from activity to activity are seamless and fascinating. Sometimes, Rob engages in a little free association drawing, which he views as “one step in the development of an idea.” The result tends to be abstract (he has more than once ended up with a combination of body parts of various animals), while the process is cathartic as it helps him vent, or enhance an emotion, which he can then use in other creative ways, such as in his poetry or rap. At other times, Rob plays improvisational word games, including one which he taught us called Electric Fence. Electric Fence and others of its ilk involve rhyming words and are premised on speed, which then trains the mind and its power of association.
If you have watched the video above, in all 3 minutes and 6 seconds of its glory, you will probably understand our prediction that we will almost certainly be seeing Rob again, on a bigger stage and with brighter lights, very, very soon. But when that happens, remember – you saw him here first. Unless you go to Duke.
Started by Ryan Daniel Beck (based in New York), SPORE Art Salon is a monthly session rooted mostly in visual art but also featuring work in other ‘disciplines’, and with that, aims to encourage collaboration and generate dialogue among both artists and audience. Even from their clever little pun/definition on spores [1. A minute, typically one-celled, reproductive unit capable of giving rise to a new individual without sexual fusion; 2. (in a plant exhibiting alternation of generations) A haploid reproductive cell that gives rise to a gametophyte], it was easy to detect an eagerness to generate something different; Different is not defined, but just as well so, and the presence of such an energy was sufficient enough to spur us to check it out.
According to our friendly reference guide, Wikipedia, a salon is a gathering “held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation”. Beginning in the 16th century in Italy and popularized by the French in the 17th century, a salon essentially provided a space for an exchange of ideas, intellectually and artistically. That’s a tall order for any social gathering. It is well known that women basically ran/produced such salons and it seemed apt then, that we first spoke to the lead of the SPORE Art Salon, Olivia Kwok.
We asked Olivia what drew her to (and makes her stay on) the team. For one, as an art-maker (photography) herself, Olivia has always been impressed with the energy and passion that other art-makers have across mediums and/or subjects; being able to bring these people into one space and these passions is a satisfying endeavor. Olivia also spoke about using SPORE Art Salon as a platform to educate. Singaporeans tend to have preconceived notions what art is, often perceiving art exhibitions or events as “highbrow” or atas, and SPORE Art Salon is keen to set itself as a platform that puts these conceptions up for change.
We also managed to grab a quick chat with Ng Yi-Sheng and why does he do it? “I enjoy the act of putting interesting acts together and to be able to say, hey, look at the cool stuff that’s happening in Singapore!”
There isn’t a specific ‘curatorial’ process for the line-up, and while they do get most of their participants through mutual contacts or recommendations, there have been a handful that have submitted their work via email and “as long as the individual has the heart and want to expand”, the team is pretty much open.
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First up for the night, we had Terence (electronic/audio artist) and Clare (graphic visual artist). Both of them have known each other for a while, but that night marked their first “official” collaboration. As Terence manipulated sounds from his board, Clare more or less improvised and interpreted his music using the good ol’ Photoshop. Harmonicas, organs and samplings from the toilet (according to Terence) met with Clare’s live coloring, projected onto Terence on stage. We especially liked how not just color was splattered around him and on stage, but Clare’s decision of erasing color as well. We spoke to Clare briefly and although this collaboration was probably the least preparation she was more used to having, she was very much agreeable to the project because well, “it’s good to play”. ‘Play’ is just about the perfect word and we are going to be using that more often. You can check out some of Clare’s work here. You can also find a clip of their performance on the SPORE Art Salon youtube page.
After the first act, there was a sketching session with the model of the night, Cher, organizer of the Singapore Slutwalk. For funsies, here’s a drawing that we did ourselves:
You have to admit, those are some nice looking armpits.
There were about 4 sketching intermissions throughout the night, and a quick walk around the room saw sketches ranging from realistic to abstract and it was definitely a fun way to engage the audience in live sketching that might otherwise be considered only for fine art students perusal.
Other acts for the night include singer Iris Judotter and poet Marc Nair who shared his experience in India via photos and poems. We didn’t manage to talk to all the performers, but we did like the various little FAQs after each act and it was nice to see some audience members really try to engage with the performers in a productive discussion.
The final performance for the night was Lea was doing a dance-contortion piece. She admitted that she only started the practice of contortion fairly recently and was really hesitant to put up a piece; since coming to Singapore, she often put off external performing pursuits to wait for “When I’m more bendy, when I’ve lost weight, when I’ve worked for months and months…. Then I’ll do it” etc etc the eternal debate with the perfectionist basically. But one fine day, The Scientist shuffled onto her ipod, for whatever reason - be it nostalgia or a momentary spur of conviction – she texted Olivia and said “YES I’LL DO IT”. Yessssssssssss. Here’s a video of the lovely lady:
As the time of the year to reflect (it was basically the end of the year of 2011. Yes this is a late post) and plus the fact that she was away from home, Lea had much to reflect about relationships, religion and just life in general. She spoke about using The Scientist to look at patterns of behavior that she gets caught in and trying to make amends with the unhealthy patterns or ‘wrongs’ that she might have made. This was reflected in her piece as well, as she used to last verse to repeat phrases from her earlier movement and in literal terms, go back to the start and regroup. We really loved Lea’s energy and spirit – always waiting to push herself that much further, to immerse herself, to have a little bit of fun. Did you know that since coming to Singapore she’s started doing stand-up comedy?! Ace.
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Wefoundnothing is unfamiliar with its’ event model, Gilles Larrain’s Art Salon, in New York, which wasn’t too big an issue since the intention was never to form any sort of comparison. Any model should also take into consideration the context they are entering and we are interested to see how the SPORE Art Salon continues to develop its format. The potential is pretty exciting and Singaporeans ought to venture out for a Tuesday night to see where their artists are at.
A shoutout to the lovely BluJazz Café that actually sponsors the space for the Salon, and to the team of SPORE Art Salon, of course. We didn’t go to the last one during CNY, so if anyone has any comments to send in, you know where to reach us. To keep up with them, go to their facebook group or check out their blog.
Holy Smokes! We totally forgot about posting the latest submissions for Haiku Hantam. We don’t have all that many this time (guess no one did us any favours) but hope you enjoy em anyway.
1. (Untitled) I’ll do that for you. So, I could not follow through. To err is human.
2. (Untitled) transactions of the back-scratching nature, are so cold they make me itch
3. (Untitled) I see you driving round town with the girl I love and I’m like haiku
Contributors: 1. Alexander Pope Jr. III (the Third); 2. anon; 3. levy
So we wanted to devote an entire entry to ADVENTURE TIME because, even though it’s slightly out of spirit since we said we wouldn’t do things that are already established, we just fucking love this show… so there. For those who are not yet acquainted with Adventure Time, in a nutshell, it is an animated tv show that follows the adventures of Finn the Dog and Jake the Human.
But we’re not here to talk about episodes per se; we wanted to bring ya’lls attention to the ‘behind-the-scenes’ that the producers/creators have made available to viewers, giving little snippets of the process, and in some cases, take part in them.
On their Frederator page, while you can’t avoid the usual commercial merchandising stuff and fanart (though many are amazing), we really enjoy the Storyboard entries that give us things like the original ideas/inspiration behind characters or storylines, intermediate sketches/actual storyboard work in general or isolated background scenes. The latest post we thought was kinda cool was on their Early Logo Treatments since it’s the kind of work that most viewers don’t necessarily stop to think about.
We also really enjoy visiting songwriter Rebecca Sugar on the www. If you visit her posterous page or her tumblr page, you can find original sketches as well as some original demos for the songs on Adventure Time (for those who don’t know, Adventure Time is wonderfully song-heavy for its’ genre) which is a nice little checkpoint before things actually get aired on the telly.
Basically, it’s great that the creators of adventure time really show a commitment to their process of creating. They are always eager to mix it up such as including a fan(kid) made character or experimenting with gender-swapped episodes. Also, you don’t need to click too many times before you find a wealth of social media sites that let you engage with them or find out bits about their process.
Right so, Cartoon Network has forbidden embedding of any substantial videos so sucks to that. However, clips are very easily found online so just watch a few to humor us : )
Over the past 2.5 months, we sat in the rehearsals of A Map of the Ocean’s Floor (or, AMOTOF), a theater production held in early December 2011 at the IRT. Written by Jess Lewis and directed by herself, Kevin Clark-Ryan and Tessa Treanor, AMOTOF attempts to explore New York City in the late 1970s through dancer Paloma as she negotiates her relationships, her pursuits and ultimately, her life, in the post-Beat Generation era.
Those who attended were given a treat of live jazz music as the band, lead by guitarist/musician Adam Caine, created sweetly appropriate ambience from their little nook on stage for the entire show.
(Photo Credit: Tom Haynes)
Once house doors opened, actors with their constant background presence and milling (none of the actors actually ever left the stage) helped invoke a sense of restlessness. With the aid of puff-puff cigarettes and the bar at the side, audience members had the basic material needed i.e. moke haze, frequent snorting, alcohol (there was a bar right next to the audience) mixed with live music and the actual story/dialogue (duh) to recreate a jazz club scene in the 70s for themselves.
(Photo Credit: Tom Haynes)
Speaking to Jess Lewis, we found out that AMOTOF was based off an episodic poem by theater-maker and poet, Jessica Hagedorn, called “”American Music: A Jazz Suite for Four Poets and Piano”, performed at the Public Theater in early 1980s. As a performing artist herself, Jess was eager to transpose those sentiments into a theater setting while playing with other genres of performing arts. All in all, AMOTOF was a very collaborative project from start to finish.
During the writing process, Jess consulted several people, Hagedorn herself, Brian Brefer (her writing mentor) and her dad (who was incidentally also a performer in the original piece of inspiration!). As the play started being fleshed out, Andrew Jannetti helped with movement ideas and construction of form; Adam synced the band with scenes/actors; and of course, her other two co-directors Tessa and Kevin, were always open to be each other’s eyes and bounce suggestions off each other. This ongoing working and re-working was sometimes hectic, but also appreciated. As Kevin expressed, “If I get stuck in my own head, then my thoughts on a project can get cemented and arthritic. So it’s really valuable to work with other people who keep the ideas fresh and fluid.”
(Photo Credit: Tom Haynes)
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The rehearsal process for any production is always interesting but the “style” or direction that moves the process forth always varies; so far, we have found AMOTOF rehearsals to be perhaps one of the more collaborative productions we’ve sat through.
Most pointedly, the interaction between the musicians and actors introduced such an interesting dynamic that even the directors had to do a double take for a couple of scenes. For the majority of rehearsals, actors had to rehearse without live music and what we had was a normal setup for a theater/play. However, when the band finally joined in with the full cast, a new energy was visibly injected to the stage, something that even the actors expressed themselves. At times, the music ended up altering the mood so drastically that some scenes/direction had to be re-negotiated and actors needed to maneuver around to ensure the ‘right’ message was put across.
The dance components of the show also presented a mini-challenge. Besides getting comfortable with steps, the transition from dancing to tracks played from an ipod to dancing to a live band (and one that often improvises at that) was tricky. That said, it also forced the actors to do more than rigidly repeat steps and instead, really get in touch with the music AND the movement together.
Finally, one process that we at wefoundnothing really enjoyed was the improv exercises that the directors gave to actors. There were movement exercises where actors had to walk in a grid formation and when crossing paths they needed to interact with each other, without speaking, in character. This would be further complicated by ‘missions’ given to each character e.g. make fun of the person you interact with, get the other person to dance etc which basically meant a lot of rolling on the floor, picking up of people, apeing and general prancing.
Another great exercise was one where characters could only talk with questions to each other (such as in Kings/Who’s Line) and for us, this exercise reaped the most insight into each character and really helped to solidify the relationships between characters. We do realize that these exercises may be hard for you to imagine, but we hope you get the gist of it, at least. -
We have since heard whiff from Jess of a possible screenplay and maybe even another play underway involving funny dating stories (?!). Basically, getting to work.
Well, till the next production!
Holler to the rest of the group: Jess as Paloma, Natalie as Victoria, Rowan as Joe, Matt as Grant, Kirk as Michael, Justin & Audra for lights and Zack/Claire for costumes.
Cheesy? Kinda maybe. But we thought it’d be a nice way to say hello to the new year. Check out the Holstee Manifesto here and see what other cool things they have in the works
Basically, everything is still in the works. We’ll check back with these kids the next issue or so and see what next is being changed. But if the energy from the launch party from the editors, writers and attendees alike is any indication, we’re gonna get some buzz going on.
