Kacico Song and Dance Project

When I become a rich patron of the arts someday, who is going to get my money? Dancers, theatre groups, musicians? What about painters and poets? Deciding how I'm going to bless the arts with my theoretical money is a fun way to spend many idle hours.

Maybe if I wave my money around enough I can entice various art groups into unusual collaboratons with each other. Like the one I saw yesterday in an art gallery, called the Kacicio Song and Dance Project.

The Kacico dancers performed alongside local singer/songwriters, like my sister Laura Lisbeth, interpreting their songs through modern dance movements. One of my favorite numbers was Laura's song "Hit the ground running", which was accompanied by a dancer named Tuesday, who spun around and turned and folded and unfolded her body in ways that nicely expressed the feeling and the words of the song.

The most humorous piece was the Duct Tape Song, performed by Dave Patmore. As he sings about having to continuously patch up his life with duct tape, two dancers are wrapped with duct tape by two other dancers. As the song progresses, their movements are increasingly limited, until they are duct-taped to each other, and then ultimately, strapped with duct tape to the floor.

Laura did three songs: Words, Hit the ground running, and Aftermath. Her voice sounded great and it was so cool to see her songs set to dance. And such a rare treat to see the dancers up close. The art gallery was a modest size as most art gallerys are, and those of us in the audience sat on the wood floor, with the dancers careening and undulating just a few yards away. So many intricate movements. You could see they had put a lot of work into the choreography. More collaborations like this, please!

The photo above isn't from yesterday's event, but it is from the Kacico website, and shows some of the dancers who performed in the project.

Also on their website: the announcement of an upcoming event called the 3 C Hour -Creativity+Community+Coffee. Sounds intriguing:

"An hour of communal creativity where creative people from all walks of life are invited to do their creative thing in a common space. Coffee and creativity will flow, and community will be created.

Anyone is encouraged to attend: movers/dancers, writers, visual artists, musicians, architects, engineers, graphic designers, observers, people who meditate, thinkers, and martial artists. Come create, be inspired by others' creativity, meet other creative people, do something different. Silence will be honored in Studio 1 while three other spaces will be available for activities with sound. Coffee and pastries will be available for purchase. Please no shoes on the dance floor."

http://www.kacicodance.org/