Each and every day, I lose myself in the immediacy of the moment, find myself in the joy of the movement. Each and every day, I learn more and more...and, within that new knowledge, realize that I have so much farther to travel.

Shallom Johnson is a contemporary dance artist, visual artist and freelance writer based in Vancouver BC. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Contemporary Dance from Simon Fraser University, and has been active in the Vancouver dance community as a choreographer, performer, and instructor since her graduation in 2004.

Shallom is interested in art in public spaces, site-specific performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community involvement. Her street-based artwork, performance and photography examines and documents who gets to make art, where it gets made, and where/how the creative process and product is viewed. In the future, she hopes to explore this theme further via new media and technologies, new methods of creation, collaboration and community engagement.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Site Specific Institute: Skateboard Dances

Elizabeth Johnson and I have been working on a skateboarding section for the Dance Exchange's site specific institute. The skaters we are working with are slalom skateboarders, and they are really really good at what they do. We are throwing some dancers into the mix, who will be acting as cones for the skaters to go around.

Our first session was today - we set a sequence of passes for the skaters to do, a sequence of movements for the dancers to do, and are still trying to figure out how it will all work together. Timing will be key.

We are putting this on at the Takoma Park Community Center - in the lower parking lot, which is mainly used by the police cars (the police station is on the lower level of the building). We talked with some of the cops today and they were just about as accommodating as possible, even offering to shut down the lot for us to use on the day of the show. I never thought I would see the day when the cops would give up their space to some skateboarders....the power of dance, people! It brings communities together.

Here are some pictures from our rehearsal today. The skaters are Mike and Earl, from the DC Outlaws. They just returned from the World Championships and we feel very lucky to have them participating in this performance! We will have two more skaters and six dancers working together for this section.


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