Next Photo Sessions Scheduled - and installation is up!
By jjtiziou | June 17, 2008
The dates for the next round of photo sessions are set. We’ll be photographing anyone who’d like to dance on:
- Friday Sept 12th ( 12pm-7pm )
- Saturday Sept 13th ( 10am-6pm )
- Sunday Sept 14th ( 10am-6pm )
Mark your calendars, and please spread the word to everyone that you know that dances, and have them sign up. Much like last time, we’re going to need a lot of volunteer support to make these things happen, so if you’d like to help, please let me know!
These photo sessions will be happening in conjunction with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. If you’re not familiar with the festivals, check out their website, as there are loads of great performances happening in the first two weeks of september.
Also, there’s an installation of images from the preliminary photo sessions now up in the old EMS storefront on 36th street, between Walnut and Sansom. In addition to the prints, there are projections in the upstairs windows by night, starting at 9pm. (There’s a bug with one of the computers, but I should get it fixed tomorrow) - Please tell your friends to swing by and check it out!
Special thanks are in order:
- to Greg Finnson, Ana B. Hernández, Joe Barber, James Peniston and Andrea Alessi for their help in setting up the installation.
- to Doug Smullens, Greg Finnson, Joe Barber and Stephen Fisher for loaning equipment.
- to Edward Epstein, Charles Tyson, the University City Arts Leauge and Studio 34 for supporting the installation.
- to the University of Pennsylvania and Eastern Mountain Sports for the use of the space.
- And many thanks to the rest of you for your support!
-jj
Topics: General Information, Photo session details, Photos | Comments Off
Installation starting next week + more
By jjtiziou | June 6, 2008
So, we’re moving forward with an installation on 36th street in a two story vacant storefront, thanks to the kindness of Eastern Mountain Sports and the University of Pennsylvania.
I’ll be setting it up on thursday June 12, and could probably use a hand or two, so if you’d like to help, let me know.
I’m also finalizing plans for some more photo sessions in September in conjunction with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. Right now, the plan is to use Studio 34 as a location again, but we’ll only be able to use it for one weekend. If you know of another space that would like to host a series of photo sessions, please have them contact me ASAP.
Also, the individual images from the first photo sessions are starting to get out there. You can find one of the HPM images of Hua Hua in an exhibit at the Off The Wall Gallery in Dirty Frank’s at 13th and Pine through Aug 1. One lucky person picked up a print of Nyla that was donated to a benefit for City Kitties and Project SAFE. I’ll always be looking for more ways to share these images with the rest of the city, so again, if you know of folks who’d like to exhibit them, send them my way…
Last note: Make sure that you’re getting the HPM emails!
Some people have signed up but neglected to click on the confirmation, and other people are probably losing the emails to their spam filter. Make sure to sign up, and click that confirmation once you get it- then be sure that “announce@howphillymoves.org” is allowed in your inbox.
Topics: General Information, Help needed | Comments Off
What could have been, and what’s next…
By admin | May 14, 2008
So, we found out this morning that we didn’t get the SEPTA commission, which is a bit of a bummer. But hardly the end of this project…
The 46th street installation was the catalyst for this idea, but now that we’ve proven that the community photoshoots are logistically feasible, we’re going to be looking for other avenues for these photo sessions, and other venues to share the images with the city.
There are a couple things in the works, and definitely will be more photo sessions happening in September. So if you’re not already on the mailing list, hit the Sign Up link and stay tuned…
Many thanks again to everyone who’s helped so far, especially to Mark Monteith and Jay Villa for architectural and engineering support, Anna Drozdowski for great last minute advice, James and Ana for the last minute model building help, and of course all of the volunteers and dancers.
Here’s what could have been…
Stay tuned for the next evolution of How Philly Moves…
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raising a beautiful army of volunteers - you guys rock!
By jjtiziou | May 8, 2008
Hi there. Have I mentioned that you guys are *amazing*?
The level of support that this project has been getting from the community is astounding. Not to mention beautiful. The volunteers that helped make the first two photo sessions happen were already pretty fantastic. Now picture this:
James and I were poring over our proposal, trying to make the budget work. Our visions for the space were still coming in way over budget because of the expensive materials that we’re planning on working with. So we decided to cut our salaries pretty drastically and make it a labor of love kind of project, but that alone wasn’t enough. So then we started asking ourselves if we really needed to budget fifteen thousand dollars for union labor installers to actually get our piece in the station…
We knew that we could rally some volunteers, but we figure that to convince SEPTA that it was reasonable to do this thing with volunteers, we should get some relatively solid commitments from people who were professionals, used to working with power tools on scaffolding… and we needed to get that list by the next day if we wanted to make things happen for our budget. This is where my little love affair with the fringe festival tech staff comes in handy…
I sent out an email appeal in the late afternoon, asking if people could give tentative commitments. I figured that if we could get maybe fifteen people to say they were game for it, it wouldn’t be too hard to assemble a good crew of at least six folks for the main part of the installation in the wintertime.
Within a few hours, we had our crew. Emails, text messages and phone calls continued through till 1:30am, and have kept coming in today. As of this evening, we’ve got forty people on that list! This level of response and support obliterates any doubt that we’ll be able to pull this off. And of course, if you know anyone else that would be interesting in being part of the installation crew, please have them contact me. It won’t hurt to have even more people on that list.
Wow. Did I mention that I love you guys?
Thank you!
-jj
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The proposal is in!
By jjtiziou | May 8, 2008
We turned in the final proposal packet today, so that’s one more step accomplished. It had a few grammatical mistakes in it ( unfortunately, we’d already printed it out and assembled the 8 packets before our friend The Angry Grammarian caught the minor issues ) - but honestly, a little misplaced comma shouldn’t make a difference in the worlds of dance, photography and sculpture that we’re operating in.
Our proposal has shifted a good bit since our first conceptions. It’s been an interesting evolution… The main major difference is that our final proposal is totally static, with no digital component. Well, I wouldn’t say “static” - The images are pretty dyamic, and the installation will be awesome. But the images won’t be changing (in this space, anyways..)
It became clear as we researched that the digital installation really wasn’t suitable for the space and budget- once you start looking at individual projectors that cost $150,000 and only last a few years, a permanent installation gets pretty ridiculously over budget pretty fast. The maintenance infrastructure was also a prohibitively complicated thing for this installation.
One of the positive things about this change, is that we get an installation that’s guaranteed to last with no problems. The ceramic enamel on steel panels that well use will last a lifetime. The downside is that while we’ll be representing a super huge cross section of dance in the city, we won’t be able to physically depict thousands of dancers as we’d hoped. In this particular installation, anyways…
The exciting thing is that “How Philly Moves” is spinning off into it’s own project, and has the potential to start with the 46th street station and go in many directions beyond that. We’re still interested in doing a digital architectural installation, so we’ll be looking for another venue for that. (We could put a big LED wall on the side of a building, or a series of TVs in a storefront. Or both!) We’re also talking about doing a series of smaller installations in parks around the city. Maybe partner with Mural Arts to do a series of murals… As we build this image collection, they could be shared with the community in so many ways. If you’ve got a creative suggestion as to how you’d like to see this project evolve, let us know!
Next tuesday are the presentations to the panel. I’m not quite sure how long it will take them to decide after that, but regardless, we’re going to keep moving forward with this. We’re definitely hosting a photo session or several in september as part of Fringe Festival. The good folks at The Rock School have tentatively offered a space for us for that shoot. We’re also talking to everyone at First Person Arts about hosting a photo session in conjunction with one of their salons. Keep an eye out for updates, and wish us luck for next tuesday!
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A special shout out to the volunteers…
By jjtiziou | May 5, 2008
I just wanted to say an extra big ‘Thank you!’ to the many people who have been volunteering their time to help this project.
It’s been quite an adventure for me, going from more of an event documenter role to being an event producer. Having a reliable and friendly team supporting everything was really key to pulling off these two photo sessions smoothly.
I’m not the only one who appreciated it - here’s what some of the dancers had to say:
The entire operation was terrific. Your volunteers made us feel really comfortable and took great care of us.
and
I just wanted to thank you again i had a great experience…the shoot was run very efficiently..
As this project continues to evolve, we’re going to keep needing a lot of help from the community, which is why it’s exciting to hear things like this from the dancers:
“This was a wonderful experience for us both and an actual “art happening” for us.”
“Ps we both would like to volunteer for any future shoots as workers” … ”I envied you and your helpers experience.”
If you haven’t already signed up as a volunteer, you can do it on the sign up form. If you don’t want to dance, you can skip most of the form, and just check the “volunteer” box at the bottom… This project is going to move forward even if we don’t get the SEPTA commission, and we’re going to need your help!
As we finalize our proposal details, I’d especially like to thank Mark Monteith and his friend Jay for their support in the architectural and structural engineering departments, as well as all of my friends who will be helping read over our proposal and budget before we turn them in.
Topics: General Information, Help needed | Comments Off
Photos from second photo session!
By jjtiziou | May 5, 2008
Below are some images from our second photo session last week- sorry to take so long to get them posted, but I had to run up to New Haven to teach some workshops, and James and I have been mostly focusing on preparing the rest of our final proposal details…
The photography part of this thing is pretty easy- it’s the budgeting, structural engineering and other details that are complicated… everything’s due on thursday and we present next tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed for us!
Many thanks again to all of the wonderful people who came out to share their dancing with us!
Furthermore, many thanks to our crew of volunteers who helped run the day:
Allison Heishman, Ellen Reynolds, Krista Billings, David Konyk, Chantal Fletcher, Page Widick, Ana B. Hernández, Meg Foley, Elrey Belmonti, Robert Helms, Aseel Rashid, Stephanie 99, Alana Mettle and Greg Finnson.
Topics: Photos | Comments Off
preview from second photo session
By jjtiziou | April 29, 2008
Below’s another animated preview from the second photo session. It’ll give you a quick sense of the wonderful variety of beautiful dancers that participated in our second photo session.
Edited images will be coming soon!
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second preliminary session: done!
By jjtiziou | April 27, 2008
The second photo session went *great*
Many thanks to the amazing volunteers who ran it, and wonderful dancers who came to move for us. It was an intense day, especially the latter half, and I’m pretty freaking sore from chasing after you all.
I’ll have photos online soon - and then we have to move along with the rest of the logistical sides of the project- there’s a lot to be done that isn’t photography in order to make this move forward- and we’ll keep needing your help - so stay tuned!
-jj
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photo session tomorrow at CEC (3500 Lancaster Ave)
By jjtiziou | April 26, 2008
Sunday’s photo shoot will be at the CEC - 3500 Lancaster Avenue. Click here for a map and directions.
*UPDATE* - we’ve already got a pretty packed schedule for tomorrow, so I wouldn’t recommend coming as a walk up unless you’re very patient, and don’t mind sitting around and maybe not being photographed. We’ve got nearly 45 dancers coming through already, and we *have* to be done by 5, as someone else is using the space after us. It’s going to be pretty wild!
Dancers that have already been scheduled- please remember to show up at least 20 mins before your timeslot to get signed in and warmed up.
Thanks to everyone who came to the impromptu exhibit last night!
-jj
Topics: General Information | Comments Off