A collaborative effort

I've been lucky enough to have been collaborating with various artists, poets, dancers, musicians, and circus performers (no, I'm serious. . .) for years now. My friends and I in Boulder started a collaborative organization called the fuzion project through which we created, produced, directed and performed in a show which fuzed all sorts of genres in very amazing ways. I think my favorite piece of that show was the finale where I got to dance hip-hop with a large group of dancers and recite an original poem while another performer did gymnastics across the stage. It was amazing. And a lot of fun. My friend, Sarah Leversee, continues the legacy of the fuzion project, Boulder through her collaborative organization, Art As Action, which takes performance to another level by donating theproceeds of each show to a philanthropy. She's been quite successful and really has a great thing going.

Sarah's Sister, Jill Leversee, and I have been close friends for years. Jill is an amazing dancer with a very creative and open sensibility. When she lived in Chicago (now she is in Seattle), we collaborated on another show, which was mostly dance and poetry, but also had musicans, martial arts, and photography as some of the showcase items. Another great time, though also a lot of work. I greatly miss collaborating with artists-- for me it is an essential connecting point in my own art-- there's no denying that this creative world truly is a big web. (As a side note, I have many, many left over chapbooks from this performance, which also served as our program. It features amazing poets such as Cole Swensen, Simone Muench, Garin Cyncholl, and Duriel Harris. I'm happy to send these to people who would like one- just send me an email through my blog link on my profile page with your address and I'll happily send you one!)

So when a fellow blogger and newly-made friend of mine, Scott Glassman, agreed to collaborate with me on, well, we're not really sure what yet, but we're collaborating, I was extatic. Right now it looks like an experiment with language and association: check it out here. It's still in it's early stages of infancy, but hopefully it'll keep building. . .and we'll see what it turns into. In many ways, it doesn't really matter what it turns into. What matters is that it pushes me outside of my personal shroud of poetry and opens me to someone elses voice in a very intimate way. I'm excited about the possibilities of this experiment. We'll see where it goes.

(Bottom picture courtesy of Jonathan Friedman)