Inspired by the life, art and words of Pop Artists Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol, this project explores the role of art, artists and art dealers in contemporary society. This contemporary dance performance incorporates installation, digital projections and three live performers. The performance would be a site-specific and audience interactive development of the Coffee with Jeff and Andy Project. In December 2011, the concert dance development of this project will premier at the Eureka Dance Festival at Dance Place, NE, DC.

The site-specific installation will consist of nine 38” X 30” picture frames configured to create a small gallery setting. Three of the frames will display projected digital images of art works created by visual artist Brian Filipowich that were inspired by the works of Warhol and Koons. Three more frames will present the live performances of the dancers, who will explore movements generated from themes of consumption, obsession and facade. The remaining three frames will display mirrors which will reflect the viewer’s own image, causing the creation of their own portrait. Audience participation is incorporated through the frames exhibiting mirrors, and also through interactions between the three performers and the viewer.

Which of these frames contains Art? And who makes this decision?
As a series, the frames create a Pop Up Gallery where all the images and performances are presented with in frames, thereby depicting them as art. The project explores the notion of who provides the commercial value of art, and how that in turn is reflected with in the art world.

This Is My Block is an installation of temporary designed spaces of public posters, digital rotating advertising slides, and banners. We will displace trivial and fear- or insecurity-based ad spaces by asking prompts that engage residents in visualizing more relevant spaces that foster dialog within the neighborhood. These posters and spaces will then reveal and advertise what people love about the place where they live and work, what they'd want to change, what inspires them to engage, and why they stay. The project will be a combination of pre-made designs and designs created onsite in collaboration with the public, for the public, and in response to specific neighborhood characteristics, needs, and ideas.

Throughout the day we will ask passersby and neighborhood residents to participate in this interactive installation, by asking them prompts like:

I love my neighborhood because…
On my block I can see…
In _______, we're famous for…
I wish my neighborhood...

Residents can respond to a prompt, and we will photograph each resident with their answer written on designed prompt chalkboards. We will also create instant designed panels of responses if they wish to remain anonymous and add it to the revolving ad spaces. There will also be room on temporary signage and posters to write in answers and ideas by hand.

http://jennacrowder.com
http://keithlanephotography.com

“Spectroscopy” is a 360-degree interactive performance installation featuring videos submitted during DC Week by attendees. Dancers will perform around a 12’ x 10’ projection screen, integrating the dancer’s shadows into the projection as they perform. Wearing costumes made of long swathes of fabric inspired by traditional Chinese water sleeves and modern dance pioneer Loie Fuller’s full-bodied capes, the dancers will be transformed into a projection surface themselves. Videos submitted by DC Week attendees will be mixed with a real-time video stream of the performance, resulting in a textured multi-dimensional fusion of digital media and live performance. This performative refraction is inspired by the image of a prism dispersing white light into the rainbow of its fundamental colors.

The performance will be a 15-minute looping program with a 5-minute break in between. Funds will go towards performance fees, projection screen construction, and costumes:
$250 performance fee: $50 per performer for 5 performers.
$100 for projection screen: $60 lumber. $40 for fabric.
$150 fabric for costumes: 15 yds of silk chiffon at $10 per yard.

Video links:
Example of live-feed video mixing: http://www.michelineheal.com/opimprov.html
Example of traditional Chinese water sleeves (start at 2:17): http://vimeo.com/28325373
Example of Loie Fuller cape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIrnFrDXjlk
For other examples of choreography, please visit http://www.mich-mash.com

So many people, so little time, right? Not any more. The twisted geniuses at Pepys Inc., creators of e-Geaux, are proud to announce Party Peeple, the life-changing mobile application that is sure to be the life of your next party.

Party Peeple is a new mobile app plus live interactive performance experience developed specifically for DC Week. This experience is based on e-Geaux (beta), the hit Capital Fringe show which has been featured in numerous publications including the Washington Post, DCist, Washington City Paper, and nationally on NPR’s All Things Considered and Devon Smith's 24 Usable Hours.

But what does it do? OK DC Week, let's talk about what parties are really for: meeting up and hooking up. But it's such a pain to figure out who you might have a connection with, or, more importantly, who you don't (wouldn't want to accidentally hook up with your best friend's cousin!) Cut out all of that inefficient talking with Party Peeple. DC Week party-goers will opt-in with their Facebook account to “peep” their fellow attendees and leverage e-Geaux’s infallible social media artificial intelligence to let them know who to friend, flirt, and f*$%. Shy? No problem! Party Peeple gives you conversation starters, creates flirty tweets for you and helps you find the circumstances that will give you the best odds of success. No need for you to think, Party Peeple just works.

Party Peeple will explore the assumptions individuals make based on others’ social media data (and how true are those assumptions), online identity vs. in-life identity and issues of privacy and boundaries. In addition to the mobile app experience, participants can visit an accompanying installation, modeled after a trade show kiosk, for the interactive performance component of piece which will be created using our own method of "data improv" (improvised content based on live data collected at the event).

The grant will be used to purchase materials for the kiosk, technical requirements (including web hosting and setting up a temporary wireless network at the event), marketing/promotional materials and stipends for developers and artists.

The Many Facets of DC exhibit will explore multiple perspectives and representations of the District of Columbia through a colorful presentation of hard numbers.  

Just blocks from the Mall and the monuments, the typical postcard scenes of nation's capital dissolve into a rich panorama which reflects the human condition and American life much more accurately.  Washington DC is home to large and growing immigrant populations and a revolving door of motivated young educated professionals.  In one of the wealthiest cities in the world, one in five households live in poverty. New farmers' markets pop up every year, offering organic lettuce for $11 a pound -- still, one in eight households struggle with hunger.  Developers fill sparkling new condominium buildings every month, yet even residents with stable jobs cannot afford to rent run-down one-bedrooms.  In the shadow of the nation's first "green" baseball stadium, tons upon tons of sewage and toxic chemicals swirl down the Anacostia River into the Chesapeake Bay.

The Many Facets of DC seeks to capture diverse and often disparate perspectives and bring them into the same field of view.  Computer-generated images, including data maps, infographics, and photographs, that present a mosaic of DC life and culture will be placed at one end of two 4-foot-long kaleidoscopes (already built by art and culture collective Meso Creso; facebook.com/meso-creso) sitting side-by-side.  On the other end, two small video cameras will capture the kaleidoscopic images and render them over an outline of the District painted on a nearby wall.

The exhibit will challenge installation participants to look at the nation's capital from many perspectives at once, and better understand the complex dynamics at play just beyond white marble statues and museums.

As part of the DCWEEK Closing Party on 11.11.11, acclaimed conceptual artist Brian Feldman will present the DC premiere of his interactive show “txt,” where a mysterious character named txt sits behind a desk and recites absurdist dialogue written anonymously by the audience via Twitter using their own iPhone, Android or BlackBerry device and their favorite Twitter app, delivered with corresponding emotion.

During this 30 minute show, the audience signs in to protected Twitter accounts and anonymously tweets whatever they would like to have txt recite. Anger, fear, intrigue, happiness and even childish play collide in a myriad of moments pieced together from the innermost thoughts harvested from the minds of an otherwise sanguine-looking audience.

With this $1,000 grant, “txt” will be performed five times (at 8:10, 9:10, 10:10, 11:10 and 12:10) in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage.

All attendees will receive a commemorative 1 inch round button and a PDF script, emailed to them following the show.

Since its February 2009 premiere at The Kerouac Project of Orlando, “txt” has been performed at BarCamp Orlando, Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Telephone Museum at Art & History Museums, Maitland and Urban ReThink, promising to make audiences roll in the aisles with laughter, cringe, and recount nostalgic moments from the safe cover of an anonymous Twitter handle.

--- About the Artist ---
Brian Feldman is an award-winning conceptual artist. The recipient of the 2011 State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship, he is best known for leaping off of a ladder 366 times over 24 hours (@LeapYearDay) and eating dinner on stage with his real life family over 40 times (@FeldmanDynamic), in addition to over 100 other projects he has presented through Brian Feldman Projects, one of America’s premiere presenters of experimental time-based art since August 2003. http://j.mp/bfp_fb (Facebook) http://j.mp/bf_tw (@BrianFeldman) http://brianfeldman.com/projects

--- Quotes ---
“Grab your smartphone and warm up those fingertips because this is your chance to share – or even better, have spoken aloud by a local notable – pretty much any random, opinionated or outlandish thought you can imagine (in fewer than 140 characters, of course).” (@OrlandoWeekly)
http://calendar.orlandoweekly.com/Events/e10316/Txt

“I found myself laughing louder than ever at this performance. The uninhibited mind is a strange and quirky beast... txt was a Mad Lib with an emphasis on Mad.” (@AnalogArtist)
http://www.urbansketchers.org/2009/03/txt-audience.html

“txt held up a mirror, and in it we see the promise of instant total communications, and how it will kill us all, unexpectedly.” (@ink19mag)
http://blogs.ink19.com/archikulture/2011/07/20/txt-3/

--- Links ---
http://brianfeldman.com/txt
http://twitter.com/txt_show

‘Webs We Weave’ is an ongoing dance and performance project, initiated in the Fall of 2010 at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. 'Webs We Weave' explored how we use social media to extend and enhance bodily awareness, themes of agency and control of virtual identities, and the relationships between self and other in the context of physical and virtual space.

Visual artists and choreographers have already begun investigating the various relationships between corporeal bodies and virtual identities. Webs We Weave continues that investigation by questioning the agency of identity in virtual spaces and the choreographic methods for exploring a digital space.

The first iteration of 'Webs We Weave' was a site-specific multimedia experience, combining projections, laptops, cellphones, and audience participation. This project, if funded, will continue to explore these themes. However, instead of creating a piece that comments on social media, it is now possible to make a piece that incorporates live-action communication using mobile devices or wireless hotspots. Through RFID (Radio frequency identification) tags, computer programming, and a Facebook profile, one could translate a dancer’s movement through space into computable actions on the internet, creating brand new relationships to explore and analyze.

Social web-based technologies are the communication of the future. Not only are they a rich source of creative inspiration for artists, they are vital for artists to understand, challenge, and research in order to stay relevant in the digital revolution.

For more information on 'Webs We Weave', visiting http://www.devonhopkins.com/dance/

By scattering a series of digitally imbued tin can telephones—capable of both recording and playback—throughout the closing party, this project seeks to document and share the collective memory of the conference by providing a playful forum for communal discussion. Each tin can will serve as an interactive interview and listening station where attendees are offered a means to contribute their thoughts and impressions, prompted by questions about DC Week’s core themes. In the context of one of these themes, mobility, the conception of a phone has become more of a data hub than a means of conversation. Yet, the simple image of a tin can telephone symbolizes the connection at the core of the telephone’s revolution- communication unhindered by the limits of physical space. The audio of the interview material can be rebroadcast throughout the network of tin can telephones and hosted online to generate a repository of oral history that can be used by bloggers, journalists, and digital passersby to materialize the live impact of the gathering.

The Kool Raunch collective would like to present a elaborately costumed evolving tableau. Drawing from the antiquated form of Tableau Vivant (living picture), Kool Raunch's 10 members would be physically moved over an extended period, following a story, by ballet dancer Sebastian Rousseau who will choreograph the movements of the piece. Aesthetically speaking, the initial unaffected tableau will mimic the sublime qualities of biblical renderings in the Italian Renaissance as a template to be manipulated by Rousseau's movements. he will literally dance with the statuesque members of the tableau as if interacting physically with and inside a canonical piece of art.

The FreeSpace Collective will set up a video camera and a projector, the video camera will constantly be recording and archiving the video in three minute intervals. From there we will mix the videos together on the spot, overlapping them in a loop. So at any one time the viewer will see themselves live, overlapping the space mixed with the three minutes before they were there, and the three minutes before that, and the three minutes before that. Four videos will be overlapped at all times, creating a recent history of the interactions in the space. The clips will then be archived online, in an evolving recent history data base.
The project is both interactive and static. The viewers interact by seeing themselves in the video, and also realize they are presented with the people who interacted before them. The ultimate goal is to make the viewer aware of the spaces they are in, and the unintentional interactions they have created.

This is inspired by the 48 Hour Film Project, 30-40 individual musicians will be selected from the DMV area. The focus will be on traditional coffeehouse instruments such as acoustic guitars, bass, vocals and percussion as well as brass, woodwind, and string instruments. Instruments that can be set up and torn down quickly, like at an open mic.

The night before musicians will be randomly selected and put into groups of 3-4, creating brand new bands who have arguably never played together before.

The musicians will have approximately 24 hours to collaborate before having to perform a 15 minute concert at the DC Week Closing Party.
A panel of judges, made up of local music industry professionals will judge each act on their sound, performance quality, inspiration, and level of collaboration. A prize will be awarded to the group(s) with the highest score.

In addition the concert's audience will be encouraged to cast votes on different superlatives such as tightest sound, best groove, most creative, and funniest act.

This challenge will inspire ties between musicians in the DMV scene challenging artists to cross cultures and styles to create something they never would have imagined creating. It will emphasis how important cooperation, creativity, and community is in the modern DC area music scene, while spotlighting the talent in the region.