I've got blog entries this month from two intrepid October artists. Read on! Then come on out to Greenpoint next Sunday OCTOBER 4 at 7pm to catch them in action at Triskelion Arts.
ANTHONY ALTERIO
WAXstaff: If you could only use three words to describe your work, what would they be?
Anthony Alterio: Queer, Spectacle, and Balloons
WS: What part of the creative process do you find most challenging? What do you feel comes easily?
AA: Making work that is useful and contributes to dance. Making a mess on stage.
WS: Where do you find inspiration for your work? Or what motivates your work?
AA: I find inspiration from friends/enemies, concerts/festivals, and randomness/boredom. I get motivated by queer art and nostalgia.
WS: Share a funny anecdote from a rehearsal or performance.
AA: I was in a Michelle Ellsworth piece and we had to shoot a gun with blanks at people and then they would fall once "shot". My gun did not go off, so I went over and tried to shoot the person with a finger gun over and over, and she never fell and looked at me and literally muttered "WTF are you doing?" I stopped and then just laid down. It is funny now, but the first time I had ever experienced a prop malfunction on stage, which lead to my inspiration of props and chance in my work.
WS: What specific ideas or elements in your work would you hope to receive feedback on?
AA: I would love to receive feedback on how the piece made the audience feel or what emotions came up during the piece.
WS: What’s the last book you read? Movie you watched? Trip you took?
AA: Book: The Art of Queer Failure by Judith (Jack) Halberstam. Movie: Trainwreck, Trip: Chicago to work with Darrell Jones.
WS: Anything else you want to share with us?
AA: I am really excited and honored to perform in WAXworks. I spent a lot of my younger years trying to escape queer life. Today I embrace my sexuality and gender with this piece, and it gives me pleasure to perform this queer work that questions gender/sexuality social norms.
THEA BAUTISTA
WAXstaff: If you could only use three words to describe your work, what would they be?
Thea Bautista: Powerful, Esthetic, Poetic
WS: What part of the creative process do you find most challenging? What do you feel comes easily?
TB: The hardest for me is to start from scratch, it is sometime very hard to turn on your brain and start producing a lot of new ideas... Once you have made the first steps though, everything seems to come so much more easily to your mind. I love it!
WS: Where do you find inspiration for your work? Or what motivates your work?
TB: My inspiration comes from shows that marked me in my life or simply shows that I've seen recently. Sometime it can even come from a very short video, a sentence that someone says. What helps me a lot in getting inspired is also to have a precise idea of what I want to say to the audience or to have a particular subject I want to investigate.
WS: Share a funny anecdote from a rehearsal or performance.
TB: Often, when I'm very focused on steps and showing new movements I forget a few counts. So for instance I would go 1,2,3,4,7,8 until I realize something is not working as it was supposed to. And usually, dancers notice it before me!
WS: Do you have any secret talents?
TB: Not that I now, I think I know them all !
WS: What specific ideas or elements in your work would you hope to receive feedback on?
TB: I would love to receive feedback on the choreographic work I'm showing and I would be interested to know what people felt seeing my dance.
WS: What’s the last book you read? Movie you watched? Trip you took?
TB: I am currently reading a great french book (I'm french) called "All men are mortal" from Simone de Beauvoir. It is about a men that accepted the controversial proposition of living forever...