The last day of our stay at the APAP conference was, comparably, relatively laid back and calm. We were, first and foremost, able to sleep in, which was incredibly nice. After days of having to be up and ready by eight in the morning, it was lovely to not have to meet until quarter of ten in the morning, especially when it was not to go to any sessions, but was in order to go to the Here Performing Arts Center, which was my personal favorite venue for artistic work on our trip.

            Here Performing Arts Center is a unique place that hosts artists in residence, and they host an event called the Hybrid Brunch, where the artists in residence perform a showcase of their works either in three-minute pitches or in fifteen-minute excerpt. We saw six of the artists’ showcases and there were three that really stood out to me in particular. The first was a piece by these two artists, who happen to also be a same-sex married couple. They were creating a piece for each state, based on a same-sex couple from that particular state. There was a proposed performance aspect in their work, but the part that really hit me was the portrait work they had been doing. They would take a map of the state and then cut out a portrait of the couple, leaving the rivers and waterways intact, creating a vein-like look. For some reason, this piece had me on the verge of tears, and the maps themselves were beautiful as well. This piece was a part of a greater series of work that the artists had been cultivating at Here for the past few years. The next piece, and my personal favorite, was entitled “Science Fair”, a piece by mezzo-soprano Hei-Ting Chinn, who performed two excerpts of her work. Accompanied only by a pianist, she had slides of various mammals from the Americas projected on the screen, while she sang random facts about them. This humorous piece was followed by an equally entertaining piece in which she sang the ingredients of a Twinkie, again utilizing slides. The last piece, which was simply hilarious, was entitled The Pigeoning, which featured a two-part presentation. The first part was a comical “Safety in the Office” video, filmed to parody the awful 80’s workplace videos on office protocol. Following the video, two puppeteers manipulated the figure of a man sitting at a desk in said office. The piece was a comical look at Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and utilized really innovative puppetry. Following this section, the puppet moved to a bench, and began to interact with a pigeon puppet. I feel like I should mention that the pigeon was wearing a diving helmet, by the way. This piece was the crowd pleaser of the Hybrid Brunch showcases, and it really was a great experience.

            Following the Hybrid Brunch, we made our way to the Expo Hall for the last time. Immediately, Mary Marcil and I, in our true team style, made a very quick dash to our tables of interest, a large portion of which were the groups that had performed at GlobalFest the night before. Once we got pricing, we decided to split up. She had to gather footage of the Expo Hall for the trip, and I needed to plan out prospective seasons. I headed up to the fourth floor, which had showcase rooms and a very nice, secluded, lounge area. I spent the remainder of our time up here, as it was a nice place to think and hammer out different ideas for seasons, as that was our final project. While the last day was a shorter Expo Hall time for me, it was still a very productive one, and it also allowed me the opportunity to see the agents and representatives at their highest level of urgency, as it was the last day and they were all attempting to sell. This, in and of itself, was incredibly eye opening.

            After the Expo Hall, we cleaned up and went to the family style Italian restaurant Carmine’s, which I must say, was the largest amount of food I have ever seen. Not only was it amazing, but we were joined by two MCLA alum as well as two members of the Advancement Office. This made the entire dinner into a much more community based event. Following Carmine’s we headed over to Here again, to see a performance of Sumeida’s Song, an hour and a half long opera, written in English, performed as part of the Prototype festival. The set, pictured below, was amazing, and that, combined with the sheer power and spectacle of the material made quite the impact. A member of our group was reduced to tears by the beauty of the event. Following this, we all took a photo outside of Here and headed back to pack, get ready, and leave in the morning.

            The drive was successful! We arrived in North Adams in time for people to make their 11 AM classes. Here is where I sign off as blogger for the 2013 APAP trip. Thank you so much to Jonathan Secor, Lisa Donovan, and the entire group of students who went on the trip. This was a truly changing experience. Goodbye!

GlobalFest was, for the majority of the group, the best part of the entire APAP trip. Essentially, this is a festival that featured twelve bands on three stages, each on a separate floor of Webster Hall.

            The three floors each had their own distinct feel, and the atmosphere really added a lot to the experience. The bottom floor, in the basement, was called The Studio. This was a tightly packed dance floor with a relatively small stage. At any given time, the audience members were no more than forty feet away from the stage, which was an incredibly intimate scenario. The Marlin Room, which was on the “second floor”, aka ground floor, was much more of a club setting, with a few tables, a bar, and a large space for standing room/dancing. Lastly, the grand ballroom was a massive empty space with a very large stage, encircling the entire top of the room was the unofficial “fourth floor”, which was the VIP section. As APAP members, we were allowed access to this level as well, which was a really great experience, as it allowed us to take breaks from the crowd to take a breather, so to speak. My personal favorite area was the studio, as I tend to like smaller venues, but all three were amazing, and added their own elements to the performances.

            Now, I did not see enough of every band to give a detailed description of each set, so I will just touch on the sets that I saw in their entirety, or almost entirety. The first performer that I saw was in The Studio. It was guitarist Stephane Wrembel, who is most well known for being a contributor to the soundtracks of Woody Allen’s films. Another guitarist, as well as a bassist and a drummer accompanied him. The speed, as well as the complicated nature of the music, made this an exciting opening act for those of us that were watching. The film buffs among us also greatly enjoyed hearing him play the main themes to movies such as Midnight in Paris and Vicky Christina Barcelona. Following him, we bounced around, visiting various acts. While many of the groups were good, another real standout was LoJo, a multi-ethnic group based in France. A larger ensemble, the most impressive members were the two female singers, who, I learned later, are sisters. They added percussion elements and sang in harmony, which was beautiful. The leader of the band, an older man who played the piano, among other instruments, was also quite impressive. All in all, the night was full of bands that truly impressed.

Now, however, is time for the paragraph devoted to the last two bands of the night. Like Timur and the Dime Museum from a few nights ago, both these bands were highlights of the trip for many artists. The first band is Mucca Pazza, a “punk rock marching band”. The second is A Tribe Called Red, which is a Native American electronic group who combine traditional pow wow music with the sounds of the electronic music scene. Mucca Pazza, who performed in the grand ballroom, entered in style, with a parade line through the audience. The split and ended up interacting a lot with the audience on this first song, which immediately made us like them even more. Accompanied by their punk rock cheerleaders, they took to the stage and provided one of the most amazing live shows I have seen. A completely instrumental group, they showed that you don’t need lyrics or vocalists to be a top-notch punk group. My favorite part of their performance was the dancing of the cheerleaders. Deliberately ridiculous, it added a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness in their work, which made them an immediate crowd pleaser. Another hilarious bit about the cheerleaders is that the pompoms were made of caution tape. The bandleader, who serves as the tuba player as well, was an incredibly charismatic leader who was able to make it seem like the group was being spontaneous. The main thing about Mucca Pazza, and probably why I like them so much, is that they seemed to be having fun themselves, which I feel is incredibly important. Tribe Called Red, performing in The Studio, was another highlight of my evening. I am not, usually, a fan of heavy electronic music, so I was greatly surprised to discover that I really loved this group. The incorporation of the Native American style of music, provided by sampling, as well as by two guest vocalists (both women), added to the feel of the music, which was a very new and innovative feel. The three DJs were top notch, and the entire crowd was jamming along with them before long. The coolest part of this show, though, was the fact that people of all ages were enjoying it. A highlight for me was witnessing a couple who were in their early to mid sixties dancing along like the rest of us, who are much closer to the “target age” for this kind of music. I honestly found that to be awesome, and incredibly unexpected, as most of the time, you are aware of who your audience is. That being said, I have learned that at least one person is reading this blog, which has me incredibly excited. As the first person I know to be reading this, a big shout out to Mrs. Cohen, mother of one of the students on this trip. Thank you for sticking with this!
            GlobalFest was an amazing evening, and a great segue into our last day of this trip to NYC. Stay tuned for the final installment and enjoy the pictures below! For more pictures, check out the flickr account. I may also post a purely picture entry after tomorrow’s report on the final day. 

Today was, by comparison, a fairly short day. We only had one conference session to attend, and spent much of our day at events outside of the Hilton, which was a nice change in pace.

The first, and only session, which I attended today was based around the idea of creating alternative venues for your art, particularly when it comes to performance. Hosted by Alan Brown, a marketing expert who had taken a year off to write a paper on the ideas of site specificity and venue, the session was, by far, the least formal one I had been to this trip. His main thought was that setting is growing in importance to the audience, especially with the “younger” audiences, which he classified as ages twenty through fifty. After giving a brief overview of what he considered alternative venues, he opened the discussion to the audience, asking what sort of nontraditional venues they used. There were several interesting examples, such as a group who performs a concert series at a local Apple Store, complete with dancers and projections, an orchestra who performs in abandoned industrial parks, and, perhaps the most exciting and offbeat, an Australian group who create a hybrid music festival/car show, with the artists performing from the backs of large trucks. These examples really stirred the audience, as these people were getting at the central idea of alternative venue work. The speaker, Alan Brown, did stress, however, the importance of making sure the space is the right choice for your work, and that you aren’t just throwing it tin a random space, in an attempt to be edgy. “Something beautiful can happen when you make an alignment between the art and the setting”, said Brown. In a moment that was particularly exciting to me, he gave a huge shout out to Diane Paulus, the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, and one of my artistic heroes. He specifically mentioned two of her productions, calling her a crusader of the idea. The first was The Donkey Show, which is a disco club reimagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which the audience dances on the club floor with the actors. Her other production was a performance of an opera, which she presented at the Hayden Planetarium, filling the room with gigantic projections. Both these productions were incredibly inspiring. After this, he asked if the audience had any suggestions for each other. The best answer came from the woman who ran the orchestra which performs in industrial parks. When it comes to branching out with your venues, all she had to say was “Just be brave!”.

After the sessions came a quick, and amazingly entertaining, performance by comedian/musician/beat boxer Reggie Watts. His stream of consciousness music, and the way he spontaneously created verses and incorporated the audience was a really inspiring and entertaining element of his work. It was a nice change of pace to suddenly have this occurring in the middle of one of the ballrooms. There really isn’t anything more to say about him other than LOOK HIM UP! He is hilarious and talented, as well as a supremely charismatic performer, all of which add up into a great show. His improvised song on the boroughs of New York was, by far, my favorite of his works.

Now, after a brief lunch at a very nice Japanese restaurant, we entered the expo hall again, this time with a specific mission, which was to find pricing on several of the artists we decided to pursue further. The first of these was Samita Sinha, the woman we saw perform at Joe’s Pub on our first night. She was represented by this company called MAPP, and the people at that booth were incredibly kind to us, and managed to work through various possibilities with us, which was very nice, as some managers and agents immediately dismiss us because we are students. The other big booth we spent a large amount of time at was Eye for Talent, who represent a large amount of world music artists. The woman we encountered was incredibly helpful, and told us to check out two of their artists at GlobalFest, which we were attending later in the evening.

Where do I even start with GlobalFest? This event was one in which all three levels of Webster Hall were filled with various bands, and we were allowed to simply walk through and see whichever ones we felt like. The atmosphere was definitely one of a laid back festival, mixed with that of a music club, which is essentially what Webster Hall is, so that makes sense. The bands that performed were incredibly diverse in style, which really made this event as successful as it seemed to be.  Later today, I will post my full GlobalFest post, as well as photos from today. Stay tuned!