Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla

Talk about serendipitous timing. Today is the birthday of Nikola Tesla AND the premiere of the Tesla Orchestra's performance of Boltz.

Come on out to Ingenuity Festival at Star Plaza, 9pm tonight in celebration of Tesla's birthday. Our shocking performance will feature a Tesla Coil. Pretty appropriate way to pay homage to a great scientist.

Boltz in the News

The Tesla Orchestra's performance of Boltz is getting some good press coverage leading up to the performance. Our technical and dress rehearsal is tomorrow evening and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything works as well at Star Plaza as it has in our rehearsal space.

The dancers have been working very diligently on perfecting the choreography; the costumes are complete and completely fantastic. I'm in charge of making sure the dance floor is laid properly, styling the dancers' beehive wigs and ensuring that sound and light cues go off without a hitch during rehearsal and performance.

I've been fantasizing about buying a robot T-shirt from Room Service that I saw at Made in the 216 to wear around this weekend. It's weird being a choreographer and not a dancer and I think I'll feel left out if I don't have a costume too.

Fruitful

It is the start of my second summer living in my South of Lorain neighborhood in Ohio City. What's in season on my street? Sour cherries, mulberries and strawberries.

I am pleased that sharing summer's bounty from our patchwork of yards and treelawns is an easy, natural exchange.

I spent some time on Tuesday helping Esperanza pick mulberries from her treelawn. And, of course I went home with a bunch. I plan to go back for more soon because the mulberry tree in my yard had to be taken out to make way for a fence.


Esperanza on the way to pick some sour cherries



Kids picking sour cherries


cherry picker

My next door neighbors have two, beautiful sour cherry trees and I spent yesterday evening picking cherries with the neighborhood kids. Afterward, we de-pitted and de-stemmed them and made jam. I had tons of help and everyone went home with a jar of homeade sour cherry jam.


Gathered around my kitchen table prepping the cherries

I assume we'll have another go at jam making when my sideyard vine ripens with an over abundance of concord grapes.

Ingenuity Countdown

Bolts is just a couple of weeks from its premiere at Ingenuity Festival: 9pm on July 10th and 11th on Star Plaza. The full cast got together on Sunday to piece together much of what we've been working on in separate rehearsals.

Dancers Hope Schultz and Amy Compton Schulz

try on their 60s Sci-Fi inspired bolero jackets.

Alexandra Underhill's costumes are more than I could have hoped for. The 60s Sci-Fi inspired get-ups won't be complete until the dancers don their glowing beehive wigs.

It was heartening to witness the music, dance, acting and costumes fitting together to create a story that can only be described as Pee Wee's Playhouse meets 60s Sci-Fi.

Next Sunday we add props and a working musical Tesla coil. Stay tuned for more photos and potentially video of our work in progress.

Staycation Weekend

I had a great, almost free, weekend right here in good ol' Cleveland.

Friday: After a full day's work and a job interview (yikes), I went home to regroup and meet up with Jeff. We took the Rapid to University Circle and strolled to the Cleveland Museum of Art to see our friend R.A. Washington's choreopoem entitled A Love, A Kiss, A Death. His production was proceeded by some really great open mic poetry reading as part of the free Black Poetic event.

On to Mekong River for a late dinner of Pad Thai and Basil String Beans. Last stop, Passport Project for the 2009 Global Groove Party. I traveled the world without leaving Passport's storefront on Buckeye.

Saturday: Slept in and then bussed downtown to volunteer at Councilman Cimperman's Cleveland Pride booth. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in awhile and just generally enjoyed the good, friendly vibe of the festival.

I walked down picturesque Lakeside Avenue to Tower City and then took the Blue Line to Shaker Square where I met up with some folks for the Larchmere Porchfest, a free music festival hosted on the front porches of folks in the Larchmere neighborhood. We ended Porchfest at the Academy Tavern where the booze, blues and breezes cooperated with my staycation vibe.

Heelsplitter

Riders Pay Cost of Kickbacks

The recent RTA construction manager kickback news is disheartening. RTA is cutting service and raising fares because of budget shortfalls while at the same time most likely overpaying for construction, renovation and maintenance. Sigh.

Maybe RTA can recoup some of the money and use it for the Metroparks Zoo Bus.

Duplexity

Oh, Cleveland. I saw you standing on half of a duplex porch with your suspenders and your flyswatter slapping at mayflys through the smoke from your cigar.

Boltz

I am knee deep in collaboration as a choreographer with the fab creative team of the Tesla Orchestra. We are a group of Clevelanders versed in wacky ideas, science, engineering, choreography, costume design, screen-writing, music, videography and general DIY-ness.

The performance, Boltz, is a multi-elemental performance featuring a 2 mega-volt musical tesla coil. 

Last night I ran the second dance rehearsal with a group of three open-minded, creative and talented dancers. I am having fun working with new people, sharing artistic vision, opening myself to new posibilities and creating something in community that none of us could do on our own. It’s my hope that Boltz is the first of many Tesla Orchestra productions.

Boltz will premiere at 9pm Friday July 10^th and Saturday July 11^th on Star Plaza at the 2009 Ingenuity Festival.