10/21/11

Gondola Parking, Venice


Gondola Parking, Venice
Originally uploaded by Jenita McGowan.
Gondola Parking, Venice

View from Ponte Rialto


View from Ponte Rialto
Originally uploaded by Jenita McGowan.
View from Ponte Rialto

Venice


Venice
Originally uploaded by Jenita McGowan.
Venice

10/9/11

Kimchi is in Season

Spent this morning prepping vegetables for kimchi  and mostly followed Sandor Kat'z recipe (see below). Now it is doing its thing in the fermentation crock. October is a great time in Northeast Ohio to make kimchi because nearly everything you need is in season and available locally. Here is what I used:

Kim Chee

From the backyard: cabbage, red onion, kohlrabi
From City Fresh: carrots, radish, pepper, onion, garlic
From Local Roots: dried hot pepper
From the grocery store: salt and ginger

I should have salty, spicy, tangy kimchi in about a week.

10/2/11

Oh September

I always like the edges of things. I believe that is why September is my favorite month of the year. Having trouble letting it go. Here is a little musical tribute to my dear September. Until next year.


**note the awesome hand clapping in the music
***hand clapping in music is one of my favorite things ever. I think because it is so participatory

9/27/11

Preservation Fall

City Fresh Peaches



Peaches-n- Honey
A 1/2 bushel of City Fresh Peaches turned into peach jam, peach salsa and canned peaches in honey. Sunshine in January!



City Fresh Romas
The City Fresh romas were de-skinned, food milled, and turned into sauce for use in Cleveland's post-tomato months. 




Community garden onions and shallots
Community garden plot onion and shallots: a key ingredient to the freezer stored pesto I made. 


Backyard Basil Bound for Pesto
Backyard herb spiral basil bound for freezer pesto


West Side Market Basketeria Cucumbers
Great Ohio grown cucumbers from the Basketeria at the West Side Market. Pickling these  now in my fermentation crock with fresh garlic, dried dill, a couple grape leaves for crispness, brine and peppercorns. The crock is bubbling as I type. 

9/12/11

Ingenuity Fest

I've been busy at work and at art and feeling pretty good about both. 


Ingenuity Fest is one of my favorite Cleveland events and I'm excited to be presenting two dance works there. Both pieces are about nature, terrain and landscapes and I imagine that performing them under the bridge, outside, and over the river will feel just right. 


I've re-set and re-worked Borne Away on Crooked River (2007) for Ingenuity Fest and I'm feeling satisfied with the changes made to the choreography. The piece is about water and our relationship with it. When I looked with fresh eyes at the video of the original choreography, parts of it didn't seem organic enough for a subject such as water. 


It has been a real treat to work with great dancers and to find more connections to the movement and to each other than existed before. Also, Jeff Schuler is playing live guitar and violin and everything just breathes nicely. 


I made a little video for Ingenuity that they'll use with a QR code:



Also, will re-set Heart's Terrain (2009) at Ingenuity. This piece is a solo about internal and external landscapes and I can imagine the large swath of wine red fabric billowing in the wind that blows off of Lake Erie. 


Heart's Terrain
Heart's Terrain



Showtimes:

PERFORMANCE TIMES
Friday, Sept 16th
 8:15-8:35  pm Borne Away on a Crooked River
8:45-8:55 pm Heart's Terrain

Saturday, Sept 17th2-2:20 pm Borne Away on a Crooked River
4:45-5:55 Heart's Terrain
6:30-6:50 pm Borne Away on a Crooked River

The venue is the "The Span Dance Space". Here is a map of under the bridge:http://ingenuitycleveland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/
2011ingenuityfestmap.pdf

7/15/11

Flip the Script on Flash Mobs

Stop, what's that sound? Everybody look what's goin' down.

"It's frightening to see these flash mobs . . . they come in swarms like bees," Warrensville Heights Councilwoman Ruby Wilson was quoted in a Plain Dealer article as saying.

I've read the articles chronicling the flash mob phenomenon in Cleveland's inner-ring, and raised my eyebrows at some of the quotations. My initial conclusion: We as a community are afraid to see large groups of black teens assembled in public places when we don't expect it AND we want them to leave when we say so. We feel so strongly about this that we are willing to detain individual teens for being out in public after 6pm.

I took a brief glance at the American Community Survey and I believe it should be perfectly normal to see large groups of black teens assembled here in Cleveland. Almost 30% of the population is under 18 years of age and 52% of the population is African American.

What if, instead of thinking of flash mobs as a problem; we envision their potential. What if we were pleased that groups of black teenagers have the organizational skills and connectedness to assemble in large groups at a moment's notice. This is a demographic that is historically technologically disadvantaged, disempowered and disenfranchised.

Perhaps they don't know what to do with themselves when assembled, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The right to assemble is in the Bill of Rights. The ability to assemble equates to power. The teens know it and so does everyone else. We should be encouraging these teens to exercise their power, to feel part of something larger than themselves, to connect with others in the community.

Maybe the flash mobs are appealing to teens because they know they are inspiring fear and they know that is not fair. Instead of squashing the flash mobs, maybe we should be putting energy toward guiding teens to use this skill for good. For example, teens in Chicago protested the closing of a hospital's trauma center, and teens in Barington, Illinois assembed to draw attention to their schools' budget cuts. I see civic potential in the flash mob.