With the Ox-Bow term behind us we have now turned our sights on the next phase of resland adventure: The Elsewhere Collaborative Living Museum located in Greensboro, NC. We will be exploring what it means to work in a living museum and what it means to work in a more urban environment. Elsewhere is situated on South Elm Street just slightly at the end of downtown. Our residency started today but we have been in Greensboro for a couple of days visiting with our friend and Pilottone collaborator Belinda Haikes. Belinda runs a website lifeuniverseandart.blogspot.com/ and also teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This past Tuesday we had the pleasure of performing our newest piece entitled Future Past for the 7th Annual UNCG New Music Festival. Also on hand was Virginia Tech’s L2Ork (laptop orchestra). It was really a good experience, especially because we had heard Ivica Ico Bukvic speak the year previous at TedX-Mid Atlantic in Baltimore. It was fascinating to see how his project had progressed in one year. After the concert we had a drink with Bruce Mahin who is a composer from Virginia who had a piece performed that night as well. The prices for the appetizers were grotesque…or was it the portions… Anyway the conversation was really good and rounded out the night very well.
We rested for the day afterward as there has been no rest for the wicked after leaving Ox-Bow. Everyday not in residency is spent earning money…except for this one day.
We dropped in at Elsewhere to meet up with out contact Jeremy Helton who might be considered the resident co-coordinator although he has a much more all encompassing job and title. We were greeted with bright smiles and open arms despite the chaos all around. The Elsewhereians are currently in full tilt production mode getting ready for their annual fundraiser called Carnival. The whole place is an absolute spectacle careening towards a supernova. The simplest thing I can say is that it is all overwhelming. Someone described it in this way:
“I don’t think there is such a thing as a single quiet wall in this whole entire place. There is no place for your eyes to simply say ‘rest’…”
So everything is a bustle and we’ve kind of been welcomed in and left alone to a certain extent. But as I’ve begun to find out, you’re never really alone until the wee hours of the night..but even then, who knows?!
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