Dance Away Your Debt

[Jaki Levy]

Hi Dance-techers! My friend just sent this to me - I thought it was an interesting project - Let me know if you end up participating!


CALL FOR DANCERS/CHOREOGRAPHERS OF ALL TYPES

DANCE AWAY YOUR DEBT
Performance piece by Alexis Clements & New Acquisition (www.newacquisition.org)

Casting:
We're looking for dancers, choreographers and/or groups who would like to dance, in any way they like, as part of our Dance Away Your Debt performance at FIGMENT 2008 (http://figmentnyc.org/).

Production Dates:
June 28 & June 29 (Sat & Sunday) -- we aren't going to be there on the Friday. We're going to have two 3-hour slots, one on each day for the performance.

Production Location:
Governors Island (specific location TBD)

Rehearsals:
We'll have one meeting before the performance to sort details and scheduling. This meeting will be mandatory. No other rehearsals will be set up.

Compensation:
No pay but possibility of continued work on the piece beyond this performance--we're looking at a couple other festivals for the summer and maybe a couple DIY performances in town.

About the Show:
New Acquisition is a series of free literary pamphlets--brief pamphlets filled with writing and art focused on a variety of themes--and performances inspired by the pamphlets. Design inspiration and themes for each issue are drawn from early and contemporary American religious and political pamphlets. (read more here: http://www.newacquisition.org/content/view/26/42/)

Dance Away Your Debt is a reaction to the ever-growing amount of personal debt that Americans are taking on. These days everybody's got debt, in one form or another, or is headed toward having debt, and everybody's frustrated by how little progress they seem to make in paying it off and how much more quickly they are accumulating new debt—we're all feeling the pinch with the economy in its current state. Riffing on the get-rich-quick and be-debt-free scams that abound in the United States, the pamphlet (which has already been printed) takes a slightly different approach. We're encouraging them to get their debt frustrations out by dancing, which keeps them healthier so that they don't have more health care bills, and keeps them happy and occupied, so they don't go out and buy more stuff, and so on. We'd like to choreograph a specific Dance Away Your Debt dance which we will post to YouTube, but we'd also like to get videos of other people dancing away their debt. To that end we'll be taping people at the event and encouraging people to submit their own video responses and dances. The performance at FIGMENT 2008 will involve setting up a collapsible tent with a table, pamphlets and other information. We will then also have pamphleteers working the crowd. Then, beside the tent, we'll have a mix of professional dancers (contemporary dancers, ballroom dancers, step teams, belly dancers, ballet dancers, freestyle dancing, etc) and those from the audience, involved in a collective effort to Dance Away Your Debt.
(read the contents of the pamphlet here: http://www.newacquisition.org/content/blogsection/10/78/)


About Figment:
FIGMENT is an annual participatory arts event on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The mission of FIGMENT is to provide a forum for community-based participatory art and experience. FIGMENT strives to build community among artists and participants, to foster the participatory arts
in New York City, and to demonstrate a vision for the future of Governors Island as an international arts destination.

FIGMENT was launched on July 8, 2007 as a one-day cultural event. More than 2,500 people attended. In 2008, it is expanding to three-day event from June 27 - 29. With the foundation of last year's success and the increasing popularity of Governors Island as a cultural venue, many more people are expected this year.


TO PARTICIPATE:
Please send a brief bio or information about your group, any video clips that are available and/or links to your website. We'll be in touch soon after we get your info. The meeting for participants will take place during the week of June 24. Please submit all information and links to [e-mail].


IF YOU CAN'T BE THERE BUT WANT TO SHOW US YOUR MOVES ANYWAY - SUBMIT A VIDEO. Please start Dancing Away Your Debt, tape it, post it to YouTube and tag it with 'New Acquisition' and 'Dance Away Your Debt' and then send us the link, then we'll embed the video on our site.

[Doug Fox]

Jaki, so idea is not really to dance away your debt - it's to dance out your frustrations about the debt you have?

It makes me think that we ought to host meeting among interested dance artists in NYC with the sole purpose of how dancers can make more money. What do you think?