Last Friday, former Studio Artist Jocelyn Foye, her assistant Michelle and dancer Kelly Valignota came up to the Center to do a test for her piece Ballet Abstracted, which will be a part of Actions, Conversations and Intersections a mega-exhibition featuring 60 artists and co-curated by former Studio Artist Edith Abeyta and exhibiting artist/personal mentor, Michael Lewis Miller. Ballet Abstracted will consist of a ballet dancer dancing on a grid of black and white checkers made from sand. Dana already posted about the event last week, so check out her post for details.
Here’s the story on the “test performance”, with photos. More photos are available in a Flickr Set.
Jocelyn is “crazy pregnant” at the moment! Here she is making a stencil for the sand squares
Jocelyn’s assistant, Michelle, putting the finishing touches on the test squares.
Dancer Kelly Valignota steps onto the sand.
The initial marks are dramatic, made more so by the fluid line disrupting the neat grid of the squares.
Fancy footwork going on here. I can’t even imagine how much dedication, pain and training went into learning to dance en pointe like that.
Kelly surveys the marks mid-test.
Aftermath.
Check out the Flickr set for more photos. Ballet Abstracted will be performed at the Municipal Gallery of the City of Los Angeles on Saturday, February 13 at 6 pm.
