My First Week

All in favor of shunning witty titles? Yes please.

So, Tuesday was my first day at the museum. As soon as I arrived, I met my adviser Ama and she gave me a tour of the museum and introduced me to the other staff members. My favorite exhibit currently on display would definitely have to be the Samuel Beckett mouth. Let me explain. The exhibit is a video installation, featuring a black and white video of a woman's mouth as she recites a Samuel Beckett monologue quite loudly. You can hear her shrieking long after the museum has closed for the evening.

I spent Tuesday morning lugging chairs and beanbags from the Ideabox (a gallery/activity space on the top floor of the museum) down to the basement. Then I had to stack the beanbags just so and make sure they didn't topple over, an art form in and of itself. That afternoon I sat in on a meeting between Ama, program director Sarah and a local ballet dancer named Andrew Skeels. Andrew will be performing a piece he choreographed at the museum in April and the purpose of the meeting was to figure out all the technicalities.

Today was much less eventful. I spent most of my time at the museum researching modern dance programs and performance art pieces at other museums around the world. So far, I have been through the entire exhibit and event archives of MCA Sydney. My favorite piece of performance art so far is titled PIE and is the work of performance artists spat+loogie. The concept is simple: a visitor sits down to a one-on-one conversation with an artist or curator. At the end of the conversation, the visitor can choose to share a pie with the artist or throw it in their face, and voila, performance art is created. I also learned how to use the stamp machine.

Denver is great. Picture Tucson, only urban and with snow and great public transportation. Add in plenty of amazing concerts, two roller derby teams, an REI the size of a city block and you have Denver. Speaking of roller derby, one must be eighteen to volunteer with the local leagues, which was a huge disappointment to me. Alas, I will have to remain an eager spectator.