Dance Pillow Project - July Second Saturday

I photographed The Pillow Project at The Space Upstairs (right above Construction Junction in Point Breeze, Pittsburgh, PA). They had their July Second Saturday "The Concept Album"

Check out The Pillow Project's Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pillow-Project/88574885865)

The second part called "Luminography" was created by Mike Cooper. He used just a video camera and projector which created an infinite mirror like effect with some delay in it, so it created an after blur of Taylor Knight.

More of my photos can be found on my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/AaronJackendoffPhotography (album)

Pillow Project Shoot_Beth Retas_Kaylin Horgan

This is a series I photographed for The Pillow Project.
(Pittsburgh, PA)

I worked with Artistic Director of The Pillow Project, Pearlann Porter, Stylist Donovan Wilburn as well as Pillow Project dancers Beth Retas and Kaylin Horgan to create this series.

This was a study on time through light and dance.

The innovative use of projection as shown in this series is part of what placed them in the Top 25 To Watch for 2010 by Dance Magazine:
http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/January-2010/25-To-Watch

Pearlann Porter

Pearlann Porter transforms dreams into artistry via The Pillow Project, her Pittsburgh-based multimedia hothouse launched in 2004. The focused, articulate choreographer versed in jazz and rhythm tap brainstorms with in-house video and sound designers while working with her improv-savvy dancers. Porter’s daring generates hip, installation-style happenings and socially conscious dance-theater staged in her loft studio. “Every time I think of Pillow Project as a ‘dance company,’ I try to break that mold,” says Porter, who was born in Hollywood and raised in New Jersey.

Porter’s interest in classic rock ’n’ roll inspired the energetic Concept Album Tour (2005), while an obsession with The White Stripes opened doors for the relentless, sexy, and humorous Striped (2006). Last season’s Orwellian Twenty Eighty-Four, a dark, pseudo-mystical journey, combined earthbound movement with ethereal video design. In 2010, Porter delves into perceptions of time in a comic book–style layout in her cerebral, abstract new work Paper Memory. —Karen Dacko

8-8-09 Pillow Project Improv Dance_2nd Saturday

Another exciting Second Saturday at the Pillow Project.

Some dance, some improv and other awesomeness.

5-1-09_PearlannPorter_InformalShow

5-1-09 Pearlann Porter - Informal Show

Pearlann had an informal show for the end of the year. So here are a few of the photos I took:

4-23-09_Site Specific Downtown Pittsburgh

4-23-09
Site Specific Downtown Pittsburgh
Dance Choreography by: Pearlann Porter
Music by: David JM Bielewicz
Photography by: Aaron Jackendoff

Pearlann is working on a series called "The Urban Experiment":

The Pillow Project’s Urban Experiment is dance that exists without any walls between the observer and artist. Choreographic and improvisational elements based on informal, pedestrian movements make a practical statement that the subtle art of dance can be blended into every-day situations and environments. Urban Experiment challenges the conventional way of looking at dance by seamlessly integrating the dancer into common, familiar and approachable surroundings while preserving the natural integrity of the moment for spontaneous and fortuitous audiences. The Pillow Project’s Urban Experiment will tour a wide range of Pittsburgh city streets, high-traffic commercial areas, outdoor cafes, public transit, local establishments and happenings starting Summer 2009.

--www.pillowproject.org

Pearlann was working with some of these ideas with her class. So I came along to photograph.

We had planned this one a few days in advance. Then I was thinking about it and was thinking about my friend Dave's music, and Bam! it came together. I called Pearlann up and Dave was free the next day.

Dave has been known to play just walking around or in the skywalk or any number of random places, as I've been know to do with my camera or watercolours. So when his previous class ran late and overlapped this class, so he came late. He strolled into the concrete park downtown playing his guitar, I found it quite hilarious because no one knew where he came from or why he was there for a while. I found out later, some people that knew him really thought he was just walking around the streets of downtown playing, which he would probably do.

Anyhow, we moved from the concrete park to the streets of downtown, 30 or so dancers a guitar player and photographer. It was quite fun. Then all the dancers got on a PORT Authority bus, Dave and I decided not to get on, but instead and run along side for a block or so. So I'm shooting photos, Dave is strumming while singing and we're sprinting alongside a bus downtown while 30 or so dancers are improving inside the bus.

So here are some photos and an original song by David JM Bielewicz called "I'm not there"

(please be warned I am not recording artist, I just used a small mp3 player to record the sound, I tried to even out some of the pops using Adobe Soundbooth, but I am a rank amateur. This however may be another project I might get into more at some point, because it was fun...)

4-22-09_Pearlann Porter_Dance_SiteSpecific

4-22-09_Pearlann Porter_Dance_Site Specific

These were a few of the finals from Pealann's dance class. They had to perform short pieces in small groups outside of the normal studio or performance space, in Downtown Pittsburgh.

The first one was on different levels of a Parking garage.

The second was in Strawberry Way. Will and Ryan performed this one. At first we all thought that Ryan was going to perform on his own because Will was absent, but it turned out that Will was posing as a homeless man in the ally way, which we all found out once Ryan started kicking the sleeping bag, and Will jumped out and continued in the dance.
Then as you can read here: http://www.downtownpittsburgh.com/about-pdp/pdp-services-and-initiatives/strawberry-way
Strawberry Way has built in music - Vivaldi's - The Four Seasons, plays in the background which is altered by the weather in this unique instillation.

The third piece was done in the sky walk connecting Macy's with it's parking lot.

And then there was a guy that I thought was interesting on the way back to Point Park University.

4-14-09_Pearlann Porter_Modern Jazz_GRW4

4-14-09_Pearlann Porter_Modern Jazz_GRW4

This was a forum class and explored issues of: education; initiation of projects and collaboratives; as well as issues of getting cast.

I find it fascinating hearing issues of the performing artist and relating them to my own.

4-8-09_Ernie Tolentino_Ballet_201

4-8-09_Ernie Tolentino_Ballet_201

Here one of the overlying themes in my work that I am trying to expand upon is free association and working on my subjective components ie Carl Jung. I find that it can be very freeing to do this in a dance class and trying to free the eye.

A more specific theme that I thought was interesting on this particular day was the framing of oneself in the setting one is in. I usually take one or 2 (with myself in the photo) to frame myself in my surroundings, but this time I found myself looking in the mirror and seeing myself more. Therefore I had to make (mostly) conscious decisions as to whether to include or hide myself. Maybe the other day more than normal because I had a long discussion with Pearlann the day before discussing different concepts including self observation. I was telling her how I had made a few 7 to 10 minute observational movies (just done on my camera phone) of myself just sitting in the cafe or sitting at Mama Lucias, looking at where my eyes would go, how I would react to the people and things around me, and she brought it further and talked about mannerisms of how people sit and talk and react with each other. She talked more about taking their everyday mannerisms out of context and into one of isolation, and how that can be very telling of a person. How some people lay their arms on the table while others fidget constantly etc. For me... seeing those mannerisms within the context of other people, of myself and others, and the relationships to each other, within the photograph, could provide some interesting results.

Pearlann and I had also talked about pointing at things can make things larger in peoples minds even when it is really small on a small photo. So I guess I tried that a little bit here... This is what happens when you work with subjective-components, things that you talked about or noticed just start popping up in your work.

Another observation I have made about my work is the influence of this past summer when I worked with David Story (choreographer, teacher etc.) for several weeks at the Point Park International Summer Dance Intensive, and he consistently pushed me to find those raw moments, the reactions in peoples faces, the rawness that exists out of being with others.

And another theme that I started to work back into my work here was space, in relationship to time, and people flowing through that.

One last theme worth pointing out, that I would like to work more closely with, is the relationship between teacher and student, with instruction and teaching, actions and reactions etc.

So here are a few of the photos I took: