Archive for December 22nd, 2020
Room for Beauty
“In the throws of the first covid quarantine, 2020, I returned to my life which had been shut down, anticipating a year of travel. Mexico, the expected first leg, took me to Guadalajara, where I met a wonderful art compatriot, Lou Garza, Professor of art at Monterrey Tec, Guadalajara. Apparent, after one month, my year of travel was cancelled, as was a collaborative piece in the works for Lou’s class at the university.
This home movie represents the confusion of exile and return, where nothing will ever be the same. Pagan musings, aided by my youtube gurus; and inspired by the tumult of pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd, I find a transformation thru trauma and sin-eaters of the world, with nature as savior. Video ends at 6:15, music continues for live performance accompaniment. Music by Jaap Blonk and Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sun Calling. “
One of Texas’s most celebrated performance artist Laney Yarber brings her charismatic and free associative magnetism to The Dharma Beauty Pageant. Laney Yarber is an artist whose work and influence has had a important impact on the state’s cultural life. Her work is part history (personal-area-occult), part installation, often multi-media, with great mastery of the craft of theater, sculpture, spoken word, and visual special effects. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, studied with Robert Wilson, and is an original cast member of Dharma Broads I-III. Laney leaves her fans and even her diva-to-diva antagonists crying for more. Never enough. Never enough.
Ronald Shannon Jackson’s music is featured at the end of Make Room for Beauty
WordSpace presents
Web-Staged Performance Art TV
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The Dharma Beauty Pageant
-WebStaged Performance Art TV-
Due to the Pandemic: Due to the Pandemic: Due to the Pandemic:
The previously scheduled production of The Dharma Beauty Pageant has been re-imagined into website-staged trailer docu-introduction of cast members. Click here to read more on this project. The show runs through March and includes an ekphrastic writing contest
Juried by Mairead Case
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Stay tuned for upcoming happenings on
Intergalactic WordSpace WebStaged Performance Art TV.
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The Dharma Beauty Pageant is the fourth installment of Dharma Broads performance art series, originally commissioned by Robert Trammell and WordSpace in 2004. Dallas theater critic, Jerome Weeks, described the performance art group as “neo-beat, hippie Happening.”
Dharma Broads IV: The Dharma Beauty Pageant
Due to the pandemic, Dharma Beauty Pageant. originally scheduled for January, has been re-imagined as a series of video trailers to the upcoming staged version. The videos are first-person, documentary performances. The artists for The Dharma (or-Truth) and Beauty Pageant (or procession) interlace or collide on the elusive, sometimes conflicting, definitions for those words. Is truth, beauty? And vice versa?
The virtual cast includes Monika Bell, Linda Jones, Karen Minzer, Brenda Randall, Carolina Reyes, Micaela Tillett, and Laney Yarber. The selections were made by original DB producer, Karen X Minzer. With the exception of two cast members, the individual performers all created new work for the production. Additional performers are credited within each video. Please see credits for each video. Individual links serve as a printed program. All copyrights are reserved by the individual artists; and are held on their individual platforms.
Since the performers cannot hear your applause, boos, or questions, we hope you will all participate by clicking on the Comment section below and Comment links following the individual videos.
In the tradition of previous Dharma Broad productions, an audience-participation exercise is included: Carolina Reyes offers her video as an ekphrastic writing contest. Click here for Submission Details. There are 3 cash prizes.
The Dharma Beauty Pageant will run through February. Following the event, WordSpace Performance Art TV will continue to present performances projects of both new and archival material that represent our interdisciplinary arts legacy. Stay tuned!
Special thanks to The Great Fred Curchack for the inspiration drawn from his work; and for his generous mentorship of The Dharma Beauty Pageant.
The Dharma Beauty Pageant was commissioned by WordSpace; and made possible, with partial funding from the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture; and Moody Fund for the Arts.
Click here to read more on past Dharma Broad Productions.
2020 Pandemic: Om Mani Padme Om.
