Integral Education: The CIIS Blog

Legacy

By NICOLE KLAYMOON, dancer, choreographer, storyteller, and artistic director of a local dance company called Embodiment Project. Nicole is a student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program.

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

Dance cannot be documented in a way that can live on throughout time, unlike music, film, language, and visual art. Dance is a fleeting and interpretive artistic discipline that can only exist in the visceral immediacy of the present. While film can capture acrobatic tricks and physical illusions, it cannot capture the alchemical transmissions that occur in the intimate space between performer and audience. According to Merriam-Webster’s second definition legacy is “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past”—something that endures over time. So how do choreographers and dancers leave behind work in an art form that exists in the now? While the artistic product can hold great value, it is the creative method that fosters longevity and gains momentum with time.

When a renowned painter dies his/her paintings are left behind and hung on walls of museums, galleries and fancy homes. But when a dancer dies so does his/her art. Rennie Harris, Hip Hop dance pioneer and choreographer, says that dancers are “walking historians.” Once dancers train with a choreographer, they can access the choreographer’s artwork and brilliant creations inside their muscle memory.

I had the opportunity to see Joe Goode’s Performance Group when they premièred “The Rambler” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this last spring. I was struck by Goode’s introductory monologue to the dance performance—I understood his message to be; when I am dead and gone I am less interested in leaving behind a legacy with my art, I care much more about leaving behind my formula that can live on without me. And “The Rambler” reflected Goode’s deep sense of his artistic process and humanity.

The Israeli artistic director and founder of Batsheva Dance Company, Ohad Naharin, created a movement method called Gaga. It is hard to say if Naharin is more known for his dance works or his systematic approach—it seems that they are symbiotically related. Gaga is defined as an “experience of freedom and pleasure.” It is a process to access the power and awareness that lives inside our subtle body—the non-physical dimension of our being that can sense and interact with unseen worlds. Ohad Naharin wrote, "We discover the advantage of soft flesh and sensitive hands, we learn to connect to groove even when there is no music...We change our movement habits by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once…We become available..." His dance pieces clearly elicit a movement quality that is primal, ancient, and unique to each body. It appears that every company member is both technically trained and also "untrained" and "untamed" at the same time. My sense is that Gaga technique functions as a method to find one’s authentic movement expression.

New Art Form

By MICHELLE CHAMPLIN, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

One of the many unique aspects of the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts program is having an opportunity to research an art form other than my own (visual art). My choice was to research sound arts. The inspiration to research this art form stemmed from an assignment given in my “Creative Inquiry for Artists” class to create a “sound map.” There were few guidelines. We were simply to craft something generated from our personal definition of “sound map," and I happen to own a small digital recorder and decided to put it to use.

Because San Francisco and the symbol of “city” are significant in my work and in my life, I wanted to utilize the sounds of the city.  I began by listening. While standing still for several minutes in downtown San Francisco, I shifted my attention to the hum of vehicles, clacking of high heels, and the occasional piece of a conversation. I then held my recorder outside my bedroom window and caught the noise of cars passing, church bells ringing, and a garage door opening. Next, I recorded myself in my space—painting on canvas and the click, click of my fingers typing: symbols of the work I am currently involved in and what I am working towards. I also happened to have a recording of my grandparents harmonizing—singing an old love song together and wanted to use it in my sound map.

I listened to everything and put something together with the help of some music editing software (I used a free trial). Suddenly, I realized a story was emerging. It was my story—my roots, my experience, my life. While listening to my own project, I began to see my work and my own perception of my work in a slightly different light. It helped me to discover the symbol of city in my art on a deeper level. For me, “city” symbolizes freedom. I knew this to a certain extent before the sound map project but listening to my work rather than viewing it creates a different kind of experience. I’m still attempting to figure out how to express how and why this is the case and I’m contemplating what makes sound art so inimitable.

Queens, Queens, and Block Parties On World Turf

By MELANIE TORMOS, mixed media artist living in the East Bay. She is bushwacking her way through her first semester at CIIS as an MFA student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts program.

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

In the Interdisciplinary Arts program, I was recently asked to step out of my comfort zone (Land of Acrylic and Canvas) and delve into a medium foreign to me. I chose dance. Suddenly I found myself on YouTube watching an endless stream of videos featuring young men and women turfing, waacking, popping and locking. I attended Block By Block—part party, part performance—at the DeYoung Museum by Sean San Jose of Intersection For the Arts featuring Campo Santo, The Embodiment Project (fellow CIIS MFA student Nicole Klaymoon’s dance troupe), and other talented young MCs, DJs, and actors. And I uncovered the gem of Saul William’s 1996 SlamNation performance of his poem “Ohm.”

My choice is leading me to something important; to a new, powerful authenticity my artistic voice has been craving for a long time. During my undergrad years, as I struggled through recovery from a devastating eating disorder and suicidal depression, I realized my values and those of mainstream society didn’t vibe; consequently, I was institutionalized and medicated. I read about artists and visionaries with their own struggles—for recognition, acceptance, funding, an open ear and mind.  Though I was any other suburban white girl to the eyes of outsiders, I felt I shared with these marginalized persons a passion for Truth.

I might have lived the hip-hop lifestyle as a creative, passionate woman with Puerto Rican roots had I not moved at a young age to the Southern California suburbs. It seems my parents chose the safety of the suburbs over the urban environment, but I wonder if I would have fared better in a tight-knit urban community like the ones in which my female cousins were raised. Growing up in Queens, they identify much more strongly with their Puerto Rican heritage even though, like me, they are half-Latina and half-European (they Irish-American, and I Slovakian-American). They are more outspoken and have a stronger sense of self (or it seems that way).

An Interview with Career Advisor Margie Lam

By LOIS KEANEY SMITH, student in the Writing and Consciousness MFA program and intern in the CIIS Communications Department.

At several points in my life, I have faced a dreaded beast: the Craigslist job search. I sat at the computer, watching my hope free-fall until I felt only despair, clicking through listing after listing and finding nothing. By the end of the day’s job hunt, I felt desperate, hopeless, and, worst of all, directionless. There are no jobs at all. There are too many jobs. I don’t know where to look. Back then, I didn’t really know what I wanted to be, so where would I even start looking?

We did not have a career counselor at my high school, just a college counselor. I never visited the career counselor as an undergraduate—it simply did not occur to me to go. So, on a Friday morning this fall, at age 28, I visited a career counselor for the very first time in my life.CIIS career counselor Margie Lam made the experience as painless as possible. She grabbed her mug of herbal tea and we headed into a meeting room.

Margie listened patiently as I described my wayward journey towards a career. I asked her if she had any general job hunting advice that would help anyone who was in graduate school. The first step, Margie explained, was to develop a “career action plan.” A career action plan, as Margie described it, works best when broken into small, orderly, bite-sized pieces. The necessary steps for any job search should function in much the same way. Here are some of the steps:

• Start in school
• Know yourself
• Stay specific
• Ask for help
• Be realistic
• Be flexible

Start In School
“Don’t see yourself as just a student,” Margie warned. Instead, she stressed the importance of seeing graduate school as an opportunity to further your career and to make connections that might benefit you in the future. There are many ways to do this, she said. One is to make connections with people in this community. Another strategy is becoming close to other students and to professors, and knowing what projects they are working on.

Margie recommended taking on “internships or volunteering, paid or not. Take on leadership projects, coordination, anything to add to your experience and skill set.” There might also be a professional association to get involved in through your program. The goal of all this, of course, is to build connections, and to learn what is out there in your field.

Know Yourself
But before you do any of this, you have to know what your field is. If you are still figuring this out, or have many interests and have trouble narrowing it down, as was my problem, there are several resources that might help. One is a personality-based career test. Two tests Margie recommended were the John Holland Typology test and the Meyers-Briggs type indicator. Both ask you a variety of questions about your personality, interests, and skills, and then based on your answers, classify you into a particular group.

I took one test and found that I was categorized as: ASE: Artistic, Social, and Entrepreneurial. Artistic and social were not a huge surprise, but I’ve never seen myself as being particularly entrepreneurial, so that was news.

Stay Specific
Many of my ambitions over the years have been vague, which made it incredibly difficult to know how to begin working toward them. I knew I wanted to write, and I knew I wanted to help people. I had no idea what career those vague aspirations might translate into. The trick, Margie explained, is to find ways to narrow your dreams down into something achievable: “Look at your dream and see it as a goal. The more you can narrow it down and be specific and concrete, the better.” It is far easier to start researching organizations if you know what you’re looking for. It’s also far less scary and overwhelming if you have a specific place to start.

One resource to help you concretize your dreams is the Occupational Outlook Handbook provided on the United States Department of Labor. This handbook provides useful, specific information about skills required in different fields, what the job market is like in these fields, and the training and education needed.

Songwriting: A Form of Meditation

By LISA MARIE BAUTISTA, student in the Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

First of all, I want you to know, I have only written one complete song in my life. (I consider a song to incorporate both the melody and the chord structure, and possibly the notes or lyrics.) I attempted several times before to finish this song and I stopped composing at a certain point. I was interrupted, let’s just say. I became distracted by something else that lured my attention, or by my discouragement.

Two weeks ago, I settled on the lyrics. I started writing the chord structure first, many years ago when my parents first gave me my one—and favorite—guitar. Throughout this time I wrote several, at least five or six, versions of the lyrics. In fact there were many other times in my life when I thought, “This is it. I’ve written a song!” Then shortly after that, I would realize I was too scared to say what I had written, and slowly I would forget every word. I have spent 10 years writing this song.

The melody is the hardest part for me. This surprises me because of the specialty that I bring to writing music: I am a singer. I sing melodies constantly, which should explain why I can’t stop coming up with melodies for this song. Every time I sing it, I sing the melody differently. Luckily, I am slowly settling on a general idea of one or two melodies for each line of lyrics.

The most intense part of writing is the doubting. Some days I will walk away from the studio feeling hopeful, with the least amount of fears. Then other moments, I will run from the studio because I can’t accept the challenge. Every session, I warm up my voice, practice the song I am working on for my voice lessons, and then focus on my own desires. At first glance, this plan of action sounds exciting. I feel blessed and honored to have the gift of creation. Yet, an intimate experience of my agenda, then gives me a clearer understanding of creation—I see the possibilities of truths. My song becomes the voices of my ancestors and I feel great pressure to articulate their message. My longing to uncover the deep essence of these voices serves me, and I am usually willing to go towards the dark sides of my perception. But what I find startles me.

On Storytelling

By AARON ROSE, writer and ceremonialist based in Chicago. Aaron is writing her first novel, “Lawndale,” about the relationship between a Jewish family and an African-American family through their shared history in a Chicago neighborhood.

This post was written as an assignment for professor Cindy Shearer’s CIA 7091: MFA Interdisciplinary Arts Workshop. As part of a community of artists working across art perspectives, students in this course get the chance to teach each other about their art form(s), practice, lineage and influences, and are challenged to inquire into the interdisciplinary arts as well as forms new to them.

There is nothing I would rather do at any given time, morning, noon or night, than listen to or tell a story. So, during a recent Creative Inquiry workshop, when visiting poet Traci Brimhall asked us to write about stories we were told as children, I was surprised to discover that nothing came to mind. I was read to more or less regularly – “Ferdinand the Bull” was my hands-down favorite – but I struggled to remember any stories that were told to me. Then I did remember one. I was four years old, spending the night in my maternal grandparents’ house and Bubie, my grandmother, was putting me to bed. I asked for a story. She told me a story about three sisters – one had one eye, in the middle of her forehead, one had two eyes, one had three. My grandmother, I understand now, carried a version of the Grimm’s fairy tale with her from Lithuania when she left in 1919 at the age of 11. In Dbrova, where she was born, it was a story told to her, and it came to mind at my request. But, at that moment, it seemed something terrible happened to me – a child entertained by the Do Bees and Don’t Bees on Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo. I was stunned by the sinister tale of jealously and retribution – not to mention the eyes! I struggled to understand why she was telling me something so scary, and felt a sense of danger and dislocation.

Ultimately, Traci’s exercise blew wide open a space inside me that felt empty and deeply disappointed; a space where memories of reaching for the magic and joy of creative expression was met with a patchwork of casual responses by a family trying assiduously to assimilate and succeed in the promised land of 20th century America – so I stopped reaching.

In the weeks that followed, I’ve thought more about the importance of stories…

As children, we love, and need, to hear and tell stories: it is how we learn about the world and how we gain mastery in life. Stories told to us by our parents and grandparents teach us where we come from, and in that telling give us a sense of possibility for where we might go, and prepare us for what we might find on our journey. Storytelling also creates bonds of understanding and intimacy, as the teller chooses to reveal something they value, in their own words, in their own way. How else, except through storytelling, do we know that we are not alone in what we see and experience, that we are more than a collection of rocks piled up on the shore of life?

TravelBlogue 2: How to Maintain that State of Inspiration and Wonder You Felt Over There

By RANDALL BABTKIS, writer, poet, and professor in the Department of Writing, Consciousness and Creative Inquiry

Photo by Lisa Moriss-Andrews: Early gathering “scene” around bagel party, courtyard in Vilnius, Lithuania

Last August, I was scheduled to give my first overseas reading of work from a novel-in-progress. An excerpt from the book landed me in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. I invited my new friends Elena and Gintaras to the reading. I met them because we kept showing up at the same spots—molecules held together by a mysterious band of hydrogen. At first I believed Elena and Gintaras might be following me. But since we seemed interested in the same things (I was here looking for slaughtered forbears, they were tuned into the historical vibe), I latched onto the pair as they latched onto me. Elena and Gintaras were the only Lithuanians I knew, so I wanted to nurture our friendship.

It turned out the young couple already planned to be at the reading—serving home made bagels—they were hosting the event.

Moments before our bagel party/reading began, a well-known Vilnius writer remarked: "Lithuania is so small that a visitor may come to recognize all the same faces he has seen one day, again the next morning." Certainly it was true in the case of Elena and Gintaras. It seemed to me Vilnius offered so much of that fusion, the entire city appeared under a double helix.

So the writer's remark felt convincing. 850,000 inhabitants of Vilnius and its surrounds today? Never mind. The idea one might continually see the same people conjures the sort of exotic distortion one experiences in travel. While I remain on foreign ground, I drop all doubts. The secularism I wear like dress code in home-life disappears. Routines in everyday places—dreams of cleaning the same cupboards I scrubbed that morning, or mowing lawns I clipped this afternoon—give way to telepathic imagery. Those chimeras are as intense as they are extraterrestrial. False awakenings I experience back home—through which I really only continue to sleep—fall away to more profound visual fields abroad.

How do we hold onto that poetic jetstream, once the banality of our return home surrounds us again? Walter Pater writes: To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. That burning is success in art! I hoped to return with the force still in my head.

It was early August; we were in the far northern hemisphere, corralled in a small courtyard behind an ancient arts collective, to which Elena and Gintaras belonged. Perhaps 60 of us gathered in the twilight. The crowd was young and hip, highly ambitious faces with keen expressions.

Most were North American—writers half-way around the world mixed with a small fusion of Vilna bohemia. My two young Lithuanian friends offered a flourish of artisanal bagels with salmon fished out of a briny looking barrel. Posters of Elena's printed invitation in 12 icy shades of blue were stapled around the courtyard. Elena spelled “party” with an “i” someone pointed out. Her boyfriend, Gintaras, said that was the correct spelling, he double checked it for his e-blast before sending it.

On Attending Writing Conferences

By WENDY STERNDALE, second-year student in the Writing and Consciousness MFA program

Whenever I’m at a writer’s conference I feel slightly giddy among admired writers who struggle with words on the page, just like I do. When listening to an author who gets it right, it can feel like all of us are breathing in unison.

Maybe you’re like me. As a practicing writer, I search for answers to craft-related questions through other writers’ examples. How far can we stretch the truth in creative non-fiction before it becomes a lie? What makes prose flow as beautifully as poetry and still retain its clarity? When authors and poets read their own work, the emphasis they use sometimes answers these and other questions. Literary conferences are some of the best places to listen to best-selling authors read and discuss their craft. Over the last year, I have attended three conferences, and in early 2012 will return to the biggest one, Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).

The most recent conference I attended, LitQuake, happens over all of San Francisco every October. Most events are free or very inexpensive, making it accessible financially, if not logistically. Our own Carolyn Cooke read from and discussed her latest novel, “Daughters of the Revolution” in a lovely South of Market theatre. Many events are in bars, reiterating the impression, whether true or not, that San Francisco is a writer’s town, and that San Francisco writers drink a fair amount. At historic and poorly ventilated Vesuvio’s in North Beach, readers yell from the balcony to listeners sweating in history, a standing room only crowd. I imagine beat writers did the same thing 50 or so years ago, with or without a conference to justify them. A parade of listeners then strolled across Columbus Ave. to Tosca’s Restaurant where a former mobster, a lawyer, a local satirist, and a few others read from their thrillers at an event called, “These Mean Streets: Reality and Fiction Collide.” They agreed that if the truth could get you killed, fiction is preferred.

LitQuake culminates with LitCrawl on Saturday night in the Mission District, when bars and restaurants open for an evening of reading, listening, walking, drinking, and eating. Some of the second year MFA students, along with a couple of instructors in the Writing and Consciousness program, signed on to read current work to fellow students, teachers, and complete strangers. I only looked up once for the briefest moment, and kept on reading. I didn’t die.

Inspiration

By TRICIA GRAME, visual artist and faculty member in the Department of Writing, Consciousness, and Creative Inquiry

Last week I saw "A Weekend With Pablo Picasso," a one man play by Herbert Siguenza, at the Lesher Theatre in Walnut Creek, Calif. Siguenza writes, paints, and performs in a tour de force interpretation of the legendary artist. Picasso, a most prolific and obsessive multimedia artist, knew he had no choice but to spend each day making art. Siguenza’s dialogue concentrates on quotes by Picasso that spoke loudly to me: “An artist begins by making mistakes—that is natural—do not make any excuses, work every day, everything is art.”

Two weeks ago I saw Rita Moreno’s one-woman play, "Without Makeup," at the Berkeley Rep. She spoke about her journey, her struggles as a woman, and her passion as an artist. She will be 80 years old this year. Her concluding statement was, “I absolutely have no idea what people are talking about when they say that getting older prevents one from creating.”

Cindy Shearer curated an amazing, creative interdisciplinary exhibition and event, "Offerings," at the Village Theatre Gallery in Danville, Calif. The opening night, September 10, was very inspirational, with poet Judy Grahn, musician Anne Carol, Storyteller Jovelyn Richards, poet and playwright Genny Lim, and Anne Bluethenthal and Dancers. I sat in the second row and felt like I had an enlarged heart. I thought, oh, how much we need artists in this world, how much I love being with them, and without them it would be like not having enough oxygen. I spent the next week locked in my studio.

Exposure to other artists and writers has an enormous impact upon us intellectually, emotionally, socially, and creatively. Although, as with the story of any life, the starting point is important to establish a basis for attitudes and beliefs, it becomes less significant over time as the connections we make during the journey cause revision of personal identity. The body of work produced over the course of an artist’s life is many and can mark various milestones.