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April Hava Shenkman, a Los Angeles
Performance Artist, received a B.A. in
Theatre from The University of La Verne
on a four year acting scholarship. During her
undergraduate studies, April performed by
invitation at The International Theatre
Festival in Mostar, Bosnia, where she spent a
summer residency. She received a Post-Grad
Acting certificate from The
Guildford School of Acting in England,
where she spent a year.
Traveling extensively in Europe, April has been greatly inspired by European arts & cultures. She studied & performed with Rachel Rosenthal & Co. in Los Angeles from 2004-2007. April has been creating new performances in Los Angeles since 2002, including full solo & ensemble productions, and performs regularly at various venues throughout Los Angeles. For more about April, including information
on upcoming appearances, please visit:
http://www.AprilHavaShenkman.com &
http://www.myspace.com/AprilHavaShenkman
Read below to see what April has to say being a performance artist in Los Angeles. April can be directly contacted at AprilHavaShenkman@gmail.com |
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by April Hava Shenkman
I stand at the front of 2009, thrilled to be where I am, doing what I'm doing - performance art in Los Angeles. I often ask why I have chosen Los Angeles - or has Los Angeles has chosen me? Los Angeles has recently revealed herself to be the perfect plateau for new performance work. Los Angeles is an open invitation begging those who dare to wake her up, shake her up, and alas, make her up. This city re-invents herself with every creation birthed inside her. Perhaps it is this that gilds this city as the emporium of dream makers. Live performance in Los Angeles breathes between the cracks of glamorous Hollywood, and exists somewhat privately & secretly. A performance artist may wonder where the division is drawn, and why a choice must be made between the two mediums. To me, it's always been a part of the same art - the art of human expression. The only difference is in instruments to facilitate the act. Therefore, I don't find it peculiar to practice live performance in a city whose most famous- and infamous - medium is film. If anything, my appetite is whetted to do more live art; embellishing the integral humility exposed in the root of the art of performance itself. Our society doesn't often present an opportunity to remove the mechanics of being, leading the ritualistic structure of existence to overshadow any hopes for freedom, both in art and life. Isn't that why we practice & experience art - to taste freedom? My performance art is all about just that: freedom, especially from pretense, through raw exposed moments of un-defined cultural activity. Avant-garde performance work immediately makes it permissible to practice freedom in art, begging of the artist to enter the work, as if for the first time, expressing what it is to be alive. The human experience is a fantasia of poetry & mystique. I choose to celebrate this mystique, and allow the performances to have a language of there own. Therefore, I choose not to translate my performances. Art is loud enough on it's own, and quite transmittable. Its multi-sensory mode of communication holds none of the reservations stunned by tongue and cheek. It's pure, and unbiased on how it is received. There is no need to speak on the behalf of art, but it is crucial to our experiences, to express & explore it. Life is theatrical, but the theatricality of life is far from realizing its true potential. Art actively gives way to courting the imagination into the undefinable heights that the dreamers, visionaries, and pioneers in us all relish as the source of creation. Performance art creatively gives way to the romance of experiencing it. As a performance artist, I feel a responsibility to harbor dream-scapes. I don't aim to show what we see every day; I aim to show what we don't know how to see every day. My quest to expose the unseen beauty of life is heightened through a theatrical presentation, where visual sensations are enlivened by surprising juxtapositions. The sophistication of being "cultured" shouldn't interfere with an innate response to color and shape alive in space. I don't use story as a base for my performances, but rather produce an aesthetic rendering of life in the present, both personal and universal, into a mirage of sensations. My work is best approached as a high voltage meditation, that acts as a gateway to a vortex of alertness, awakening a part of the soul that didn't believe it was asleep before. My latest show, "CHINATOWN, CIAO!" has been presented at Echo Curio, a gallery in Echo Park, December, 2008, Celebration Theatre, Hollywood & Son of Semele, Silver Lake in February 2009, and will be back at ECHO CURIO: 1519 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park 90026 APRIL 19, 2009 @ 8:30pm. This a show in love with LUCK. Good Luck! We all have it when we want it! Delving into the universal law of attraction, happiness & fortune. Toying with the follies of what is lucky, what is Chinese (developed in coordination with the auspicious year of Chinese Charm in 2008, a year with China on the global stage & the Olympics opening 8-8-08, 8 being China's lucky number); inspired by my recent travels to Rome, "CHINATOWN, CIAO!" is set in a Chinese Restaurant in Rome. This performance oscillates between cultures to the point that the performance becomes a new culture. It's a tradition of mine to ignite a new show before the end of the year, and then develop it through performance in the new year. I enjoy the chance to present this show in both gallery & theatre, for it allows the performance to take its own shape between both, exposing intimacy to the audience. As with every show, there is a hope for experiencing something new that will wake us up, shake us up & make us up. How lucky I am to be a performance artist in L.A.! |
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Left: a VPP participant in Wales
This year, AMPer Federico Hewson's Valentine Peace Project expanded its vision of Valentine's Day as an opportunity for promoting peace. TVPP:
AMPer Andrew Crummy in Scotland recently
produced the third World Community Arts Day,
and welcomes you to join in for the fourth,
coming up next February.
More from Andrew: The World Community Arts Day is held on the 17th of February each year. The aim is to ask as many people as possible to be creative on that day, using art as a catalyst for caring and sharing. AMP has been very supportive of WCAD and we hope to develop this link for the future. Sing, dance, theatre, draw, paint, write, make, poem, photograph, lecture, walk, tour, talk, teach an art class or do anything that is creative! It can be a project for WCAD or it could be a separate ongoing project. If possible the artwork or event will be put on the internet or linked to the main WCAD website. The aim is to create a "world festival society" for a day, to illustrate how festival and celebration through the arts can provide answers. In the first three years World Community Arts Day has grown from an initial idea for worldwide friends to celebrate the life of Reg Bolton to over 400 websites which include many social networks, ongoing projects, concerts, workshops, radio stations and live internet broadcasts from almost every country in the world. Although it is difficult to work how many were involved, on monitoring 36 of the 400 websites in 2009 an estimated 250,000 took part through views/hits, members/friends, and participation through the internet on these key websites. It is all voluntary and multicultural, essentially grassroots individuals and groups expressing a global voice. There is no money involved and it is entirely voluntary. Throughout the year it grows as the social networks continue to build up linkage. The main aim is to not to control, but concentrate on linkage and cooperation. An example from this year of how this works would be an poem written about Art and AIDS in the Cameroon by young women called Zoneziwoh Mbondgulo, emailed to Homely Planet in Northern Ireland, an internet Radio Station, and then recorded by an Irish Poet - Scream Blue Murmur and then broadcast both from Northern Ireland and Cameroon. Another project is a live broadcast on the day of a recreation of "All you need is love" by The Beatles in 1967 by a tribute band called The Cheatles and a community group from Rochdale UK called Peopleprint that gained 17,000 viewers that day. Another example is a concert in The Waterfront Hall Belfast which was broadcast and repeated throughout the following week by Homely Planet. Another example is Ken Wolverton in Mew Mexico, who created an artwork on his farm, then update its creation (over a four month period) on his website and World Community Arts Day discussion group. And finally a global drumming circle was started by Drumatik, a drumming group from Fife Scotland, broadcast live by Rocca Gutteridge on Leith FM, who is also a member of AMP. You are invited to be part of this growing movement. http://www.communiversity.org.uk/worldcommunityartsday.htm You can still hear highlights on Homely Planet radio station http://www.homelyplanet.co.uk/ http://www.homelyplanet.co.uk/wcad09.php "All you need is love" broadcast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOA25DbK_zU Support from Scottish Minister of Culture http://www.communiversity.org.uk/lindafabiani.htm Ken Wolverton, New Mexico, USA http://kewolve.com/Communityarts.htm |
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Getting involved with your local arts community is good for you, on so many levels. Start local, post your doings on AMP through blogs, images, sounds, and videos, and check back to see what other AMPers are doing. And don't forget that with AMP, you share in an amazing worldwide collective of artists and art worlds.
all the best,
 Terri Anderson, Executive Director
AMP: Artists Meeting Place and Resource Collective
email:
pluginamp@gmail.com
web:
http://pluginamp.com
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