© 2020 NDERE
The Salon serves as a platform for two to three vegan ceremonial or ritual-focused events, actions or performances per year, initiated independently by creative entities from different areas of knowledge and lived experiences, and focused on a wide range of investigations dealing with healing, from the personal to the collective.
Interior Beauty in Motion Fellows: Erin Sickler and Hana van der Kolk / Priscilla Marrero / Andrés Senra / Arantxa Araujo
A witness tree is a tree that has stood in a place long enough to have borne witness to some important historical human—meaning past—event. These trees often bear this description for their unusual size, shape, coloring, or placement. In Gettysburg National Park, rangers have declared a dozen or so trees as witnesses, “witness trees.” (Although I have trouble associating the word “tree” with the word “war“.)
For me, all trees are witnesses, and their tense is everpresent. Perhaps it is selfish, in that typically anthropocentric way, to think that a tree would care for me one way or the other, but I’ve always felt, alone in the words, or with another in shared, ritual practice, that the silent witness of a community of trees is one of the greatest gifts on Earth.
For several years, friend, choreographer, healer, dancer, sage Hana van der Kolk and I have been meeting each other in a community of trees, most of them in the elderwilds of Troy, New York to dance, to move, to witness one another, and to create language in a practice called WitHnessing.
To be witnessed by the trees, as I said is a gift, a total feeling of acceptance quite the opposite of the digital world where we now conjoin. To be Withnessed by another person, the way that trees witness, is an ultimate expression of compassion and generosity.
Over the past three years, Hana and I have squirreled away an archive of shared words and movement from this WitHnessing practice. Here at the Interior Beauty Salon, we will present these shadowdances and secret languages--never meant for an audience--in the translated form of a correspondence, consisting of texts, videos, and workshops.
Erin Sickler, October 2022
this is a video poem/letter to Erin Sickler in response to the video that she made as part of our ongoing friendship/withnessing practice and our virtual "In Motion" residency with the Interior Beauty Salon. it is a collage that comes together from my video/audio/text/affect archives connected to my wider, ongoing, meandering friendship/withnessing practices.
contributors of materials include Erin Sickler, Jonah Moberg, Julia Handschuh, Van Tran Nguyen, the Panorama Jazz Band, and radial diamond kinetics participants. the song at the end is by me and Jonah Moberg.
Since 2019, Erin and Hana have been witHnessing each other, most often in the woods of Upstate New York and usually through the forms of movement and writing. Through this practice they have wondered about friendship, aging, courage and the process of finding recognition–as artists, as people–which they have found may, in fact, sometimes include becoming unrecognizable. This process has provoked them to question what it means to complete an artwork and by what means to locate or shape the form of an offering whether for a tree, one person, or a larger public. For the Interior Beauty Salon, they are excited to expand this conversation. As part of their residency, they will host workshops and invite guests, collaborators and interlocutors to creatively engage with this terrain.
Erin Sickler is a curator, writer, and lifelong mover. She received her BA in Art and Environmental Studies from Oberlin College and an interdisciplinary MA at NYU. Positions include Gallery Manager of the Esther Massry Gallery at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY; Director of Curatorial Programs at 601Artspace, New York, NY; and Assistant Curator at the Queens Museum, Queens, NY. She is currently Studio Director for the artist Randy Polumbo. Independently curated exhibitions include Mutadis Mutandis: Signo, Símbolo, Icono (Uno Caña, Mexico City), exhaust (Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart), and Prolonged Engagement (EFA Project Space, New York). Her art writing has appeared in Art in America, Artlink (AUS), The Brooklyn Rail, October, and numerous blogs and catalogs. Her poetry has been published in The Brooklyn Rail and as part of artist Freya Powell’s collection The Mnemosyne Atlas 2012. Residencies for non-fiction writing include Millay Colony, Austerlitz, NY and the Broken Hill Art Exchange in Broken Hill, Australia.
I'm Hana van der Kolk (pronouns any and all). I see dance as a conduit for knowing/unknowing what is here and now, for remembering intimacy at any proximity. I'm interested in leaning towards the uncanny, the messy and the boring in that process. Based on Mohican territory (Troy, NY), I am tending land and community. I am also often in Amsterdam (NL), was based in Los Angeles for years, and have taught/performed in many places and kinds of containers. I am nearing the end of a practice-based PhD with a collection of practices, a video piece and written dissertation titled Utopia's Stamina (which I borrow from Bernadette Mayer). I hope they will be nourishing offerings! I love my dog, my friends, the forest and all shades of pink and gold.
Erin Marie Siclkler’s related links: Instagram
Hana van der Kolk’s related links: Instagram / website
All images above courtesy of Erin Marie Sickler and Hana van der Kolk
Photo: courtesy of Priscilla Marrero
Priscilla’s participation in The Salon consists of a series of online gatherings centered around the pelvis, and which invites a diverse roster of practitioners ranging from dance, somatic practice to breath work. This program will run January-June 2022, on Thursdays for each session. Join us as we shake, educate, and shine together!
Photot: Kali Veach / La Pelvis Project, 2022
Priscilla Marrero (ella/she) is an experimental performing + teaching artista from sunny Seminole, Taino and Tequesta land, also known as Miami, Florida. She is a passionate storyteller and loves to discover new ways to collaborate with interdisciplinary artistas through live performance or filmmaking. She has performed and presented her collaborations in the Musée Dapper (Paris, FR), The Empty Circle (Brooklyn, NY), Miami Light Project (Miami, FL), Inkub8 (Miami, FL), Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church (New York, NY) y más. Priscilla has received support from grants such as Artist Access Grant, Miami-Dade Community Grants, Here and Now Grant, and Gluck Fellowship Grant, MFA Graduate Fellowship, and currently the Chancellor's Distinguished Fellowship Award. She graduated from Florida International University with a BA in Performance and Choreography (09’) and is currently an MFA Candidate for Experimental Choreography from the University of California Riverside (22’) for her research practice on La Pelvis. Priscilla lives and works on/with Munsee Lenape land, known as Harlem, NY and often travels to Miami Beach for el mar and some familia time. Priscilla Marrero related links: website / IG / Vimeo /
All sessions were free and open to the public upon RSVPing. Any donations collected went directly to support La Pelvis Project.
This series was made possible with the support of the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts, Interior Beauty Salon, and the University of California Riverside Dance Department.
Click HERE to contact @priscilla_performance_artista
VIDEO ARCHIVE OF SESSIONS:
Still of Jessica Garet by Nicolás / Click on image to play video
Session with Jessica Garet of Aire Healing
In this session Jessica Garet discusses how our body, especially our pelvis, holds the potential for our greatest creativity and connection to our vitality and authentic expression. She invites and guides us in exploring how breath can help us to uncover energetic blocks stored in our body and use the body’s wisdom to access increased sensations of safety and a return to feeling a deeper sense of belonging. The intention is that if the body and spirit can remember their innate gifts of safety, connection, pleasure, and expansion then the energy of trauma, loss, grief, and pain will have a greater ability to flow and be liberated.
Still of Justin Morris by Nicolás / Click on image to play video
Session with Justin Morris
“I feel the most at home when I am with my friends on the dance floor and we are getting our lives, creating a portal to a world otherwise, where liberation and pleasure can be found. This offering hopes to foster a space where we will turn inwards as a collective in hopes of manifesting a sense of release across dimensions; physically, mentally, and spiritually. The offering will build upon and use the improvisational structures and movement practices of twerking, the Feldenkrais method, Bartenieff fundamentals, and ratchet music as a bridge to getting to this multidimensional release for the individual and the collective.” Justin Morris
Still of Alfons Grabher by Nicolás / Click on image to play video
Session with Alfons Grabher
“Why don't you just say what you want to say? How can we ever find the right words within the infinite possible combinations of words and sounds of a spoken language? And furthermore: Can we compare spoken language to physical movement? For example, in spoken language, would the repeated shouting of a single word be the equivalent to the repeated execution of a single motion? And consequently, would telling a longer story be the equivalent to a longer movement sequence? In movement, what would constitute a congruent story? What makes or breaks the grammar of movement? In this context I present a selection of movement sequences from Somatic Education, inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais, to experience the pelvis like we might experience the subject, object or verb in a sentence, or the agonist, or antagonist, or a side character, or maybe even the setting in a story. Does any of this make any sense? What do we need to make sense of movement? In popular media we see famous clinical psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists produce a lot of very elaborate and complex spoken language, but why don't we see them teach equally sophisticated movement classes? Let's find out!”
Still of Tiffany Madera by Nicolás / Click on image to play video
Session with Tiffany Madera / Baladi workshop with Hanan
Baladi means Country in Egypt. It can describe a person, homeland, a rhythm, dance, or various aspects of life.
Participants engage with Baladi technique and combinations, an Egyptian women’s folk and social dance, through the framework of Hanan’s signature social justice lens that examines race, gender, politics, identity, and activism.
With an added focus on the pelvis, this workshop discusses the history of Raks Baladi dance, (known in the west as bellydance) in its geographic and transnational context, how it came to North America and how to articulate the multiple meanings of the dance through an intersectional feminist framework, as embodied by the pelvis, its undulations and its many meanings
Still of final gathering with Priscilla Marrero and LULU by Nicolás / Click on image to play video
Session with Priscilla Marrero and LULU
For our final gathering in La Pelvis Project Presented Live with LULU. LULU and Priscilla are interested in bringing folx together in conversation, in movement, and in celebration of the time we have been spending together as Interior Beauty In Motion Fellows in The Interior Beauty Salon from January-June 2022. We guide a movement and breath practice inspired by diverse Afro-Caribbean social dance forms, somatic awareness, self-inquiry, and improvisation. We close the gathering with dialogue about the experiences of the participants, and manifest for future La Pelvis exchanges.
Biograhpies:
Jessica Garet (she/her) is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in body/spirit-based experiential practices for healing including breathwork and somatic/sensation-based inquiry. As an arts enthusiast and vocalist, Jessica has a particular interest in working with creative professionals, helping them to navigate creative energetic blocks and nurture their inner voice. She has been holding space for healing since 2006 and presently offers individual and group work online only. Jessica Garet related links: website / IG /
Justin Morris (they/them, fluctuating pronouns) is a transdisciplinary artist, teacher, and community advocate based in Southern California. They began cultivating their practice at a young age at family functions and have continued to tie and ground their work in blackness, queerness, playfulness and ratchedry. Justin has performed/collaborated in performances and dance-based works with artists Jay Carlon, Sue Roginski and Kirsten Johansen, Kevin Williamson, Alex Shilling, Colleen Thomas, visual artist David Lamelas, Rebecca Bryant, Rosa Rodriguez-Fraiser, and Summation Dance Company. Justin holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from CSU Long Beach’s Department of Dance and was recently a faculty member at Renaissance High School for the Arts in Long Beach. They are currently pursuing graduate studies at University of California Riverside in Experimental Choreography.
Alfons Grabher born in 1974 in Vienna, Austria, is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, and a graduate Engineer from the University of Applied Sciences, Vienna, specialized in Biomedical Engineering. Alfons has worked for over a decade as a Software Engineer, and since 2006 as a Feldenkrais Practitioner. His Youtube channel Improving Ability (formerly named “Feldenkrais with Alfons”) ranked #1 on Feedspot’s Top 20 Feldenkrais Youtube Channels in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. He is author of several books: an introduction to Feldenkrais classes My Feldenkrais Book, a workbook with movement lessons Getting Better day by Day, and an inquiry into language, essay writing and movement instructions in his book Movement Based. Alfons works with clients via video chat and in person. Before the COVID-19 lockdowns, for a period of 5 years, he had his own studio in Bregenz, Austria. His website in German language features a journey of 60 class recordings in German language, and is one of the most visited Feldenkrais related websites in German language. Alfons Grabher related links: IG / YouTube / Facebook
Tiffany Madera is an artist at the intersection of film, dance, contemporary art and social justice. Anchored in Caribbean aesthetics, Madera’s work is provocative and global, bridging movement and visual vocabularies from North Africa, the Caribbean and Americas to examine diasporic thought and bodies. Working with feminist and post colonial theories, her projects seek to reconcile gender and diasporic trauma. Through her films and projects, Madera creates transformative opportunities for healing and building community.
Based in Miami Beach, Madera directs Hanan Arts, an intersectional feminist arts non profit and produces festivals, social practice interdisciplinary projects, curates contemporary art exhibitions, performs and choreographs dance and directs and produces documentary films. As an educator, Madera serves as Adjunct faculty at Barry University. In collaboration with various non profits, Madera has taught dance and performance extensively in a women’s correctional facility, with adjudicated, homeless, marginalized and immigrant youth, adult survivors of child sexual abuse, rape and sexual assault, all using Raqs Sharqui/ bellydance as her unique calling card.
Her award winning films and projects have been funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ware Foundation, Green Family Foundation, state, and local government, and national awards. Tiffany Madera holds a Masters's Degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Florida International University and a Master’s Degree in Performance Studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
During his time at The Salon, Andrés Senra presents a series of videos about the possibility of queering identity beyond gender binaries, as well as subverting the dual Western value system that separates the human from the non-human. This system of Western knowledge organizes the universe according to taxonomic rules that separate and divide it into artificial/natural, subject/object, mind/body, organic/inorganic, living/non-living, woman/man, human/non-human, human/animal, ability/disability, nature/culture, white/non-white, subject/object, reason/emotion, freedom /necessity, civilized/wild, and so on, assigning positive and negative values in a hierarchical way. Negative values have traditionally been assigned to the feminine, the queer, the animal and the non-white.
The video works created for The Interior Beauty Salon question these values that produce otherness and also subvert anthropocentrism as an episteme that places human (white cis hetero men) in a position of hierarchy and dominance over all other beings. Each piece of videoart and videoperformance will be uploaded once a month until December 2021, reflecting on the possibility of building alliances of desire and care with the planet and the beings that inhabit it from the position of the Other.
Upcoming Open Call for Videos: Andrés Senra will also make an open call for artists who would like to contribute to his ideas with video creations that will be presented collectively in an online event in November. Video creations and video performances must reflect on the concept of caring for the planet through practices such as veganism, magic, rituals, feminism, anti-speciesism, queer and anti-racist artivism, and must not last longer than 2 minutes.
About the creative: Andrés Senra has received the Multiverso Videoart Grant, BBVA Foundation (2015); Fase 7 Mobility Art Grant from The Spanish Agency for International Development and Cooperation (AECID) (2014). He has also received an artist research grant of the National Museum of Contemporary Arts of Spain / Reina Sofía (2013-2014). In 2012 he was selected by the Goethe-Institut and Instituto Cervantes of Spain for the art program Participar.de, taking place in Berlin, Madrid, and Toulouse. In 2012 and 2013 he received the Ministry of Culture Grant for the promotion of Spanish art abroad. In 2009 he received the Madrid Procesos artist Grant of AVAM and Karl Hofer Universität Der Künste, Berlin; and in 2005 Senra was artist in residence at the Contemporary Art Center La Casa Encendida in Madrid. Winner of the Casa Velázquez Prize for Art Creation at Estampa (2009), he has also received, among other prizes, the Region of Madrid Award for art creation (2008). Senra’s work has been exhibited in important galleries and museums around the world such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía MNCARS (Spain), VanAbbe Museum (Holland), Art Center Nabi (Korea), and Centro Cultural Recoleta (Argentina), among other places.
Photo: still from Chapter 1 Puppy / Courtesy of the artist
Andrés Senra related links: website / IG / Vimeo / Facebook / YouTube
Chapter 1 / Puppy
Chapter 2 / Becoming Other
Chapter 3 / On the Origin of Trans-Species
Chapter 4 / A Farewell Song to Humans
Chapter 5 / Transparaiso
Andrés Senra’s participation in The Salon included an open call for 2 minutes videos for We Were Never Human, a screening at BAAD! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance). Curated by Andrés Senra with Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo.
Creatives were called to propose up to two minutes videos/video performances that reflected on the concept of caring for the planet. Examples included practices such as veganism, magic, rituals, anti-speciesism, ecofeminisms, ecoqueerism, anti-ableism and anti-racist artivisms. The videos submitted to this open call were meant to question otherness and also subvert anthropocentrism as an episteme that places human in a position of hierarchy and dominance over all other beings. This call considered videos reflecting on the possibilities of building alliances of desire and care with the planet and the beings that inhabit it from the position of the Other.
Alliances of Care and Desire arises from Andrés Senra’s own impetus and interest in the possibility of queering identity beyond gender binaries, as well as subverting the dual Western value system that separates the human from the non-human. This system of Western knowledge organizes the universe according to taxonomic rules that separate and divide it into artificial/natural, subject/object, mind/body, organic/inorganic, living/non-living, woman/man, human/non-human, human/animal, ability/disability, nature/culture, white/non-white, subject/object, reason/emotion, freedom /necessity, civilized/wild, and so on, assigning positive and negative values in a hierarchical way. Negative values have traditionally been assigned to the feminine, the queer, the animal, and the non-white.
THE VIDEOS SELECTED PREMIERED AT BAAD! (BRONX ACADEMY OF ARTS AND DANCE) AS PART OF THE OUT LIKE THAT 2022 FESTIVAL.
We were Never Human (trailer for screening).
A video art show curated by Andrés Senra and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles.
Participating artists:
Dimple B Shah / Daniela Beltrani / José Carlos Casado / Fantasía Collage (Aurora Duque de la Torre & María Huerta Arce (Lo Súper)) / Gwen Charles / David Farrán de Mora / Félix Fernández / Aitor Flores / Heather Fries / Ivana Larrosa / Marisa Maza / Carali McCall / Ildiko Meny / Amaia Molinet / Ruth Montiel Arias / Iván Pérez / Cristián Pietrapiana / Anna Recasens / Carlos Rivero / Ruth Somalo / Tatu Vuolteenaho/ Jody Wood / Jennifer Zackin
Presented on June 3rd, 22, 7:30 PM
BAAD! 2474 Westchester Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461. (Westchester Square) PHONE: 718-918-2110.
THE VIDEOS SELECTED PREMIERED AT BAAD! (BRONX ACADEMY OF ARTS AND DANCE) AS PART OF THE OUT LIKE THAT 2022 FESTIVAL.
Documentation of We Were Never Human, a video screening at BAAD! (Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance). Presented as part of the OUT LIKE THAT 2022 Festival.
LUX is a project by Arantxa Araujo / In collaboration with Gabriel Chakraji, Vicios Ocultos, and Mariana Uribe
LUX is a virtual invitation to show up daily for an experimental meditative practice. It merges meditation, scientific research and experiential technologies in an aesthetic expression. The idea is to visit The Interior Beauty Salon every day for the month of February to exercise our awareness.
Individuals are invited to observe and listen, both internally and externally, for one minute attempting to view without judgment or expectation, simply noticing the video, and also our emotions, our thoughts, and our breath.
Could fully immersing ourselves into an audiovisual experience expand our consciousness?
Along with this question there are many that come to mind. Acknowledge what questions come to you. Notice them. You might want to keep a journal for these and any other ideas and reflections.
After watching the videos, I invite you to close your eyes and now keep noticing. You may spend as long as you want, but try to spend at least one-minute doing nothing but noticing.
You may watch the videos at any time. In establishing this practice, it is recommended that we watch the videos at similar times (for example, at 9 am).
On February 28, 2021 at 7pm EST, we will all practice for half an hour in community, a live participatory performance. The performance will be livestreamed from the Leslie-Lohman Museum to your homes. We will revisit what we have experienced and noticed. After finishing the performance, we will have a conversation about our shared experiences.
To register for the performance click HERE or contact The Interior Beauty Salon
For more information scroll down or click HERE / To watch video introduction click HERE
To watch Lux’s daily videos, February 1-28, please scroll down
Arantxa Araujo related links: website / IG
Image courtesy of the artist
WEEK 1 /BEING & NOTICING
7 meditations focused on presence, noticing our surroundings and external context, slowly moving inward to create awareness of our physical, affective, cognitive and vibrational bodies.
DAY 1: 02-01-21 / Allow yourself to observe and listen. Be.
DAY 2: 02-02-21 / Notice the noise. Let the chatter go. Find stillness.
Day 3: 02-03-21 / From stillness, the movement is easily perceived. What causes this movement. Stillness.
WEEK 2 /CLEANSING AND HEALING
Rituals that allow the physical body, the emotional scars, the mind and the nadis or energetical channels to flow in a balanced and peaceful manner.
Day 9: 2-9-21 / Continue listening through your entire body. What do you sense? What do you feel? Allow the inner spaciousness to reveal the moving energy.
Day 10: 2-10-21 / Visualize water flowing. Passing through. Bringing what is needed and taking away what is not. Finding a balance of giving and taking. Finding a place of balance
Day 11: 2-11-21 / Breath in and out. Notice and recognize. Visualize incense burning impurities in the air. Allow fire and wind to burn and release. Breath in and out
Day 12: 2-12-21 / Sit and listen with all your body. Create time for self-reflection. What do you notice?
Day 13: 2-13-21 / Allow the internal fire to begin the transformation. Notice change.
Day 14: 2-14-21
WEEK 3 / ALCHEMICAL TRANSFORMATION
By becoming aware and allowing all our bodies to be cleansed and healed, one allows small changes to occur at different levels of our existence, and in time larger alchemical transformations arrive which gives us access to heightened consciousness.
Day 15: 2-15-21 / Calcination: the initial phase. We are called to bring about some change in our substance: physical or chemical constitution. To oxidize a part or the whole of ourselves- we invite our attachments of the material world to become ash.
Day 16: 2-16-21 / Dissolution: the ash of what was, the dissolved substance—the structures of artificiality, breaking down the conscious self into its parts and waiting… letting go of control for the emergence of examination.
Day 17: 2-17-21 / Separation: to examine the parts through isolation. These emergent parts are now ours to filter and discard any unworthy material. In this is a very conscious process; our true selves begin to arise.
Day 18: 2-18-21 / Conjunction: we must now recombine the filtered elements from separation. Together they continue their process of combining. True Self birthed from the divine union of duality.
Day 19: 2-19-21 / Fermentation: living the process from intuition and knowing—ultimately, leading to inspired action as we learn to connect and trust the world beyond the physical.
Day 20: 2-21-20 / Distillation: purification of the unborn Self. We condense our fermentation. Free from attachments, our fermented Self becomes the change in our perception of reality.
Day 21: 2-21-21 / Coagulation is the sublimation of the purified Ferment from Distillation: the sensed level of awareness that is beyond all things, the union and embodiment of the Spirit.
WEEK 4 / MEDITATION IN LIGHT CREATING DAILY RITUALS
This time is ours! On the 4th week we reinforce rituals of being and noticing; cleansing and healing; of allowing alchemical transformations in our bodies; and lastly remind ourselves that healing and wellbeing is a daily practice.
Day 22: 2-22-21 / Noticing the true self. How do you feel?
Day 23: 2-23-21 / Change is constant. Shifting paradigms. New Perspectives.
Day 24: 2-24-21 / Flow. Flow. Flow.
Day 25: 2-25-21 / Listen to your beat, your full body, your heart.
Day 26: 2-26-21 / Let go. Breath.
Day 27: 2-27-21 / Each moment is an opportunity to remain present.
Day 28: 2-28-21 / Each ending is a new beginning
Could fully-immersing ourselves into an audiovisual experience expand our consciousness?
On February 28, 2021, LUX culminated a 28 -day journey with a half-hour virtual practice, and a participatory performance live-streamed through Zoom and YouTube from The Leslie-Lohman Museum. LUX invited us to show up and immerse ourselves in an audiovisual oasis of consciousness, and to allow visualization and meditation to expand our awareness and to dissolve any duality between subject/object.
The Performance was followed by conversation about our shared experiences. This involved Arantxa Araujo, Gabriel Chakarji, Mariana Uribe, Anna Costa e Silva, and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo.
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is the only dedicated LGBTQ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ art and foster the artists who create it.
