Laurie Van Wieren livens up the Museum
Choreographer Laurie Van Wieren has been a resident here at the Museum for the past week, and we’ve been thrilled to have her. While officially here on “business” exploring ideas for a new dance piece, she’s also been getting involved with some of our day-to-day activities; she took part in a discussion with a group of visiting students and even joined in Marjorie Schlossman’s “Painting at the Plains” class on Wednesday. Her positive attitude and enthusiasm are infectious.
Laurie has appreciated the opportunity to rehearse and create in our third floor raw space and tailored a few of her movements to the architecture. She will further share her talents and expertise this Saturday in a movement workshop, inspired by the Judy Onofrio exhibition See Acts of Audacious Daring, entitled “I Ran Away with the Circus“. In the workshop, she’ll focus on the movements of circus performers, clowns, and acrobats. It’s an excellent opportunity for performance artists, visual artists, and dancers to expand their physical repertoire. If you can’t make it for the workshop, feel free to drop by tomorrow, 10 a.m. – noon and 1 p.m. – 3 p.m., to watch Laurie rehearse and have a chat.
Learn more about Laurie Van Wieren by visiting her website at laurievanwieren.com.
There is a lot to be learned from this woman, in many different areas. Congratulations to the Plains Museum and their lucky attendees.
I had such a great time at the Plains Art Museum! Colleen Sheehy (Director of the Plains Art Museum) Invited me up to come out and check out the space and see how dance might fit into the museum. I found out that Fargo is full of artists, other terrific people and many trains.
I was able to work out some new ideas for a new solo in the beautiful space that they have on there 3rd floor. At first I was self conscious , because I was use to being alone in a studio. I found a way to work and let the movement of the staff, visitors and the architecture effect what I was doing. I developed a dance from my visual observations of the building and paintings in the museum, including appearing and reappearing on the elevator. I am hoping to go back to perform it. However I kept thinking about how great it would be to work with a whole group of dancers moving through the space and letting the audience see dancers from the roofs outside the windows and different levels in the art museum….who knows, maybe next time.
I taught a class right in the gallery- in the show. The show was full of mixed-media artist Judy Onofrio sculptures of Circus performers and a documentary made in 1940 of Barnum and Bailey setting up and performing in Grant park in Chicago. The students created their own versions of the sculptures and as well as clown character’s influenced by the film.
My schedule was full – Colleenn Sheehy also had me going to yoga classes including one new class that she set up on Tues mornings 3rd floor. There was also a showing and discussion of Lynn Hershman’s documentary !Women Art Revolution at Fargo’s movie theater. This is beautiful restored theater where they show art film and have performances on their vaudeville stage.
Fargo resident Marjorie Schlossman, a wonderful visual artist and musician, who teaches a class at the Plains every Wednesday invited me into her class. She put me in front of 3 tubes of paint and a canvas- I painted a section of my dance solo that I had been working on.
And then there was Vickie Bogart- who was a in a dance piece I created in Fargo many, many years ago, she showed up to take me to the international Quilting show that was on exhibit in the Historical Center, then on to an international club- a gathering of 50 women from all over the world, who happen to live in Fargo. This get together has been going on for 43 years.
I had a great conversation with Megan Johnston, the New Curator at the Plains about her ideas for the Plains and experience curating at the Leadwhite Gallery in Dublin Ireland and art directing and curating at the Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown, Northern Ireland.
Every cafe and restaurant in town had the work of local artists hanging on the walls. The women who made my Cappuccino in the morning Sabrina Hornung is a visual artist and Burlesque performer ( Look for her at 9×22 dance/Lab this coming year!)
Colleen and I had some wonderful talks about the artistic eco -system of Fargo, The Twin Cities and beyond.
Everyone at the Plains was terrific to work with.
I had a very rich experience in Fargo at the Plains. Thank you. I look forward to going back…maybe in the spring?
Cheers,
Laurie
PS: Did I mention some that they have nice restaurants including a brilliant one…Green Market-organic and affordable.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Laurie! It was great having you here.
Hello Laurie-
Thanks for sharing your very full experiences at the Plains and in Fargo. As always, you were a wonderfully stimulating presence to fill our spaces. The work you did in our third floor space confirmed our need to use that space more fully. It is a beautifl, unique space with views of downtown Fargo and the sky–beautiful natural light complementing the Douglas fir wood pillars, wood floors and blonde bricks of our Museum architecture.
So happy to hear that Sabrina will be part of 9×22!
We hope to bring you back again, too. Perhaps we can link more directly with the theatre programs at the colleges. From my experiences in the Twin Cities, I’ve witnessed how much dance (broadly conceived)movement,and performance art energize an arts community. At the Lynn Hershman film, I realized how it was visual artists–particularly women–who found performance art much more effective for expressing ideas than conventional visual art media, starting in the 1960s and on to today. I think this is an important part of growing the arts in Fargo-Moorhead.
Your work with the Arts Adventures young people was such a welcome addition to their visit–and yours.
Thanks again, and we hope to bring you back!
Colleen Sheehy