VB Previz #29 – 2010 Preview

For 2010, VB/CO will present 12 works of performance art.
Performances will be:
the second Saturday of each month
from Noon – 2pm SLT.

2010 Performance Dates:
9 January
13 February
13 March
10 April
8 May
12 June
10 July
14 August
11 September
9 October
13 November
11 December

Here is a first-draft peek at some of the possible performance ideas we are developing:


VB14 – DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
9 January 2010

In our inaugural year, Kai Heideman / Powers of Creation provided wardrobe for three of our performances. Our most formal work to date was VB04 – PRISM where the cast wore his latex “Dirac” unitards (named after the 1933 Nobel Prize/Physics winner Paul Dirac)

To open our sophomore year, Kai is creating a new spectrum of latex skin for us.

Weird Fishes, originally uploaded by Pankcho.

VB15 –
THE HOUSE WITH THE OCEAN VIEW
11 – 23 January 2010

In a new “solo” work Vaneeesa Blaylock will be “on exhibition” for 12 days, 24 hours/day. For the 288 hours from Noon SLT on Monday 11 Jan to Noon SLT on Saturday 23 Jan Ms. Blaylock will be available in her 32 x 32 meter home at Angel Beach.

Tapping both the isolation/exhibition and participation/inclusion streams of performance art, as well as web exhibitionism/voyeurism, Ms. Blaylock will eat and drink, she will speak with whatever “participants” choose to cross the property line and become, for a time, a part of the work. For 12 continuous days, she will experience life in this world as deeply as possible without setting foot off her property.

VB16 – FRATERNAL / IDENTICAL
13 February 2010

In VB08 – TWO WEAR MY SKIN and VB10 – DRESSED / NAKED, we explored the idea of twins or clones in a way that only SL could. Like RL Identical Twins, our twins were of a single gender.

In VB15 – FRATERNAL / IDENTICAL, we will create a new generation of twins by matching male and female cast members. Their “progeny” will wear the shape of one, and the skin of the other.

VB17 – GINGHAM
13 March 2010

Bodies in SL are curious. In SL you can not only be tall or short, thin or wide, but you can also be a Neko or Troll, a Dragon or The Sun. Yet so many of us choose bodies and skin from a narrow definition of Western beauty. When it comes to the color of your skin, the RL world is not uniformly white, but a lot of SL is.

At the recent skin fair I did see a number of African and Indian skins, still, skin in SL seems to skew away from human diversity and toward a Western stereotype of privilege.

In VB16 – GINGHAM our cast will attempt to wear skin colors that better represent the diversity of humankind.

VB18 – GIRL NEXT DOOR 2010
10 April 2010

On Saturday, 18 April 2009 VANEEESA BLAYLOCK / COMPANY took it’s first breath of life and presented VB01 – GIRL NEXT DOOR at the Vista Hermosa Art Center.

This April we return to the noob avatar that my own anecdotal evidence suggests is the most popular. This season, our male & female cast will merge their own shapes & skins with the familiar ponytail, dress, and pumps.

VB19 – THIRD TRIMESTER
8 May 2010

In VB01 – GIRL NEXT DOOR, VB02 – PEGGY SUE, VB03 – VEINTICINCO MUJERES, we followed the cycle of life, from “girl” to adolescent teen, to woman. This year we present a new trilogy of moments from the cycle of life.

In VB18 – THIRD TRIMESTER we present our female & male cast in the 9th month of pregnancy.

VB20 – BETHLEHEM
12 June 2010

In VB19 – BETHLEHEM we travel to that small town 8 km south of Jerusalem where, as legend has it, the hopes of a world were given new life.

Our flickering star will guide us not to a geographic Bethlehem, but to an institutional one: the Neonatal Intensive-Care Unit, where some of our twin couples from VB08, VB10, and VB15 will stand in silent vigil over the teetering life of their own tiny progeny.

VB21 – PRIM BABY
10 July 2010

Having survived the Odyssey of the NICU, each member of the VB cast will stand proudly, cradling in their arms that unique entity of the SL world, the Prim Baby.

VB22 – UNDER MY SKIN
14 August 2010

In VB11 – FIRE WALK WITH ME we explored cast member NightOwl Meridoc’s idea that in RL, to take your clothes off is to be naked, but in SL, to take your clothes off is to still “wear” skin. So, what is it to be naked in SL? NightOwl suggests that the UV Grid Skin that Skin & Fashion designers start with might be our closest approximation to “naked.”

While we wore grid skins in VB11, the immense quantities of fire and other elements we imported to Burning Life ’09’s Burn Stage tended to underplay the idea of the grid skin. In VB21 – UNDER MY SKIN, we present the grid skin, perhaps the true SL nakedness in a more direct… more “naked” fashion.

VB23 – GIMP GIRL
11 September 2010

I only met JennyLin Arashi of the RL/SL group GimpGirl yesterday — but I hope we will have the honor of collaborating with GimpGirl for a performance in our 2010 season. SL amputee Danika Messerchmitt performed with us in VB06 – GOLDEN / RED, but save for that cast member, we have not considered this important group in our work.

As we have noted elsewhere, SL is a place that paradoxically offers a much wider range of identity/body/instantiation possibilities than RL, yet so often we choose from a narrower range than even the privileged identities that take so disproportionately much focus IRL.

VB24 – BURNING LIFE ’10
9 October 2010

VB/CO participated thrice in BL’09:
• VB Moment E – Artist’s Duel Camp
• VB Flashmob #4 – BL Zombie Crawl
• VB11 – Fire Walk With Me

Our other 11 performance dates for 2010 are confirmed! However, our October date will very likely change once the dates for Burning Life ’10 are announced, perhaps in early September 2010.

Burning Life is a beautiful, extraordinary event which we were privileged to be a part of in 2009, and will engage in one or many ways again in 2010.

VB25 – RUNNING FENCE
13 November 2010

For 2 weeks in 1976 Christo and Jeanne-Claude ran a fabric curtain across 39.4 km of California. The curtain ran thru 59 ranches in Sonoma & Marin counties before dropping into the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay.

For 2 hours in 2010 VB/CO will create a Running Fence of human beings (avatars) holding hands. Given SIM Agent Limits, we’ll have to find a peninsula narrower than 60 m to achieve this.

VB26 – THE NUTTY NUTCRACKER
11 December 2010

Dust off your tutus! It’s time for snowflakes and snow angels, for whirling dervishes and nutty nutcrackers! It’s time to be silly; it’s time to celebrate being alive. It’s time to dance!

These performance DATES are confirmed!
The PERFORMANCES on these dates are NOT!

This is an initial draft of ideas for the 2010 season. Many new ideas flow thru this company and the cast will gravitate in myriad and sometimes unexpected ways.

This is a good preview of what is to come for 2010, but our performance evolution will remain dynamic.

Other VB Performance Ideas:
PREVISUALIZATIONS
• VB Previz #28 – Running Fence
• VB Previz #27 – Toe Pride
• VB Previz #26 – Landscapes with a Corpse
• VB Previz #25 – Fire Walk With Me
• VB Previz #24 – Naked Life
• VB Previz RN-KM-W – A Wedding
• VB Previz #22 – The Dance of Life
• VB Previz #21 – 2nd Degree Burn
• VB Previz #20 – Living Brushes
• VB Previz #19 – Zone of Immaterial Sensibility
• VB Previz #18 – Veil
• VB Previz #17 – Fuck Toy
• SB Previz #1 – Beyond Flesh
• VB Previz #16 – Marie (1778)
• VB Previz #15 – Body Transplant
• VB Previz #14 – Two Wear My Skin
• VB Previz #13 – Gianni Versace
• VB Previz #12 – Beth Levine
• VB Previz #11 – Bitch
• VB Previz #10 – Reparations
• VB Previz #9 – Bell Jar
• VB Previz #8 – Prism
• VB Previz #7 – Go Ask Alice
• VB Previz #6 – Event
• VB Previz #5 – I Advance Masked
• VB Previz #4 – Birth of Venus
• VB Previz #3 – Mary
• VB Previz #2 – Gingham
• VB Previz #1 – Golden / Red