Creative Side

SANTA MONICA MUSEUM OF ART PRESENTS Tour da Arts, vol. 5 Sunday, August 18, 2013

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Tour da Arts vol5 logoThe Santa Monica Museum of Art presents Tour da Arts, vol. 5, its fifth annual  cultural bike tour through the city of Santa Monica. In the words of Asuka Hisa, SMMoA’s director of education and public programs, “Tour da Arts, vol. 5 is a fantastic way to explore the arts in Santa Monica while embracing a greener, healthier, and more sustainable mode of transportation.” For this year’s tour, the Museum has partnered with community groups, cycling organizations, and creative individuals to bring you a day of cross-disciplinary, cycling-related activities on Sunday, August 18th from 11 am to 5 pm. Each of the three stops on the tour features a particular art form: visual art, music, and dance.Tour da Arts, vol. 5 kicks off at 11 am with a bicycle-themed festival at SMMoA. The focus of this year’s festival will be multi-modal transportation and the creative side of bike culture. To encourage participation in the ride, 25 free bike rentals will be provided by Perry’s Café and Rentals on a first-come, first-served basis. Partners from Metr

o will show participants how to load their bikes onto buses and light rail, Bikerowave—a local bike co-op— will provide complimentary pre-ride tune-up services, and Solé Bicycles will exhibit one-of-a-kind, artist-designed bicycles alongside their everyday line. As the first stop on the tour, SMMoA will host walkthroughs of its  summer exhibitions: Joyce Pensato: I KILLED KENNY, dosa at SMMoA: Exploring Joshua Tree, and Marco Rios: Anatomy of an Absent Artist.

The tour will depart promptly at 1 pm for its next stop, the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club. At the club, riders will enjoy a combination of modern beats and line dances with Griffin Rodriguez and some of his Icy Demons bandmates. The ride will continue to Grant Elementary School for At the Oasis, a unique, site-specific Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre performance that uses a 1966 Oasis trailer as a stage and prop. Finally, riders will return to SMMoA for an exciting raffle, featuring products from Pedego Santa Monica Electric Bicycles and Linus

Bikes, and a brand new bike from Bike Attack. Tour da Arts will be led by certified cyclists from local advocacy organization Cyclists Inciting Change thru Live Exchange (C.I.C.L.E.). Hundreds of cyclists will join in for this celebrated annual tour, which will proceed at a sociable pace and obey all traffic laws.

SMMoA kicked-off Tour da Arts, vol. 5 in June with a “Bike Critter Art Contest,” an opportunity for people of all ages to submit cycling critters. The winning drawing, by David Chernobylsky, was selected by a panel of three professional judges—illustrator Calef Brown, artist Mel Kadel, and Giant Artists agency’s Jen Lamping—to serve as the event’s featured mascot.

Admission is FREE and open to all ages. Registration is required, and space is limited. Register at smmoa.org/tourdaarts.

What to Bring: Basic riding skills and a bicycle in good running order. All participants under the age of 18 must wear a helmet and be escorted by a parent or guardian. Children under the age of 9 should be on a tag-along, bike trailer, tandem, or other safe child-carrying device.

2_SMMoA_TourdaArtsvol4_2012_Photo by Edizen Stowell

Tour da Arts schedule:

11 am – 1 pm: Tour da Arts, vol. 5 Festival and Check-in at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

  • Tours of SMMoA’s current exhibitions: Joyce Pensato: I KILLED KENNY, dosa at SMMoA: Exploring Joshua Tree, and Marco Rios: Anatomy of an Absent Artist
  • Bicycle Advocacy: Learn fun and safe biking tips from Santa Monica SPOKE/Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, LA Metro, City of Santa Monica Transportation, and C.I.C.L.E.
  • Art Bikes and Tune-ups: Get a complimentary bike tune-up from Bikerowave, LA’s volunteer-run, community operated bike repair shop. Check out Solé Bicycles’ Art Bikes, a series of unique, artist-designed bicycles
  • Food and Drink: Enjoy delicious options from ONE Coconut Water, Clif/Luna Bar, and Whole Foods Market Santa Monica

1 pm: Tour da Arts, vol. 5 Cultural Bike Tour departs SMMoA

1:30 – 2:15 pm: Second Stop: Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club

  • Enjoy music by Griffin Rodriguez and members of Icy Demons, an experimental music project
  • Refreshments and snacks provided by Whole Foods Market Santa Monica, Clif Bar, ONE Coconut Water

3:00 – 3:45 pm: Third Stop: Grant Elementary School Playground

  • At the Oasis— an exclusive performance by Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre
  • Additional refreshments and treats

4:15 – 5:00 pm: Final Stop: Return to SMMoA at the Bergamot Station Arts Center

  • Tour da Arts raffle, with products from Linus Bikes and Pedego Santa Monica Electric Bicycles, and a bicycle from Bike Attack.

Trash Hosts Outbound To Wonderland

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The stars–and the moon- were in alignment last week when Cody Braudt, a BFA-1 student at Cal Art presented his play “Outbound to Wonderland” at Trailer Trash during the New Works Festival 2011.

The play focuses on the relationship between a precocious seven-year old girl and her writer father, a dreamer who fights for his daughter’s right to develop her imaginative powers.  Cody describes Lizzie as “spunky, sarcastic and ironic with a strong sense of fantasy- and sometimes a lack of focus.”

Nora King as Lizzie and Casey Jackson as her father

When a school psychologist prescribes medication to improve Lizzie’s math scores and classroom behavior,  her father recoils, worrying that medication will squelch Lizzie’s creative side.  Together, father and daughter plan an evening together under the stars in Wonderland, their imaginary world that is a tip of the  hat both to Lewis Carroll and to the real-world name of the last stop on Boston’s Blue Line.

Several of the play’s scenes are set underground,  on a subway platform and inside a subway car.  Filmed images from a speeding subway window are imaginatively projected against the Spartan’s aluminum siding, in a superb use of space, sound and light.

The inspiration for the play came more than a year ago when Cody and his dad were visiting schools in Boston. To get Cody a real-world feel of student life in the city, his father insisted that they take public transportation. Descending the subway steps, they saw the sign, “Outbound to Wonderland.”  At that moment something clicked:  they both thought it would make a great title for a play.

photo credit: Thrillho

In the end, Cody chose Cal Arts over Boston.  But the idea for the play surfaced again when he first arrived at his new school and saw Sam’s trailer parked in the lower lot.  “I thought it would be a perfect place to stage a play,” said Cody.  Later when Sam gave a talk to one of Cody’s classes, the two agreed Cody’s new work could take place at the trailer.

Two days before the first performance, the crew descended on the trailer at midnight to set up.  Then, during the tech rehearsal it rained, underscoring the challenges of outdoor performances.  The challenges of working with a small venue was another element.

“It’s a creative challenge,” Cory explained. “It’s not easy to work with the constraints on space.   But that’s what makes it stimulating.  It’s difficult to imagine the play being staged anywhere else.”

Cody (right) and his fellow technical directors for Outbound to Wonderland.

Cody practically grew up in the theatre world, acting professionally as a child at the Guthrie Theatre and other Minnesota venues. At Cal Arts he wanted to turn his hand to the technical side of productions.  “It’s a whole new world of creativity.  As a director, I want to be able to bring all these aesthetics together, to understand sound and lighting design.”

The move to Cal Arts was difficult at first, having left a tight-knit group of friends behind.  “After high school, some of them stayed in Minnesota; others moved to Chicago.  I was the only one who went all the way out to California.”

As the school year comes to an end Cody has fallen in love with Cal Arts.  “I’ve made new friends and have still been able to keep my old ones – they’ve been very supportive.”

When discussing the importance of home and community to artists – a theme central to the Trailer Trash Project – Cody says, “Home is not about a place, it’s about the people you enjoy being with, people who will support you. People who won’t stifle your imagination.”

detail from poster designed by Cody Braudt for "Outbound to Wonderland"

As the crew stuck the set late last Thursday night, Cody’s thoughts had already turned to future, considering how to expand and improve on the play, and of new productions he would soon undertake.  But he stopped long enough to discuss ways that Trailer Trash could join him on his journey,  Outbound to Wonderland.

This post is part of a series documenting Sam Breen’a Spartan Restoration Project. Please see his first post here and check out the archive here. The CSPA is helping Sam by serving in an advisory role, offering modest support and featuring Sam’s Progress by syndicating his feed from http://spartantrailerrestoration.wordpress.com as part of our CSPA Supports Program.