Nomy Lamm

Second Annual International Body Music Festival (12/5/2009)

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

San Francisco, California

Body Music is an inherently populist art form. You just need a body, your hands, your feet, your mouth, the ground, a sense of rhythm, or any of these elements in any combination. Body Music has been around forever, created and passed down through generations of people from all parts of the world, and often serves as an expression of freedom in the face of oppression.

The Herbst Theater, on the other hand, is a fancy schmancy theater decorated in ornate European style, whose very architecture denotes class and spectacle. The mostly white, well-dressed audience reinforced the feeling of formality fostered by the space, but the performers at the second annual International Body Music Festival attempted to break down that divide.

Saturday night's show opened with the Manuia Polynesian Review, a San Francisco-based dance troupe that performed high-energy traditional Polynesian dance based on activities like slapping mosquitos and paddling canoes. Festival founder Keith Terry then took the stage and led the audience in call-and-response rhythms and vocalizations that highlighted the best possibilities of audience participation—true engagement on a physical and energetic level that creates a shared experience, breaking down the “fourth wall.”

My friend Joe responded to the intricate rhythms of Parisian dancer and percussionist LeeLa Petronio, affirming her with a loud “yeah.” She looked in our direction and said “yeah?” which was kind of hot, and seemed to encourage others in the audience to interact and participate. It was sweet to feel the audience loosen up a little, and entertaining to hear the middle aged white men around me busting out with their “mm”s and “ow yeah”s.

One of the most popular performers of the night was Kenny Muhammed, the “human orchestra” from New York. An amazing beatboxer capable of doing seemingly thousands of different things at the same time, watching his facial muscles twitching in syncopated coordination was entertainment in itself. I also deeply enjoyed the music of Bouchaib Abdel Hadi Ensemble with Amine Mohammed, Susu Pampanin and Faisal Zadan. This was the only act that included instruments other than the body—drums and an oud—accentuated with layered clapping rhythms, and occasional barefoot stomping and clapping from the lead musician.

I have a preference for loud, solid rhythms as opposed to quirky shuffling ones, so it's not surprising that I found Step Afrika! to be one of the most compelling performances of the night. Part military drill, part hip hop, part African dance, stepping as an art form originated in African American fraternities in the early 1900's. It grew out of circles where men would sing together, but after World War II it evolved into lines that mirrored military formations. The director of Step Afrika! discovered similarities in African gum boot dance, which originated with diamond miners in South Africa who found that their rubber boots, filled up with water and sweat, made interesting sounds when they stomped.

Step Afrika!'s first piece had them dressed as diamond miners in gum boots (galoshes), speaking with South African accents, practicing their moves when the boss wasn't looking. The stomping, slapping rhythms are joyful, defiant, and LOUD—I found myself wondering how their boss wouldn't notice. A minute or so into the dance, a whistle blows and the boss enters. Played by the most light-skinned member of the troupe, at first I read him as a white man. It was thought-provoking that they chose to put him in the role of the boss, highlighting racial stratification rather than adopting a color-blind approach.

After Step Afrika! left the stage, a woman from the balcony yelled “your auntie loves you, Makeda!” and emcee Linda Tillery said “I think I know you, do we go to church together?” It was funny and sweet, and I was grateful for the presence of African American community in the space.

I found last year's venue, Theater Artaud, to be much more accessible, creating a more unified feeling among the audience and performers. I am happy for the organizers that they were able to grow into a larger space, but I wonder if the sacrifice of intimacy was worth it. There are plans for a 2010 tour of US cities, and next winter the IBMF will be produced in another part of the world, which feels like an authentic way of living up to the “International” part of their name.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, March 7th 2010

1st International Body Music Festival (12/05/2008)

admin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:20:00 +0000

Theatre Artaud

San Francisco, California

I love step teams, hand-clapping games, and beat-boxing. I even once had a plan to create a band out of fat people playing drumbeats on our stomachs (it was going to be called “Bongo Jam”), but I never thought of this as falling into a specific category of music. Body music, of course. I was lucky enough to attend the opening night performance of the first International Body Music Festival, an extravaganza of performances and workshops, which took place over a weekend in the Bay Area. The event covered a wide range of musical and dance styles and traditions, and was truly international with performers from the US, Brazil, Turkey, Bali, and Canada.

The immediacy of the body as an instrument means there is nothing to hide behind, for performers or audience members. The whole event was so visceral. I loved the way it interrupted the tendency of audience members to resign themselves to simply being spectators; the audience became involved, sometimes being called upon to breathe or snap in time, erupting into whoops and thunderous foot-stomping at the end of acts that moved us to really feel ourselves and our connection to our environment.

The soft, watery movements of the Turkish duo Kekeca played out over long cycles that don’t fit into 4/4 or other recognizable time signatures, offering a sinking in rather than a showing. The solid beats and goofy antics of French clowning duo Loop It, who made the kids in the audience shriek with laughter, elicited my delight when showcasing the various sounds made by hitting belly fat (Bongo Jam!). The Hambone tradition was revived and revitalized by Derique McGee. His hands moved so fast they were literally a blur, but never missed a beat. Interweaving melodies, jungle sounds, warrior games, and dazzling visual patterns were highlighted in a piece created specifically for this show by Dewa Putu Berata, a Balinese artist. And these are just some of the possibilities of body-as-instrument.

“How do you figure out that you are good at this?” my girlfriend wondered to me at intermission. My guess is you just start doing it, and you get obsessed. I remember spending hours playing “see-see-oh-playmate” with my sister when we were kids, perfecting our timing, going as fast as possible. I could see myself on this stage if my life had gone in another direction.

The MC, Diane Ferlatte, spoke about her ancestors being brought here from Africa, having everything taken from them—their names, their languages, even their drums. ("They thought they were using them to communicate. And we were!") But they still had their bodies, and they used them to make rhythms. This, she said, is what we have when everything else is taken away.

I was touched by the stunning intimacy of Inuit throat-singers Celine Kalluk and Lucie Idlout, cousins who stood face to face, grasping each other’s elbows and singing into each other’s mouths, using their throats as echo chambers. Their songs reflected sounds from their environment: melting ice on the rivers, a saw cutting down a tree. The songs had no endings; they would go as long as they could, a kind of contest, pushing each other until they would burst into laughter. It made me miss my sister.

I was mesmerized and lulled by tai chi master Dr. Alex Feng, who flowed around the stage in shimmering white fabric that caught the light and deflected sound. I kept waiting for music to come in. I could hear chirpings from backstage, so low I almost believed I was imagining them. Afterward, the MC commented on the need for silence in order to recognize music.

The whole show was great, but the truly spectacular moment of the evening was Barbatuques, a Brazilian ensemble who were making their North American debut. Their beats were powerful, the dancing playful and ecstatic, weaving contemporary and traditional influences. And the singing! Strong voices, more open and immediate than the sound of most trained American singers. Loud, joyful, childlike, and expressive. Music that plays through your whole body. They utilized a jaw harp, rapped in Portuguese, and wore super cute outfits. I went home and looked them up on YouTube, posted about them on Facebook, and watched their video over and over again. But nothing could let me relive the stampeding feet, whoops, and hollers of an audience entranced and engulfed in the power of their presence.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, December 30th 2008

100 Dollars and a T-Shirt: A Documentary about Zines in the Northwest US

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 02:43:00 +0000

Directed by Basil Shadid, Rev. Phil Sano, Nickey Robo, Joe Biel

This is a documentation of Portland, Oregon’s zine scene between 2002 and 2004. While it’s kind of basic, it’s worth it to see what Portland’s Reading Frenzy and Independent Publishing Resource Center are doing. Reading Frenzy is amazing – a whole store full of zines. The IPRC, right upstairs, is a nonprofit art space dedicated to do-it-yourself publishing – mostly zines, but also letter press, desktop publishing and other crafty things. Watching this movie makes me nostalgic for that kind of insular “we’re really doing something!” community that I used to feel so invested in - hanging out at Kinkos all night long scamming thousands of copies with my friends, convinced that we were bringing the revolution.

There are some interesting women in this movie. Moe Bowstern is dynamic and captivating, a great storyteller. In fact the title of the movie comes from a story about a skipper on a boat she worked on, who wouldn’t write for her zine, even when she offered him the same thing he received for writing for a trade magazine (a hundred bucks and a t-shirt). I related to the way Nicole Georges described her artistic process, as something she just has to do – fill up a blank book with artwork and writing, then take the least emo parts and make it into a zine. Krissy Durden told a great story about meeting a girl who said Krissy’s zine saved her mom’s life by convincing her not to have gastric bypass. Korrina Irwin talked about zines as an outlet for talking about mental health. These stories rang true and struck deep into my experience of the zine world during the hayday of Riot Grrrl (mid-nineties), when zines were helping so many young women connect the most personal aspects of our lives to the overwhelming political reality we lived in.

The juiciest and most entertaining parts of the movie were 1) watching people read reviews of their own zines – this was where people got animated and showed their personalities; and 2) the acknowledgement of scene hierarchy in the zine world. I liked what Kim Fern had to say about the way younger zine makers will look up to and idolize certain older zine stars, projecting their own insecurities onto these “cool” people they want to be like. Moe gave a great sound byte on the subject: “For all that people are anti-authoritarian in the zine world, people are really into creating heroes.” Coincidentally, Kim and Moe are probably the two most recognizable people in the movie.

I think what feels missing is an articulated politic that reflects what has been going on in the world for the past seven (or 500) years. Nobody talked about Bush, the war, racism or really any politics. They barely even talk about how they feel about anything. Almost everyone in the movie is white, and they do say things like “we need to talk about shit, there’s still sexism and racism in our communities” but it didn’t really go much further. I was disappointed because I would love to see how the political discussion has evolved to since the Riot Grrrl era, and this movie made it seem like it just hasn’t.

There are a number of good deleted scenes in the special features - especially the “pulp history” one, which describes the genesis of science fiction fanzines – but the commentary with the film makers is hard to watch. Every time Joe Biel starts getting into some interesting backstory, Alex Wrekk cuts him off to go “hey there’s me,” or “I hate that chair in our house” or “there’s our cat.” One funny thing that does get pointed out in the commentary, though, is that when asked “why do you do a zine?” almost all the men said “control,” while the women said things like “community,” “connections” and “freedom to express myself.”

I feel the same way about this movie that I feel about a lot of zines – I’m glad someone did it, I’m glad it’s in the world and I’m not jumping up and down. Maybe it’s the pop punk soundtrack (I don’t like pop punk). Maybe it’s the blasé attitude of most of the interviewees, or the super-generic questions (“what is a zine?” “where do zines come from?” “why do people make zines?”). It could be the fact that it says it’s about “the northwest,” but really focuses on a specific Portland scene, or it could be the dated-ness and lack of a relevant political analysis.

But I really am glad they made it. I do believe in the DIY ethic, and I love the idea of documenting our own communities. These people are cute and dorky and earnest and I’m sure their lives are interesting. For all of you reading who like pop punk, who want to get a basic understanding of zines, and who are inspired by the prolific Portland underground scene, you should totally get this documentary, learn about zine culture, and then start your own zine.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, April 9th 2007

Support Zine

admin — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:57:00 +0000

Edited by Cindy Crabb

Microcosm Publishing

“How do you define consent? Have you ever talked about consent with your partner(s) or friends? Do you know people, or have you ever been with people who define consent differently than you do?”

Thus begins one of the best zines I have ever read on the subject of healing from sexual abuse. This zine is specifically geared towards friends, lovers and allies of survivors, and is written in an accessible, loving, realistic way, including writing and comics by a dozen or so contributors who are healing from or supporting others with abuse histories (many have experienced both). Their words are painful, but also comforting for those of us who have struggled in this realm – the message is not tragic, it is one of hope and community and, well, support.

Topics include: consent, boundaries, triggers, dissociation, power dynamics, survivor guilt, recovering from trauma, flashbacks, staying present, confronting rapists, denial, panic attacks, and more. Being in the middle of these experiences can feel out of control and indefinable, making it impossible to communicate with a partner, especially if they are taking it personally. So having these words to consult and share could really make a difference. The advice is straight-forward and specific, while still relying on your intuitive and empathic powers, which makes the healing journey feel more like an adventure and less like torture, no matter how painful it is.

“It’s okay for us to have to work hard at what other people take for granted. The goal is not to return to some arbitrary centerpoint of normalcy from which we were robbed as children. We are not deviants. The goal is to heal, to be on a continuum of healing,” writes Chris Somerville in his essay, “Safe Sex for Survivors.”

While we’re all aware that most sexual abuse happens to girls at the hands of men, this zine also includes a lot of writing from the perspective of male survivors, and several stories of men being pressured into sex by women, which I’ve rarely heard talked about. Also, this zine manages to avoid demonizing abusers while holding everyone accountable for recognizing power dynamics and honoring other people’s boundaries. In one piece, the editor writes about the fucked up act of initiating sex with a sleeping person, and admits to having done this herself:

“Do they think about our abuse histories? Or the fact that we can’t say “no” when we’re asleep? Do they understand our complex defense systems and how vulnerable and terrified we might feel waking up to this assault? … The truth is, I used to crawl in people’s beds too. I thought of course all guys wanted it. I never considered the fact that I might be capable of assault. But of course, I am. A lot of us are.”

Whether or not you think you need it, whether or not you’re a survivor, or dating a survivor, or even having sex, you would probably benefit from reading this zine. And the people you choose to be intimate with will probably thank you for making their safety a priority.

Written by: Nomy Lamm, January 17th 2007