Across Media

Last Friday we trekked over to the Joyce to see “Zydeco Zaré,” choreographed by Elisa Monte to a musical score by Jonno Frishberg (we are fans of an earlier group of his, Charivari) that featured Jeff Broussard and the Creole Cowboys as well as fiddler, David Greeley. Zydeco is a lively mixture of Cajun music, blues, R&B, and Juré religious singing of southwest Louisiana. Juré evolved from jurer "to testify." I love Jeff Broussard's music and he is a good guy too. Before the performance we spotted him, lit by streetlight, phoning another friend of ours in Louisiana. I was visually alerted to his presence from across the street because his ever present toothpick glinted in the light.

It was interesting to see the fusion of the two. It made me realize that there is risk in collaboration, because it always takes on a life of its own. It reminds me of the Chinese character for crisis. It is made up of a combination of danger and opportunity. The New York Times was not so kind to the choreography but it made our friends, the musicians, very happy.







The video above is by PHubb

Week in a Day

Yesterday was one of those travel days where disparate things, make a day feel like a week compressed. We started on Lake Martin photographing birds and gators with Bryan Champagne.









Had a cafe, des graton and boudin, went to a Jam at Tom and Lori's, went over to Jenerette to see Stephanie and the sugar cane fields and ended up eating vast amounts of shrimp and crab at the local.




We met Joel Breaux, a sculptor/architect who's building a sustainable house that as it is transformed by the weather, becomes a work echoing that transformation. Turns out he is also a fiddle player and turned up at the jam.
The distaff side of art was represented by Lori Henderson, a sculptor of bird and humanoid forms, and of course, Stephanie Patton, feminist sculptor/painter, who showed us some early works including the zany purses in the photo.