☆Semester 3☆

Arts TRYathlon #1: Choose Your Own Art-Venture

09072024, SEE & SALC Summer Wind-up, Tie-Dye DIY

#visualart, #tie-dye, #vogue

I decided to go to SEE & SALC's tie-dying event for my first Arts TRYathlon. I waited in line for about 1 and 1/2 hours (I know!!!) to collect my materials. The last time I did tie dye was maybe like 10 years ago, so I was excited to explore an art form that creates truly unique stuff despite my lack of experience. I decided to use black dye because I thought it complemented the black text on the shirt. Armed with a Pinterest guide and eight rubber bands, I folded and secured the shirt into a spiral shape. I was ready to create a perfectly spiraled shirt but soon realized my approach was a bit too haphazard. It was pretty hard to be precise with the dye, so I ended up dumping it onto certain sections of the shirt. After letting it sit for about 24 hours, I unveiled the design. It was a lot less spiraled than I had hoped, but the spots were pretty cute. When I rinsed the shirt with cold water, the ink bled into the fabric. I was pretty disappointed at first, but I eventually came to love the grey color my shirt had taken on. From this tie-dying experience, I learned a valuable lesson: to be okay with mistakes. A lot of things didn't go exactly as planned, and that's okay. My result was still something I liked, and I think that's how a lot of art pieces are.

Arts TRYathlon #2: Choose Your Own Art-Venture

09172024, NO HANDS TOUR- Joey Valence and Brae

#visualart, #music, #presentation, #rap

I saw Joey Valence and Brae on their 'NO HANDS TOUR' for my second arts TRY-Athalon. I met up with a couple of my friends to see the rap duo in concert, and it was a super fun night. A lot of the performance was tailored to interact with the crowd, and we were encouraged to jump and sing along with the artists. There was even some moshing (pushing into people as 'dance', which is not my favorite) and crowd surfing; it was an engaging experience. The lighting was a highlight, with all the colors chosen to suit the songs. Cooler tones for the slower, more sentimental songs and flashing bright colors to accompany the upbeat EDM tracks. JVB also included their cover of '365' by Charli XCX, which was a surprise. It was cool to see their more rap-heavy version of the electro-pop dance track. My favorite track they performed was 'Omnitrix'; it's a slower, more personal song that still exuded the duo's personality, just more intimately. The two remind me almost of a modern-day Beastie Boys. Often, I find that non-black rappers rely heavily on AAVE and black culture to build their personas, but it's refreshing to see two guys just rap like themselves. It's more genuine. Overall, I loved the concert. Seeing JVB live really helped me experience their music on a deeper level than just through my phone.

Arts TRYathlon #3: Art Scholars Event

10312024, New Way Vogue Workshop

#performanceart, #dance, #ballroom

I ended up mistakenly doing an Arts TRYathlon 3! But I still had a good time. I attended a Vogue workshop at Clarice to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month. Our instructor, Jason A. Rodriguez, was an amazing and knowledgeable Vogue dancer. He began the workshop with a pretty intense stretching regimen. In hindsight, this was a huge help as voguing requires the performer to move their body into uncomfortable positions. I mean, the dance style was derived from the poses of models in magazines. This workshop specifically focused on the 'New Way,' one of the three styles of vogue, the other two being 'Old Way' and 'Vogue Fem.' He also introduced the class to the basic structure of ballroom culture and how vogue dancers are to perform or 'walk' based on gender identity and/or expression. For example, I would not be able to walk in the femme queen category as a cis-gendered woman, but I would be able to walk in the female figure category. The vogue combination we were taught really tested my retention skills when it came to dance, and we even utilized improvisation when 'battling' other members of the workshop one on one. It was really interesting to see how much I had grown with my understanding of the dance form compared to the workshop I took last fall with art scholars. While I already knew a bit about vogue, I've only really watched performances, so it was extremely helpful to learn more about the greater context of those performances through Jason's workshop.

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