The first Genesis, LA took place in August of 2008 at Sea and Space Explorations in Highland Park. The project supported four LA-based artists: Cheryl Banks Smith, Alison O’Daniel, Cesar Garcia, and Brooke Smiley, as well as Liz Atkin from London, UK.







Photos by Arturo VIdich and Liz Atkin

Testimonials

“Genesis for me was an opportunity to reconnect with the basics…to just move, from moment to moment, without a plan.  Or to just listen to the sounds of the traffic go rumbling by the window and let those sounds crash over me like waves; or to just feel and notice the heightened awareness of my body become alert and fluid, because I was engaged with what was present.  And whether moving or being still, I practiced.  My practices were simple- chanting, writing, dancing, crafting with paper, ribbons, sand and words.  I learned how to dip from my own well of resourcefulness, and I discoverd gratitude for the simplest activities practiced with attention and sometimes with humor, or without a care!  I also developed friendships with the other Genesis artists whose ideas stimulated and provoked me to explore even deeper my own process. Genesis was an experience that was challenging and satisfying.  It gave me the chance to watch myself at play and at work, through the daily structure of the residency. ”
- Cheryl Banks-Smith, Genesis Project LA 2008

“During Genesis I had realizations about the nature of what a studio is and should be. I am used to having a studio, but during the project realized it was something I had completely taken for granted. In the context of Genesis I was essentially forced to go in every day and work for a specific amount of time and it taught me something great about discipline.”
- Alison O’Daniel, Genesis Project LA 2008

Resident Artist Biographies

Liz Atkin is a visual artist based in London. She is interested in skin as a constantly transforming surface, ripe with memory, a flesh canvas. With a background in theatre and dance, physicality underpins her creative practice. Her work is situated in the tradition of Live Art performance and abstract expressionism. In her portraits, Liz works with her face and the surface of her skin, exploring texture and transformation through body focused repetitive behavior. Drawing with light, current photographic pieces are produced through flatbed scanners.

Brooke Smiley recently moved back to Los Angeles from London. She is a performer whose work investigates facial management and its affect on the body. By employing the use of white, non-expressive masks as a tool for the abandonment of the self, her work performs a body in the act of re-identifying itself, challenging and framing the body’s behavioral impulse to move by re-negotiating anonymity as a means for transformation.

Alison O’Daniel is a hearing impaired former Texan ice skater turned double dutcher with an insatiable interest in handling materials, living abroad, being constantly engaged in education, making collaborative love, and participating in political gossip. In her own work she is interested in breaking from the historical language of representation and power that often defines film, documentary, and feminist theory, by constructing plastic, false situations and stepping back to watch how vulnerability grows over these facades like an uncontrollable landscape.

Cesar Garcia is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and cultural activist currently living and working in Los Angeles. His current research interrogates the erasure of locality in the context of biennial exhibitions, homogenizing global culture, and the ongoing technological revolution. His performance and body-based practice is rooted in intercultural collaboration, emphasizing the body as a communicative tool across cultural & generational differences and bringing attention to movement (of populations, ideas, and the body itself) as a platform for critical exchange and reflection.

Cheryl Banks-Smith is a dancer, choreographer, dance educator, improviser and interdisciplinary arts “explorer” who has collaborated in numerous projects with contemporary and internationally renowned jazz artists, musicians, performance artists, poets, writers and visual artists. While trained in the theory and craft of choreography, she considers herself to be a movement “smith” who explores and designs movement works from an intuitive, non-linear approach, like sketching with broad strokes and then filling in the lines and details later as the process reveals itself. She has performed and taught throughout the U.S. and globally and currently serves on the dance faculty at Pasadena City College.

Public Events

Genesis worked in collaboration with Art 2102 of Los Angeles to host two public events:

Non-Spectator Workshops

August 15, 2008

8pm - 10pm

Four workshops developed and led by artists, to explore different methodologies for working with and through the body for creative exploration/production.

#1: Experience movement practice influenced by Deborah Hay’s paradoxical performance meditations such as “What if every cell in my body has the potential to perceive the uniqueness and originality of time and space?” Led by Hana van der Kolk.

#2: A workshop in balance and awareness activities combined for practical lessons in stalking and conflict. Led by Joel Kyack.

#3: Drawn from Afro-diasporic movement traditions to facilitate a corporeal/exploratory experience to and through your inner-boogie-wonderland. d. Sabela grimes facilitates a funk-filled movement session that seeks to bring each participant in tune with the healing properties related to Black social dance forms.

Roundtable Discussion and Closing Reception

August 28, 2008

7:30pm - 10pm

Genesis artists’ shared their experiences from the month-long residency and other Los Angeles-based artists joined in to discuss movement-based methodologies as well as visions for contexts in which artists can invest in process in addition to product.

Participants included Genesis Project artists-in-residence, Genesis board members Adam Overton, Rae Shaolan Blum, Carol McDowell, Flora Weigmann, Robby Herbst, and Michael Parker artists Simone Forti and Emily Mast, and director of Sea and Space Lara Bank.

2008 Contributors

Art 2102 of Los Angeles

Sea and Space Explorations

Julia Johannsen

Jesse Johnson

Sheree King

Karen Koblitz

Sandy Litchfield

Lewis & Rosemary Lloyd

Emily Mast

Jon & Rosemary Masters

Dianne McIntyre

Arturo Nuno

Patrick O’Daniel

Pipeline Web Design

Denise Prince Martin

Mark Rizzo

Allison Ross

Susan Sakash

Mark Allen

Michelle Banks

Alissa Cardone

Sarah Cole

Kippy Dewey

Pricilla Dewey Houghton

Adam Fong

Simone Forti

Daniel Froot

Linda Gould

Barry & Lorrie Goldensohn

Loren Hartman

Sharon Holley

Barbara Santos

David & Anita Saunders

Edmond & Edith Schonberg

Rebecca Schonberg

Nurit Seigel

Wanda Skrzypczak

Zachary Stuart

Layard Thompson

Shel Wagner Rasch

Sara Juli

Noel Allain

Mark Herbst

Mariel Carranza

Joan Tiffany

Betta van der Kolk

Carol McDowell

Adam Overton

Christine Suarez

Robby Herbst

Ron Milam