A late post, but come join us anyway! Conversation and drinks at Rapture Lounge:
Tuesday, Sept 15 @ 8pm
Rapture Lounge
34-27 28th Ave
Bring news of new, old, and ongoing projects, or just your two-cents to share – we’d particularly like to hear more about what you want from AAaA. If you can’t make it out, but have thoughts to share, please post them here in the comments.
I hope to see many of you celebrating the first days of fall with us on Tuesday!
Howdy Astorians!
Last night’s visit to the weekly Open Mic at Waltz Astoria was yet another reminder of the diverse plenitude of artists in our great neighborhood. We listened + laughed and while we didn’t have a formal post-share discussion, there was much to toss about on the walk back to the train (a last minute stand-up routine saved us from getting caught in the rain, thank you Michael!).
I for one really enjoyed seeing the range of efforts and talents because there’s a lot to be learned from how we develop as artists. Cool, huh?
Mundo Rivera, a local writer and a powerful performer, was our solo representation on stage, demonstrating that the literary contingent of AAaA is still pretty small, and I need your help to start changing that.Please spread mention of our gatherings to your writer friends and acquaintances!
Next month, we relax + chat over drinks at Rapture Lounge:
Tuesday, Sept 15 @ 8pm | Rapture Lounge | 34-27 28th Ave
Bring news of new, old, and ongoing projects, or just your two-cents to share – it’s all game!
Stay awesome.
Our August workshare evening is coming up fast!
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, August 18th –we’ll be joining the neighborhood festivities at Waltz-Astoria’s Open Mic Night. Spoken word art and music are all welcome. Please come to share or to listen while getting to know some new peers (and see some old friends)!
AAaA Workshare Evening
Spoken Word (and music) at Waltz-Astoria’s Open Mic Night
Tuesday, August 18th
8pm
Waltz Astoria is at 23-14 Ditmars Blvd – directions
Questions? Know you’ll be there? Leave your mark in the comments.
Next month, we meet for drinks at the relaxed Rapture Lounge –Tu 9/15 @ 8pm!
See you out in the neighborhood!
It’s been a restful time in between emails, but the activity continues.
Wed, July 15 at 8p we head to Sunswick at 35th + 35th for good beer and the best game of trivia in the neighborhood. It was a hit the last time we were there, and may very well become a regular, every 3 months kinda thing.
In August, we’ll be having our second workshare evening with a focus on spoken word (stand up comedy welcome!). We’re looking to team up with the newly reopened Surf Astoria to host this AAaA open mic, and we’ll be sure that there’s time for discussion if folks want feedback. Please post a comment on the blog if you would like to share something, so we can start looking forward to it!
And in November we hope to do our third workshare evening at a space conducive to showing visual art (painting, sculpture, photography, design etc). Please let me know if you have ideas or a space.
That’s it for now. See you around the neighborhood!
Thanks to all who made last night such a fantastic success! Judging from the rich discussion that took us well past our end time, the work shared was all very strong. Each artist showing got useful and supportive feedback, and it was just plain fun to see/hear everything. The room was positively a-buzz with good energy. Can’t wait for the next one!
Thank you to David, Jen P., and Kris for helping to think of the idea and plan out the event -you guys rock.
Thanks again to our fantastic hosts Alexx Shilling and Julio Montero at The Radiant Movement – the inviting space made all the difference!
We’re planning to have “work share” nights every 3 months or so at a few different venues. For August we want to bring our vocal/word and/or comedic talents to an open mic night –and we could use your help in setting this one up, so speak up if you have ideas for venues to work with, who might be interested in sharing stuff, etc.
Next month, let’s try out the NEW beer garden, shall we? Tuesday June 9 @ 7:30p. 35-33 36th St - Studio Square. Come just to enjoy awesome company or to follow up on the slew of performances that Astorians are doing this month! Whichever, it’s sure to be a blast.
As always, we love meeting new people, so bring ‘em!
Great news!
Alexx Shilling has generously agreed to host our first “show and tell” evening at her space in LIC, The Radiant Movement. It’s a loft space with an open floor that’s about 15×15′ (i think, maybe bigger?) set up with a good sound system and video projection (from computer or DVD), so it’s friendly for movers, movies, and pretty much anything that won’t cause any damage to the space itself.
Monday, May 18, 8-10pm is the date and here’s the idea:
We’ve been meeting up and chatting casually with references right and left to the work we do, so now it’s time to share that work. No matter the discipline or point of development, with feedback or without, it’s just a chance to get to know each other through the art that brought us out in the first place. All are welcome to join and participate in discussion, whether artist or audience, whether showing work or not.
Want to show? RSVP as a comment no later than May 11. Please include: how long you plan to share work, what medium you are showing work in and if applicable, in what technical format, and whether you want feedback or not. This is pretty much first come, first on the floor, so as many people can show as we have time to accommodate (don’t worry, this won’t be a one time thing!)
Want to come see/hear/experience? Fantastic. RSVP in the comments like those showing. All are welcome to come and just watch/listen or to give feedback and participate in resulting discussions. Come get your art on with AAaA!
Want to share the love? Absolutely pass this invitation on to friends, peers, acquaintances –really, we want to reach ‘em all.
See you on the 18th!
PS This event will replace our usual Tuesday drink night and our Saturday meeting will follow on Sunday May 24 at 2:30p in Astoria Park!
Our Saturday meeting was hugely productive and made all the better by the gorgeous weather. I hope you all got outside yesterday to enjoy some of it.
For May’s evening gathering, we’re inviting folks to share their creative work. You can bring stuff that is completed that you just want to show (help others get to know you) or bring in-progress work to get feedback on. We’re working on getting a space for May so that dancers and folks that need an open space with a clean floor can share. Once that’s in place, we’ll ask for you to RSVP to share work.
Hopefully, this will give folks a better way to network while also having a supportive audience.
If you have questions or thoughts, leave your comments here!
And as always, stay awesome.
Rapture Lounge was a great time last night – we talked about everything from our current art projects (check out: MMNY, AM&A, inky thumbs, 5 of 4, find me in here) to politics (good idea to move the NEA Chief to the west wing?), to finding rehearsal space in the city (nycpaspaces.org) to the french revolution (apparently there were four of them). As always, it was a blast meeting newcomers and seeing new/old faces. I’m looking forward to more of it SANS the rain!
Some other topics that came up and are on our plate for Saturday’s meeting at Cafe Soleil:
The idea behind “shop talk” is that we let a night be discipline specific. So if it’s dance, the dancers get to dance – everyone else does to, but they enter the conversation knowing there will be jargon and gossip and whatever else you get from quatsching with your peers. So keep an eye out for that. Maybe we will start with dance –in June?
Join us on Saturday to discuss mission, logo, and more stuff to get done this year.
Stay awesome, astoria(ns).
Hey cats, I had to leave the festivities on Monday at the ridiculously early hour of 9:30p, so I missed out on some good discussion that followed. To share the ideas, I’ll have to decipher Kris’s notes, so if I get anything wrong, correct it people!
The idea to bring a friend and then a non-artist friend came from this conversation. Some of us have been trying to figure out whether we know any non-artist Astorians well enough to invite them out for drinks! But that’s kinda the point — bring someone you don’t know well enough and, voilà! you know them now.
It looks like people want drink specials. I’m game and will start inquiring. If you are the sort to like fancy cocktails, you should let me know. I’m a beer drinker myself and will be more inclined to promote draft deals 
.
Ice breakers. Ice breakers?! Are we a cold group?? Really people, I think we’re about as warm + fuzzy a group as they come. But point taken – so far our gatherings have largely been populated by new people accompanying old friends, but for when that’s not the case some kinda warmer-upper might be nice. So share your ideas here and we’ll use ‘em when we need ‘em.
Member bars. As in we only show up to bars that are members? I’m not sure what was discussed here. Al? Kris? Someone leave a comment about what your idea was. This sounds like it’s going to be something to partner with Why Leave Astoria? on?? Anyone want to check this out?
Window stickers. Designers? Sounds like we need a logo. Or am I way off the mark? Again, not sure what discussion prompted the note, but I like the idea of getting the word out through an onslaught of visual reminders.
Fanbridge. This is a email/mobile mailing list service that’s free up to 400 messages a month (which means about 4 emails). I guess folks were talking about how confusing the google group can be. I’m totally curious to hear what people think. Do you like the google group? hate it? find it frustrating and hard to navigate? Share your thoughts!!
