Dispatches from Urban Acrobatics New York: The First Workshop Series

E67 Fly ID and Clark Fly ID leading tagging workshop. Photo credit: Caitlin Bruce

Today we had our first workshop series at the beautiful Word Up Bookstore and community center, at 165th Street and Amsterdam. We started with a tagging workshop, led by Erotica67 Fly ID and Clark Fly ID, two long time graffiti artists from the Bronx. We had three circus artists, and seven kids from the neighborhood. Laying out some brown butcher paper on the floor E directed the group to sit alongside the paper "like at a table." Then she held up a large foam board and drew our attention to Clark's rapid, fluid tag. "Choose a tag, its like a nickname. Do you have a nickname?" One kid shook his head, "Then you can write something that you like, or like to do."

E67 Working with Youth on Tag

Erotica drew a "skeleton" of letters and then "marshmellows" around them, and then, surrounded them with a cloud.

Demonstrating tag "skeleton" and "marshmellow" letters. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce

Exhorting the kids to tag up the butcher paper and represent NYC, their neighborhood, or street, Clark, meanwhile, drew a more elaborate throw up with outline, shadow, highlights, and a brick background. A youth to my right, Carla, helped lead her younger cousins in working on their pieces, she drawing a multicolored pink and orange piece with a frenetic and layered sun.

Cousins working together on tagging. Photo credit: Caitlin Bruce

 Another girl joined in, and after explaining to me that her favorite animals were bears and zebras, embarked on drawing a "Zebra" tag.

"Zebra" Photo credit: Caitlin Bruce

"One thing that I love about graffiti is that there is no such thing as a mistake," Erotica instructed, "And that you don't just have to draw letters, you can make characters. Like a sun with cool sunglasses" She drew a jolly sun sporting shades and a smile, "Or one that is giving a hug, because if you saw a wall like that, that'd make you smile." She then demonstrated how to draw a cat with two circles, triangles for ears, side whiskers, and then a squiggly tail. "You don't have to do your letters all neatly, like in school, they can be big, they can be upside down, or sideways." She helped the boy to my left draw a puppy, and Clark demonstrated how you can draw bricks in the background of your piece. Then Erotica demonstrated how to do shadows "Just remember the direction the sun is coming from," and an outline and shine. We then shifted from the butcher paper to large individual pieces of paper, and Erotica and Clark concluded by doing a raffle, having kids pick a number that had been secretly written down, and rewarding the winners with a sketch book.

Autumn's Philly-Inspired style. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce.

We rapidly added more tumbling mats and Polly took over by directing a shape-making workshop. "Graffiti," she reminded us, "is a visual performance of breakdancing, and when you see a funny letter sticking out like this" <sticking out her foot> "its like a dancer actually sticking out their foot in a freeze. So we are going to do some shape making with our bodies." Each person picked a pose, and we had to name each pose, and repeat them, some the "boat of shame," or "cute!" or "the explorer" or "arrrgh" or "home run."

"ARRRGH." Photo credit: Caitlin Bruce

After moving around in awkward, but exhilarating positions, sort of like musical chairs, Polly asked what you noticed. Someone said "shared energy!" "Thats right!" Polly exclaimed, "and when you work in a troupe, which is like a crew, you work together to share energy to create shapes together, that seem to come out of nowhere."

We shifted to doing some balancing exercises, working with a partner to work against gravity and to create more shapes, and then balancing objects (peacock feathers, plates, and on weebles).

Fly Girl Balancing a Peacock Feather. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce

Finally, Paris led us in juggling exercises, emphasizing the way in which a juggler needs to hold their hands, palm up and relatively level, and direct their gaze (at two points a little above eye level), leading some to rapidly advance from juggling one bean-bag ball to three or four.

Paris and Polly Demonstrating Juggling Sight Lines. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce

The sight of jugglers in the bookstore aisles was a little surprising for some, and we cajoled some unsuspecting bookstore visitors into taking off their shoes and joining us, learning that some had in fact done circus as children, or, never had before.

Word Up. A Spectacular Venue. Autumn Juggling. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce

In these exercises, which worked from the very basics of movement, we began to see an architecture of expression based on shared kinetics, intense engagement with objects, and the animation of spaces, that points to some potential spaces for (physical and aesthetic) conversations between genres of graffiti and circus.

Tenacious Circus/Tagging Student Balancing Peacock Feather. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce

Thanks to E67, Clark, Polly, Paris, Word Up (Emmanuel, Will and the rest of the Word Up crew), and our tenacious participants, adults and youth included. See you tomorrow.

Polly Solomon Juggling. Photo Credit: Caitlin Bruce