the first presentation

Seen/Unseen

performance art presentation

November 26-December 3, 2010

Live Performance - December 3-7PM

Seen/Unseen is a media driven performance art installation that allows the audience to observe and interact with the work from a multiplicity of angles. It challenges patrons to really “see,” taking their participation out of passivity into active participation and engagement. When we can only see through a portal that is no larger than a peephole, what do we become as artists and audience?

Using video/sound collage and performance, Rodney Veal, independent choreographer/media artist, hopes to challenge the viewers to “see” the unseen power they posses to impact and change how the performance unfolds, and ultimately how they engage with others. Seen/Unseen, ruminations on life, death and race, will only exist in the ephemeral state in which all performances exist with only the documentation serving as the finished work of art.

Bio

Rodney Veal, an independent choreographer and interdisciplinary artist, serves as adjunct faculty for both Stivers School of the Performing Arts and Sinclair Community College. He is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University with a B.S in Political Science and Visual Arts. He recently received his M.F.A in Choreography from The Ohio State University, where he served as the Chief of Staff to the Council of Graduate Students President and as Senator to the Faculty/Student Senate representing the Fine Arts Graduate Students.  He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Ohio Dance and Involvement Advocacy/Blue Sky Dayton Project.

Mr. Veal is the recipient of several MCACD grants and fellowships. Several of his works have been performed as a part of the Ohio Dance Festival. He was one of five artists chosen nationwide to participate in the Blue Sky Dayton Project Artist in Residency Program held in collaboration with the University of Dayton in the summer of 2009.

Mr. Veal recently choreographed the musical Once Upon on This Island for the Sinclair Community College 2010-11 Theatre season.  And collaborated on the Performance art piece Of A River, with Violinist Shaw Pong Lui presented at the  Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center Winter Garden in the summer of 2010.

Upcoming projects include a solo multi-media performance exhibition at the Springfield Museum of Art, Reveal: Five Zones of Beauty in the summer of 2011.

A Collaboration between Gallery 510 Fine Art & Blue Sky Project

PRESS RELEASE - November 15, 2010

   CONTACTS

                         Loretta Puncer, Gallery 510 Fine Art – 937 672 6717

                       Peter Benkendorf, Blue Sky Project – 937 732 5123

                                                                                     

510project

New Initiative Aims to Open Artist/Community Dialogue

Dayton, OH, Gallery 510 Fine Art and Involvement Advocacy today announced 510project, a new public art initiative to take place in the front window of Gallery 510 Fine Art, appropriately located at 510 East Fifth Street in the Oregon Arts District.

Performance. Installation. Art Making.

A window looking in. A window looking out.

Artists engaging Community. Community engaging Artists.

Transformation.

Each month 510project invites an artist and the community to a different kind of conversation about: 

• the relevance of art in the society;

• the role of the artist and the audience;

• what it means to be a creator, viewer, participant and collaborator;

and what it means to BE Dayton.

The genesis for 510project was a conversation between community catalyst Peter Benkendorf and artist Loretta Puncer. According to Puncer, who owns Gallery 510, “I think we both felt that artists who live in Dayton have much to contribute to addressing the challenges we face in the community. They just need a viable venue to begin the conversation. We are excited to have identified our first three artists, all of whom we agree have something important to say about our collective future.”

Opening Installation

November 27 – December 3, 2010, Seen/Unseen with artist Rodney Veal

Friday, December 2, 2010, live performance, 5:00 – 8:00 PM, followed by artist/community conversation

Seen/Unseen is a media driven performance art installation that allows the audience to observe and interact with the work from a multiplicity of angles. It challenges patrons to really “see,” taking their participation out of passivity into active participation and engagement. When we can only see through a portal that is no larger than a peephole, what do we become as artists and audience?

Using video/sound collage and performance, independent choreographer/media artist Rodney Veal, hopes to challenge the viewers to “see” the unseen power they posses to impact and change how the performance unfolds, and ultimately how they engage with others. Seen/Unseen, ruminations on life, death and race, will only exist in the ephemeral state in which all performances exist with only the documentation serving as the finished work of art.

Upcoming Artists

December/January: Issa Randall, Dayton

January/February: Leigh Waltz, Miamisburg

About the Collaborators

Founded in 2008, Gallery 510 Fine Art has developed into a showcase for contemporary art and fine crafts with a focus on local emerging and established artists.  The gallery collection features paintings, drawings, linocuts, ceramics, fiber, wood, art glass and jewelry.  We endeavor to attract and include those new to the contemporary art scene, as well as serve knowledgeable collectors.  The gallery is located in the heart of the Historic Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio.

Involvement Advocacy, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation, is committed to strengthening the Dayton region by acting a catalyst for imaginative, entrepreneurial, community-driven solutions to pressing social, economic and civic challenges. These collaborative solutions will include citizen, government, business, institutional, organizational and philanthropic players. Involvement Advocacy’s principle program is Blue Sky Project, (www.blueskydayton.org), a juried, international summer artist residency committed to producing ambitious and meaningful works of contemporary art. It includes a strong youth development component and an emphasis on art making as community-building. The organization was also the originator of the 2009 Ten Living Symposium, a response to the Forbes America’s Ten Fastest Dying Cites list.