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Archive for March 1st, 2010

Cross Pollination!

Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Olympics in Vancouver saw so many performers descend on town to perform including six members of the Big Nazo Lab from Providence Road Island… I had no idea that they were going to be in town but ran into Erminio Pinque in costume on the corner of Granville and Robson one night just bringing Art to the crowds and being involved in the excitement on street level.

I’ve always had a great deal of respect for the work that Erminio does not only as a builder of some of the most amazing foam monsters and creatures you will ever see, but also for his love of creating renegade video and capturing the raw energy of the moments that he embraces… It’s awesome!

Anyway, I called Erminio this morning trying to figure out if there was going to be a way for us to hook up and hang out. Over the course of the conversation he told me about the Big Nazo Blog which was launched a bunch of weeks back and helped captured the build up to the gig they were in Vancouver to do. I ended up spending about an hour poking around an checking out stuff that was posted on the blog and getting a better sense of what they had done while they were in town to perform during the Olympics.

Got some time? Then I highly recommend swinging by their blog and checking out some of their fun!

I ended up hooking up with the Big Nazo Crew at Yamato Sushi on Davie Street in the evening and I handed out CBG Ball Caps for the whole gang… On one level this was a promotional move as all swag is, but on some the level I was trying to find a way to say… Man… I wish we’d had more time to hang out while you were in town, here, take a little bit of me back to Providence with you…

Erminio and I dove straight into reminiscing about the fun we had in Halifax the year we met and some of the craziness that took place at the Halifax Busker’s festival. The year was 1988 I ended up hooking up with Brian Hulse and a group called Twist and Shout (Dave Rave and Henrick Bothe) on about day three of the 17 day run and forming a sort of Boy Busker Super Group which we called The Bounty Brothers… Erminio and the Big Nazo Crew did a show at the time that included having a monster come out and eat a small child… The flood of memories was awesome! At the end of the evening as we headed out of the sushi restaurant I took the crew past my car (very much the sort of thing I thought would expect a Nazo creation to drive around in) and took the snap that accompanies the post.

Hanging out with the Nazo Crew and checking out their blog was really good for me as it was a great reminder of how important it is to sometime dream REALLY big and dive head first into the adventure of creating art and performance that connects with people and has a really positive effect on shaking up the status quo

I think if you can mix art and performance with a bit of anarchy there’s something really powerful and really magical that results. After having spent two weeks crossing my t’s and dotting my i’s it with the Robson Square Gig for the British Columbian Provincial Government and needing to be accountable, it was great to have the reminder that sometimes you really do need to shake it up a bit.


 
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