Tag Archives: San Francisco

Solange Knowles and the Rennie Museum in Vancouver, Canada on April 27 and 28, 2017

Leave a reply

Tickets ($35 CAD?) were sold out in less than an hour. Drat! On the upside, the Rennie Museum (formerly the Rennie Collection) is one of nine venues in nine cities hosting Solange Knowles’ music tour of art museums. (Not my usual topic but I have covered shows at the Rennie many times throughout the years.) This tour is discussed in Emilia Petrarca’s April 24, 2017 article for W magazine,

While Knowles isn’t formally touring for A Seat at the Table, she will continue on the festival circuit and is also working on a performance art-inspired “museum tour,” which she’ll perform at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as well as the Guggenheim Museum in May [2017].

…

On wanting to be more than just a singer:

“Singer is probably at the bottom of the barrel in terms of what I’m trying to achieve as an artist. Visually, through many mediums—through dance, through art direction, through color theory—there are so many things that I’ve dabbled in that I’ve yet to immerse myself in fully. But I think right now, I’m creating the live show and music composition, production, and creating from the ground up is when I feel the most at home.”

On her history as a dancer:

“I used to want to be a modern dancer when I was younger and go to Juilliard and do the whole thing, but I had a knee injury when I was 15. I was actually dancing for Destiny’s Child. And that was how I started to write, because I thought I was going to be an [Alvin] Ailey girl [emphasis mine] somewhere.”

…

On styling the costumes for her festival shows and museum tour:

“I’m touring two shows this spring/summer/fall, and one takes place in museum lobbies. For me, Donald Judd’s idea that we take on our surroundings as a part of the art itself really, really punctured me in the way that I look at performance art. It’s really rare that an artist gets to perform in daylight, unless it’s at a festival. So I really wanted to play with creating a strong color palette. I’ve been playing around with a lot of neutral tones since the record came out and Issey Miyake has been a huge influence. We’re also wearing a lot of Phillip Lim and really comfortable, moveable fabrics. On stage, I’ve really been empowered by the color red. I think it’s associated, especially with women, as this fiery, super volatile, and strong-willed color. Almost stubborn, if you will. So we’re wearing all-red for our festival shows and playing with the lighting for all the moods red can express. Color theory is this really nerdy side of me that I’ve been wanting to explore more of.”

It’s impossible to emphasize Alvin Ailey’s impact enough. Prior to him, there were no African American dancers in dance It was thought African Americans had the wrong body type until Alvin Ailey proved them wrong. (The topic of body type and dance is bizarre to an outsider, especially where ballet is concerned. It lends itself to racism but is rampant throughout the world of modern dance and ballet. I followed the topic for a number of years.)

Getting back to Solange Knowles, Tavi Gevinson’s Sept. 30, 2016 article for W explores her then new album ‘A Seat at the Table’,

Solange’s new album, A Seat at the Table, is so many things at once: an antidote to hate, a celebration of blackness, an expression of the right to feel it all. After a move to Louisiana and period of self-reflection, the artist joined forces with a range of collaborators to put her new discoveries to music. Hearing it for the very first time, my heart went in and out of slow motion: swelled at a layered vocal, stopped at a painfully apt choice of words, sped up with a perfect bass-line. Mostly I was struck by A Seat at the Table as a nurturing force among the trauma of anti-blackness; a further exploration of questions posed by Solange on her Twitter, last summer: “Where can we be safe? Where can we be free? Where can we be black?”

…

So much of your album explicitly discusses racism and celebrating blackness, and one of the interludes talks about taking all the anger and metabolizing it through the work. Does that start with you through the lyrics or the sounds?

The writing process of this album was not more unique than any of my other processes, in that it typically starts with the melody idea and the words evolve based off of what I listen back to. Nine times out of ten, you’re freestyling, but you’re piecing the puzzle pieces together after you settle on a melody that you like. I definitely had concepts I wanted to explore. I knew that I wanted to make a song experiencing and communicating the exhaustion, the feeling of being weary and tired and energetically drained. I knew that I wanted to discuss this idea of the “angry black woman” in society, and dissect a conversation that I’ve had one too many times. I knew I had these concepts that I wanted to communicate, but I was resistant to letting them lead the creative process. So the first layer of making the album, I just jammed in a room with some incredible musicians. It was a great energy in the room, because it was not so much like, ‘I’m going to make this album about this specific thing. It was just music-making. Then, I took that music and I went to New Iberia for that time, and I needed that insular time to break down what I was saying, what I was going to communicate and how I was going to do that. From there, I spent that summer writing lyrics. It was an interesting process because I’m a mother and I had to balance making an album and raising a preteen. And having my hands in all these different pots, so it was either all or nothing to me. I spent three months in New Iberia, and I recorded some of the album in Ghana and Jamaica. I had to have these isolated experiences creatively in order to turn off and listen to myself.

For all of the continued awareness of systemic violence and oppression, there isn’t a lot of talk about that psychological toll of racism, at least in white circles and white media. That is so heavy in the album, and I’m really excited for people to have that to turn to.

That is such an ignored part of the conversation. I feel there were a lot of traumas that I had to experience during this creative process, that I didn’t identify as traumas until I realized just how much weight and how many triggers [there are] like constantly seeing the images of young black people lifeless in the street, and how many cries of mothers that you’re constantly hearing on a daily basis. Outside of those traumas, just the nuances that you have to navigate through everyday as a black person living in this country. It absolutely has a psychological effect on you. There are clinical and scientific studies that show the brain dealing with the same type of PTSD that we know of in other traumatic instances and experiences, but society has not yet come to terms with applying it to race. But I have a lot of optimism in the fact that we’re even able to have this conversation now. This isn’t something that my mom and one of her white friends would be discussing in their time. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always comfortable, and the person leading it usually gets a lot of shit for it, but that’s with any revolution.

Here’s a little information about the upcoming Vancouver show from an April 21, 2017 news item on the Georgia Straight (Note: Links have been removed),

Solange Knowles, woke artist, activist, feminist, and producer of one of 2016’s most critically acclaimed albums, has announced that she will be playing a show at Vancouver’s Rennie Museum (51 East Pender Street) on April 27.

The singer published an image to her Instagram page yesterday (April 20), revealing that Vancouver is one of nine cities she will be stopping in over the next two months. Shortly after, the Rennie Collection, one of the country’s largest collections of contemporary art exhibited at the Wing Sang building in Chinatown, shared on its social media pages that Knowles will be conducting a “special performance”.

“Her album [A Seat at the Table] is very artistic,” Wendy Chang, director at the Rennie, tells the Straight by phone. “She’s on the West Coast this week and, because she has nothing planned for Vancouver at all, we thought we’d take advantage of that and have her perform and have all proceeds go to a charity.”

Chang reveals that the “very small, very intimate” performance will benefit the Atira Women’s Resource Society, a DTES–based nonprofit that provides safe housing and support for women and children affected by violence.

Not much else has been confirmed about the last-minute show, though given the venue and the sold-out act Knowles plans to present at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in May, fans can expect an interdisciplinary set that explores blackness, prejudice, and womanhood both visually and sonically.

In March, Knowles also debuted “Scales”, a performance project “examining protest as meditation through movement and experimentation of unique compositions and arrangements from A Seat at the Table”, at Houston’s Menil Collection. More recently, she appeared at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

In addition to Vancouver, Knowles is making stops in cities such as San Francisco, Mayer, Arizona, and Boston between now and June [2017].

I did find a review for Knowles’ April 21, 2017 show in Portland, Oregon (from  Emerson Malone’s April 22, 2017 review for DailyEmerald.com,

The unsinkable Solange Knowles played the headlining slot for Soul’d Out Music Fest, a soul and R&B music festival based in multiple venues around Portland, on Friday, April 21, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. The festival’s events from April 19–23 have included Travis Scott (who brought Drake out to get cozy in the crowd); Giorgio Moroder, The Ohio Players and Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles.

…

One of the most admirable elements of Solange’s live show is the impeccable choreography. It’s so precisely designed that every subtle movement, every head nod and jazz hand-wave, was on cue. At times the group would form a tight chorus line and sway back and forth in unison, with everyone (save the trombonists) continuing to play.

When she demanded that everyone dance during the bubblegum-pop hit “Losing You” from her 2012 EP “True,” the entire hall erupted at her behest. The encore performance “Don’t Touch My Hair” — Solange’s exhortation of the casual fetishization of black women  — was phenomenal. She turned her back to the audience and acted as conductor, commanding the musicians with loud, grandiose gestures. As the drummer smashed the cymbals, she mirrored him, thrashed her limbs and windmilled her arms.

Following the show, even one of the Arlene’s security guards — who just spent the last hour dancing — was quietly weeping and speechlessly shaking her head in awe. Solange isn’t just a firebrand individual, and her show isn’t just an opulent, elegant triumph of performance art. She is a puppet master; we’re marionettes.

Unfortunately, the Solange Knowles’ Vancouver show sold out within minutes (yes, I know I’m repeating it but it was heartbreaking) and I gather from the folks at the Rennie Museum that they had very little notice about the show which is being organized solely by Knowles’ people in response to my somewhat grumbling email. Ah well, them’s the breaks. In any event, there are only 100 tickets per performance available so for those who did get a ticket, you are going to have an intimate experience with the artist  and given the venue, this will be a performance art experience rather than a music show such as the one in Portland, Oregon. There will be three performances in Vancouver,. one on Thursday, April 27, 2017 and two on Friday, April 28, 2017 (you can see the listing here). Enjoy!

Are Canadians really trying to recreate Silicon Valley in Canada?

1 Reply

As I recall it’s Robbie Burns who coined the phrase, ‘the gift to see ourselves as others see us’, and it’s the Globe and Mail newspaper in its May 17, 2013 article (Jason Kenney visits California to lure tech workers north) which provides that perspective in a quote about Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenney’s current  tour promoting Canada’s special Startup Visa,

“The Canadian perspective is they would love to re-create Silicon Valley in Canada,” said Irene Bloemraad, a professor who chairs the Canadian studies program at UC Berkeley. “And they recognize that under the current immigration system in the United States … there are people who are having a hard time getting permanent legal status.”

Anirudh Bhattacharyya writing for the Hindustan Times about Kenney’s tour and this latest effort to attract entrepreneurs to Canada notes in a May 16, 2013 article,

As Canada’s minister for citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism Jason Kenney heads to California’s Silicon Valley for four days, pushing the country’s new Startup Visa programme, he will make an appearance at TiECon 2013, the annual conference of The Indus Entrepreneurs [TIE], dominated by tech pioneers of Indian origin.

Minister Kenney will arrive in Silicon Valley on Friday [May 17, 2013], and will even be present at a Canadian government booth at the Santa Clara convention venue for TiECon, as part of an attempt to poach entrepreneurial talent in the tech sector away from the United States.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, the minister said, “I think it’s no secret that many of the bright young people (in America) on short term work permits, are of Asian origin and more specifically of Indian origin.”

Canada’s Startup Visa program is similar to other efforts in Australia and the UK and it traces its own origins to a US initiative, from the Bhattacharyya article,

Ironically, the idea for the visa originated with the Canadian venture capital industry observing movement in the US Congress in recent years to create an American startup visa. That effort has yet to succeed. The industry then promoted the concept in Canada.

It’s not all roses and sunshine for entrepreneurs who wish to come to Canada although there is one major upside unique to the Canadian effort according to CICS Immigration Consulting’s May 17, 2013 posting on their website,

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) hopes to capitalize on the frustration tech companies in the U.S. are feeling over immigration restrictions on foreign technology workers and encourage them to relocate to and invest in Canada.

The eventual goal is to help foster the development of a Canadian equivalent to Silicon Valley.

One challenge that CIC faces in this mission is the country’s top marginal income tax rate, which is significantly higher than that of the U.S. A Canadian entrepreneur can look forward to paying about 50 percent of their income to the government if they succeed in joining the top bracket of income earners. [emphasis mine]

Compensating for this disadvantage, the federal government is offering a perk that no other advanced economy offers foreign entrepreneurs: permanent residency status. [emphasis mine]

I suppose this is one way of developing an entrepreneurial and innovative culture in Canada but it seems to me that if other conditions (financing, willingness to take risks, appropriate governmental regulations, etc.) are not met, this may cause yet more problems.

As to whether or not creating a ‘Silicon Valley’ in Canada is possible or even desirable, I don’t know. There is only one Louvre, one Terra Cotta army, one Borobudur, one Stonehenge, one Mount Olympus, one Grand Canyon, one Guggenheim, etc. Of course, there are other art museums, other funerary displays, and other wonders but there is always the one which holds precedence and retains its grip on the imagination in a way the others do not. Canadians can try to copy the US’s Silicon Valley but if our effort is to be successful, we must find a way to put our own stamp on it and we need to recognize that it may always stand in the shadow of its parent.

Entrepreneurial scientists: there’s a new fund for you

Leave a reply

The San Francisco-based Thiel Foundation announced today that it will be offering funds to entrepreneurial-minded scientists for early stage science and technology research via Breakout Labs. From the Oct. 25, 2011 article by Anya Kamenetz for Fast Company,

Last seen paying kids to drop out of college and starting his own private island nation, PayPal founder Peter Thiel has announced a new philanthropic venture that sounds a little more reasonable. Breakout Labs, Thiel said at a speech at Stanford, would grant $50,000 to $350,000 in funding to “entrepreneurial” scientists–those completely independent of typical research institutions–for very early projects that may even be pre-proof of concept. Some of the money must be paid forward through revenue-sharing agreements with Breakout Labs, and the scientists must pursue patents or publish their findings in open-access journals like PLoS [Public Library of Science], Creative Commons-style.

There’s more information in the Oct. 25, 2011 media release on the Thiel Foundation website,

Calling for more rapid innovation in science and technology, Peter Thiel today launched a new program of the Thiel Foundation, Breakout Labs. Speaking at Stanford to an event organized by the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students, Thiel announced that Breakout Labs will use a revolving fund to improve the way early-stage science and technology research is funded by helping independent scientists and early-stage companies develop their most radical ideas.

“Some of the world’s most important technologies were created by independent minds working long nights in garage labs,” said Thiel. “But when their ideas are too new, unproven, or unpopular, these visionaries can find it difficult to obtain support. Through Breakout Labs, we’re going to create opportunities for revolutionary science by cultivating an entrepreneurial research model that prizes extreme creativity and bold thinking.”

With venture capital shifting to later and later stages of development and commercialization, and with ever shorter investment time horizons, there are few available means of support for independent early-stage development of science and technology. But many of these technologies are ripe for the same kind of innovations that began in computing during the 1970s, when small, visionary start-ups began to take on industry giants who wielded much bigger research and development budgets. Breakout Labs will accelerate this trend.

“Venture capital firms look for research that can be brought to market within five to seven years, and major funders like the National Institutes of Health have a low tolerance for radical ideas,” said Breakout Labs founder and executive director Lindy Fishburne. “At Breakout Labs, we’re looking for ideas that are too ahead of their time for traditional funding sources, but represent the first step toward something that, if successful, would be groundbreaking.”

Then there’s the Programs page of the Breakout Lab’s website,

Breakout Labs is a bold re-envisioning of the way early-stage science gets funded, allowing independent researchers and early-stage companies to test their most radical ideas. We invite individuals, teams of individuals, and early stage companies from around the world to apply for funding of a specific project that would push the limits of science and technology.

It’s unusual to see a funding program that isn’t constrained by nationality or country of residence. Another unusual feature is that  revenue sharing is being built into relationship,

Breakout Labs offers two types of revenue sharing agreements:

  • Funded companies retain IP that arises from the project and commit a modest royalty stream and an option for a small investment in their company to Breakout Labs.
  • Funded researchers assign project IP to Breakout Labs in exchange for a substantial royalty stream from any future revenue generated by successful commercialization of the IP.

Key to support from Breakout Labs is an agreement that maximizes the dissemination of the resulting innovations, either through publication or intellectual property development.

Good luck to all the entrepeneurial scientists out there!