What is What

ABOVE: "DOGLEG FREEZE",  Shannon Technique 2007, Serbia

I have been writing about this aerial work recently because it is the signature of pace and form in my dancing that I have contributed to the history of aerial choreography via the Cirque Du Soleil mothership of all things aerial.  I feel I must write about my contribution here, in this public way, to preserve for the future the significance and importance of what i have given to Cirque Du Soleil as a "creative."  I fear that if I dont tell my end of the story as the choreographer of the Aerial Strap Act in Varekai performed by The Atherton Twins, Kevin and Andrew Atherton, noone will.

A significant portion of my work is about phenomenological events i bear witness to and am also highly sensitive to. The use of performance art as a real-time anthropological sociological tool to investigate define and categorize phenomena is at the core of this healing practice.  My interactions with pedestrians and random individuals in public space is constantly evolving and changing over the course of time and my increased level of experience.  This reality of being in public is a balancing act between getting on with my life and exploring new territories of my art. They serve each other and are therefore one and the same in many instances.

ABOVE: Shannon Technique, Hi-Mid Lo-Mid Split   Photo: Dawn Blackman

ABOVE: The "Crossed Lean" freeze position from THE SHANNON TECHNIQUE photo by DAEMON, ATLANTA 1994

The "Crossed Lean" is one of those moves that I have had around for a long time that exemplifies the complex angular shapes my dancing explores in a very "aerial" way. I posted this image because I was thinking more about my past work with the Atherton Twins and how my dance is aerial by necessity.

I knew this alternate take was out there somewhere. This is the version that was aired on MTV2. This version is also a single take and has a few more "tricks" in it but I feel my performance is stylistically way weaker and too rushed. I think this was like take 6 or 7. The one that has the pole freeze and a million+ hits that has recieved all the critical acclaim is take 16. Also checkout this FACEBOOK FAN CLUB out of the UK. I had no idea it was there till yesterday.

ABOVE: Street Performance Pittsburgh 2006 ( i think ) noone from the crowd is helping me off the ground because they just saw the big dance move before the collapse.

Following the "more" is an account of my experience I have written to share publicly a real world example of how the phenomena “Weight of Empathy” plays itself out in my real life. This story will also share how my act of labeling and defining the phenomena “Weight of Empathy” is empowering to me and helps me frame past experiences of it. Finally this story will also provide a context for my practice of sociological anthropology as a performance and language based conceptual art in which the defined and labeled phenomena is explored in realtime and space with the intention of discovering new territories of interaction with the public that subvert or circumvent the standard parameters of a given phenomena.

today i saw my son trying to eat the contents of a cherry chapstick tube. i grabbed it from him and looked at its impossible to comprehend list of ingredients.. Then i looked up cherry chapstick by name on cosmeticsdatabase.com. I was suprised and a bit angry to find out that according to cosmetics database "skin deep" section 99 percent of products have lower concerns for toxicity.

My blackbooks are where my ideas are born and take shape.. both as a conceptual process and as a design process. i have been uploading drawings and graphical work based on those drawings to my 2D section which got me thinking as to artmaking as a product versus a process. i am not producing drawings as an end product but rather use drawings and scribblings as a process of discovery. My end product as an artist is the successful closure of a line of inquiry into how i might best express an idea or a philosophy.

ABOVE: Street performer permit as a hedge to my street performance art. Chicago 1994

I scrawled "THE WORLD WILL NEVER KNOW" on my skateboard with a paint marker while living in Chicago in 1994. I put down these letters on my board as I realized, after being in the middle of a wind storm downtown on my board and being pushed around like a piece of scrap paper, that the most hauntingly beautiful or perfectly balanced moments of my street performances were simply impossible to share or recreate. I wrote these words on a day where I had become a human tumbleweed witnessed by 100's of train passengers marching to their morning destinations. I was up late, two days late, and they were up early in the morning. These moments of...

i am entering this MasterClash contest here in Pittsburgh because I really cannot justify spending 300 dollars on a chair for my daughter at this point in time.  I am looking into the Transition Movement as a guide to my future and my childrens' future here on what is left of our planet Earth. A significant mental aspect of the Transition Movement is to simplify life and reject lavish expenditures and conspicuous consumption. In my book 300$ on a chair for a two year old is lavish even if the chair is supposed to last till adulthood.

While i have written about my disability in an article here on the site i have not featured it on this front page blog. Due to the number of emails with the question... now i will. it will take you out of the blog into the site HERE

ABOVE: Bill Shannon 1980

ABOVE: My go at the Juste Debout Prelims in "Experiemental" category. For Experimental they will play randomn music to challenge the interpretation instead of house, funk or breaks.

- a slipping crutch tip can undermine your every move-

ABOVE: a worn crutch tip. sourced from an automotive supply store its a greenline brand high pressure coolant hose

Pictured below is one of my little insect like characters i make out of cutting and forming sheet metal.  This one is brass , a ruff cut template for envisioining a final version out of a more valuable and attractive metal like gold or silver. This version was started last year and recently completed in terms of the shape.  I am having fun putting him different places and making his fingers and toes grab hold. i say "him" because often, though not always, these miniature sculpture works are self portraits. Read more for images of other miniature sculptures.

"Wanderer"  pierced and formed brass 2" tall

i recently finished this six channel to single channel video composite of BENCH. BENCH was a 12 foot round six channel 360 degree video installation from the Shannon Public Works Trilogy produced and exhibited by Douz and Mille Gallery in NYC in 07. Watch the single screen for youtube remix below. If you want more info on context and execution along with some pics of the video rigging click here.

i  have plenty to write about this aspect of my practice. equipment maintenance and diversity is critical to the form. most of my crutches are custom or modified standard issue. These crutches were all a part of the work Crutches Are For Dancing.

I took this portrait of my grandmother Mildred Avery in 2006. I was looking to create a graphic for Mildreds Daughters' Urban Farm using this photo of her with a seed placed floating just above her palms. The seed would represent the future. This shoot ended up being my last set of her before she passed on. I took photos of her throughout my adult years. She was always a willing subject and would do any strange thing I requested. If you click through you will see her gamely holding a marrionette to her chest for me in a photo from the nineties.

I left NYC three years ago to take my kids away from the grit and grime, the crowded playgrounds, the noise, the smell and the claustrophobic feeling the city can take on. Leaving the big city was made easier by the existence of the urban farm my mother Randa and her partner Barb had started on a riverside hilltop in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh.

above: South-East view of the main field, April 2009

spring is back, its official. I live on a hill. When I skate from my house I have to go down this hill. This hill is Stanton Avenue starting at Stanton Courts and ending around Heths street. Highview is the intersection where ones mortality comes into play. It is the kind of hill that can be taken fast or slow. Traffic is a major factor with this hill especially near the bottom as the last half block of the hill is a sharp turn into an intersection with a light.
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im in Pittsburgh, downhilling Murray Avenue from Beacon to Forward at around 3pm. My first spring skate of the year, headphones on.. im really heavy into the mixes and production of Quentin Harris right now.. just so so funky especially his tracks, travelin, my joy and hate wont change me. So im just flowing down the hill.

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