TShirts, Stickers, Prints, Art Objects

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WhatIsWhat 1.0 2003

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Topic “public art”

Body Language: Bill Shannon

image of bill shannon on. a bench at night wiht his crutches folded over his lap

ABOVE: Watch New Short Dance Film

Directed by Leo Pfeifer and Commissioned by Nowness and in collaboration with Jacobs Pillow

 

Fall Dates 2016

 

Upcoming Fall 2016 Events

Sept. 2nd, 2016 9pm Brooklyn, New York  The New York Clown Theater Festival

Sept. 10th, 2016 12 - 7 pm Philadelphia, PA Raphstravaganza: The Kinetic Experience

Sept. 24th and 25th, Oct. 1st and 2nd San Diego, California Trolley Dances

Public Performance, Character Design 2014

Bill Shannon Dancer Maker Artist Reuse Recycle Upcycle Dream whatiswhat Performance Strategy, "Manifestation Of The Minds' Eye Imagined" #billshannon 2014 Photo by Garret Jones 2014

Bill Shannon Dancer Maker Artist Reuse Recycle Upcycle Dream whatiswhat Street Performance, Skateboarding Crutch Goofball Provocateur Character #billshannon 2014 Photo by Garret Jones 2014

MAKER DANCER: Make Video Rig. Perform. Exhibit.

This post is intended to be a roundup of recent activities and not the final word on any of the works here.

BILL SHANNON Cirque Visa RJD2 Dance Performance Art Fleetmoves

ABOVE: "Liquid Light" Site Specific Video and Performance at Long Pond, Wellfleet MA presented as a part of Fleetmoves Dance Festival 2013. photo by Whitney Brown. This work focused on the kinetic nature of the video rig and its placement in a large body of water to allow for a live birdseye view of my continuous circuitous performance in the water for the camera above. I wanted to show and perform the fluidity of my many years of swimming to the audience on the shore. The only sport of my childhood years that was medically approved. "Dancer in Chair" and new street persona after the jump.

Spring 2013

My plate is full this year with multiple ongoing projects. The Rex "project" mentioned below several months ago has stabilized after 6 months of staggeringly little sleep ( or awake-ness ) and I am happy to share with you that the Rexy continues to payoff in a myriad of very small beautiful ways and I am BACK!

BILL SHANNON, whatiswhat.com, disability, dance, performance art

ABOVE: Limited Edition Lithographic Print by Bill Shannon, "I Will Dance With Strangers" 2012 I have ten of these for sale.

Skateboard Graphic Strategy To Validate Medical Usage

Bill Shannon RJD2 WORK IT OUT VISA FLOW Crutchmaster whatiswhat.com

ABOVE: Painted Skateboard Griptape Graphics To Communicate medical usage of Crutches with a Skateboard To Complete Strangers. The graphics emulate existing color and symbols in public space for safety boundaries and disabled people. I also added the Red Cross with MED written inside it to further reinforce the message. Normally graphics are painted on the bottom of the board and the tops are black griptape. Communicating through symbols from the top of the board is a very useful way to answer questions without them being asked.

DANCE PARADE 2012 Stills by Thos

Bill Shannon crutchmaster Skateboard Skater dancer dance parade 2012 disability

ABOVE: Custom Skateboard Paintjob @ Parade Starting Point /Photo by THOS

NYC DANCE PARADE 2012 was a fun and exhausting affair. I danced every block two or three times using my skateboard to exhibit my Step-N-Roll Flavor. I cannot really decide on how to title the form. Is it Stepping-Roll, Steppin-Roll or Step-N-Roll .. These are the kind of decisions I am not very good at making. Tons more images after the jump

eliminating the divide between my audience and my street practice

See video

ABOVE: Video Documentation of TRAFFIC from my trilogy of street works that are designed to preserve the authenticity of my interactions with pedestrians, crowds and traffic in the street.  The " ticketed" audience rides along for direct observation of me in the street as I work with whatever situation comes along, be it kinetic sociological or stylistic. Chicago Trib review and more after the jump

thisiswhatiswhat

Traffic Excerpts Chicago

ABOVE: an excerpt from Traffic: Chicago. "my left foot" means for the bus to speed up..

This text about Traffic I have cut and pasted from a grant proposal and modified slightly -after the jump-

THISISWHATIS "Traffic"

This is WHATISWHAT Urban Performance Art

 

bill shannon 2011 performance art whatiswhat what is what

ABOVE: Working on some new stuff in a studio before taking it to the world..here is a still. The grey tubes are super light weight foam recycled from thrown out materials in Brooklyn. I like the antlike relativity of scale that the large bundle places my body in. Taking it out of the street context to share it in this studio theater backdrop isolates the design of the character. Variations after the jump.

Photos: Brian Cummings 2011

non-verbal street performance art

I recently Performed in Torino Italy. I was performing primarily for pedestrians, tourists and local people who happened to pass me by. My Italian language skills being next to nothing forced me to stick to entirely non-verbal means.

photo:Andrea Macchia 2011

ABOVE: With the right angle and framing a George Romero horror narrative emerges from a lighthearted moment of creative improvisation with the environment and random people. Chance is my guide and light my primary subject. It always has been. Photo by Andrea Macchia

 

 

 

photo:Andrea Macchia 2011

what is whatiswhat

bill shannon

ABOVE: This is a still of me communing with a canine audience member in Pittsburgh a few years back. Posting this up because I am looking forward to my European street performances coming up this spring 2011.

Wandering Streetz of Warzawa, Poland 2010

BELOW: Warsaw, Poland. A bas-relief of a mother with child from the socialist realism era within Poland slowly decays in the acidic rain as a late capitalist cultural force represented by ZORK leaves its global human scrawl beneath it.

Bill Shannon "spatiotemporality" Douz and Mille @ DNA NYC thru June 18th

spatiotemporality is a solo exhibit by Bill Shannon at DNA galleries featuring two video installation works, bill shannon douz and mille at dna evolution of william foster shannon (clik thru for vids ) "Bench" a three channel six camera composited in the round street capture and "The Evolution of William Foster Shannon" a 20 Screen video wall documenting and mixing the diversity of performance and video projects over the past 20 years. The works are on display thru June 18th daily from 10am to 8pm 53 Chambers st.

"Wall Stall" : Documenting The Shannon Technique

Bill Shannon Technique dance street urban freestyle art performance art clowning
ABOVE: Classic "Wall Stall " executed in a Falling Style Shannon Technique 2010 photo : BC

The basic trick sequence involved in the "Wall Stall" from Shannon Technique is to plant the vertical 
oriented crutch ahead of your body and lift into it as you are also dropping the horizontal crutch down.
Holding onto the horizontal crutch with your armpit tightly is essential because it will be bearing weight
of the freeze which wants to push the crutch saddle out of its hold. Once your armpit is tight on the
horizontal crutch you can drop your weight into it with a hip hold or a lobar toe thread.  While you are
placing the horizontal crutch you are also dropping weight out of the lift into your vertical crutch. Your
arm over the vertical crutch should immeidately slide out of the saddle position and into an elbow saddle
hold as the horizontal crutch is now in place to take the weight. Once your hip is rested on the
Bill Shannon Technique dance street urban freestyle art performance art clowning
ABOVE:
Classic "Wall Stall " executed in a Bboy Uprock Style Shannon Technique 2010 photo : BC


horizontal crutch and your elbow saddle hold is in position on the vertical crutch you can tweak the
freeze variations while using your weight against the wall to stay secure. Here is where you grimace or
go no-handed no-footed etc. .. This holding of the freeze will be fun until your armpits bleed and the inside
of your elbow is bruised real good. all dancing hurts a little doesnt it?  NEVER QUIT To exit out of a "wall
stall" you have what I call a" rewind" in which you simply pull your weight back up into the vertical crutch to

Still Grabs from New "BENCH" edit

BILL SHANNON : BENCH  from Shannon Public Works Trilogy Window Bench Traffic
ABOVE: Still from BENCH, intersection of GRAND and WOOSTER, MANHATTAN NYC JULY 2008. I chose this as a still because it shares in one frame the public gaze ( as embodied in the driver ) and a reflection on the surface of the car of my video capture and mobility apparatus.

While I was editing a new version of my 2008 video and performance work "Bench" today I realized I might want to share more what is happening in my creative work even if it is a small thing.  This BENCH piece I have featured here previously and have installed as an "in-the-round" work. Now I am recreating an HD single screen composite of the video. I want this edit to be seen especially as it includes a new landscape arrangement of the six channels that pulls all the screens in one continuous line. I enjoy this aspect of the video because it ties together front and rear more intuitively. This work may be included in a museum group show which I will not disclose yet until confirmed. Its deadline time.

Steppin' Roll : The Upside of Winter Street Sessions

bill shannon  winter streets

ABOVE: Streets of Manhattan Winter

The crisp light and air of a dry northeastern winter's day beckons me to don all manner of warm clothing and partake of all manner of painkillers and break out into the streets for a deep session of the dancing and skating hybrid I have dubbed Steppin' Roll.  I truly appreciate the onset of winter because it frees the streets of laggard indecisive pedestrians, recreational skaters or bicyclist and gawkers. In the gift that is winter most pedestrians in the street are trudging in a straight line hurriedly often running to just get back to their warmth and cover. The bikers on the street at say, 15 degrees Fahrenheit, are almost all very experienced and there are veritably no street skaters out. The frigid days of winter also keeps people in their vehicles behind glass eliminating the habit of spewing some unintelligible crap from the open window that would, during summer, sneak into my flow just under my headphone volume level to inform me of their presence.

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