I first learned of Islands of LA when my bike buddy, Alex Kenefick sent an email about an event he was doing on one.  I was very intrigued  by my browse around on Ari Kletzky’s website and thought, “oh, another compatriot.”  Another creative architect carving work out of the intersection (pun intended, naturally) of ideas, activities and public space.  Social sculpture in an industrial landscape.  A decidedly prog bent.  Dare I say, daring to be an anarchist art practitioner?  Outside the white box.  Some short phrases that point to longer explanations, but this is a blog afterall, and I don’t want to lose you.

I confabbed with Ben about Alex’s email and we talked about how fun it would be to do a square dance on one.  Ben said, “I’ve always wanted to throw a square dance by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater.”  (At that time the space across from it was never full of parked cars.)

THEN, one day in the spring I was with the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest at CALARTS for a lecture and I met Ari.  I had been talking about the Bicycle Kitchen and he came up to talk to me about bikes and traffic islands and a connection was made.  I told him about the square dance idea and he seemed intrigued.

I have a huge crush on Lisa and Paolo from Echo Park Film Center as again they are comrades in arms, only theirs hold super-8 or 16mm film cameras, they make beautiful music together and ride bikes and and they travel around in a french fry smelling bus to screen films.  I had seen them at the LAOTS dance at farmlab and mentioned I thought it’d be great to do a dance with them.

SO, after meeting Ari and talking to the Foot and the lovely Cory Marie, designer of the beautiful poster and student of square dance calling from our beloved Susan Michaels, I simply sat down in front of the ole MacBook Pro and sent an email to all parties.  Calling all parties.

First, we had an early evening picnic there to meet and discuss.  You can see a photo from that meeting HERE. In introducing ourselves and motivations, I had a chance to say that I get fired up by connecting folks.  I’ve been living in Los Angeles for almost FIFTEEN YEARS and I am constantly amazed by the wealth of people who are doing incredible work here.  My goal is to produce a natural network of people living the city as we wish it to be.  Slow takeover?  Anyhoo that day the biggest obstacle to a succesful event were all the parked cars, a natural extension of the brand new condo unit on the site of the belmont tunnel entrance.  We discussed the pros and cons of alerting the dwellers ahead to ask about freeing up the spaces, but decided that chance and stealth were better partners.  We also decided to do a test run with a small group of people for which EPFC made a fabulous film with their garden cam.

Mostly, the outcome of this collaboration, experiment, event or happening is going to be determined on Saturday, October 3rd from 8-10pm by everyone who decides to show up!!! What could be better than having an unofficial, unsanctioned square dance on an island in the heart of los angeles with films being screened behind us all?

I don’t know.

Come see and swing!

BE THERE TO BE SQUARE!!!!