Abstract

Professors Kavouras and Tracy will explore, through a sustained interdisciplinary collaboration involving the formal elements of movement, sight, sound and text, a number of contemporary motifs affecting artistic expression in this the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. Over the course of several semesters, ideas were exchanged and reflected upon which, after having been subjected to the alchemist’s cauldron, became part of a journey leading us out of darkness and into the light. The poetic beauty of language (stream of consciousness text) and choreography (the primal beauty of physical movement) will carry the burden of an extended narrative, thereby enabling Kavouras and Tracy to consciously choose to open a principle door of signification and pass into an existential arena where the accumulated language of aesthetic fermentations have been brewing and resonating for some time. This collaboration began with the common recognition by Kavouras and Tracy that the contemporary learning process at universities and colleges has been transformed and remade by students who demand greater interactivity and the right to discover for themselves. The Kavouras/Tracy Project then, is a vast canvas that moves beyond the four defining walls of a university classroom in favor of an engaging and changing perspective that, we hope, reshapes and integrates “the examined life” by bringing it out of the shadows and into the light where something is possible, where something that matters materializes. And throughout this collaborative process, Andy Warhol’s famous line, “Art is not a person’s first name”, resonated in our ears and our consciousness as we explored the areas of overlap between Architecture, Art, Dance, Film, Music and Theatre within contemporary society. In one sense we can’t help it…we have to look. To view the Kavouras Tracy Project film, which was an integral component of this effort from the very beginning, go to the following URL: http://www.joesuniverse.org/venice.html. This film may also be viewed on YouTube at the following (please note the thirty minute video required three separate YouTube sites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIkykQPGtYA; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v18eLbxHYIw; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkBPt42iyjk