TurningPointe Press ~ Virginia
(Kelly O'Brien)

Moving Parts
By Irene Chan, Paul Gordon Emerson, Leah Frankel, Kerry McAleer-Keeler, Patricia Lee, Moira McCauley, Kelly O'Brien, Elizabeth Parthum, Beverly Ryan, Gretchen Schermerhorn
With introductions by Paul Gordon Emerson and Susan King
Alexandria, Virginia: TurningPointe Press, 2010. Edition of 50.

18.75 x 9.5 x 2.25" box containing 10 miniature books and a project catalog including a DVD housed in a pocket on the inside back cover. Box designed with compartments for each book.

Kelly O'Brien: "Moving Parts is a fund raising project that I conceived and co-direct in collaboration with Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and CityDance Ensemble. The project involves ten book artists, each interpreting an aspect or theme from CityDance's 2008-2009 season. The final collection of miniature artist books is housed in a custom clamshell box. A documentary about the project including artist interviews and dance performances is part of the collector's set."

The booklet accompanying the miniatures includes essays and statements by the artists as well as DVD which provides "an inside look at the art, artists, and inspiration of Moving Parts. [This] 30-minute documentary [was created] by filmmaker Francisco Campos Lopez and CityDance Artistic Director Paul Gordon Emerson."

Proceeds from the book support Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and CityDance Ensemble, both non-profit art centers.

Untitled
by Beverly Ryan

3 x 3"; 5 tulip page folds. Bound in black and white polka-dotted paper. Held together with red elastic slip on band.

Beverly Ryan: "My book is about dance and the environment. It is about shapes, angles, movement, words. The words are the titles of the dances performed during the Carbon City Dance performance. This book is about combining these images and ideas into a sculptural, movable, and precious object."

by Irene Chan

3" circular wooden lidded box containing 24 cards and folded blue paper gameboard. Masa and Inkjet paper. Double sided matte paper. Mx reactive dyes, acrylic paint.

Irene Chan: "While watching rehearsals and performances at CityDance, I noticed pairing, natural opposites, placement memory, and elements of chance pattern. I thought of playing the memory game Concentration. In this specialized set, influenced by the performance Carbon, there are representations of flora, fauna, and man-made nature. In this version, you create your design for the back of the cards by noting you and your partner's moves. Instructions are for two players: however, the game may be played with any number of players."

Untitled
by Leah Frankel

2 x 2"; 92 leaves. No text. Removable band of corrugated cardboard acts as binding.

Leah Frankel: "Dancers communicate with each other through their physical, emotional, temporal, and theoretical language. This book demonstrations the interaction between two dancers. The two parts of the book are cut from the same piece of material, and therefore they fit together. The parts are able to move independently, while the forms and movements compliment each other, and ultimately fit back together to form one book."

Impractical Dance Notation
by Gretchen Schermerhorn

3.5 x 2 x .5"; 37 leaves. Flipbook. Text and imagery screen printed on
uncoated paper. Perfect bound at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, Maryland.

Gretchen Schermerhorn: "My book illustrates the path or mark that a dancer creates on the floor. It is my hope that when flipping through the book, the viewer will get an idea of how the dancer used the space on the dance floor, and how the marks or path created by one dancer creates a relationship with or responds to another dancer's marks or path."

Dancing Lightly
by Kerry McAleer-Keeler

2.5 x 3 x 1"; 72 pages. Exposed sewn binding.

Kerry McAleer-Keeler: "This book was inspired by the exquisite and most moving CityDance ensemble's performance of Carbon from the 2009/2010 season. The dance entitled 'Stain' made a lasting impression. The concept of a carbon footprint and the mark we leave behind on the world intrigued me. I wanted to create a piece that addressed many of the environmental concerns raised in the dance and perhaps begin a social dialogue for change."

Shall Not Perish
by Paul Gordon Emerson

2.625 x 3.125 x 1.5" assemblage. Book sculpture. Solar run fan.

Paul Gordon Emerson: "The actual inspiration is Isabel Croxatto's
'Revolution of the Butterflies,' a dance she made for us in 2008 as part of our concert series on Climate Change. The silk strips affixed to the fan, when the blades are turning, are meant to replicate a butterfly in motion. If you touch the silk while it's turning you change the shape of the fabric, and do so in three dimensions. The only text is inscribed on the base of the solar panel. It's from Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. He was talking about freedom, about liberty, and, while his reference was the sacrifice of so many to the idea that all men are created equal, my hope is to expand it, and to realize that we must give the same full measure if we're to change the direction we are now on - to prevent so many creatures from perishing."

Untitled
by Elizabeth Parthum

2 x 3.25"; 6 pages. Concertina structure. Exterior designed as a small bed.

Elizabeth Parthum: "My piece is inspired by the role of bed and asleep in fiction, in myth, and in our culture in general an by the dance 'Mattress Suite'. It explores the rawness and innocence of our unconscious motions during sleep, and their expression of the shifts and realities of relationship."

myTurningPointe
by Kelly O'Brien

3 x 3 x 1.75"; 128 leaves. Pasteless accordion binding that transforms into a wearable tutu. Made from tulle and pink ribbon.

Kelly O'Brien: "I have had a conflicted relationship with dance after walking away from ballet over 25 years ago. Doing the research for this project was like opening Pandora's box; once I realized what City Dance stirred in me, I had to face my choices, loss and regret. It is something I've avoided for a long time. Stepping into the rehearsal studio again, I was confronted with the unresolved in an unexpectedly powerful way. The first time I went to a CityDance rehearsal, I wept. It does not feel like I chose this topic, but rather it chose me."

your body will know
by Moira McCauley

3.25 x 3.25"; 9 leaves. Cover paper handmade from abaca, cotton, and cotton rag. Inside paper handmade from abaca. Letterpress printed on a Vandercook Universal I. Bound in paper wrappers and secured with silk ribbon.

Moira McCauley, "When I watched the CityDance piece 'Falling,' it struck me as a depiction of the ways people push and pull each other - the physical interaction standing in for the emotional impacts. That got me thinking about connections, emotions, and bodies. I also considered the name of the project 'Moving Parts';. I thought about body parts, and about the emotional connotation of the word 'moving'.

Untitled
by Patricia Lee

1.75 x 3"; 12 pages. Star carousel fold structure with decorative wire ornament at spine. Decorative wire provided for closure when book open.

Patricia Lee: "The inspiration for my book comes from the interplay of poetry and dance during CityDance's "Entangled" performance. Music is accompanied by a reading of Mahmoud Darwish's poem 'Night Flooding From the Body' in Arabic. We were transported to another time and place by the dancers and a lone voice. Once I received a translation of the poem, I was moved to build the book design around its story. My book unfolds into the shape of a jasmine flower and has a secret book compartment which overflows
with the poetry of 'Night Flooding From the Body'. evoking the scent of jasmine for two lovers whose entanglement was inevitable, encompassing and impossible all at once."

$1,890