Thursday, August 21, 2014

THE ODYSSEY OF A VELOCITY MUSEUM INSTALLATION

Before and After- Gregangelo imagining and designing the Aura and Odyssey installations for SMoCA Gallery 4

AURA & ODYSSEY

When our senses are set free, unexplainable phenomena occur…

After last year’s sold-out sensation “Night Circus,”  created by Velocity Circus, and cast by our Arizona collaborators, CSA, The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts invited Gregangelo & Velocity/CSA back again to create AURA for their annual high profile fund-raising gala.


Under the intense artistic direction of Gregangelo, the installation took a team of 13 skilled Velocity artists 6 months to complete and 3 days to install. Over 25 performers animated and performed within the installation, bringing the story-book setting to life…

The Aura & Odyssey Ensemble

 The AURA concept was inspired by SMoCA’s exhibition The Five Senses, with special focus on a seminal work included in the show by acclaimed Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson  which amplifies the experience of standing amidst water and a beautiful spectrum of fractured light. Gregangelo & Velocity crafted themes for AURA that channel weather, the alchemy of the ephemeral, and the kaleidoscopic wonder conjured by nature’s shifting, changing elements.


Guests were treated to ongoing performances of song, dance, and variety acts throughout the evening.

Winter Songstress

 In addition, this year we added a secondary experience, ODYSSEY, a family and youth day sponsored in part by Gregangelo & Velocity Entertainment and our partners Circus Scool of Arizona , which allowed the museum to be opened for free to a brand new public!


The children’s oracle of the Labyrinth
 
 Explore the Museum’s fantastic new enchanting realms where each of SMoCA’s galleries had a different colorful and imaginative environment inspired by weather and flora & fauna of the natural world.


Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art invited families to take a magical journey to see the museum completely transformed into a kaleidoscopic wonderland. Prismatic light and special FX projections, animated installations and altered environs took the Museum by storm to create an unforgettable experience…

 Snow storm in the Winter Solstice Installation

Midnight in the Spring equinox garden


 Explore each dazzling room’s unique arts & crafts activities where you might help create glowing fireflies or chase after shifting rainbows!  A spectrum of lively characters, playful acrobats and aerialists, mysterious magicians and spritely creatures welcome you throughout your Odyssey experience.


 The afternoon also featured tasty treats which could be taken directly from the 3D living still life displays which taught the youth of good health and good eating:

Still life with cabbage

Still life with pineapple

Admiring a living statue in the Autumnal gallery

View full Aura and Odyssey gallery here:

Gregangelo/Velocity Arts & Entertainment have proven to be leaders in aesthetic, ‘living installation’ productions, specializing in holistic, interactive experiences that lend themselves to the unique environment of museums.

Explore more of our Museum work samples here:



Please keep our youth enlightened and take action and contribute to keeping Arts in Schools alive in your community,

Gregangelo
Artistic Director
Velocity Arts & Entertainment
Velocity Circus
San Francisco
415 664-0095
www.gregangelo.com
velocitysf@prodigy.net

Thursday, August 14, 2014

GREGANGELO’S STATEMENT

Gregangelo, in his youth, at the British Museum in London
 
As an artist, museums have been, and remain my personal favorite clients for accomplishing challenging commissions. As an entertainer, they have proven to be the perfect theatrical environment to bring fantastic shows to the public. However, I do not consider what guests have dubbed over the years:
“The Gregangelo Museum” (my home and studio), to be a museum at all…
 
There are no precious historical or monetarily valuable relics; there is no intentional or conventional décor, there is nothing that can be exhibited elsewhere, and, it stands far off the beaten path. Over time, the continuous, labyrinthine-structure has become an artifice and strangely its own entity. Essentially, the realm of the house is an artistic mirror which reflects the multi-facets of reality & consciousness, and you, the viewer, step through the looking glass and become the intrinsic character animating within this whimsical theatrical set in
“The wondrous story of life”.

There are 3 distinct levels in the house. Each playfully explores and entertains the profound mystery and reality of perception as well as the majesty of time continuum.
Here, the past, present, and future all concur as one.
 
Level 1
The Past- “Perception”
(Working area studios and archives)

Artists working in level 1 costume studio,
Costumer/media/makeup 
 


Level 2
The Present- “Awareness”
(Living and entertaining area)

 “Waters of the World” bathroom detail
(Don’t mean to be vulgar by showing a toilet, but it is our “earthy” functions which often tend to block our perceptions and awareness)

Level 3
The Future- “Realization”
(Wonder and contemplation area)

 The Eternity Room



This permanent installation in San Francisco began as an ordinary house and over 30 years (and still evolving) of work has transformed it to the artifice it is today. I extend an invitation to you, your family and friends to share the journey through it together, should you ever find yourself in this “City by the Bay”. The experience pushes the limited perception of our earthly eyes, ears and multiple senses to expand far beyond the horizons of ordinary reality to that far more wondrous, majestic, yet always present realm of eternity…


Encrypted with the overall message of Passion, Perseverance, Love and Awareness, my hope is that you may leave inspired (and inspire me), be thoroughly entertained, and continue to wonder beyond the veil of our everyday lives…

Here are three of my favorite quotes I have heard from people in the house:

 

“Working here is like preparing for a major holiday everyday”
– Full time staff artist in the house
 
“I will never be impressed again”
-World traveler and visitor to the house

“This place is better than Disneyland!”
-9 year old girl and years later again by a 45 year old man


This one was not said here, but it is a favorite which I think of perpetually:

“One cannot but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries to merely comprehend a little of this mystery everyday.
Never lose a holy curiosity.”
— Albert Einstein

Explore the multi-faceted “Gregangelo Museum” galleries and book a tour:
http://gregangelo.com/entertainment/category/gregangelo-museum/


 View of Solstice Room from the Eclipse Room


Gregangelo with “Mr. Flora Fauna” in front of house

Hope to meet you here…
 
Gregangelo
Artistic Director
Velocity Arts & Entertainment
Velocity Circus
San Francisco
415 664-0095
www.gregangelo.com
velocitysf@prodigy.net

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Eulogy by Gregangelo

 
Georgette Marie Beainy “Mom” March 11, 1937 – July 13, 2014
 
Eulogy by Gregangelo
Delivered in Notre Dame des Victoires church
 In San Francisco on July 17 2014
 
I am Gregangelo, Georgette’s son, but growing up her son, I always thought my name was “bleep-bleep no good rotten son-of-a-bitchin bastard”…
It‘s true…I bleeped out the first 2 words so that I would not be breaking any commandments here today.
 
First off, I just want to acknowledge how truly extraordinary it is to see everyone here today. We have somehow all been absolutely inspiring, supporting and in some cases detrimental in each others lives.
But no matter what, Life and the diversity of all of our relations is beautiful.

Now most of you know my mom Georgette as the straight shooting, wickedly profane, but truly benevolent person she always was. I can’t even begin to tell you how many arguments, reprimands, assaults, and screaming matches we have had over the years, but they always resolved in “I love you” bye for now. I am sure many of you have had similar experiences.

But in the last several months of her life when she was confined both in the comfort of her home and her own deep thoughts, we started having more profound conversations about life and death, the fullness of her own life, her spirituality, her great desire and preparedness to die, yet her often extreme fear of dying…or of “Checking out” as she would say.

In the vain of these intense conversations, I had a very lucid dream which I am going to share with you all. Now keep in mind that my mom had not left her home for nearly 7 months at the time of this dream:

I dreamt she asked all of her kids to take her on a drive around the city. She wanted to see the homes that she and her extended family had lived in, buildings and neighborhoods where her family had businesses and many places in the city where she had experienced love and life. It was a trip down memory lane. We asked if there was anything else she wanted to see and she replied, “I want to go to the beach”. So we drove her out to Ocean Beach, parked, and opened the door as she wistfully gazed out at the expanse of the ocean for a while.

Finally she said, “You kids help me out and let’s walk towards the water”.
So we held her up and slowly walked together towards the shore.
When we got there she suddenly had a powerful burst of youthful energy, released herself from us and disappeared into the vast ocean.
 
I immediately woke up, a little shaken, and intuitively interpreted the dream to mean that she had confronted her fears of dying and was ready to “check out” ….or had possibly even already “checked out” at that moment.

I spoke to her on the phone later that day, relieved she was still with us
But opted not to tell her the dream as her response would have just been:
“What the hell is all of that psycho babble?!”

A few weeks later on a rare occasion when all of us were together in her home, I told her the dream which had vividly persisted in my mind.

She was engaged, and when I got to the end of the vision where she disappears into the ocean, she looked me in the eyes, lit up a cigarette,
And said: “You bleeping asshole, why the hell didn’t you jump in and try to save me?”

She lived a full life exactly how she wanted to, did everything she ever wanted to do, loved …or sometimes in her case disliked everyone she ever wanted to.

On the last day of her life, she knew her time had come and she prepared every detail herself, her way, so that she could lie down with dignity and breathe her last breath in the peace and perfect order of her own home.

You all have no idea how much she loved each and every one of you. 

“At dawn I was born, baptized with dew.
I bloomed happy and in love in the rays of the sun.
I slept for the night and woke up old…
You were admiring me yesterday, and I will be dust forever tomorrow.”
-Cecile Caultier & Jacques Lacombe
An excerpt from the song “Mon Amie la Rose”
Translated by Emmanuel Noel from French to English