Book, Modern Garage Movement: 2005-2011
self published artist book, author and editor
This book is an offering and weaves together dance collective Modern Garage Movement's (MGM) multiple facets during this seven year period and the dancers, musicians, and artists who came together in this project. Making this book was a labor of love and these performance writings and images trace archive journeying, memory work, collective sharing, and holding difference throughout the process. Some themes running through: DIY ethos and aesthetics, collective practice, sustainable performance and touring models, nomadic choreographies, performance herstories, architectures of/for participation, dancers writing and writing dancing.
Writing contributions include an essay from Biba Bell, "Dancing from Outside: Modern Garage Movement's Lines of Desire" (written in 2019), a story from Jmy James Kidd,"In Remembrance of Anna Halprin" (written in 2021), and an essay (with interviews with Felicia Ballos, Kidd, and Bell) from Gretchen Till, "An Invitation to Say Goodbye: Fielding Participatory Landscapes with Modern Garage Movement" (written in 2008). Also included is a catalogue of works, posters and scores, and photographs that (like much of our documentation) were shared with us from audience/participant/friends along the way.
Layout by Leander O'Connell Johnson and it was printed at Future Productions in Southfield, MI.
Soon to be available at Trinosophes and Galerie Camille in Detroit and at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur.
Modern Garage Movement (MGM) is the performance collective of Biba Bell, Jmy James Kidd, and Paige Martin. Conceived in a one-car garage in San Francisco by Kidd in 2005, MGM takes a single dance and performs it within and across dozens of spaces, mobilizing audience, site, context, and choreography. Dances are made for touring—llama barns, spas, farms, living rooms and attics, backyards, galleries, parks, alleys, stairways, bars, beaches, yoga studios, wineries, packing sheds, museums, theatres, a locker room, grocery store, goddess gift shop, farmer’s market, and of course, garages. The work communes with the sonic, sensorial, and visual materials embedded in the sacred sites all around us. Every performance is an offering and a time for gathering. Dance takes form as craft, thing, way, and bodily experience.
Guest editor, Detroit Research, Volume 2 /On Dance
Table of Contents:
Michael Stone-Richards, “On Dance: A Politics of Rhythm”
Biba Bell, “A Dancerly Divining Rod”
Maya Stovall, “Liquor Store Theatre: Dance with Gentrification in post-Bankruptcy Detroit”
Bell and Stovall, “An Interview”
Mårten Spångberg, “Ten Statements on Art and Culture”
Hamilton Poe, “a photo essay: terry2day”
Allen Gillers, “Sparkle, Glitter, Pop… or A Field Guide for Spatial Transgressions”
Leyya Mona Tawil, “We Place Ourselves”
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, “4 Poems”
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, “#negrophobia”
Michelle Cowin-Mensah, “Bad Bitches”
Christopher Braz, “A Butterfly in a Jar: Where the twirlers lie…”
Ralph Lemon, “Drawings”
Matthew Piper, “Infinite Work: Writings by Biba Bell”
Essay, “Going Live: Matteus Huvaere’s Honoring the Heatwave,” Runner Detroit, December 1, 2023
Interview, “Vito Acconci with Biba Bell,” Detroit Research V3, Spring/Summer 2022
Essay, “My Own Private Dance Studio,” Detroit Research, Volume 2
Co-Editor, Critical Correspondence, Movement Research PublishingInterviews with Richard Move, Neil Greenberg, Chris Sharp, Cathy Weis, Maya Stovall, Rebecca Bruno
Essay, “Leslie Rogers,” Essay’d
Interview, “Haleem ‘Stringz’ Rasul and Marcus White in Conversation with Biba Bell,” Infinite Mile
Double Book Review, “The Concrete Body: Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Vito Acconci By Elise Archias and Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972 Edited by Ninotchka Bennahum, Wendy Perron, Bruce Robertson,” The Drama Review
Article, “Dancing in the streets,” The Detroit Socialist
