|
|
Salsa Lesson, 2010
|
|
text by Larry Alan Shao
Performance and Dance Floor Relics
Commissioned by TB10
Since 2008 salsa dancing, originally an extracurricular activity, has become Shao's main source of income; while maintaining an art practice, he teaches, choreographs, and performs salsa on a regular basis.
If the word "profession" suggests "vocation," then unlike other occupations, art is a practice that often requires a supplementary job - a common situation for most artists, but a reality that is rarely addressed. There are some general requirements for a secondary vocation to be suitable for an artist: it must generate enough income to cover the basic necessities in life, it cannot be overly preoccupying such that the artist has enough brain juice for his or her own work, it cannot be too physically demanding, and it must leave enough time for the artist to create; these criteria should not be compromised if what is at stake is an appropriate artist side job. Hence, in order for artists to make art, it is their responsibility to find this ideal subsidiary gig. In Larry Shao's Salsa Lesson, we take a closer look at the relationship between an artist and his secondary job.
Commissioned for the 2010 Taipei Biennial, Salsa Lesson represents an art project as well as a series of actual dance lessons. The artist posted ads in monthly papers and magazines to recruit students prior to the opening of the exhibition; over 120 people signed up, of whom 106 actually attended. Shao repositioned his dance instructor identity in the museum setting, teaching classes weekly in the exhibition hall for the duration of the biennial. The project ends in a crescendo - a salsa party in Taipei Fine Arts Museum as part of the biennial's closing event, with performances by his students and dancers from the actual salsa community.
Aside from dancing, Salsa Lesson investigates what a biennial can do for an artist through direct comparison between tuition fees and an artist stipend. Shao asked his students if they were willing to take his classes outside the biennial setting at the cost of his normal tuition rate (a little more than 10 USD per session). About 70% of the 106 students responded positively. The total the artist would have earned from tuition fees was calculated and set against the actual artist fee he received; the result is a 3:1 ration. This study is presented as a video documentary.
Salsa dancing played an influential role in Shao's life before teaching became a means to an end; it provided the artist with a social community, an outlet for relieving stress, a discipline for physical well-being, an opportunity to meet the opposite sex, and a revealing perspective on relational behaviors. This social activity informs Shao's life and art, and in this respect, over the years it has become inseparable from his identity and indistinguishable from his art.
As a result of the TB10 project, Shao successfully established Taipei Salsa Project Dance Studio in the following months of the biennial and his revenue as a salsa instructor increased 150%.
Support the Arts
Learn Salsa
www.larrysalsa.com
|
| |
|
|
|
