Dancin' In The Street

on the streets of Detroit

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In early September, artists Julia Vallera and Evelyn Funes Davidson visited several Detroit neighborhoods with a boombox, a remixed version of Dancin' In The Street and a portable latex dance floor. Here is some video footage of the closing party at MOCAD! Booker Snow and Good Son perform to a room full of MOCAD visitors. It was a fun and memorable night. Thanks to everyone who came out for it!

Music by:

Booker Snow - www.bookersnow.com

Minister Blak - www.goodsonemr.net

Good Son - www.ministerblak.com

all three managed by Shawn Freeman [email protected]

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Friday, September 14 was our closing party for Dancin' In the Street at MOCAD. It was a pleasure to have Booker Snow and Good Son, (two of our three musical collaborators) there to give a live performance to a room full of visitors. After performing two songs each, they presented the final music video, which included footage of the project participants and the musical collaborators.  The video is a big hit and gives a good overview of all the locations and people we interacted with throughout the residency. 

The gallery installation will be on view until September 22, 2012. It displays a map of all the on-site locations, several images of project participants, the final video, the project dance floors/message boards and a music station with the Dancin' In the Street remix song and original song by Martha and the Vandellas. 

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Wednesday September 12 was our fifth and last on-site visit with Dancin' In The Streets before our final event on Friday September 14. What better place for a final stop than the Heidelberg project!? We got there around 1pm and were lucky enough to see some very skillful dancing from our participants. They added some messages to our portable dance floor, which is on view at MOCAD until September 20. The video footage from this visit along with all the others will premier at our closing event is Friday September 14 from 6pm - 8pm. The event is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

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On Tuesday, September 11 we set up Dancin' In the Street at Wayne State University from 2pm - 4pm. Most of our participants were students from the University passing through campus. They included musicians, artists, activists, scientists, scientists and more. Everyone's unique dance moves matched their unique interests. They added several new messages to the dance floor, which is on view at MOCAD until September 20. The project video will premier Friday September 14 at the closing event. So be sure to come by and bring friends! It is free!

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The Detroit waterfront was a great place for Dancin' In the Street. We got there around 6:30 on Monday evening, just in time to watch the sun set behind the Detroit River. Passerby' s were very interested in our project and enjoyed being apart of it. Their enthusiasm and love for Detroit was inspiring. It was a celebratory evening filled with dancing and friendly conversation. Here are some of the messages visitors left on the dance floor: "Live free-Play hard!", "Don't let anyone tell you can't do something", "Peace in the world" and "Make it beautiful!"

As expected, the song by Booker Snow, Good Son and Minister Blak was a big hit. Everyone said they plan to attend our free event this Friday, September 14 at MOCAD, which we really look forward to! Please join us at 6pm this Friday and dance for Detroit!

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Monday, September 10 we visited Clark park in Mexican Town from 4pm - 6pm. We had an exciting group of visitors that shared cool dance moves and left positive messages for Detroit. Everyone enjoyed the original song by our musical collaborators Booker Snow, Minister Blak and Good Son. They left several positive messages as well, like " Stay in school!", "Say no to violence", "Be good role models for people younger than you.", "Say no to drugs", "Respect-Live-Love-Learn-ALWAYS!" and more! 

Come to our culminating event on Friday September 14th to see all the messages and dance to a live performance by the musicians!  

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Dally In the Alley welcomed us at their annual block party and street fair on Saturday September 8. Big thanks to Matt Klipper and Graham (two organizers of Dally In the Alley) for being so helpful! We set up around 12pm and stayed until 2pm. The fair was jam packed with visitors. We blasted Booker Snow's, Minister Blak & Goodson's remix version of Dancin' In The Street and invited visitors to dance and write messages on our temporary dance floor. 

We had a wide variety of participants with many different dance styles and messages to leave behind. It was a pleasure to speak with so many Detroiters about their neighborhoods and thoughts about social change in Detroit. Here are some messages people left behind; "Detroit feel the music", "Take care of Detroit! RECYCLE", "Detroit you will always be number one", "Dance for the D", "Dance is...expression, excitement, life!" and more...

Come out to visit us next time so you can dance or leave messages of your own!

All the documentation will be on view at MOCAD until September 20 so if you can't make it to an event, swing by to see how the gallery installation evolves. 

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Dancin' In The Street opened to the public on Friday September 7 at MOCAD. We had the pleasure of presenting our project alongside the current exhibition, Vision in a Cornfield. 

The DEPE Space gallery (housed in the back of MOCAD's main exhibition space) is a showcase of our project, "Dancin' In The Street" and will evolve over the next week. As we take this project to different neighborhoods in Detroit we will collect video, photos and messages from participants. This documentation will be on display in the gallery for the duration of the residency. A permanent dance floor/message board is set up in the middle of the space in addition to a sound booth, which allows visitors to listen to the original song by Martha and The Vandellas and the remix song by our local musical collaborators, Booker Snow's, Minister Blak & Goodson  Gallery visitors are welcome to interact with the installation at any point. 

At the opening, people were invited to dance and leave messages on the dance floor about social change in Detroit. There were a wide variety of contributions. Here are a few messages that were left behind on the dance floor; " Read to know", "Follow your dreams or dream about being followed", "Dance is good for the soul", "We were givin feet so we should be dancin in the streets!", "The rebirth in Detroit is needed", "Set out to be you!" and more. You can see all of them on view at the gallery. 

This week we will take our portable dance floor to various neighborhoods and collect more messages/dance moves from the people of Detroit! So, stay tuned and come visit us soon!

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The amazing Detroit-based hip hop artist, Booker Snow, has join our "Dancin' in the streets" project. He and collaborators Minister Blak and Goodson are currently cooking up a new version of the song for the installation at MOCAD. We are excited and lucky to have these talented musical artists and we can't wait to see what they comes up with. Check out their music and videos: http://www.bookersnow.com , http://www.ministerblak.com , http://goodsonemr.net

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Tees and Totes

We spent all day printing some awesome tee shirts and tote bags. We will have these at all of our events as give aways for participants and they will be for sale in various locations. They are also on sale at the MOCAD gift shop. Let us know if you want one in advance and if you have a special size request! 

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Song Contest, all music types considered (Midtown Detroit)

Detroit is known for many things but the musical talent from our city, definitely puts us on the map!

We are looking for hip hop artists, house, punk or rock bands to re-make one song. Details: This September, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will temporarily transform into a public engagement project called "Dancin' in the Street".  The project will include a traveling dance stage and accompanying music, all centered around the 1964 Motown song that became that generation's protest anthem:  "Dancing in the street", (originally recorded by Martha and the Vandellas). We're asking everyone in and around Detroit to re-invent this song, add new beats to it or remix it, make it your protest song. The idea is to create something dance-able, expressive and decidedly LOCAL, yet keeping the song recognizable. Your remix of "Dancin' in the street will be featured in our traveling dance performance as well as in two weekly events at Mocad. Viewers to the museum will hear all song entries via a headphone set-up. This is a great opportunity to get your musical skills featured in a large public event.

Email your MP3 remake entries by Sept 1st, 2012 to: [email protected] All songs will be considered, just make sure to make the deadline of Sept 1st. You can read more about event on Mocad's website (scroll down to dancin' in the street) : http://mocadetroit.org/upcomingevents.html So come on Detroiters, show us what you got. We are excited to hear the talent! Please forward this to your musician friends.