Artist Spotlight #1: TARA KING
Rhizomatic Arts is proud to feature members of our Sustainability Network who are doing good in their communities through their creative and professional practice. Our very first spotlight features TARA KING, a choreographer/performer, web designer, writer, and bike advocate based in Los Angeles!
Hi Tara! Tell us a little about your creative and professional practices: What do you do in the world?
I'm owner of Smilodon Creative, a web development agency that works with arts organizations. I'm also a choreographer and performer with Mad King Thomas, a dance-making collective out of Minneapolis.
With Smilodon, I design and build complex websites for arts organizations (theaters, galleries, dance companies, etc). I focus on open-source technologies (like Drupal) and sustainable strategies to help organizations connect with their communities in a way that doesn't exhaust the staff or the budget.
As part of Mad King Thomas, I'm currently finding ways to make dances without being in the same room as my collaborators (who are located in Minneapolis and Boston). We're working on a new piece that continues our early investigations in giving dances over the telephone. We're asking questions about the oral nature of dance and how dances transfer from one body to another, as well as what it's like to have another body perform in my spot, as me.
I also have a personal writing practice, where I write and publish everyday. Topically it's all over the place but is the core of my personal creative practice right now.
How do you support your peers through your practice?
In my work with Smilodon Creative, I support my dance and arts peers by guiding them through the maze of modern technology--using straightforward language and familiar metaphors to explain something new and strange. I support my open-source software peers by sharing my dance-based knowledge of body mechanics, wellness, and collaboration. Mad King Thomas also has a policy of paying other artists when they work with us--not as much as they deserve, usually, but at least it's something. The performance community is sometimes a little fast and loose with expectations and compensation and we're doing our best to clean up our act and treat people like the professionals they are.
What do you want to see in the world, 10 years from now? How does what you're doing contribute to that world?
I would love to see everyone riding bikes instead of driving. I would love to see a community of arts organization leaders and staff who can use the command line. I would love to live in a world where people are paid fairly. I would love to see wide-spread adoption of open-source technologies for personal computers.
Mad King Thomas is very pro-bicycle--probably not enough to get everyone out of cars in 10 years but maybe enough to get people onto bikes once or twice a week when they would normally drive. And I have personally made the journey from tech literate art person to command-line-using tech nerd, and it's been wildly empowering. The fancier our computers get the more we need to understand the guts of the machine, and I'm happy to be the one to teach my clients and my community. And I am all about open-source communities and technologies--trying to find ways to be more involved in those projects and then to bring them to people who need them.
What's coming up next for you?
Mad King Thomas is performing by telephone in Minneapolis at the end of July. We're also traveling to Spain to study with Julyen Hamilton in September. You can like us on Facebook or join our mailing list (a.k.a just email us) to hear about more.
As Smilodon Creative, I'll be teaching a DIY website workshop in Albuquerque, NM, at Keshet Ideas and Innovation Center in October. I'm looking for LA-based groups who want to present that workshop, as well. Of course I'm happy to talk to arts organization types about their website-related hopes and dreams: tara@smilodoncreative.com. You can keep up with Smilodon by joining our mailing list or liking us on Facebook as well.
I'm continuing my 100 day writing project and would be happy to have you there, reading, commenting, etc.
photo by Sean Smuda
