Monday Funday

May 24, 2016May 24, 2016 / Enrichment Center / Leave a comment

In The Studio

What better way to cruise into a new week than working on projects in the studio. Yesterday was Monday– a studio day, when the EC artists are working on personal visual and performing arts projects.

Studio 1:

: EC artist Martha Rojas is working on a row of figures, with her completed sketch to her left.

: EC artist Robert Garcia working on a drawing which can only be described as badass.

: EC veteran James Brizendine working out a sketch from a photo of a local landmark, the Branding Iron restaurant.

: From left to right, EC artists Bianca Cheatum, Yadira Prado, and Luiz Anaya Gomez are working out sketches.

: Clockwise from top left, Sofia Mendez and Calixta Perez working on paper beads, Antonio Perez, Yesenia Vargas (out of the shot, but you can see her canvas), Jose Salgado working on a portrait, and at middle-left, you can see Marlen Hernandez’s sketch of a flower.

Studio 2:

Studio 2 is pretty big, making room for Jose Miguel Castaneda to work on his literary-turned-theatrical project with his leading lady Maria Chavez and Jim… while EC artists Sue Thao, Oscar Onsurez, and Ivan Hernandez work on music projects with Lulu

: While working on his one-act play, Jim asks Jose Miguel to sit on a bench so he can visualize and verbalize scene 1– the male character sitting on a bench at the bus stop, speaking to the female character (Maria Chavez, out of the shot).

: Jose Miguel’s script, which is about 3 feet long.

Yadira’s Dance Project

April 12, 2016 / Enrichment Center / Leave a comment

In The Studio: Yadira Prado

EC artist Yadira Prado has been with the Enrichment Center for over ten years. She loves music she can dance to, and has been working on this dance project performed to Shakira’s song Ojos Asi for several months. With the help of her backup dancers, EC artists Marlen Hernandez and Jose Salgado, and the EC’s Music History/Performance Teacher Lulu Gamez, Yadira put the dance on video.

Dance Like A Zombie?

August 29, 2014 / Enrichment Center / Leave a comment

August 28, 2014. Denise Saelee practices the insanely well-known zombie dance from Thriller.

Almost everyone we know has seen the music video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, where funky and surprisingly agile dead people rise from their graves to rock out.

In preparation for a new performance project (tentatively titled The EC Halloween Special), the EC artists are studying the dance interlude from the music video.

Emulating a dance from video is hard enough. Emulating a dance performed by a bunch of (very robust) zombies is even more difficult. EC artist Larry Sutton pointed out, “I can’t dance like that. Look. He has big eyes. I don’t have big eyes like that.” Fair point, Larry. Sometimes, make-up and costumes help us get into a new character. And a zombie is certainly a stretch. Larry gave it his EC-best, as did everyone else… even without the big eyes.