Altaer Wild Mountain Retreat
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Posted under: Altaer, Genius Collaborators, My Favourite Collaborations Ever, Songbird Radio
Come hang out myself, Katie Clancy, and Emily Moore in the wilderness at the 3rd Annual Wild Mountain Spirit Retreat. I am going to be leading singing–there will also be yoga, dance, and taoist meditation, organic food, and great company. Deatails here: http://altaer.org/wild-spirit-mountain-retreat-2013/
Guardian Angel Music
Dear p(ARTNERS) in Songbird Radio.
I wanted to tell you about my Guardian Angel! When I was about 5 months old, my biological father, singer and songwriter, Billy Masters passed away. He played that guitar really well and traveled all around the world with the Christian Music Sensation, The Archers.
His music publishing company was left to me and is called Guardian Angel Music! I feel that I really do have a guardian angel and that singing and songwriting is my calling.
Thank you for singing with me!
Launch of Songbird Radio
No Comments Posted under: Altaer, ArtEvolve, ARTner, bikesalon, Genius Collaborators, My Favourite Collaborations Ever, Songbird Radio, Uncategorized
Hello M-Audio,
I am interested in a creative p(artner) collaboration with you towards Songbird Radio in pursuit of expanding creative ARTnership using our voices together to inspire people worldwide! Last weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to be the first ever girl to dangle from a tall bike and sing original songs from an aerial hoop at the Bay Area Maker Faire! This month I will also perform an original number at the Oakland Metro for a monthly variety show that attracts 500 people! I plan to sing and use aerial again in this piece and I need your help to make my performances more awesome. I have the dream of getting everyone in the audience to sing and record and loop the content we are making together while performing aerial and singing!
Okay so how did I get here wanting to help people everywhere sing from their he(art)s?
My name is Lauren Larken I am a Songbird. I own a 22 year old parrot that I adopted when I was 8 years old. I grew up in theatre and attended a performing arts boarding school in high school, USC for theatre school and between April 1, 2007 and April 1, 2008 I wrote, collaborated, performed, recorded and published a song everyday for a year. It was a LEAP YEAR so you can find all 366 songs at 365Songbird.com
During the Song of the Day project I was living at a performance collective called The House of YES and pursuing my MFA in an interdiciplinary program in it’s first year that combined computer music, interactive programming, radio, film, television, theatre and art at Brooklyn College. I am always surrounded by amazing people and that year I collaborated with hundreds making song of the days.
House of YES is the kind of place where you go to sleep not knowing what you are going to wear and a gorgeous Kayti Bunny hippity hops home wearing a swarovski encrusted shimmering body suit the night before your concert that fits perfectly and Kae Burke of Make Fun studio sews up some sparely fabric. A couple of nights before I had had a dream about a Golden Birdcage (but told no one) and the proprietris of the house, Anya Sapozhinikova whips it right up. All of us in the community were singing, feeling amazing and I was about to Graduate with my MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts!
The song of the day project itself was conceived in an attempt to overcome my fear of song writing. I considered myself mostly a vocalist and didn’t realize how powerful the body is as an instrument. One of my professors, David Grubbs, told me to just start with the voice and hence the song of the day project was born! Tom Leger, a friend heard my ambition and work and gifted me a M-Audio KeyStudio and my ability to make music sound cooler became exponential. I became a composer and a song writer! Or when my talented dj, beat making, key board and percussionist friends came over they could really rock it out on the M-Audio KeyStudio.
A week after the Song-of-the-Day Project ended we had a celebratory concert at the House of YES featuring the crowd pleasing hits from each month. Amazing hilarious performances ensued including conceptually rich acts from the: MTAService Specialists, Impersonations of my Mom, Dennis Collective and Winkle Naughty Hilarious Themed Sing Alongs, Sappy Duets with Justin Lange and a Golden Birdcage, my perch, suspended from the ceiling.
Two weeks later I was in Denmark and England presenting my Thesis and something very strange happened. For a year we had safely hosted dozens of circus skill shares and events with fire performances but an electrical fire sparked in the kitchen and quickly filled a giant puppet head and destroyed all of our belongings and killed my orange kitty, DJ Pilgrim.
SONG OF THE DAY CONCERT: APRIL 6TH, 2008
SAME ROOM and OUTSIDE, APRIL 22ND, 2008
This M-Audio KeyStudio keyboard was sitting on my desk during the fire.
For the past 4 years we have been re-building our lives and The House of YES performance collective has evolved into a professional thteatre space that houses: Make Fun (a diy puppet and costume lab), a recording studio, and The Sky Box theatre a 50 foot ceilined aerial dance and movement theatre that hosts workshops, classes and almost nightly performances. I’d like to become a featured artist and use M-Audio equipment in my daily new show: Songbird Radio, This is Real Life! Each week we feature episodes of Bike Salon, ARTnership, Creative Alarm Clock & Missions with OCCUPY BEAUTY. This show is in response to people’s desire to sing from their he(art), attract and invest in sustainable lifestyles through everyday choices.
In exchange for the use of cutting edge M-Audio equipment I can offer: a tax write off, custom M-Audio jingles, and product reviews and tutorials.
Please contact me at your earliest convenience! The SF Bicycle Music Festival is June 23rd and I’d like to churn out some new beats to bump from my bike speaker!
Tunes I am Loving Right Now
Dear You,
I know you love good music. So here’s what I am jamming out to while dancing around my apartment. This is the music that is giving me a Total Eclipse of the Heart, Sun, Moon and Life…..
Songbird Radio Recommends:
To Shed Old Skin, Move to Musical Mantra: Mama Crow-Indigo (the whole albumn!)
To get my Musical Theatre Fix: Inara George-Right as Wrong (an Invitation with Dyke Parks)
To please my Bird and Diet on Ancient Soul Soothing Healing: The Gamelatron, Hive Mind
To Yearn deeply for someone or something: Nikki Borodi (soon to be released-stay tuned)!
Mother’s Day Presence.
Hello Excellent Mother Lover,
Mother’s Day is ONE WEEK AWAY. Today is the perfect day to send YO MAMA some love literally and figuratively. If you want to get her something special, today is the day to plan ahead (as Mother’s Day is in exactly 7 days).
Forget the conventional flowers which are often cut from another country, shipped using fuel and covered in pesticides. Over the counter perfume and cosmetics are whack as they are filled with chemicals-which are horrible for the immune system and can even increase your Mother’s risk to Cancer (Lame!) Send Mama a handmade Card, sing her a song….spend quality time with your Mom!
With organic home grown food, infrared saunas and all natural beauty treatments, a retreat in Upstate New York at Garden of ONE is an amazing opportunity to connect and celebrate. Or if you are not nearby, Give your Mom a gift from a trusted source! Bring Garden of ONE to your family through their beautiful, wildcrafted, handmade cosmetics! The vibrational essences are amazing and are on Special (2 for 1). A vibrational essence is an unscented infusion of energies from a certain flower, crystal, symbol, seed, metal, fruit, or combination. Essences deal with removing blockages, helping ourselves and moving through transitions. So get one for yourself and your Mother or one for your Woman and your Mom. Or get 4 for your Aunt, Mom, Sister, Daughter, Yourself, Your Honey, your neighbor and Grandma.
Garden of ONE grows their ingredients, picks them, designs the packaging, and creates a conscious creative safe alternatives which uplifts ones spirit by engaging ones senses. Using beauty products that are in line with our health, immune system, and eco system is to recognize and celebrate that beauty is not only attainable, it is in our cells, in our hands and in our nature. Book a retreat or send your Mom love from Garden of ONE for Mother’s Day. However every day is a good day to celebrate the source from where we came.
Gracias Madre!
ARTNERSHIP WEEK ELEVEN: MAKE OVER
I find it truly amazing how my weekly ARTnership challenges weave their way into my life so seamlessly. Sarah and I have been talking about making bike light jewelry for Bike Salon and we finally learned to solder LEDs. The ones in this video were built at Rock the Bike in Berkeley, Ca and used to bike power stage lighting for the monthly Nightlife Event at the Academy of Sciences in San Fransisco. I also wrote a new song, improved my fashion, learned how to make text more visible on videos (from my digital video guru friend Joey) and brainstormed with the Breast Cancer Fund about how to get companies to disclose all of their ingredients and remove cancer causing ingredients from their products.
Careful ARTnership is contagious!
Love,
Larken
Check out my primary ARTner, Laura Lee’s assignments: http://whoislauralee.blogspot.com/2012/03/artnership-weeks-9-to11.html?spref=fb
Wanna become an ARTner? email me. Larken@lovelarken.com
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