After Midnight of Luminaria (March 14th early am).

Ah, Luminaria. The best thing ever? Or an uncomfortable metaphor reflected in the very real pain in the blisters on my feet and the chaffing in my pants from the miles and miles I walked in a thirty acre plot during the last 19 hours?

I can bitch and moan, but let me begin with one basic highlight. I’m talking about me. You know, Erik. I was able to finagle three works in which I had huge vested interests onto Stage Seven, also known as the Dance Stage. Now people can carp all they want about conflict of interests and such. See, I’m on the steering committee, and this could make me suspect. But committee members can go through the Luminaria vetting process like anyone else, they just recuse themselves from the vote. Perhaps this is wrong, but it’s the current official Luminaria process.

So, my film, “Hoop Dance,” starring ST Shimi, came out of the proposal process. It’s a collaboration between me and Shimi. She not only danced in the film, but she performed live as it screened.

But there was another performance slated for the Dance Stage in which I was involved. Seme Jatib’s “Words into the Wind.” We collaborated on this piece back in January. My video, her dance / choreography. This piece was proposed by Seme. And it was accepted by the dance committee.

I’ll be splitting my honorarium with Shimi. Seme will no doubt be splitting her honorarium with me.

It all works out.

Artists often collaborate. And we try and be fair with one another.

And then there was the third dance-related film I worked on for Luminaria which also screened on Stage Seven. Deborah Keller-Rihn’s “Turning the Light Around.” She produced and directed the film. I shot it. We both edited it. There’ll be no sharing of the honorarium. We collaborate all the time. Deborah was central to my 2009 Luminaria film. (And I love that film we made together!)

Collaboration is a strange process. It’s all about relationships. There were three video pieces that screened on Stage Seven tonight at Luminaria which were collaborations between two or more artists, each having a film component. I’m happy to make a impact on a film and dance collaboration for Luminaria.

Because of logistical reasons, we needed to pad the time of the run-of-show on Stage Seven, and I was cajoled onto the stage on three occasions to talk about my involvement in each of these three pieces. The fact is, I was honored to get up on stage, clutching a wireless mike, and blathering on and on to huge audiences about my work with such wonderful, beautiful, and amazingly talented women as Deborah Keller-Rihn, Seme Jatib, and ST Shimi. I’m basically an introvert. But over the years I’ve been forced to talk in front of groups, television cameras, and, in this case, churning crowds of humanity which might have been in the thousands. But, as shy and neurotic as I might be, these times on the stage were a highlight for me. I was promoting the works of people I care deeply about. Here I am on stage with the wonderful Seme Jatib.

It was well worth all the hard volunteer hours I put in on the committee. But, man, I’m beat.

I was up at five in the morning. By five-thirty, I was over at C4 mastering and burning compilation DVDs. I made it to the Luminaria “Command Center” for a 9am meeting. And , once there, I didn’t leave the Luminaria grounds until after midnight. From the time I headed out from home on early Saturday morning, until I made it back home by Saturday night (well, technically, Sunday morning), I had clocked 19 hours into a very busy and stressful day. It’s now three in the morning (to be honest, I don’t know if that’s with or without the daylight savings time change)…and I’m going to bed.

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Sunday Night, After Luminaria

I hope many people who read this were adventurous enough to have attended Saturday night’s Luminaria. Adventurous not because it was edgy or anything, but because it was a pain in the ass to find parking, and it was packed with a shitload of people.

I was co-chair of the film committee. We had over 20 films and videos. They ranged in length from 2 to 18 minutes. Probably three-quarters were produced expressly for Luminaria. The filmmakers ranged in age from 15 to 70. We had a couple of first-time filmmakers, such as Deborah Keller-Rihn, who stepped out of her photographic comfort zone to produce a moving and nuanced experimental piece, “Turning the Light Around.” We also had work by established filmmakers with a solid body of work behind them, such as Ray Santiesteban, Michele Monseau, and Jessica Torres (who, though she has only recently turned 18, has been making solid short films and winning prizes since she was 14–and no one had better call her a novice!).

I like to think that the film & video artists were just as impressive and diverse as artists from other disciplines.

Luminaria 2010 was a great event, but I was so damn busy putting out fires here and there that I wasn’t able to take many pictures. However, here are a few.

Ms. Franco, director of the Instituto Cultural de Mexico.

“Turning the Light Around,” a film by Deborah Keller-Rihn.

“Words into the Wind,” dance and choreography by Seme Jatib, video projection by Erik Bosse.

“River Hoop,” live dance performance by ST Shimi (AKA Shimarella), projected film by Erik Bosse.

Art Cart, by Oscar Alvarado, with featured artist, seated inside, the great Jacinto Guevara (and I’m thrilled to include them here, because I don’t think they were vetted–it looks like they were rogue guerrillas!!!).

I hope to write a post soon about the Bike Porn night at C4. That was almost as fun as Luminaria….

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Okay. Bike Porn.

I’m woefully behind n my blogging schedule, so I’ll breeze through the Bike Porn experience fairly quickly.

I mean, really, who could do a better job than one of my favorite writers, Ashley Lindstrom. She wrote a wonderful piece for the SA Current. I like to think that I helped make this happen. I put Ashley and the Rev. Phil in touch with one another. I knew she could give a sensitive yet playful account of the show. Actually, none of this would probably have happened were it not for that meddling Jenny F., a mutual friend who bridged the gap between me and Phil.

Because Phil didn’t secure his venue (C4 Workspace) until four days from the event, there was little time to get the word out. I did my best, as did Todd and Debbie with C4. And when the Rev. Phil and his small entourage hit town noonish on March 8th (the day of the screening), they hunkered down at C$, using their laptops and C4’s wi-fi to plot out a route of a quick outreach to the hotbeds of San Antonio’s bike, porno, and cinema subcultures.

I was afraid that only ten people would show up. I know of five people who told me they’d come. The evening started off slow. But by the time the show began, we’d filled every seat. People were standing. C4 isn’t that big. We had at least 50 people crammed inside.

The films were fun and playful. And, yes, some, but not all, of the material was hardcore. But this wasn’t you’re run of the mill porno. This was porno being made by people who had never done this sort of stuff before, and who were having a blast doing it.

The high point of the evening was when, at the end of the night, the Rev. Phil came out with one of his staff, a lovely young woman, and, as they proselytized in a carny sort of way about liberation in a sexual and bicycle sort of way, they quickly and quite naturally divested themselves of their cloths. Phil was completely naked. His assistant, well, she, still had on panties and hose. But it all seemed so innocent and natural. Then they did a song and dance routine, ending with the woman leaping up so that Phil could catch her. Here’s my quickly snapped photo.

People always say this about nudism: “it’s more natural than sexual.” This was pretty much true during the closing show. I should point out that we, the audience, weren’t naked (though I want to say that the very best part of the night was when a cute girl in the second row said, during the Q & A session: “Lets all take off our shirts!”), but there was certainly this sense that seeing a couple of healthy young people standing in front of us disrobed was really no big deal.

It was a wonderful evening. Great films. An appreciative audience. And I have to say that the Rev. Phil is a unique individual. A little crazy, perhaps, but a wonderful, liberating force who I can only hope will one day pass through your life.

Bike Porn rocks! They’re gearing up for a fourth tour. I’ll do my best to help them get a bigger audience in San Antonio for 2011.