Happy Holidays from SPINE!

Dear Friends,

We just want to wish you Happy Holidays and all the best in the New Year! We are so grateful for your support, encouragement and patronage during this, our first official year as a company in New York City.

For those of you who didn't know, SPINE was based in London, England for 4 years, Los Angeles for 4 years, and we disbanded for a year during 2007-2008. Our regrouping started with a film commission and things took off from there. This year we premiered a new film at the Berkshire Fringe, exhibited a photo project at 3rd Ward, produced a live music and video event at Monkey Town, and produced a new work written by Allen Norvick, our newest member, which was presented at Speakeasy Stories this fall. Slated for 2010 are a web comedy series, 2 new films, a video exhibit, and an adaptation of a play. Our website has been updated, and we have a blog and a Facebook fanpage so you can keep up with it all.

Minus our year long hiatus, the core group of SPINE has been working together for 10 years. To mark our anniversary we're posting some "best of the decade" lists to our blog; a little thing we like to do at the SPINE house during family dinners that often result in drunken after-dinner brawls. Feel free to chime in and share some of your picks.

In what has become a yearly tradition, we used the holidays as an excuse to do an impromptu photo shoot based around a theme. As you can see, this year we chose "Domestic Bliss". Click the photos to embiggen. Thanks to Alvaro Gonzales, photographer extraordinaire.

We leave you with 2 pieces of rehearsal footage in their very nascent stages; The first, a video story-board for Kristen's new piece, and the very beginning of movement ideas for a duet Cory is working on. Become a Facebook Fan or follow our blog to check the progress of, and give commentary on, our newest works.

Take care,

Allen, Brent, Cory & Kristen

Persperation/Suffocation

During the day, I work at Lexus of Manhattan, in the Business Development Center. It sounds both more and less than it is. It is part of the sales department, but it is not sales. It's technically customer service, but it isn't. I wear many hats throughout the day, which usually causes my manager to say, "Take off all those stupid hats." Ba dump psh. It's not a physical job, but anyone who has to deal with the public all day knows, it can take its toll. Sometimes I get home mentally and physically exhausted and it makes it difficult to create. I'm not alone in wishing money was not a factor in my day to day, but unfortunately, it is. Luckily, we're all very supportive in this house of our creative ventures and I'm glad I have the other members of SPINE to hold me accountable for pushing forward. :)

SPINE House Date Night

Ah Sundays, the only day we all have off (except for Cory who usually has to take a Pilates client for an hour or two), we get to spend the day catching up, usually including a lengthy SPINE meeting and some cleaning. Then, we like to enjoy a nice evening together, which I like to call SPINE House Date Night. This usually means a mini adventure to a cool neighborhood restaurant . Last night it was Rye Restaurant where we had a fantastically yummy filling meal. The evening also included a guest appearance by Rachel Biello who is currently working on comedy sketches with Allen. After we are stuffed and happily sated we come home for a sharing. Last night it was a review of Cory's 'Lover's Discourse' rehearsal and the final cut of 'Tidal', Brent's newest video project we are premiering at MonkeyTown next Sunday. Yay!

Body Art worth waiting for...

After 7 months of waiting for Noon to get back from France, Kristen finally got her tat finished. Her eyes wet with mascara from all of the crying, looked at me and said, "I think I'm getting my next one on my thigh." This is what four hours under the needle will get you:

Before, half-way through and the finished product:













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