All Cameras On: Hot Bodies in Motion at The Round #73

All Cameras On: Hot Bodies in Motion at The Round #73

Hot Bodies in Motion. Hannalee. Daniel Blue. One magical evening at The Round #73. There's a little bit of back story necessary to explain why this video is awesome. So let me start by explaining what The Round is.

The Round is an event put on approximately every month, generally at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center in Seattle, and it always features 3 musicians/bands, a couple slam poets, and a few visual artists. The Round is named after the format of the performance: one round consists of an initial reading by a slam poet, then one band/musician will play one song, and then the second band/musician will play one song, and then the third plays one song, and finally the second slam poet reads, with the visual artists creating art all the while. And then it starts all over again. Pretty interesting, right? What makes it even more interesting is that collaboration is highly encouraged: when a musician isn't performing their own song, they're welcome to vibe on and add musical flourishes to whatever song is being played. It was absolutely riveting to see how songs were built upon and transformed into entirely new entities through musical collaboration, especially since the bands hadn't really heard each other's songs before The Round.

Now let's talk about All Cameras On. All Cameras On asks audience members to record a performance using whatever camera they have with them, from fancy digital cameras to iPhones to esoteric Nokia bricks. Once they have all the different footage, they piece it all together into a single video. The above video was shot with two DSLRs and six phones. You can obviously tell the difference in the quality of each recording, but that's what makes it amazing: it's like a little patchwork quilt of experience, from different perspectives and through difference lenses (literally). I think this video really exemplifies the spirit of The Round and captures some of the magic that happens within such a collaborative space, in addition to just being a really well-put together representation of an experience.

If you like what you hear, there are free podcasts of songs from The Round #73 available for download here (sidenote: Hannalee's "Ocean" took me to another plane of existence when I first heard it at The Round, and has been on infinite play in my iTunes since the release of the podcast).

ALSO, The Round #75 is happening on August 9th at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, and will feature Black Whales, so if you're in the Seattle area, it will definitely be worth checking out.