“When one views a painting by Javier Cabada, it becomes clear that his process is not merely about the act of painting, but the act of feeling alive. For Cabada, a painting must transcend its role as an object or style and reach its full potential by reminding people that life is full of illusions.”

Doors have been opening for me since I won The Kennedy Center’s 2009 Local Dance Commissioning Project. When I applied for the Commission it was just supposed to be a story about the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which I experienced as a child in the Philipines. As I started creating, the idea came to connect the volcanic eruption to other kinds of environmental destruction.

Editor’s pick event: the Lunder Center’s multi-day conference about preservation of digital and video artwork. Most events free and open to the public.

Preserving our cultural heritage requires a collaborative archival practice integrating technology, notation and personal resources to the fullest extent possible. Archival policies for the field need to be developed, both to ensure preservation and performance of important works, and to encourage the necessary funding mechanisms.

Here are some notes from the Washington Project for the Arts panel discussion: Running for Cover(age). This event was stimulated by an article in the Washington Post which suggested that Washington’s artists are isolated. (Image by Jessica Yang from the Art in America coverage of the event.)

Alison Friedman discusses why one modern Chinese dance performance does not represent China, or Chinese society, but does represent our shallow understanding of world dance.