BodyStory Video Experiment 1 — Peacock and the Sun Goddess

BodyStory Video Experiment 1 — Peacock and the Sun Goddess

The Peacock and the Sun Goddess BodyStory was an experiment for a class presentation at the Face and Body Art International Convention in 2012 (FABAIC). For my class on storytelling I tried out a new idea (new for me – see below) of taking the methods I use for telling a story via facepainting onto a painted body — using a fully painted body in choreographed movements to accompany my narrative. I had done this with several performers and much assistance to perform the story Li Chi Slays the Dragon as part of our Bodies Alive! production at FABAIC 2008, but that felt more like a theatre piece and this was meant to stay closer to the stylistic quality of storytelling.

The Peacock and the Sun Goddess BodyStory was conceived and presented as a live performance. As the concept seems well designed for video I took the fotos and video we’d made as documentation and created this video in iMovie. (The wonderful music is Indian Fever by David Starfire, which I found on the album “Six Degrees Free Indian Music Sampler” on Amazon. The model was a non-professional, so I’ll withhold her name) The next step in the video experiment will be to create a BodyStory design specifically for video, and explore what is possible without the design limitations inherent in a live performance.

See the BodyStories Page to learn more about other BodyStory projects, including “Is This the First Story?” based on an 18,000 year old cave painting.

To be clear, nothing in art is ever truly new—especially in an art form as ancient as bodypainting. In saying that these experiments feel “new for me” I’m not saying that I’ve invented something here. Aboriginal Australian bodypainting may go back 40,000 years in a continuous line and in some cases, particularly in the context of ritual initiations, their bodyart tells complex mythological tales (to name just one precedent). Nothing is new.

To learn more about our programs and performances:  http://www.agostinoarts.com

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Transformations — About the Company

About the Company

— adapted from Transformations! The Story behind the Painted Faces by Christopher Agostino – revised 12/12/12

The first face I painted was in 1976, as a young actor asked to help turn hundreds of my fellow high school students into clowns for a bicentennial parade. By the next summer, the members of our theater troupe had opened a facepainting concession at Adventureland Amusement Park on Long Island, NY. I haven’t stopped painting faces since. (Why would I? It’s too much fun).

In the eighties I began to look at facepainting differently — as an art. The art of transformation. In 1983 I was in LA,  painting faces and bodies at Venice Beach. I joined with another performer and visual artist, Jennifer Green, to promote facepainting to museums and art shows as well as the usual gigs. Jenn’s approach to a face was very different from mine. On the same day that I painted a classic Chinese Opera design on her as a logo for our fledgeling company, she turned me into abstract art.

When I returned to New York, I got a gig painting faces in the window of Unique Clothing right on Broadway in Greenwich Village and worked there on and off through the mid- ‘80s. It was facepainting as public entertainment. As was the case at both the amusement park and Venice Beach, I was painting more adults and teens than kids. I worked on ways to blend my theatrical approach and the Chinese Opera imagery with the punk styles people were wearing on the streets.

The extensive event industry in New York let me move from street fairs, where people paid for each face, to being hired for private parties and corporate events. Sometimes I’d be able to bring along another artist who painted full faces, but most often there would be other freelance facepainters on these gigs with their own styles or just doing cheek art.

As the work became more steady and the events larger, I wanted to always work with a group of artists who approached this art like I did, to present facepainting as more than a cute diversion for little kids. That led in the ‘90s to the formation of the company, Transformations Facepainting, and that was when facepainting really became fun.

Finding a facepainting home like the Bronx Zoo has allowed us to develop and maintain a company of very experienced artists. The members of Transformations Facepainting, over the years, have included: Dennis Pettas, Roberta Halpern,  Jennifer Wade, Miguel Cossio, Laura Metzinger, Michele Carlo,  Angela Izrailova, Miko and Claudia Reese, Jin Young Park, Danny Gosnell, Naoko Oshima,  Margery Gosnell-Qua,  Maria Pirone, Sigfrido Aguilar, Janet Izzo, Denise Lord,  Nirupama Kumar, Christine Gregory, Zak Brown, Lizi Costache, Regina Russo, Phil Zirkuli, Britt Lower, Colleen Gallagher, Deborah Berkson, Abigail Weg. Our website and promotional materials are full of my snapshots of the faces that I paint — their work is vastly under-represented in proportion to their contribution to the success of our company.

The artists who find their way into our company tend to stay with us. It’s so much fun and we like each other.

Before I had an organized troupe, I had friends to paint with. I’d get canvas painters I knew, like Wanda Boudreaux, to try facepainting. Wanda’s from New Orleans, so we also got a chance to paint down there for Mardi Gras, and I have always felt that I learned as much from artists like Wanda as they learned from me. Some of the other artists I’ve painted with along the way include Kate Cain Madsen (who began like me back at Adventureland), Teddy Goldman, Anne Farmer, Diane Epstein, Suzanne Haring and her sisters, Jodi Levitan, Susan-Rachel Condon, Luanne Dietrich, Erica Borillo,  and Therese Schorn. Some of these artists were with me as I first began to discover what I wanted to do with a face.

A facepainter is an artist who entertains, and entertainers get into the most interesting places. One day we may be painting at a party in the inner recesses of the New York Stock Exchange and the next day we’re painting an endless line of kids in the Bronx for the NYC Parks Department. One summer, Transformations was hired by the Nature Conservancy for the Long Island Beach Festival. It was a wonderful event, right on the beach at Smiths Point Park. I got to tell stories and talk about nature and facepainting to the crowd strolling through the tent, and we got a chance to dip our toes in the ocean afterwards. This is a wonderful business.

Usually for such events I’ll give the artists a theme and maybe some source images like masks or sea life photos and they will invent their own faces. This time I tried something different. I gave to the three artists working with me (Naoko, Marge and Miguel), a set of 70 sea life faces I had sketched out for an earlier project at the New York Aquarium and asked them for that day to use my designs rather than their own. We told the crowd we were painting not to worry about what they wanted to be, that everyone would be surprised with a different sea life face.

As these three accomplished artists, who I have worked beside for years, began painting my face designs each took their own approach, brought their own style and vision, and none of the faces looked like I’d painted them. What a pleasure it was to work beside them.

For such artists to believe me when I tell them what I think is possible in this unconventional medium; for them to let me give them certain rules for painting on certain days; for colleagues to let me set a course for their creativity — this is all a very unexpected consequence of my decision to be a facepainter. To have a company of artists who want to do what I do amazes me.

to learn about all our programs: agostinoarts.com
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Transformations — Clients

In addition to the hundreds of appearances we have made at schools, libraries, theaters and festivals, here is a partial list of the public, corporate and event clients for our Agostino Arts Theatre performances and our Transformations Face & Body Painting

[ Return to  agostinoarts.com ]

——-  Public Events  ——

Wildlife Conservation Society — The Bronx Zoo 

(special events since 1993, plus our Transformation Facepainting concession since 2005)

Central Park Zoo  •  NY Aquarium • Prospect Park Zoo • Queens Zoo

NYC Parks and Recreation Depart., including  Socrates Sculpture Park, NYC

NYC Housing Authority

Parrish Museum of Art •  Hudson River Museum  • Neuberger Museum of Art

Nassau County Museum of Art  •  Materials for the Arts

Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts

The World Science Festival  •   US Open Tennis Family Day

FirstNight Events for:   Hartford, CT  •  Westport, CT  •   Albany, NY  •   Moristown, NJ;

St. Francis Day Fair at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (1985 — 2008)

——  Promotional Events  ——

New York Knicks and New York Liberty

New York Rangers and the NHL – National Hockey League

Target (Read Across America Press Launch)

Macy’s  (in-store events since 1986 and Thanksgiving Day Parade) 

Scholastic Publishing (Grand Openings; Harry Potter Book Releases, Tribeca Film Festival) Nickelodeon/Viacom (Rugrats Movie Premieres, NY Stock Exchange “Family Day”) Disney (Pocahontas Premiere in Central Park, Animal Kingdom Promotional Film) Clairol • Whirlpool • Ford • Pfizer • NBC Nordstroms • Sears • IKEA • Blockbusters • NBA Store • FAO Schwartz The Mall at Westchester Grand Opening Christiana Mall • Cherry Hill Mall • Roosevelt Field • Bridgewater Commons

——-  Corporate Event Clients  ——

Pepsico • Bloomberg LP • Goldman Sachs •  New York Stock Exchange Citibank • Moody’s • IMB • GE  • HBO • MTV • Viacom • CNBC • NBC • Fox • MGM UPS • Barnes and Nobles • NY Mets • New Yorker Magazine • Olympus

——  Print, Television, Live Events  ——

Abercrombie and Fitch Quarterly: Cover and 18 photographs by Bruce Weber Photo Sessions for: Lynn Goldsmith, Amy Arbus and WWF Magazine

CBS Early Show: Halloween Specials 2003-2010    •        NBC Today Show

Bodies Alive!

The Odd Ball at Real Art Ways

Disney’s “Out-of-the-Box” TV Program  •  CD Cover “Making Fun” by Patricia Shih

——  Conventions and Conferences  ——-

NSN – National Storytelling Network

FABAIC – The Face and Body Art International Convention

The World Bodypainting Festival

IMATS – International Makeup Artists Trade Show

New York Makeup Show

TransWorld Halloween Show

US Institute of Theater Technology Conference

Balanced Mind Conference

Art Educators of New Jersey Conference

New York State Art Teachers Conference

including Face and Body Painting Demonstrations for Kryolan, the world’s largest independently owned manufacturer of professional makeup.

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