Every year, a finely curated show is held at the Westbeth Artists' Residency where performances are held all over the historic NYC property. Tours are guided through the Residency, where they stop at pre-selected sites to observe the choreography of a variety of dance companies and individual artists.

From the building entrance to the hallways and stairwells, to the penthouse dance studio overlooking greater Manhattan, New Jersey and Brooklyn, each of these acts are as different as they are essential to the overall experience.

Steemian Curated

The special treat this year was that the dance company selected to organize and curate the entire festival is a company called BOINK! Dance, and while they are very stretched thin (as artists often are) with projects, film shoots, festivals, and local performances, they love idea of Steemit and have been on the platform since October 2016 based on my excited recommendation that they create one for the future!

Though they have been mostly spectators so far, @boinkdance and @drbaker86 accounts exist and I am working to get the rest of them onboard as they are collectively, and individually, extremely talented content creators across multiple mediums.

The 2017 WestFest Curation Team

The Tour from my Camera

This piece followed a young woman from a front room to this location, where she engages with a young man and they move through what seems to be the steps of a full relationship. From meeting, to infatuation, to distress, to reconciliation.

One of the beautiful, and sometimes frustrating, things about dance is that it's highly subjective.

What isn't pictured is the other dancer, who remains at a typewriter pecking at the keys while the scene unfolds.


For me, this was an examination of some of the darker desires that exist in romance. It gave me the impression of 50 Shades of Gray and the comments after the festival seemed to generate a LOT of commentary, both positive and not-so-positive. No one thought the piece was bad, but some felt extremely uncomfortable with some of the themes presented. This screams good art to me.

One of Boink's Artistic Directors, Kate Bishop performs on the roof of the Westbeth artists' Residency.

Set against the backdrop of the expansive surrounding Skyline, this piece uses wide open spaces for movement while keeping the conversation and theme extremely interpersonal. This juxtaposition of open external space and internal emotional makeup was dotted with messages for the audience; on the back of a picnic blanket, for example.

On the way back down towards the headlining piece, we were treated to an experience in the stairwell. This may have been my favorite location last year, and this year it was again used brilliantly by a host of talented dancers.

Using balloons to send messages up and down the center of the stairwell, this piece seemed to be an introspective look at the messages we put out into the world, and how we chase those thought balloons up and down the winding stairwell of existence. Or it could've been about NYC stairwells; again, totally subjective.

Headlining Piece

This year my favorite work was the choreography and theme exhibited in the headlining dance. Set on a lightbox, Boink's Cassandra Motta takes us on an ethereal journey. Dylan Baker and Lauren Hafner Addison stayed out of the spotlight for this piece in order to work the critical elements that allowed the piece to really shine.

You could almost imagine that the lightbox is the mind and Cassandra is a creative idea that, like a child in the womb, slowly grows until ready to enter the world.


Art can be like this. A slow burgeoning of an idea that starts as an itch in the back of your mind. A slowly unlocking web that distracts us more and more as that idea grows almost into obsession.

When these creative thoughts continue to grow, our light extends outward in all directions, and we feel as though we're everywhere at once.

And like a person, our creativity begins to experience the material world. The manifestation nearly complete. And as our art becomes more and more real, it's almost as if it begins to examine itself. It's almost as if this is the beginning of its independence.

Because when we create art what we're really doing is imbuing our energy into a form that's released into the universe. What we are doing is birthing and then letting go.

And like our children, we can hope for the best but must accept what our creations become. It is all unknown, except for the love.

And just like that, it's as though the idea was never missing, had always existed. Now apart from creator it becomes its own force, independent of its lineage, responsible only to the audiences that will witness and attest to its existence. It is immortality from an unidentified source.

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Art & Steemit

If you don't get to come to NYC often then I hope you enjoyed the WestFest experience. It's a tradition in NYC that stretches back a long time, so it was really a special treat that Boink! Dance was asked to lead the curation efforts!

Of the dozens of content creators I've reached out to, and the ones I've brought to the platform, these three are probably among the most versatile and talented I know, individually and collectively.

They're heavily invested in the arts community through video, live performance and community outreach, and some of their members are often working with the youth in seasonal programs.

@boinkdance sent a representative to Steemfest 2016 because I sold them on the values and mission statement of Steemit. They loved what they saw and are actively working to incorporate blogging into their many activities.

They were especially surprised by how much their account value had increased. When we received our gift of 1900ish Steempower at Steemfest, it was valued at approximately 230.00 USD. Recently, I sent them this image of their wallet:

Returns like that are hard to ignore! And they have definitely been noticed by @boinkdance.

If you want to reach out and let them know that you read about them on Steemit here is how you can reach them:

Facebook (if you still have an account these days;)

Twitter (since Zappl isn't live yet)

Vimeo (just you wait for Steemq)

Instagram (Wait, I know there's a Steemit verion for this one! What is it again?)

gmail (In a perfect world, we'd all use Proton)

Make sure to keep up with them, they're constantly producing!

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Thanks for spending time here

@prufarchy