We're still going to be using this blog to write about the projects we've been working on, so stay tuned in. Now our tumblr is going to be our ongoing mood-board, where we share ideas and inspiration.
If it's seemed like we've had no news to report since the release of Pin's Eleventh Hour video it's because we've been in disguise as The Volkov Commanders, our Moon-dwelling alter egos. Alongside our good friend Aliyah Hussain, we are finding ourselves every increasingly stepping into the guise of the Volkov Commanders to curate Panoply performance events, staging dance parties, and most recently collaborating with a musician and film maker to produce our own video (more on that in another post!)
When we all first started working together as the Volkov Commanders it was something that felt separate from the prop design and styling we do as Sacred Geometry. But as time as gone on and the ideas behind The Volkov Commanders and Panoply has evolved, it's become something that runs parallel and each influences the other. The Volkov Commanders and Panoply is an outlet for us to...play! We make costumes which create a whole character, we put on events which create the same kind of wonder and spectacle that we want to achieve in our fashion editorial work.
Because of this we thought it was about time we explained what it's all about.
Here's a handy little video we made to help explain all that Moon business:
So, now you know about our alter egos, The Commanders. Available for gigs, festivals, wedding anniversaries, office parties, and your kid's birthday parties.
In the weeks leading up to May 6th we'd been working away in our cave on the Moon (naturally) preparing for Salford's very own indie music festival, Sounds From the Other City. Although we'd been going to Sounds for the past few years, this was the first time we'd been asked to take part, so we were really flattered when we were asked to curate our very own stage, located right in the heart of the festival at Islington Mill Studios. Our stage, Panoply: Sound Stave hosted a series of music-based performances, the idea being that we'd take the basic principle of a gig and use it as a platform for artists, designers and musicians to collaborate on new and one-off performances.
We wanted the whole line up to be a spectacle, culminating in another DISCO CAVE, a big dance party where our costume based performances and the audience mix, when it's no longer about watching what we do, but taking part in it.
Gwen Jones, Owain Morgan Clark, Jody Hartley, and Helen Collett, and Tasha Whittle were all so kind to come down and take photos for us. So here's a run through of our Panoply: Sound Stave stage at Sounds From The Other City 2012!
The following is just a REALLY brief overview of the day, you can see a lot more participating artists and info about them on our Volkov Commander website and tumblr.
Backstage getting ready for And Now For Something Different
We invited fellow makers and dance enthusiasts join in on a collaborative performance with us, asking them to come up with costumes that made a specific noise. At a few intervals during the day, we all came together as a kind of mobile junk yard orchestra, feeding off each others sounds to make rhythms and cause a ruckus.
The Hipshakes played a palindromic set with Volkov Commander Aliyah Hussain (costumes also by Aliyah)
Images by Owain Morgan Clark
Room
Gwen Jones
Black Shuck
Sound By Numbers - a poster exhibition
Below: Spiky barriers we made for Opposition, a fierce Dj duel/soundscape which eventually turned into a good old fashion disco soundclash between Pumping Iron and SAVWO And Now For Something Different performers made another appearance and Disco Cave 2.0 really kicked off, with the help of Hannah Bitowski's amazing origami masks.
Big thanks to the festival coordinators, Riv Burns and Mark Carlin, for all their support!
Under the guise of the Volkov Commanders we've been working with Kim May of Asta Filmsand Jonny Sture, formerly of May68, to create a video and disco track based on the sound costumes we made and performed in at last month's Sounds From the Other City festival.
It was an amazing day for us. SFTOC had just come and gone, and with it all the stress of coordinating a festival stage. We reveled in the opportunity to don costumes and dance around with each other for hours on end.
This film has been an interesting project because it's come together a bit like an 'exquisite corpse' drawing game. To a certain extent each stage in the process has been worked on in isolation from the others. We made the costumes, Jonny took the sounds that those costumes made and created an awesome disco track, and now Kim is editing her video which will tie everything together while still being her own creation, which could exist on its own.
Working in this way requires a lot of trust in the people you're working with, and although this is the first time we've worked with both Kim and Jonny, we've felt completely comfortable. It's been a pleasure!
We can't wait to show you the final video!
A few stills from the upcoming video. you can see more on Kim's Flickr
