Photograph by Hillary Holsonback

Guest blogger Danielle Marie Georgiou is the artistic director and choreographer of DGDG: Danielle Georgiou Dance Group. She also serves as the Assistant Director of the UT Arlington’s Dance Ensemble. And she’s a member of Muscle Nation.

What happens when you domesticate a feral collective? Just ask IN COOPERATION WITH MUSCLE NATION on Saturday, March 10.

Coming on the heels of their first show as a collective, Flex-Us, at Ro2 Art DOWNTOWN, MUSCLE NATION, in an unconventional twist, has partnered up with a real estate agent, two interior designers/project managers/general contractors, and a pair of open-minded homeowners (Wendy and Henley Quadling) for a collaborative art show/open house.

So how did this all come about? It all began as the homeowners and designers prepared to list 5450 Mercedes (Dallas) and their realtor prepared to create a smashing open house. Dori Warner, Vice President of David Griffin & Company Realtors explains: “as a Realtor, I am always looking for new and unique ways to expand the exposure of my listings.  Opening our doors to a talented group of artists gives us the chance to support a vital community and brings the best kind of energy into the house.” A friend and member of MUSCLE NATION, Sandi Edgar,  pitched the idea of a one-night art show in the house.

Video Still from Danielle Georgiou's "D in my T"

Dori quickly matched the artist collective with the Quadlings. Their designers, Bill Cates and Russ Peters of Peters Cates Design & Studio, helped facilitate the event:

“Russ and I, along with our pals Wendy and Henley Quadling, are excited about participating in Saturday nights LEAN art event. The four of us just finished renovating a beautiful little 1920’s Tudor home in the M-streets….We agreed that we wanted to do something new and different, to promote the sale of our property, and then serendipitously, we met the talented folks of ‘In Cooperation With Muscle Nation.’ Lighting in a bottle? Yes! A perfect marriage? Absolutely. We thought…how cool it would be, to publicize our new, ‘FOR SALE,’ M-streets home, not via an old school open house…but instead, with a pop-up art show. The idea: Fill the house with terrific art and artists, add an audience…and stir. Sounds like a great art-party and…a fresh new way to promote our FOR SALE home to SOLD.”

So what happens when you domesticate a feral collective? Come to the Pop-Up show Lean by In Cooperation With Muscle Nation to find out. Art might be on the floor, in the bathtub, by the toilet, or on the fence but one thing is certain: it will not be on the wall. Stay for a special performance by Able Youth!

March 10, 7-11pm. 5450 Mercedes Avenue, Dallas.

Deborah Aschheim's "Earworms," 2008

Also opening on Saturday, March 10 at CentralTrak: UT Dallas’ Artist Residency is Method of Loci by visual artist Deborah Aschheim.

Using light and video to create impressions of the neurological structures that make us who we are, Aschheim has created sculptural installations and drawings that reconnect the invisible worlds of memory with the tangible reality of bodies and buildings. Method of Loci (the term refers to refers to a mnemonic system that relies on our ability to remember spaces) will feature a major sound sculpture created in collaboration with musician/composer Lisa Mezzacappa, as well as new works based out on Aschheim’s unrequited relationship with architecture.

Aschheim is interested in the feelings of connection and disconnection between the interior experiences of perception, thought and memory and the physical world of bodies, buildings and machines. And that’s exactly what her work in Method of Loci attempts to reconcile. See it at CentralTrak, March 10-April 14, with an opening reception on Saturday, March 10 from 8:00pm-10:00pm. Show runs until April 14.