Arts Agenda - They’re baaaack

Just one month ago, bluemilk founders Chris Hansen and Chris Kowalski were thinking about renting a U-Haul and packing it in at their seat-of-the-pants arts center on Spring Street. They’d gone on hiatus in August to secure nonprofit status and seek funding, but their grant applications weren’t generating much response. A future spent trying to patch together all they wanted to accomplish without some financial support was more than they could bear.

After four years of operation and 25 Paradigm Shifts — interactive events of controlled chaos combining every artistic discipline imaginable — it looked as if it were all over. But then a funny thing happened. Just as they began to accept their demise, the Chrises received their first grant. With their operating expenses secured for a while, they now have the foundation they need to reopen the venue and get back into the creativity business.

Though the grant’s amount and giver are top secret, everything else is an open book at bluemilk. Newly focused and invigorated, the duo has set their sights on blurring the line between audience and performer by making their musical performances, poetry slams, guerilla theater productions, dance performances, storytelling events and anything else they do interactive and participatory for anyone who wants to be involved.

Though audience involvement has always been a big part of bluemilk events, it’s more important now than ever before. In fact, it’s become a mission.

For Kowalski and Hansen, creative expression is an essential part of human existence. They point to events following the terrorist attacks in New York City — the benefit concerts, the handcrafted sidewalk memorials, the art projects children made for firefighters. “After 9-11, we learned how creativity could be a healing process,” says Hansen. “Now there’s a real need for creativity therapy.”

Creativity therapy is a phrase Hansen and Kowalski use a lot. Unity in creativity and multidimensionalism are others. Their goal is simple. They want to transform lives by unleashing the creative spirit that lurks dormant inside us all.

“We’re more interested in the process of creativity, not the end product,” Hansen says.

To the cynic, that may be about as appealing as a group hug, but Kowalski and Hansen exude such infectious sincerity and enthusiasm, they make a persuasive argument. So persuasive, they landed their first grant, which gives them a level of validity they’d never had before.

So now it’s time to party!

For its grand reopening/fourth anniversary celebration, bluemilk will bust out with Portal Opening #1 March 23. More than 35 artists, poets, storytellers, musicians, actors, dancers and puppeteers from New York, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Tuscaloosa, Cincinnati and Birmingham will trek in to perform with their bluemilk brethren.

Events kick off at 6:30 p.m. with The Torch of Wisdom, a three-mile torch relay that will inaugurate the festivities. Virginia-based acoustic band Minus the Sidekick will perform, as will Atlanta duo A Band Called Hope and the newly named unofficial bluemilk band. Odd Eye See, a musical modern-day retelling of the Odyssey by Kowalski and his brother Jon, will be staged. An exhibition of artwork by Vivian Liddell and Thomas Tulis will be on view. Singer/songwriter Danny Rubio, “a man without a band,” will recruit audience members onstage to help him perform a set of Beatles songs. Blank canvases and paints will be located in strategic places throughout the space for those inspired to paint. The evening ends with a late-night jam, open to one and all, of course.

But that’s just what’s planned. What transpires is up to the audience.

Bluemilk celebrates its grand reopening and fourth year anniversary with Portal Opening #1 March 23. Workshops and storytelling 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Grand opening festivities 6:30 p.m.-2 a.m. 1123 Spring St. 404-815-6991. $5 donation.??