Claudius de Krenten Koning | MCToko | Karsu Donmez

On the 4th of may, we had a day full of meeting's planned.

Our first meeting was with Claudius de Krenten Koning.

Arend, our contact in the location De Verdieping (De Trouw), every Wednesday we have a check up..See how things are evolving and if everything planned for UNION is realistic and going by plan.

Arend suggested a couple off days back that we go and check out Claudius de Krenten Koning. And so we did..Claudius is a AMAZING performer..we went to his CD release and got blown away!! Jesscia and i looked an eachother and smiled..he needed to be part of UNION!

So we met him, in between his rehearsals, he is a very busy talent. We explained our story and he was excited just like we where.. in the end of our meeting he said...I am 80% in, I just need some time to check my diary. We promises we would sent our concept plus all the info about UNION to him so he could have a sleep over it and decide.

Next, we cycled to MC Toko, MC Toko is a theatre-workshop, a production company and a venue for new times in old city's. It is located in westerpark.

We where meeting Niels, Jessica new Niels and set up our meeting.

Niels is a very nice young driven guy who has a lot of ambitions. He was smiling all the way true our presentation, afterwards he admitted he had to laugh at us, in a good way tough. Two young girls with a plan but no money and good smiles..He said..I wouldn't be surprised if you get a lot off sponsors/talents, companies on board because u girls hand out empathy quite well haha.

We reached out to MC Toko because we needed a live jazz opening. Not a entire band but a saxophonist or a pianist, this talent would lift the entry for UNION massively and wil bring a real 920's atmosphere to the location.. Niels had some people in his mind already and promised us he would let us know the following day.

And so he did...he Thought off Karsu Donmez. Check her out.. she is amazing. karsu

is more than amazing actually!!! At only 16 years old she already played in Carnegie Hall in NY.

It would be sick if we got her... Niels is going to do his best for us..so he promised!

XoXo                                                             Look of the day

Statik Music | Sergio Hasselbaink | Bob Stel

2nd off May 2012,

We planned a meeting with Statik Music, Dutch actor Sergio Hasselbaink and designer Bob Stel. Lets start with Bob, Bob Stel is a amazing designer, owner off Crabsalad, a design studio. We reach out to him for our logo.
I know Bob for about 3 years now, great guy.
We pitched for him, explained that we had no budget and told him, what we would like our logo to look like, well roughly. We sounded like two blabbering excited girls...he was keeping his cool and luckily he said ...I'm in :)
Logo...in progress!


A few hours later we met Sergio Hasselbaink. Jessica got his contacts through the editor Steven Elbers who she worked with on other projects. Sergio was very nice, he was in a bit of a hurry, he had a play at the Stadschouwburg. The Stadsschouwburg is a theatre in the heart of Amsterdam located on the Leidseplein, a beautiful building from 1894. Sergio loved our initiative and confirmed working with us :) VERRY EXCITING!


After Sergio, Brian from Statik Music arrived. Static music is a group of three music producers.  Brian's artist name is All one. We asked him to DJ at UNION. We want our evening to start with '20 styled jazzy music and let the tunes guide you to the here and now. A sort of  audio time line that is played to give UNION'S first edition an extra level of experiences.
He was the third party to confirm with us that day and start a collaboration with.




It was a good day!

XoXo                                                          Look of the day


                                            Jumpsuit from Bravoure http://bravoure.org/

Busy..

Had a very full day..
productive, hectic and  sticky (its 27 degrees here in Amsterdam)




Ill tell more tomorrow :)

Look of the day

XoXo

LOGO

I am proudly presenting our UNION Logo, Bob stel from http://www.crabsalad.nl/ designed it for us.
The 3 O's stand for the three segments of creativity Art, Music and Theather.
We are insanely happy with it!


Thank you BOB!!!

Meeting Ashlee Janelle Danso

On the 1st off may we planned a meeting with Ashley Janelle Danso.  Ashley started her own businesses Styled by you, she  gives styling workshops to young fasionista's.  Next to that Ashsley is an upcoming freelance fashion stylist, she is also a student at the Vogue academy in Amsterdam.
To find out more about Ashley read her blog http://www.celebrities-musthaves.com/ .


The reason why we met up with her is quit special. Union's first edition will carry the theme of the roaring '20's. Ass a visiting guest you will suddenly find your self in a smokey boudoir, jazz music, a good glass of wine, show girls on tableau's the whole shaaabang.
We want our Union team to have a strong an convincing 1920 style.  All the volunteers, all the acts and all the hostesses will be dressed by Ashley.
It is a big challenge, we are asking her to dress over 20 people :)
Ashley is so very driven and open for any new ideas, as soon as me and Jessica finished explaining our concept.... she already nodded and smiled. Off course i am in, she cheerfully sad!
Ashley has lots off different contacts with press bureaus, a press bureau is an agency who rents out all designer clothing to wel known stylists. Usually the clothes are used in magazines like Elle, Vogue an Marie Claire. But Ashley sad the agency's also rent out for special events.


I couldn't be more happy!
Appart from styling 20 crew members for UNION, we also had an other question for her. When your entering our event UNION, we will give the guest the opportunity to have a professional photo taken by a well known fashion photographer in the lobby.
All the guest will be dressed up in the '20 style, to top that we want Ashley to give them a little bit off extra glam for there photo moment. 
She will be in the photo booth with the photographer and will hand out last props and gadgets to have a amazing 20 styled photo. Imagen a extra little bo tie, suspenders, a hat, a mustache just little styling accessories.
Later on, in the evening, all the taken photo's that are taken in the lobby will rotate on a big screen in the main area. The guest will see there own professional photo on a big screen :)


Fun!!
Ashley loved the idea and is 100% in!!!


next stop a DJ...

XoXo                                Look of the day  (munching on a croissant haha)

Meeting Fringe

Jeffery Meulman from the Dutch theatre and the Fringe Festival was giving a presentation at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. It was a very interesting presentation. After the lecture I went to meet him in person.Jeffery is a very ambitious man with a lot of contacts in the theatre scene.For UNION we where still looking for actors. Jessica and I made an appointment with Jeffery so we could see if we could mean anything for each other.The meeting followed a few days later, Jeffery liked our concept and invited me and Jessica to a theatre show that upcoming Thursday.
In this show there where some actors who might be interested in supporting UNION, well that’s what Jeffery thought.The show was great, in Dutch theatre there is always nudity so I wasn’t surprised when in the first act, a women was doing a half scene topless J
You got to love it.. boobies !The actors where real good, after the show, Jeffery introduced me to Anneke. Anneke is a real cool spontaneous lady who is the connecting point off all the actors involved with Fringe.We planned a meeting with here and she gave us some good options for actors and directors.
We where running quit late on confirming our actors so you can imagine that Jessica an I where getting a bit more nervous every day, we stupidly thought that Jeffery could arrange all the actors for us, one phone call and we where done. Well we found out it doesn’t work like that. If you have money it might go that easy but with no budged that is just not possible, you need to get people excited and the only way to do that is a personal meeting, it would have been too easy.
So Jeffery gave us Anneke’s contact and through Anneke we got the email of Valentine.Still no confirmed actors....!Anyway Valentine is a professional actress, she also directs.
While Jessica and I where explaining our vision to her, she just smiled an nodded. She had amazing bright blue eyes, blond hair and she looks like a little porcelain doll. I could see the fire in here eyes underneath and I imagined why many men would melt before her.Over a cup off coffee we explained her everything about UNION.         
We raised the point that the cuts in art and culture shouldn’t be seen as a negative thing, if the cuts are mad, lets make the best off it.

Union is about creating an independent creative sector, where the creative’s are supporting each other in there own initiatives, and those of others.
We don’t agree at all, with all the cuts that are being made, but we want to see it as a positive challenge. Now is the time for the real creative’s to rise above everything! This is our time.. UNION time.Her vision totally connected with ours, she gave us a breath of fresh air with her enthusiasm. She was in!!! And the best thing is that she knows some other actors who could be interested in joining UNION. Mission Complete..well on baby step furthur haha.
XoXo

Look of the day

Summary of last week looks

Meeting the Artist

24th off April.
Me and Jessica reached out to six amazing artist. We did quiet a lot off research about who to  approach. We wanted a mash off diverse art, art that we would want to have in our house...art that made us warm inside.
And again we wanted to get the message out that Art doesn't always need a list.
Art is everything and everywhere!
We invited:


Zoe Stekkel, Designer at H&M
Henk Loorbach, Super Electric Video, Makes video's with different techniques
Alljan Moehamad, Illustrator and photographer
Jelske Peterson (petersonstoop.com)
Jarah Stoop, shoe and bag designer
HobsonChant, international artists


Check them out and be astounded!


We invited these artist for a drink so we coud present our concept UNION and see if they where interested to collaborate with us.
UNION includes a silent auction. We want to lower the doorstep for art buyers and show them that art is everything and available for every one.
To get our message out there we decided to lower the price of the art and make it accessible for anybody.
We are MADLY starting our auction at  €20,00 !!!
This sounds RIDICULOUS we know...but why not?
With this statement we prove that artist want to encourage everyone in a purchase! These peices usually dont sell under 1000 euro, we are writing history!


I was terrified before the meeting, bubbles in my stomach, butterflies in my brain......  i felt like it was my birthday and i was scared that nobody would turn up, there i sat with my cake and a circle off empty chairs around me..scared of what would or what wouldn't happen.
The artist started to arrive and i was acting in a Bree van der kamp (desperate house wife's) sort off way, making sure everything went the way it should, and everyone had drinks and snacks!
Our presentation went well.
The respons off the artist was incredible, they where all very excited about UNION! It was a wonderful get together with positive energy.
The artist where so exited that they where thinking about original art pieces!! One of a kind...just for UNION!
I couldn't be more happy, lets all unify!
So we have six artist :) yay!!!!!
Next stop Theater.....Lets Go... reach out to FRINGE!


Update:
We are proud to present our recently joined artist  Bob Stel  http://www.crabsalad.nl/
Bob is a real talent, he designed the UNION logo, made a bumper and is now also creating a original art piece for the silent action. We will share the logo as soon as we go public (probably tomorrow :))
It is sick!

XoXo speak soon

 Look off the day