Dojo – Aidan Hennessey – An Interview with Seth Casale

I spent some time with The Dojo Beyond Space and Time’s proprietor Aidan Hennessey. What I found– beyond a visionary, driven young man–was really how local music and art can be a strong thread helping to bind communities. Whether through visual or performance art, comedy, or music, Aidan has applied an inexhaustible motivation to his intention to unite people despite disparate aesthetics by breaking down what a performance space is, and can be. Bittersweet this realization, however, because as you will read, this iteration of the Dojo will close soon. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter, because as the name implies the Dojo is a thing not bound to a place or time, and maybe it was always Aidan Hennessey anyway.

RRX: Thanks for sitting down with me today Aidan, we’ll jump right in. When did you start the Dojo?

AH: The Dojo started back in July, we started off with a patio acoustic show. Soon after that we opened up the garage, and started doing more hardcore rock shows. We didn’t really start doing more alternative, when I say alternative, I mean relative to the DIY space. We’ve had fashion shows and comedy shows, theater shows, and we didn’t start doing those until we had the attic open, and that’s when I consider the Dojo to have been opened up when we started doing that big multi– obviously those first group of shows I loved and had so much fun doing but i consider the Dojo to be that big multimedia sort of experience that you get that you maybe don’t get at other DIY places. And we do all types of music here, we’re following a R&B night up with a hardcore night, with a rap night. I like to say about the Dojo is that not every night might be for you but everyone is going to have their night where the music that’s your thing, fits their niche, what they want to listen to.

RRX: Talk to me about your background, are you a musician yourself, or simply a lover of music?

AH: I grew up, my father actually had a radio show called Echoes Of Ireland sort of the lead up to St. Patrick’s Day, on top of that he was always playing rhythm and blues, Billy Joel was a huge influence growing up. My big thing as a youth was performance art, which is anything you do on a stage in front of people, right, I was a theater kid and I think you can see that in the Dojo. I love the theatrics of everything. We did “Fight Night at the Dojo” which was a battle of the bands with a pro-wrestling sort of leadup. For example we cut pro-wrestling style promos for the bands, and my favorite was Proximity Crush was filming a promo against My Son The Doctor with a tagline “My Son The Doctor are only pretending to be doctors, they’re lying to the community and they should just come out and say it” and we filmed a bunch of promos and for the roast battles as well, but that sort of build up that sort of theatrics on top of the actual production of the show that is where my love of it all is. In terms of the DIY space, I went to college here, I went to the happening DIY spots, and I went to the happening DIY spots at that time, it was Byrdhouse, It was Laundromat, then it was Caesar’s Palace, and then I figured it was the perfect time to start the Dojo.

RRX: I’ll drink to that.

AH: Hell yeah!

RRX: The Dojo Beyond Time and Space, where did you come up with that name?

AH: When I was a young man, 17, 18 19, I was an MMA fighter so I spent a lot of time in dojos, I’m a big lover of martial arts, and I grew up reading and watching a ton of Sci-Fi, Dr. Who, reading as much Lovecraft as I could, that sort of gothic Sci-Fi. I wanted a name that doesn’t inherently mean anything, it’s sort of intentional death of the author, means whatever you think it means. For me if I break the words apart, a Dojo is somewhere you go to hone your craft, and beyond time and space is abandoning all of our preconceptions of what can be, what type of show can we have, what kind of art is acceptable, just abandon those at the door when the dojo is beyond time and space.

RRX: You’ve had a lot of great shows here, do you do all the booking?

AH: No, I don’t do all the booking now. For a while I did do all the booking but then my job was such that I couldn’t at the time so a lot of my wonderful friends at the other DIY venues helped me out. I’ll shotout out all of my wonderful collaborators, Ben Rowe, and Zeke Motzer from 2 Dead Hummingbirds, and Caesar’s Palace, Peter AKA @Hinderance.

RRX: You recently celebrated an anniversary, so reflecting on that how has this experience been in versus your expectations at the outset?

AH: I think I knew what I was signing up for, I think i knew I was signing up for one of the hardest years of work of my life, and I’m incredibly blessed that I got a year of work out of it. It’s hard work but the people you work with are so fantastic, and the cause of fostering local talent and art and culture is so worth it in my eyes, it’s everything I wanted it to be and more, and I wouldn’t want it to have gone any other way.

RRX: The connections you’ve made here with all of these groups and the name you’ve made for yourself in this scene, I think you’re on another level of networking and you can have success going forward whether you remain in this DIY space or in any arena.

AH: Thank you so much! Along with networking in the DIY space, when you’re having conversations and getting excited about these projects, and I consider people in the scene punks, when you come together with punks it’s not like finance bros who come together there’s this superficial reality between these two people, that the only thing they’re interested in is money, status, whatever else people who commonly use the word networking aspire to. But when you’re working with creative people you know you’re coming together to make this thing whatever it is, a show, music, art, its this very holy thing where it’s a union between two people, where the wedlock is this artistic creation at the end of it in which both of your souls have taken part, I would say it’s much deeper than networking, you know?

RRX: The “Speakeasy” type of underground vibe, can you talk about the rationale for that in underground music?

AH: Both to add to the mystique, the exclusivity, and legality. If they know your address, they know where to send the cease and desist order. Caesar’s Palace got shut down for zoning violations, The Troy Speakeasy got shut down for running an actual underground bar, so it’s both for exclusivity, and legality.

RRX: Obviously as you’ve told me this space as it is is going to be closed down, so what’s next for Aidan Hennessey? Not necessarily in concrete, but even what your hopes are, what your intention is?

AH: The things I have now that are concrete, I have lots of spaces that want me to book bands for them so if you want to see the creative eye of the Dojo, you’ll be seeing it at Rare Form, No Fun, The War Room. We’re starting the Dojo performance arts fund, it’s starting as a $2000 fund and we will be doing some fundraising, but artists can write in to us if they need funding for a project, talk to us about the specifications of the project and they’ll get our help with the project and our financial backing towards whatever their approved project might be. The intangibles are setting up a recording space, with a video element, were thinking like an alternative late-night talk show. Thinking something like the Jive Hive.

RRX: Aidan, you’ve been an awesome interview, and now I will open up the floor to you, tell me about your upcoming plans, shows, intention, whatever.

AH: We’ve got our big finale show coming up, I’m crazy excited about it, I hope it’s on July 15th. I’d like to say it will be here at the Dojo, but I have to say right now its TBD, so everyone keep their eyes open .

RRX: Thanks so much for sitting down with me, it’s been truly great! Best of luck with your future endeavors, i cant wait to see what’s next For Aidan Hennessey!

AH: You’re welcome and thank you!

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