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As part of The Glassblock’s sponsored partnership with the New Hazlett Theater, they are presenting a series of editorially-independent previews and reviews of the 2016-2017 Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series. Below is the beginning of their review of Midnight in Molina by Cole Hoyer-Winfield, a collaborative response from editor Adam Shuck, arts and culture editor David Bernabo, and guest panelists Kathryn Carr and Derek Reese. Read the entire piece here.

It starts with a jolt. A “wheeeee,” a “yeaaaah,” a burst of drums, keyboard, bass, and guitar; and in lightning-fast succession, an illuminated projector throws an explosion of illustrations against the screen. On October 20, Cole Hoyer-Winfield’s Midnight in Molina kicked off the first of the New Hazlett Theater’s 2016-17 CSA Performance Series. Narrated by Hoyer-Winfield himself and voice actors Christian Mocombe and Daniel Valentine, with musical accompaniment by Matt Breslof, Sam Molstad, Jeff Ryan, and Swampwalk, Midnight in Molina is a story told in two timelines using imagery from a hand-rotated crankie and an overhead projector, and within the first few minutes the audience is served all of the structural elements that will be used to construct a fantastical tale of curiosity, nostalgia and memory, and the supernatural.

In our preview of Midnight in Molina, we learned about the “crankie” and the artistic background that led Cole Hoyer-Winfield to take it up. Sure enough, the main performer is this inanimate object, a mechanistic novelty that unspools a roll of hand-drawn illustration on sheets of transparency. But as we progress through the story, we’re shown images from an accompanying instrument. While the crankie throws up a relatively smooth progression of imagery, the overhead projector presents a contrasting style, a series of static images that details the historical background of the town of Molina. These parallel—and later intersecting—storylines, which trade off as the primary storytelling voice throughout the performance, give Midnight in Molina a vital breadth and depth despite some initial abruptness of pacing.

Eugene, our main character, voiced by Hoyer-Winfield, is a travel journalist, and he prides himself in his work—especially as it allows him to travel all over the world. As the story first unfolds, we tag along with Eugene as he zips on his bike around the bustling city he lives in. His life is active and full, if not a bit stressful, and in his day-to-day he contends with a routine that verges on the monotonous, a sniping rival named Chaz, and a threatening rock that his bicycle always seems to aim for. When he is assigned to cover a festival in his hometown of Molina, it comes as a welcome respite.

While Eugene’s home base is quick-paced and active, punctuated by regular caffeine-fueling at a crowded coffee shop, Molina is laid back and familiar. Back at home, Eugene reconnects with his childhood friend Frank, who’s given a delightful Pittsburghese inflection by voice actor Daniel Valentine. Frank is a carefree townie who makes ends meet by pilfering bicycles and other items and selling them at yard sales. Molina is “exactly the same as I remember,” Eugene says to himself, but as he spends more time surveying Molina, he notices that, instead, things have changed. A mysterious recent rash of fires has razed some of Molina’s buildings, and in their place, new developments are springing up—a restaurant with the trendy name of Mouthfeel, a precious mustache barber shop. On the site of the old Molina town hall, a sexy new high-rise. Molina, a center of glass manufacturing turned sleepy post-industrial, is gentrifying.

READ THE FULL REVIEW…

New Hazlett CSA: Cole Hoyer-Winfield’s Midnight in Molina from The Glassblock on Vimeo.

As part of The Glassblock’s sponsored partnership with the New Hazlett Theater, The Glassblock will be presenting a series of editorially-independent previews and reviews of the 2016-2017 Community Supported Art (CSA) Performance Series. Follow along here, and learn more about how you can experience this season’s CSA here.

Though he was born in Chicago and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, artist Lynd Ward’s year in Leipzig, Germany, from 1926 to 1927, was to have a profound influence on his work. It was there that he honed his skill in etching, engraving, and lithography, much of it in the German Expressionist style dominant during those interwar years. Like the uncanny set design of the 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the woodcut storytelling craft that grew in Weimar Germany utilized fields of black and white, shadow and light, to create stark, sometimes jarring, visual contrast to achieve moody, melodramatic, or downright sinister tones. Typically wordless, these early graphic novels relied solely on painstaking imagery to tackle topics like political and economic injustice, oppression, and other socially-minded, earnest subjects. “To make a wood engraving is to insist on the gravitas of an image,” famed American cartoonist Art Spiegelman wrote in 2010. “Every line is fought for, patiently, sometimes bloodily. It slows the viewer down. Knowing that the work is deeply inscribed gives an image weight and depth.”

Read the full article…

For its 2016-2017 season, the New Hazlett will host five separate performances from seven artists who were chosen due to their proposals’ uniqueness, feasibility, and professional development potential. And The Glassblock will be following alongside, as they partner with the New Hazlett in documenting this fourth year of the CSA Performance Series. Throughout the season, The Glassblock will be meeting with each of the artists and bringing you a brief profile of them and their work in the days before their opening performance. Then, The Glassblock will publish a considered review of each, folding in feedback from local experts in related and not-typically-related disciplines.

Read about the partnership here.

Read the first preview here.

by Jennifer N. Myers

On June 9, 2016, the Pittsburgh-based performance duo slowdanger (Taylor Knight and Anna Thompson) debuted their longest, and most ambitious, staged work yet: memory 4. For those who missed it, I am sorry. It was an absolute stunner: breathtaking in its progression; daring in its range; and fully captivating visually, sonically, and artistically. It holds court as their best production, and marks the beginning of a new direction for these uncompromising artists who continue to excel, expand, and produce on a nearly daily basis. (For example, just three days before this work premiered they dropped an album and are now touring the East Coast with it. The album is called Feed Your Demon, released by La Squadra, and can be found online.) memory 4 premiered at the New Hazlett Theater, in Pittsburgh, as the final work for Community Supported Art – Season 3, a program that supports local artists in developing an hour-long piece during a nine-month residency at the theater.

With memory 4, we see artists fully exploring their limits – where they can go, what they can be, what happens next. As the next iteration from ‘the memory series’, begun in 2012, it was the first time Thompson and Knight invited two performers into this series and they chose wisely. The choreographer, dancer, and performer Jasmine Hearn brought her unforgettable, original language of movement and voice to the performance, as well as her relationship to slowdanger over the past seven years. The Pittsburgh-based percussionist PJ Roduta, who has worked closely with dance since 2005, brought his own sensibilities as an artist who uses music and movement with natural fluidity. These two are perfectly cast and act as comrades, witnesses, and characters – able to hold their own and provide texture, warmth, and complexity to the project.

The performance began as dramatic, natural and elemental as night: in total darkness. For nearly ten minutes the opening scene gently mediated between theater and dream, suspended in liminal space. It was the slow promise for an evening of total inspiration, and impossible not to feel mesmerized under a certain trance. I watched as four cartoonishly large eggs, cradled in equally exaggerated nests, became illuminated in a diagonal line across the stage. These mystical objects sparkled and flickered, the effect of their materials – which includes cassette and VHS tapes – that caught the light and bounced it. These sculptural works are made by the artist Celeste Neuhaus with a multitude of materials and found objects, many that are designed to record and collect memory. They are perfectly paired for this production, and shine as the most minimal of stage design and prop.

The entire production adheres to this minimal aesthetic with effective, limited choices: the paper boat transforms into a paper t-shirt, and an icosahedron (again crafted by Neuhaus) is the centerpiece for the final scene. The lighting design by Antonio Colaruotolo is expertly produced, and stands out as the best lighting design I have seen in Pittsburgh at any theater. Hailing from Italy, Colaruotolo’s signature look is described in his bio as clean, yet creative, and I could not agree more. With video projections by Mario Ashkar and Mike Cooper, both of which are projected directly onto the stage itself, the production is complete. Ashkar’s work holds the entire final passage of memory 4 in ecstatic static: the video repeats and seems to slowly disintegrate to wash, bathe, and illuminate the entire stage and performers in a final ritualistic exclamation. Cooper’s work is a projection of slowdanger dancing naked together, projected at their feet and filling its own surrealistic space with them as they dance with their own illuminated shadows. With sound design by slowdanger, in collaboration with Roduta and Hearn, the sonic experience is multilayered, performed live as song, sounds, words, whispers, and shouts through microphones, looping pedals, and electronics. Their additional use of pre-recorded field recordings, voiceovers, and beats paired well and set each scene apart. There were a few sections I felt the sound design could have been improved through the use of more layering or additional live percussive elements from Roduta. At points the sound design stalled, with one looping sentence for what felt like ten minutes. While this was an intentional decision, it felt overdone and a place where more variety, texture, and sounds could have been introduced. Overall, the production proved to me that all of these artists are early masters of their mediums and have much to build upon with this new work.

At nearly 70-minutes, memory 4 is presented to the audience the way memory is experienced: fragmented and surreal, driven by certain narrative, and familiar yet foreign. As it passed with intention from one scene to the next, it reminded me that all memory is a translation from one realm to another, whether that be cellular, physical, psychic, personal, collective, cosmic. I interpreted the narrative as four characters on a journey, travelling together for support but with certain tasks they must face alone. Through quartet, duet, and solo, the audience bears witness as each character develops, progresses, gets destroyed, and returns to the whole. The sense that this was actually one body, made up of four bodies, crossed my mind often while watching memory 4. It illuminated for me the idea that slowdanger is a non-binary entity, neither female nor male, but made up of radical energy that I consider queer. Inside of this new body there is a new name, and a new understanding of energy, synergy, action, gender, time and storytelling. Working with four bodies instead of their familiar two brought this concept into heightened focus during the opening sequence.

During this opener, the four bodies illuminated suddenly after the slow reveal of the eggs, each with a single spotlight to the head. Seeing them lying on their backs, motionless, I felt unexpected shock to see them, and scrawled into my notebook: do our bodies remember death? Do we have a memory of death in our bodies? For a long time there was no motion, gender was indistinguishable, and identity was masked by a thin gauzy cloth covering each face. Eight hands, eight feet, forty fingers, forty toes, eight eyes: closed or open. Four hearts: beating. One body, or four? Slowly, only the most basic movement, a stirring of a finger or leg. Writing this only a few days after the mass shooting in Orlando, I am shaken to see the parallels.

Jasmine Hearn took the stage next with a solo performance astonishing in its simplicity and power: standing before a microphone that hung from a fifty-foot cord (perfectly designed), she sang an original song, “My Poor Woman,” behind the same gauzy cloth that formerly seemed like a death shroud. Transformed, it now rendered her entire torso to shadow. “My Poor Woman, By The Sea. . .” mourns Hearn, her heart torn in two but full of grace and vision. Her presence and power on stage literally wakens, and summons, the other performers to pull themselves up to begin. memory 4 has been activated, and it is clear we are on a journey.

As I was wondering how traditional narrative structures might be introduced, if at all, the next scene provided a voiceover that told the story of a character, named West, who was lost at sea. This is portrayed by PJ Roduta, who rocks back and forth across the stage as a puppet in a children’s story. The light, previously a wash of purple and pink, is suddenly blue and stormy, and we are on rough seas. Roduta moves across the stage while holding a simple paper boat, and as the story progresses and becomes more dramatic, Hearn moves with her back to the audience, narrating the story with sweeping gestures. At a certain point the boat becomes struck by lightning, and the front and back are torn off and tossed to the floor. In a moment of pure genius, the boat is unfolded and turns into a t-shirt. This was both humorous and intensely beautiful, a transformation that I would see repeated in different ways again and again.

One of the more unforgettable scenes follows soon after the shipwreck, with Hearn and Roduta switching from narrators to witnesses, while slowdanger takes control of the stage in an extended, deeply moving, duet. This enlightens the audience into the philosophy of slowdanger’s work. Their main ethos, and prerogative, has always been about stillness. About taking the time, as much time as is required, to truly see one another. This is a form of epiphany, defined by the philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas who wrote: ‘epiphany or a manifestation of the divine is seen in another’s face’. We watch them study each other’s faces as if they are newly discovered planets: with great awe, reverence, and attention. Between stillness and movement, touch and distance, a duet is formed with the simplest ingredients. It had the tension of a suspension bridge. Their heads connect at the crown, then separate, then turn their heads to the audience and see us. A fantastic artistic decision was to project the video by Cooper onto the floor during this scene, so that slowdanger is dancing with slowdanger, a naked, projected version of themselves. As they physically move the video follows, so that they are literally in step. The four feet become eight, and the concept of body, space, and time is altered. I read this as dancing with their shadows, but the shadows are illuminated projections. It is future and past, technology and analog, bringing together compelling visual narratives and conceptual frameworks in ways I had not seen done before.

The following scene finds Thompson more alone than ever. With her deep and resonant voice, she stands at the hanging microphone and narrates a story about a tree that once grew tall, but is no longer there. We are thrown into childhood. She is visibly shaken and operates between sadness, rage, and controlled chaos, her voice alternating between spoken word, song, and shout. Even with the support of the witnesses (Hearn and Roduta) who narrate phrases into a looping microphone, and Knight who remains pinned to the stage, his body pressed to it, his mouth blowing paper around, she seems desperately alone. It was as if she was trying to grasp a memory that cannot be remembered, but is just on the tips of her fingers and tongue. These scraps of paper that once were the boat, then the shirt, now find themselves inside of her mouth as she picks them off the stage and eats them. They are in her mouth as she continues to sing, shout, and cry out the narrative. This scene is visibly upsetting, confrontational, and even accusatory as she attempts to express the significance, and sadness, of this part of the story.

The work concluded on a heightened, ecstatic mood that resembled a desert rave. The four are circled around the icosahedron structure that is both open and closed, a futuristic reference from the first section. They chant phrases like ‘we are free, to be what we want to be’ and one can believe the troupe somehow made it through the storms, the deaths, the births, and the naysayers to come to this place of total freedom. That is what we do as artists, we continue to push past boundaries and make our own rules. This final scene was washed in Mario Ashkar’s static video projection, which enabled a looping, rhythmic, digital experience that summoned the present moment of our digital culture and daily interfacing. The scene referenced the intentionality we must create to bear witness, to act in joy, collaboration, and personal freedom in the face of great sorrow, despair, hate, and violence. I write this review less than one week after our nation’s most recent mass shooting that ripped members of our queer community away from us at the height of their own ecstasies—while dancing, joyfully, in the night.

If memory 4 began in the elemental stillness of night, it ends in sunrise: the daily miracle that guarantees us just one more day to dance together.

a conversation between slowdanger and Jennifer N. Myers

I sat down with slowdanger recently at a coffee house to discuss their collaborative identity, their artistic process, and the story behind this new work being presented tonight, memory 4. These two performers embody a whole range of experiences, emotions, pathways, and processes. Their intuition is the guiding force in their practice, and the work feels like a mixture between ritual, technique, sudden epiphany, and deep engagement. Their attention to stillness, awareness, sound and movement takes my breath away each time I experience it sonically, visually, emotionally, spiritually, and intuitively.

Tell me first about your name, where did it come from, what does it mean to you?

Our name slowdanger has been incubating during the past six years of collaborating, but only became clear and spoken out loud two years ago. It reflects our intuitive process as artists to movement, stillness, rigor, and risk. We feel like it embodies who we are: when you see a sign on the street that says SLOW DANGER it means something is being fixed, repaired, in the process of decay and construction. It is telling you there is a process taking place of transition, transformation, decay, repair. It is a sign and symbol to slow down, pay attention, be aware, take in your surroundings. This is us, what we are doing with our work, together and individually. The name implies past structures, something shifting and being demolished and reconstructed. Because that is what happens when things exist – they shift and change. As slowdanger, we explore stillness and different states of being, what is dangerous, where the edge exists, and how close we can get to it. We are really interested in making people slow down, pay attention, practice awareness. We push our audience to be patient, and then surprise them with unexpected moments of obliteration and drama.

How long have you been a collaborative duo?

We met at Point Park University as students studying dance. At first we kept our distance from each other, there was always a strong attraction, and then slowly we began to connect. This took root as correspondence over Facebook messenger, where we essentially became pen pals and wrote back and forth to each other extensively. It was like we found someone who spoke our precise, complex, personal language and suddenly there was so much to share. It evolved in this manner, and we created our first presentation together in 2012.

Ok, great, that is my next question! What was your first work together?

The work was so slow, as slow as we could possibly make it. We created the structure and then took time away from one another. When we saw each other again for the first time it was on stage. We stood across from each other staring into one another’s faces. Until they shifted, changed, morphed, and it felt like we were hallucinating. We slowly, slowly walked towards each other and right before embracing the lights went out. That was our first piece, and really symbolizes so much about how, what, and where we were at the time and still today.

What a beautiful way to begin this journey together. Following this first creation, what has been the process for making and building your work together throughout the past six years and how has the process evolved?

First of all, we see all our work as one fundamental work – an ongoing piece that evolves over time in different variations, manifestations, and points along the continuum. It is all deeply informed by how we began: in stillness, in an almost artistic sense of infancy where wonder, awe, stillness, and awareness were paramount to the experience of creating. Although we have gotten faster, taken different risks, and pushed ourselves in new ways with each work we create, that foundation is always present for us.

The process is very informed by us stating: let’s not think about kinetic energy, but instead about the potential energy here. Let’s bring our awareness to all this potential, and really let ourselves soak in it.

We spent so many years being taught rigorous technique in dance conservatory, so much that our bodies required and demanded this stillness to really be able to absorb it all. After four years of this kind of intense training, which is almost like a form of military training, the reflexive anxiety within us was palpable and present. We had been moving so much, for so long, and so intensively and in such a disciplined way. Being still with each other, as part of our process, was literally what our bodies required to absorb and hold all that had been happening.

How has sound entered your collaborative work?

We were both working independently on our own sound projects. Anna has been studying voice since she was a child, and I (Taylor) was making bedroom beats, not really showing them to anyone. That was a really big spark that happened between us when we began to collaborate. We both realized we had these other interests, with sound and music, and it was a great opportunity to work on them together and figure them out as a team. The work has been evolving ever since, and is something we are constantly working on. It has now become totally integral and important to our movement-based work. We build our songs from field recordings, from Anna’s endless notebooks, from songs we have been singing for years, from work we are influenced by as sampling, re-mixing. There really are no limits to either of these pursuits.

I love hearing about your process, ; it is so intuitive and generative and beautiful. It is a trusted, essential force that you both rely and depend upon and has yielded great things for you. Let’s turn now to the work you are presenting here tonight, mMemory 4. Where does this come from? I am assuming there is mMemory 1, 2, 3, that predates this work?

Yes, actually it began with memory 0:.….. in 2013. The theme of this first work was distance and longing. This was followed by memory 1: luminosity. In this piece we explored energetic ties, and used yarn to tie each other together. memory 2: demo, was created as a response to the first two and was about demolishing the past self to define and create the new self. We explored trauma and used this work as a place of cleansing. It felt very much like a wash-cycle, we were going in circles, cleansing ourselves of our past and preparing for the future. In memory 3: swimmoon, we were in a place of rebirth and renewal from the previous work and explored the unification and the beauty in interruption. There was much less stillness in this piece. We discovered here that time is a spiral.

That brings us to memory 4, which has no subtitle. We have been working on this for over one year, which is the longest time we have ever had to develop and nurture a piece. In this work we are bringing in two performers, Jasmine Hearn and PJ Roduta, to be with us on stage. This is the first time we have opened it up to other performers in this series, and the work asked and demanded that we do it. We are also collaborating with three other artists on the production of the work: Celeste Neuhaus, Mario Ashkar, and Mike Cooper. mMemory 4 explores a sense of static overdrive, the demand and necessity of encountering and overcoming obstacles and tasks, and exploring parts of memory that are uncomfortable, and even untouchable and in this way become toxic. We are examining this as a collective of artists to find a new language in collaboration and expression.

Tell me about this collective of performers and artists, and what their specific roles are in memory 4.

A big part of deciding collaborators was trust and resonance. Within the process of preparing for memory 4, we were lucky to look around and find real resonance with certain people in our circle. The two performers in our work are Jasmine Hearn and PJ Roduta. We have worked with Jasmine and PJ on several other projects, and have always admired and looked up to their artistic sensibilities and commitment. As performers, we believe we share a desire to describe indescribables and live in the unknown, while simultaneously calling upon specificity, intentionality, and exploration of form both musical and physical. As a drummer, PJ can translate movement clearly and musically but without dance affectation, a quality we really value. He brought a knowledge of polyrhythms and musical complexity, as it pertains to rhythmic choices within movement. Jasmine and Anna had a past process exploring pleasure and vocal work. Jasmine has a way of taking something new, vocally, and making it feel familiar, a quality Jasmine and Anna worked with to restructure jazz and musical theater standards within memory 4. Is it an original song? Have I heard this before? That is something we hope to recall within the audience without them having to put a finger on what we are directly referencing.

Both PJ and Jasmine are ingenuitive improvisers and are able to work methodically and fearlessly within structured improvisations. Improvisation is a large part of our generative process and does not disappear within the anchoring and definition of a work. While elements of the piece are crafted and choreographed, ‘anchored improvisations’ are important for us to maintain in order to keep the freshness and freedom we desire within a performative context.

Celeste Neuhaus is an artist who understands intuitively the ways that materials contain, and become, memory. Medical tubing, used easterEaster grass, cemetery wreaths, and VHS tapes are some of the materials she used to create ‘nests’ that hold and absorb memory in their very material. They also become a receptacle to receive memory. Celeste has a clear and refined way of listening to our directorial visions, asking questions, and offering perspective. In the objects she has designed for the show, she considered and evaluated every step of the process: from where the materials were found, to what memory they already held, to the energy behind them, to how they are assembled and the symbology tied to that. She looked at every part conceptually and intuitively to create a landscape that performs as it’s own system of memories.

Mario Ashkar’s process of generating imagery is what drew us to work with him. We had previously worked together on an animated series that was made entirely out of film photographs that took a little over two years to complete. It was the project that allowed us to know Mario as a friend and fellow artist. This work was being made during the inception of our moniker, slowdanger. The visuals he contributed to memory 4 are derived from a layering technique he discovered by scrolling through his Iinstagram profile. Memories/images are layered and scrolled, and become animated to eventually create a field of static with a piercing line through it. Mario’s visual element is an illustration of interference of information to the recollection of memory. It feels as if the floor iwas breaking apart due to an overload of information and static, which is a state we are exploring within the piece. With information and memory overload, static becomes the visualization of electromagnetic noise interfering with the frequency of a receiver. Mario’s process of creating imagery and using artifacts from his memory infuses the visualizations with the layers of experience that adds to the collective landscape of memory 4.

Mike Cooper is our other projectionist and collaborator. We asked him to be on the team due to his knowledge of projection mapping. We needed this technique to be able to abstract our bodies and other elements within the show. Cooper has a way of listening to your concept and being able to think of the most practical solution to create the image desired within the concept. He works quickly and is very good at taking on new skills in order to adapt to a project.

You have a fantastic team! Tell me a little about the short residency the four performers attended that became so essential to the creation of memory 4.

One of the most important things we did in preparing for this work was to go on a retreat with the other two performers during the month of April. We had received a short residency in a very beautiful, natural setting and used this time to escape from the noise of the city and find solace and direction in how to approach our movement and sounds and structure for memory 4. One of the first exercises we did was to place four objects in each of the four directions (North, South, East, West). The exercise was to move into whatever direction spoke to you, and each of us gravitated to a different corner that was, we later discovered, related directly to our zodiac ruling element (Earth, Air, Fire, Water). This astounded us, and allowed us to see that we were clearly on the right path. During this residency we created a ton of material we could use, it was very informative and generative. We allowed it to settle and then began discovering all the richness it brought us afterwards. We also used the residency to make music, sounds, to write, create field recordings. We were free and nothing was expected of us. It was a critical experience to have in the creation of this new work.

What are some defining principles that guide you as artists in your community?

In application, we investigate multidisciplinary practices. We consider this a practice of engagement, with ourselves and our community. Our journey of how to meld our movement and sound was a catalyst and continues to be ever-changing and full of excitement, pleasure, struggle, and purpose. We usher ourselves to the points where we are up against our own thresholds and places of discomfort, and then we find ways to breakthrough or nudge the walls out. Our process prompts a steady search for identity, coexistence, understanding, and necessity. We constantly are aiming to challenge ourselves within process, by asking each other questions like: What signal is this sending? What is our intention here? How do you feel within these directives? These principles translate into our teachings as well. Our weekly Sunday movement classes offer experiences informed by our collected trainings in somatic practices, yoga, BodyMindCentering, improvisational techniques, and compositional studies. These workshops are primarily made up of individuals with little or no traditional dance training. This creates an incubator for a pure, wellness- based session that connects the witness and practitioner to their own body. We believe if a viewer is given a personal movement experience, they will be more open and receptive to their kinesthetic reactions that happen naturally when viewing performance.

Finally, last question: how do you define Memory?

Memory is an archive. It is something that is constantly evolving. Memory is a continuous source we can draw from, one that is both personal and collective. For us the collective unconsciousness is a really important part of what we are doing with our work. We feel we are tapping into it, and find it sacred, essential, and infinite.

By Linda Kernohan

Buckminster Fuller is often described as a visionary, and the opening of The Silent Spring Project reflects that idea in an intriguing and unexpected way.

It begins in blackout. A spotlight comes up slowly to reveal a piano, but no player. We begin to hear piano music accented with bell-like percussion, disembodied from the instrument we see on stage. A woman’s voice enters. As more lights come up, we see the singer moving downstage, finally connecting what we see with what we hear. As she takes her place at the piano, we realize we were hearing one performer from two sources — live and recorded — all along.

The effect is of a blurred image slowly coming into focus, and it fits perfectly with the sung text: a quote from Fuller describing how he was cross-eyed from birth due to extreme farsightedness. Even after his vision was corrected, he continued to relate to the world on the macro level, with a lifelong affinity for large patterns.

This intimate beginning, revealing how Fuller’s early challenge became a transformative way to see the world, draws us in and prepares us to encounter Rachel Carson’s exhortation to protect our environment. The Silent Spring Project invites us to contemplate the impact of humans on the earth, for good and ill.

The Silent Spring Project is the fruit of extensive collaboration over several years. It began as a recording project, with music of composer Mark Fromm performed by the Trillium Ensemble (flutist Elise DePasquale, clarinetist Rachael Stutzman Cohen, and pianist/vocalist Katherine Palumbo) with guest percussionist Scott Christian.

Once they completed the recording, the musicians planned to celebrate its release with a performance. But they wanted to do more than “just play all the songs you’re going to hear on the CD,” as flutist Elise DePasquale explains. They began to dream of how the music could be part of a larger production.

To that end, the New Hazlett Theater’s CSA (Community Supported Art) Program brought the musicians together with a group of theatrical artists, including sound designer Don Maue, set designer Lisa Leibering, lighting designer Antonio Colaruotolo, and producer Jason Allison. Together, they created a dramatic experience that combines music, storytelling, and visual elements.

The sung and spoken texts come from the writings of Buckminster Fuller, including the opening vignette described above, and from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book for which the project is named. The combination of these two writers arose naturally, since Fuller’s work was Fromm’s inspiration for the recording’s opening track, A Citizen of the Twenty-First Century Looks Back, and the last track is entitled Silent Spring in honor of Carson.

Fromm used several methods of adapting his music for the live production, layering recorded music and live performance to create new sonic dimensions. At times, recorded excerpts function as the soundtrack for spoken and sung text. At other moments, one player speaks while the others play. Newly composed material is performed over the pre-existing recordings, and at one point the flute and clarinet use the original material as fuel for improvisation. At the end, the title track, Silent Spring, is heard live in its original form.

Fromm’s music has a kaleidoscopic quality, shifting scale and perspective while also remaining rooted, with harmonies that are substantial and distinctive. The music weaves a frame for the words to rest on and move through. In that sense, it’s a sonic equivalent of Fuller’s geodesic dome design, and we see several small physical examples of it suspended above the stage. The musical and theatrical elements create a space for each other, where neither one overpowers or recedes into the background.

The texts from Carson and Fuller urge us to engage with both the danger of human recklessness with the environment and the potential for progress through acting in harmony with it. Fuller viewed creativity as a process of deploying what already exists in the universe rather than adding to it. The artists involved in this project seem to have absorbed his message, combining diverse artistic elements into a new whole that feels thoroughly organic and seamless.

The performers embody the natural world by placing considerable physical demands on themselves. In a departure from traditional procedure, Elise DePasquale and Rachael Stutzman Cohen stand throughout the production, and sometimes play while moving around on stage. Stutzman Cohen is able to play bass clarinet while standing thanks to a custom-made pedestal created by set designer Lisa Leibering. Elise DePasquale moves through a broader range of notes than flutists usually get to, thanks to a flute arsenal equipped with alto, bass, and contrabass flute in addition to the primary instrument. Flute and clarinet figures naturally evoke birdsong at times, creating a felicitous connection with Rachel Carson’s warnings. Both players have impressive cadenza-like moments where their virtuosity is on display.

Katherine Palumbo’s dual ability as pianist and vocalist enriches the production, creating the powerfully arresting opening where she sings over a recording of her own piano-playing. Later on, we see her speaking and playing at the same time, adding an extra challenge to already difficult music. At the very end, Fromm’s Silent Spring weaves a choral texture with flute, clarinet, and Palumbo’s voice, and the trio moves close together downstage, completing the journey they initiated at the beginning.

The Trillium Ensemble’s self-described mission is to “present contemporary music in fresh and innovative ways.” It’s a shared goal among many contemporary music ensembles, but the question of how to achieve it can be daunting. The Silent Spring Project is a wonderful example of how to address that question, and a production that deserves to be repeated in Pittsburgh and beyond

Linda Kernohan sat down with Trillium Ensemble and composer Mark Fromm to talk about The Silent Spring Project.

Linda Kernohan: Let’s start by discussing the origins of the project. Trillium had recorded Mark’s music previously, but how did you develop the idea of incorporating it into this theatrical, multi-media experience?

Rachael Stutzman Cohen: Our relationship with Mark started when we commissioned his piece, Silent Spring. That led to our recording several of his pieces in June of 2014. During the recording process, we thought a lot about how related these pieces were, and how they could tell a larger story. Our sound engineer, Don Maue, really pushed us to develop something completely different and innovative, because who needs another CD of classical music, you know?

From there, it kept blossoming. Once we got the opportunity through the CSA with the New Hazlett, that’s when the project really took off, incorporating theatrical elements with our set designer and lighting designer. Those are people we wouldn’t normally be able to connect with.

Elise DePasquale: Even before we got the CSA, we were thinking about what we could tie in with a CD release. We were thinking of tying it in with a performance, but it would be boring to just play all the songs you’re going to hear on the CD. How could we have a CD release concert that is different from what’s on the CD? And that flowed really nicely into the opportunities the New Hazlett CSA gave us. They provided a pool of design artists for us to work with.

LK: Mark, the music for the project draws on your pre-existing pieces. Would you describe your process of adapting them for this production?

Mark Fromm: The piece Silent Spring is the focus, and it’s just played pretty much the way I originally intended it. The other piece that ties everything together uses Buckminster Fuller’s text as its inspiration. I feel like Rachel Carson and Buckminster Fuller have a lot in common in terms of looking towards the future, and trying to see what impact humans are having now and what we could do to make it better. Those ideas led me to take the other pieces I had and think about what mood they evoked and how I could tie that in to the story, using text from Fuller and Carson to speak over top of those pieces, so the music carries the emotion of the text.

LK: In this project, the members of the ensemble use an expanded concept of performing that goes beyond just playing your instrument, to include singing, speaking, and movement around the stage. What previous experience do you have with these other ways of performing?

RSC: As an ensemble, we’ve been trying to bring chamber music to our audiences in new ways. We don’t necessarily do a lot of speaking as characters on stage, but we do speak to the audience and engage them in other ways. That’s where most of my experience comes from. I haven’t really moved with my instrument since marching band in high school!

Katie Palumbo: I’ve had some musical theatre experience in the past that I’ve been able draw on. I’ve also done a lot of a cappella group singing, which I feel is similar in the way you have to put yourself out there.

LK: Do you mean the Glee style of a cappella singing, or more like classical choral?

KP: A little bit like Glee, yeah! I sang with an all-female a cappella group in college, performing pop music. But I feel like singing with flute and clarinet is like a small choir. Parts of Silent Spring feel very choral to me. I really love singing with them and being able to step away from the piano a little bit.

EDP: I’ve had a little experience outside of Trillium with some more experimental kinds of performances. I played in a performance that combined music with choreography, and I moved around and improvised. This performance involves moving around, but it’s planned, and you have to do it exactly right and not mess up! So there’s freedom, but there’s a lot of precision to it as well.

RSC: All the extramusical elements we’re incorporating — we’re not doing them just to do them. It’s all about bringing the music more into focus and making it a more meaningful experience, especially in terms of the movement. It’s not obscene amounts of movement; it’s a few visual changes, to bring the music physically closer to the audience.

KP: We started out with all these great ideas of being up in the rafters, and using the multiple levels that the New Hazlett Theater has. But we asked, what is the purpose of doing that? We really wanted the intention of the music to come out through the movement.

RSC: Everything we’re doing is designed to serve the music.

LK: How did the theatrical elements inform your playing, and vice versa — how did your previous experience of playing the music inform the theatrical elements?

RSC: For me personally, one thing that’s really different is standing to play my bass clarinet. Some people do that using a harness or neck strap, and I played around with that, but it was still very physically challenging. So our set designer created a little pedestal for my bass clarinet, so it’s still resting on the ground. I’m standing for the entire performance. That’s been an interesting learning experience; I’m much more aware of my body in a different way, and the response of the instrument to what I’m doing.

KP: We have costumes, which our set designer is doing. We originally had the idea of transforming the costumes, taking things off as we moved forward on stage. But we didn’t want it to become a striptease! So instead, we’re using lighting elements reflecting off of a white, lacy material. I think the lighting will enhance the performance of the pieces and change how we feel on stage.

We decided to take the piano lid off completely, because Rachael and Elise will be a little bit behind me for the majority of the show, and I need to have an eyeline with them. And we didn’t want the lid blocking the back of the stage. We start in the very back of the theater at the beginning of the performance. That’s going to be different for me.

In the first piece, there’s a pre-recorded track where the piano and percussion play, and I’m singing over top of that. It was a little weird not being at the piano. But it gives me freedom to move around, which I think will be really fun.

EDP: For me, I’m using the full range of flutes, compliments of the Flute Academy in Pittsburgh. I’m borrowing an alto flute, a bass flute, and a contrabass flute, which is two octaves lower. It stands up straight, and you stand to play it. It’s a big, booming, didgeridoo-sounding instrument. That will add a lot of new theatrical elements, just having these really big instruments and really low tones that I don’t normally get to enjoy, being the high-pitched flute player. So that’ll be really fun.

LK: You are all experts on your instruments, yet you gamely took on these additional modes of performance. What was most challenging about that for each of you?

EDP: Part of the reimagining of our recordings involves playing along with pre-recorded material. While brainstorming with our sound designers about how that would work, we decided we need to be in control of when the pre-recorded material happens. We’ll use a bluetooth foot pedal to trigger — we call them blobs, but you could call them tracks. I’m going to be the one doing that, and I’ve started practicing it. It will be very tricky to do it while I’m playing; I have to get used to about a half a second delay from when I hit the pedal to when the next track starts. You want it as seamless as possible. That will be my biggest challenge. The nice thing about live music is you can react to what others are doing, and obviously we love that part of it. One of the challenges of playing with the recording is, you’re a little more tied down. We still have some freedom because the recorded part is basically a vamp section. But that is something we have to get used to — the track is going to do what it’s going to do every time.

KP: One other challenging thing is, we’re farther apart on stage than we normally are. Normally we’re closer together and I can see both Rachael and Elise. But the beauty of it is, we know the pieces really, really well, and I think that’s going to come across by the way we’re configured. I like the idea of us traveling on stage. It gives the audience a different perspective on how the music sounds, as it comes closer to them. But it’s challenging for us to play that way.

LK: What was most rewarding?

RSC: Seeing the support we’re getting through our Kickstarter has been so gratifying and overwhelming. It’s just awesome to see all these people all over the country think, “Wow, that’s so cool, I really want you guys to succeed.” That part has been really great. I’m really excited to see how audience reacts, and then the students, when we do it again for them.

KP: It’s great just being able to branch out from the normal chamber music setting. The amazing support of the CSA, and the knowledge of people who’ve been working in the theater for a really long time, added to what we do, is just so different from what we’ve ever done. I think it’s going to help us grow so much as an ensemble, and as musicians. When you step outside the box like that, it makes everything else so much easier.

RSC: The other thing that’s been really fun is, the more you let your mind go in this creative direction, the more things you come up with. In some ways it’s hard to stay focused, because we have so much to accomplish for this concert to succeed the way we want it to. But we keep thinking about all these other things we want to do in the future. It’s so cool to see what is possible once you release your mind into that creative space.

MF: It’s been really great to explore ideas and allow them to come to fruition more than they would have otherwise. When I wrote Silent Spring, I had a very specific idea of what I want the music to say, and I just hoped the audience would get that. I never really know if they do. In this bigger context, with this interview in the program that the audience is going to read, with the talkback session, it’s not just like I wrote some notes on a page and now we’re listening to them. It’s a much bigger idea that’s taken on a much bigger meaning. At the performances I’ve been to at the New Hazlett, and the talkback sessions, the audience is really informed and engaged. I’m really excited about that part of it.

RSC: A lot of times as performers, we’re only talking to other musicians. I think as an ensemble part of our mission is to break down barriers and bring music to people. We want them to feel a part of the music, even if they didn’t go to music school, or play an instrument as a kid.

KP: It’s become a personal experience for me, too, and I think for all of us. Through this music I’ve been able to learn about Buckminster Fuller and Rachel Carson and their ideas, and how much I connect with those ideas and ideals and how much I want to share them with the world. As a kid, I always loved environmentalism and thought about how I could help the world, and “save the rain forests!” I think for all of us, it’s not just playing music, it’s the concepts behind the music that we’re trying to share with people.

RSC: There’s so much that is reality-based in where this music came from. Sometimes as a musician, I think you get sucked into your own little world. I’m sure it happens to people in every profession. You put on your blinders and it’s only music all the time. But that’s not how you connect to other people — you have to really experience the world and reflect on it to engage other people. That’s one thing I really like about this concert: it’s not just music for musicians — it comes from real ideas. I really think the amount of effort we’ve put into us will repay us in the end. It’s going to be our most rewarding concert ever.

EDP: What do we do from here?

RSC: Conquer the world!

LK: Take it on tour, obviously!

KP: That’s what we’re hoping!

LK: The idea of bringing Buckminster Fuller’s writings into a piece inspired by Rachel Carson’s work makes so much sense, considering their mutual focus on sustainability and the well-being of the Earth and its inhabitants. But I don’t think I’ve heard of them being connected before, so I’m curious to hear about how you came to put the two together. How does their work relate to each other? How do the words of one inform our understanding of the other’s? Do they interact when you put them next to each other?

RSC: It happened naturally, because Citizen was inspired by Buckminster Fuller, and Silent Spring was inspired by Rachel Carson. Maybe this plays into our set design, but I picture them as getting to the same place from different angles. Rachel Carson comes from biology and nature, and Buckminster Fuller is about building structures that can save mankind. They’re getting to the same goal by different means: either leave it alone, or build things that work better.

EDP: In the text I’m familiar with they both have a pretty sobering way of getting their point across. They do have different styles, but they’re very compatible in how they get their ideas across.

LK: At the beginning of the piece, the first thing we see is a spotlight that comes up slowly on an empty piano. And then the first words we hear are from the Katie, the pianist, telling Fuller’s story of being born with very poor eyesight. I can’t wait to see it, because it seems like a very powerful image. What does this sequence of images mean for you in relation to the subject of the piece?

MF: He’s talking about being born with poor eyesight, but that allowed him to see things in a different way that other people weren’t able to see. It gave him a sense of the bigger picture, because he couldn’t focus on details. I think that’s what Rachel Carson is trying to say, too: we can’t just focus on this one narrow thing we’re trying to accomplish; it has bigger consequences. So I think both of them were big-picture visionaries. I think starting the performance like that puts things into that perspective and puts us into that mindset from the beginning.

RSC: I think we also want to keep the audience on its toes and not give them anything they’re expecting. I think there’s something to being able to engage an audience by continually surprising them: where are those whispers coming from? The stage? The speakers? Where is that piano sound coming from? Is that a piano sound? Keeping their minds active in that way I think will really engage them throughout the show.

LK: The texts we hear in the piece seem to alternate between optimism and pessimism with regard to the future of “spaceship earth.” If Carson and Fuller were alive today, what do you think they might have to say to us?

KP: There’s one Buckminster Fuller text I’m reading during a mashup of two quick movements that I really love. It’s about creativity, and how creativity is not about ego; creativity comes from the universe and it’s already there for us and available to us, and it’s just allowing that creativity to be what it is and come forth. It’s perfect for the mashup of two movements because the way Mark mashed them up is very creative. It goes along with the text and I really like that text a lot.

RSC: I don’t think any of the texts is meant to be depressing. I think it’s meant to be the reality of how things could turn out; not a scare tactic but looking at the situation we’ve put ourselves in, in terms of our actions on the earth, and what that could really mean. But I think both of them really believed in humanity’s ability to change their actions, otherwise they wouldn’t have spoken out. They didn’t think we had to continue blindly in this direction.

LK: The last quote from Fuller that appears in the piece concerns the role of the musician in the world. He says, in part, “Within the next ten years the world of science… may be turning to the world of music for leadership… you may find yourselves called by society to perform its most responsible task allowing life to succeed.” So, after the first Secretary of Music is nominated by President Sanders and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, what initiatives will she and her staff undertake?

EDP: I love that question!

MF: That text describes just exactly what we’re trying to do, so I had to use it. I can’t wait for the Secretary of Music!

RSC: One thing I think should happen is for music to be taught in schools like another language, from before kids can even talk, from the pre-school and kindergarten age, incorporating music into education. Also using music as a tool, not just “now we’re going to learn music,” but using it as a way to learn other things. I think we all can attribute our success in other areas of our lives to what we learned through music.

KP: It teaches you so much: how to interact with other people, how to stay patient with yourself, how to focus and persevere.

EDP: There are articles about what happens to your brain when you’re playing music or listening to music. Even if someone’s trying to be a better scientist or mathematician, if they’re also a musician, it will help their brain. To me that’s tapping into the inherent creativity everyone has. With our current approach of cutting out art and music because we need to take more English so we pass those standardized tests, we’re actually hurting people’s brains and their ability to solve problems.

RSC: I want to see music used in a holistic approach to learning, instead of all these little fragmented subjects — now you learn science, now you learn math, and the two have nothing to do with each other. We all know that’s not true. I keep notepaper next to me when I’m practicing, because I am always thinking of other things when I practice. It’s amazing. It would be a distraction if I didn’t write it down. I’m always amazed at how, once I sit down to practice, it opens up my mind and I’m able to think about all these other things. Especially in an age where it’s so easy to just sit down in front of a screen and turn off your brain. When you sit down to play music, even if you’re doing something less musically interesting, like learning notes in rhythm with a metronome, it releases your mind.

LK: Anything else I should have asked but didn’t?

RSC: I think one final thought would be to thank the New Hazlett Theatre beyond words. Beyond their financial and in-kind support, they have been amazing people to work with, and they’re so excited for us, which is exciting. I don’t think they’ve said no to anything we’ve asked for!

EDP: It’s almost like, “we’re not worthy!”

RSC: They have a really nice team of people who are doing everything to help make us successful.

KP: We’re not used to that!

RSC: Especially as an ensemble that in the past has put on our own performances from scratch. To have a team supporting us is unbelievable.

TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE

By Tameka Cage Conley, PhD

Ricardo Iamuuri’s “A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist” dared to transform space within the human consciousness even as it transformed the Hazlett into an interdisciplinary display of displacing, magical sound, vocal mastery, and stunning visual media that challenged notions of freedom, consciousness, “branding,” war, violence, cultural co-opting, and commodification. Though experimental in scope, its themes were accessible across individual and cultural memory, from old black and white commercials for household coffee to a video montage of The Towers consumed by thick, black smoke that placed the audience in the long, dark horror of 9/11–a horror that can be conjured in a second, in a heartbeat, as if it lives just there, beneath the surface skin and goes down into the marrow of our everyday living. All it takes, Iamuuri suggests, is a trigger that calls it up where it refuses to hide, and we cannot bury it. There were tears as Iamuuri climbed a ladder and sailed paper planes into the air, in front of the projected image of the Towers as they burned and burned and eventually fell. The air in the Hazlett became thick with the painful memory forever lodged in the throat. Combining the dynamic whimsy of paper planes–which brings us back to childhood gaiety–with the awareness that two actual planes controlled by terrorists hit The Towers–was painfully ironic, a suggestion, perhaps, that there is no safe place for our memories or the pain attached to them. Yet there seemed to be another meaning, whether Iamuuri intended or not: there are bodies and interests in the world that seek to control us, manipulate us, use us, and discard us as easily as a child might toy with a paper plane. We are must valuable when we consume, “A BRAND NEW WORLD,” suggests.

Iamuuri is the main character, an artist who moves through each station on the set, which produces uncanny, provocative, unique sound, from an electric coffee grinder filled with “cool beans” taken from a bag thusly labeled; to several transmitters where Iamuuri created “freestyle” sound frequencies reminiscent of the opening music of “The Twilight Zone” or the original “Star Trek;” to a wooden box filled with plastic bottles that Iamuuri stepped on and moved with the tips of his shoes. At times, the sounds compete with the storyline, which makes it difficult to follow. I wonder, though, how intentional this is, like the act of rapidly clicking through channels and being bombarded with images that we cannot readily understand but, nonetheless, affect and persuade us.

When Iamuuri sings, “My friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep your cool…you’re all on fire,” a new world is born and made, one of dis-ease whose only comfort is his voice–and you want to crawl into the effortless power of his voice and breathe there and make your meals and love there–for to say he can “sing” is an understatement. He knows the art of his voice and blends the blues with R&B soul, reggae, and folk. To hear him is to hear Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Dylan, and Muddy Waters in one transcendent voice. The ache for more of Iamuri’s singing brought a slight conflict. Because of the many ways the mind and heart are transformed during the show—and because of the urgency of unusual sound–the viewer wants a place to sit for a moment. And be still. And safe. Out of all the sounds, the place of calm and comfort, the place that said, as Kendrick Lamar teaches us, “we gon be alright,” was Iamuuri’s voice, rising and falling in its controlled power, in its surety.

When Iamuuri takes a seat in a part of the set termed WAITING ROOM, we do not know if his character is standing trial–as promo for the show and even the “kill the artist” subtitle suggests–or if he is ill and must be treated for his sickness, a sickness that seems to be his perceived subversion by those determining his worth, in this world that only wants you to stay mute, stay broke, or stay trying to buy what you cannot afford, or what cannot be bought, like joy and peace. Either or neither could be true, especially because Iamuuri seems less concerned with attached ideas of what the show “is” or “means” or how the audience should interpret it. Like sound, the show is fluid in interpretation. Iamuuri seems most at home with the dream of creating and doing what is rare on stage, like using a hydrophone to capture the sound of an apple being dropped into a tall bucket of water. The sound landed like a drop of water in the heart–the hearing of it was that clear, that unusual, that profound, and that specific, like pulling the music of the universe to a needlepoint. Then listening. The metaphor of “The Big Apple” and the falling Towers were brought down to a tangible place where the audience could retrieve it. If we wanted, we could have touched the apple. And yet we could not have touched that sound. Questions emerge, like the desire for the apple and the way we want to hold on to survival and the things we need and the things we love and the things we desire: Who is playing with our lives? Our water? What we eat and consume? What role(s) do we play in our fate, future, and financial power? Iamuuri does not answer these questions, and he shouldn’t. It’s our job–as audience, “citizens,” and consumers. Yet all we do, Iamuuri seems to suggest, is being observed.

Tameka Cage Conley, PhD sat down with Ricardo Iamuuri to talk about his upcoming CSA Performance Series production, A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist.

When I first read the title of your project, “A Brand New World: kill the artist,” I was immediately intrigued. Of course I thought about metaphor and also about identity and the current cultural climate in which we live. How did this title–and the project itself–communicate the artist you are now and your journey?

The title A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist is fairly of a resignation letter. The title was born from a culmination of personal, artistic expressions, which hinted upon the content the title holds. First, it’s a take on Aldous Huxley’s dystopian work Brave New World. The world I refer to, “The Cool World,” could be considered dystopian or it could only refer to what is. I’ll leave that verdict up to the viewing audience. The title is the only commonality with Mr. Huxley’s work. Beyond that, this piece is not an adaptation. “Kill The Artist” represents a personal struggle of interests. This inner conflict is between the wildfire man and the conforming artist. “Kill The Artist” adds an urgency that something drastic needs to occur now in order to resolve this all too familiar friction.

Can you talk about the revolutionary or resistance aspect of your work, particularly this project?

I do not think this composition to be revolutionary. Nor do I hold it to be an anthem of resistance. A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist is a reaction and a product. A response to other wares being made in the marketplace. I think we are bound to react. All life on this planet is inter-reactionary. This opus is no different. If it so happens to animate a movement toward social transformation, I would be surprised. I do feel it manages a power to make one reconsider. To rethink. To consider another look and listen.

I’ve heard you mention this aspect of “consumerism” in the art world. What role does consumption play in art and art-making?

Hello, my name is Ricardo Robinson and I am a consumer. I’m saying that to say this: I am very mindful of my consumerism. Our civilization is a consumer culture. Everywhere I turn I am besieged by advertisements baiting one to buy into something. This reality is so all-consuming it pervades our daily moments. Even our everyday exchanges lean more toward transactions instead of priceless connection. We have become walking billboards, automated vending machines, ad agencies, speaking in slogans and pitching our dreams to the next purchaser. This consumerism makes a business out of everything. Birth. Death. Love. Hate. Everything! Nothing appears to be without a price. Thus, I don’t know what to do about this way of living but hold up my art and keep stating… It doesn’t have to be this way.

As artists, what should our boundary be in terms of our relationship to earning money and money in general?

I am not against being compensated for one’s labor. I believe the boundary everyone should set is a boundary that declares your self-worth. It’s very hard to fight for a living income when there’s so much division and desperation amongst the working class. The cultural motto seems to be, how do I get more for less? I hope this mentality dies someday soon, and everyone chooses quality before quantity. Until then, the power structure of oppression will exist and exploitation and pitting the working class against themselves will continue to be the easiest job in the world.

What are some of your influences for “A Brand New World: kill the artist” and how is the Hazlett Theater, in terms of space and design, ideal for this project?

There are too many influences to mention here. But I imagine I can point to fashion playing a significant role in the making of this piece. I’m not talking of the kind of fashion we usually associate with dress code and style. I’m regarding fashion as the general cover up. The fashion of freedom. The fashion of hope and change. The fashion of fire and protest. The fashion of terror and the fashion of passion. The fashion I speak of is the commercialization and the commodification of life itself–reality packaged in cellophane and sold back to the masses, watered down and chilled off. The New Hazlett Theater is a prime space to start out this artistic campaign. The environment is calming, controlled. So it’s going to be very interesting attempting to contain a piece meant to be wild.

I feel excited because your show is so dynamic: from sound, to drama, to music–it has it all. You are pushing boundaries as an artist even as you push us to think about art in our time and all it might signify. How do you confront such boldness on stage and how do you prepare for it?

I’m flattered by your warm remarks. Thank you. I suppose it’s odd how introspective I become before a show. But maybe I’m always this way. My apprehension of this process is…creation is meditative, and destruction is celebrative. When I’m on stage I am aware of the entertainment factor. This awareness feels like a sort of prison. So, by the conclusion of the piece if I still see the imagined bars of entertainment then I played it safe and simply performed for the people. On the other hand, if by the end of the piece I see no bars, I lost myself in the work and discovered a bit of freedom.

What role does social justice and critical consciousness play in your work and in what ways has the time and residency of this Fellowship enabled you to delve deeper into those ideals?

A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist could be comprehended as a social justice piece. But even that phrase is in question in this composition. Social justice is a business—a commercial enterprise which provides a service and falls in line like the rest. In this piece I am more focused on the intention of reality, not the fashion of it. I believe that’s a large reason why sound art and noise play a major role in the piece. There’s a rawness and a fleeting truth in every sound uttered before it becomes manipulated and twisted into some kind of propaganda. I’m sure the content of the composition will be related to social justice and critical consciousness. That’s perfectly fine by me. Perhaps by the end of the show a new language will be born.

What is your biggest dream for the show?

My biggest dream for the show? Well, I think the show is a dream. And the human action of sharing it feels big enough for me.

What role does gender, race, ethnicity, and class play in your work, both in “A Brand New World: kill the artist” and in general?

In A BRAND NEW WORLD: kill the artist all of those hot issues are indeed hot commodities.

When the audience is walking away from the theater after the show and driving or walking home or taking the bus, what do you want them to think and feel? What do you want to leave with them and what do you, as performance artist, want to walk away with?

It would be nice to assume all who view the show leave thinking and feeling something. What I’m saying is, I’m not interested in amusing anyone. After it’s all said and done, I would like to walk away with gratitude and know that I did not compromise the integrity of the composition for the sake of praise or validation.

Anthony Williams’ Loving Black was featured on Adrienne Totino’s “Top Ten Contemporary Dance Pefromances of 2015”:

In a fourteen-month journey, Williams turned a short dance quartet into an evening-length production at the New Hazlett Theater, as part of the CSA performance series. The piece explored stereotypes of black men, and commented on the Black Lives Matter movement. The show included acting, singing and dancing, in a thought-provoking collaboration between Williams, Billy Wayne Coakley (playwright), and Anqwenique Wingfield (singer/composer).

Read the full article

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