This weekend, March 26th and 27th at 8:30 PM, we will be presenting Mémoire-en-Ciel at Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles. In 2007 we presented the west-coast premiere of Aqua Madora here, and it’s a great pleasure to be back.
On the program are Undress Me Not by Ana Baer-Carrillo, Pat Stone, and Caren McCaleb; Mujeres de Juárez by Randy Gibson and Ana Baer-Carrillo, and to close the night: the world premiere of Mémoire-en-Ciel by Dani Beauchamp and Randy Gibson.
The first time I ever saw a work by Pina Bausch was back in 2004, Ana, Oscar, Laine and I went to see Für die Kinder von gestern, heute und morgen at BAM. I had, of course, heard of this remarkable choreographer who was the giant of inspiration for pretty much every dancer I had worked with. I wasn’t prepared for such beauty, such humor, and such overwhelming brilliance.
I was deeply saddened to hear of her sudden and tragic passing, as my friend Jen put it: “I guess heaven needed an amazing choreographer.”
They have also posted an interesting blog post about using this as a teaching tool. Which is a big part of what I think is so interesting about it. So many people look at modern dance and don’t necessarily understand what is going on, maybe because there’s no story being told, it’s not narrative etc. A tool like this breaks down the dance into a series of themes and connections, which is what I, as a composer, find so intriguing about writing for dance.
For those of you familiar with the protools, final cut model there is a beautiful score of the dance shown in real time that really delineates how this dance is working, and what exactly is going on.
Our very own Kim Olson, one of our earliest and most frequent collaborating artists, will be performing her work thin WATER blue ICE tonight to open the Denver 2009 Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. The performance starts at 6:15 in the lobby of the The Ellie Caulkins Opera House at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and leads into the theatre to start the awards ceremony.
If you’re in Denver tonight, definitely check it out, plus it’s FREE!!
In December Ana Baer-Carrillo and I collaborated on Doleo Æternus, an evening-length work for musicians, computer, and video which was presented at the ISIM conference in Denver. This is a long and tumultuous work in the history of Avant Media, and it spans almost the entire duration that Avant Media has been in existence. From our first show in New York City in January of 2007, where we premiered what was then Anger, to our most recent performance, Ana’s work has been a powerful influence on my work and a guiding force keeping me grounded enough in reality to reign in, albeit ever so slightly, my penchant for the extreme. (more…)
New music has lost one of its most ardent supporters. Betty Freeman was responsible for the commissioning of many of the 20th century’s most interesting pieces of music, and supported nearly every major composer of the 20th Century. A list of her contributions is here.
I never got around to posting links last week – we were performing Doleo Æternus at the ISIM conference and it was completely insane.
There is a Flickr gallery of images we took during our trip to Denver here and more coverage will be coming as we get images from the ISIM and finalize a recording for your listening pleasure.
In the meantime – here are this weeks sporadic and miscellaneous links:
Hot Karl action on Racked Racked is hosting a Karl Lagerfeld photoshop contest. It is epic and fantastic.
