Obvious Mountain: a collection of (non) sequential works
2024 - Multimedia Perofrmance
Embedded Files
Axel's, Claire's, and my composition begins roughly around 7:30, though the movement is designed to be taken in context of the work as a whole.
Program Note: As part of a collaborative composition process designed to educate participants on improvisation practice in the fields of music, technology, and dance, this piece was created at Hidden Valley Institute of the Arts over the course of several weeks based on the prompt: sublime stillness, frantic activity. The ten ensemble members were divided into four groups with each group composing a general movement score and accompanying piece of music. The four movements were then workshopped by the entire ensemble and by instructors Steven Kemper, Aurie Hsu, Edwin Huizinga, and Lilian Barbeito.
If you would like to see a recording of Obvious Mountain: a collection of (non) sequential works, I have provided a recording of the Saturday, January 20, 2024 performance.
Please Note: This video is unlisted on YouTube and is intended only for the purposes of documentation or technical evaluation. Please do not distribute it more than is necessary.
More Information: My involvement in this piece most directly relates to "Movement II," (~7:33 - 12:31 in the provided video), which was choreographed by Clare Kammeier and co-composed with Axel Disston. The three of us began our work on "Movement II" about a month prior to our stay in Hidden Valley after our entire ensemble received the text prompt: sublime stillness, frantic activity.
The three of us began by meeting online to discuss how we might interpret this prompt. We came up with a general list of subjects we might evoke both with sound and movement, the strongest subject of our discussion ended up being ticking clocks. We felt that the clock communicated the text prompt because, if one is listening to a clock tick, they're probably not doing much else. Further, clocks require many moving parts to function, hence frantic activity. We also thought that field recordings of natural subjects would communicate the prompt as they generally produce feelings of serenity in a listener but are sonically dense and detailed.
After our initial meeting, we all went our separate ways to draft ideas independently. At our next meeting, Axel showed us what he called a guided panic. It began with a ticking clock, and gradually introduced manipulated samples of guided meditations. Instead of directing the listener to breath in a way that would calm them down, these samples were re-arranged such that they instructed a listener to become tense and hyperventilate. Somewhat inspired by short-form sludge content, this guided panic idea also evoked the irony inherent in short form philosophy content: the guided panic has semiotic significance as something that could be meditative until one listens to the instructions and experiences the disjointed, fast-paced nature of the vocals.
To hear Axel's and my final fixed audio composition, I have provided a SoundCloud link.
For a downloadable audio file, please contact Axel or myself.
After I expanded on Axel's drafts with composed field recordings I had taken and granular synthesizers, Clare choreographed a section of our resultant fixed audio. Leveraging her improvisatory dance experience and classical training, Clare crafted a sequence that hybridized small scale movements articulated with a single hand or joint with larger scale bodily gestures. These smaller movements aligned with the ticking clocks, while the larger scale gestures articulated the longer form arcs created by the gestures of the field recordings and granular pad textures.
The next largest iterations of our piece came about when our entire ensemble came together to compose our four individual movements into one whole work. During this phase of the project, we received much direct instruction from Steven Kemper, Aurie Hsu, Edwin Huizinga, and Lilian Barbeito in the areas of composition, improvisation, and movement. Axel and I used feedback given from our professors and peers to tighten up our fixed audio, and we created a product with a much more discernable narrative arc and notable events. Additionally, Axel and I worked with the instrumentalists in the ensemble to create live techniques that could supplement our fixed audio. Michelle Li in particular worked quite a bit with us to use her knowledge of serialism to create a set of improvisatory guidelines for her classical piano performance during our work.
Simultaneously, Clare worked very hard under the guidance of Lilian Barbeito and in collaboration with fellow dancers Mae Glickman and Qi Qu to not only finish choreographing "Movement II," but also to assist in the choreography of all the remaining movements.
The final piece, not only "Movement II," was created mostly in the span of two weeks, and featured ten performers, all of whom working in media outside their main area of expertise.
Please Note: All of this writing is only my account of this ensemble's work. If you would like to learn more, I would highly suggest reaching out to Axel, Clare, or any of the other performers or instructors of the 2024 TIMARA/Dance at Hidden Valley Winter Term. If the links I have provided for each person don't work, please contact me and I will put you in contact with the necessary people.
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