The Haunt at the Standard
The forecast was 40% rain for an outdoor show at 7PM. I had to think fast about how I was going to perform safely without electrocuting anyone.
Rachel Finan’s concept was a Butoh interpretation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. With twigs as hands, she writhes in agony in a pile of autumn leaves, representing the violent rape, mutilation, murder and torture in this very bloody tragedy.
Rachel and I’ve performed together for over 10 years - we improvise in sync, ever since first time we met and performed at the Wealthy Theatre. But to improvise without electronica?
My solution was to play on the acoustic live, but to create a pre-recorded sound bed that I would prepare and play on a speaker safely sheltered from the rain under a tent.
Once the decision was made to mix and match electronic and acoustic, I needed to come up with a way to match Rachel’s energy but find my own source of inspiration. Michele Bosak, the curator had asked us to present “What Haunts you?” - and when I realised my answer was “the fear or bad public performances” (from years of classical training), I knew that my agony was going to come from failing the most challenging notes, chords and passages in my Bach, Prokofiev, Paganini, Ravel. With all my difficult sheet music on my stand, I began to toil over the notes and scrape my bow. I prerecorded a sound bed of agony, fear and villainy on my electric violin with the Echoplex looper and G-Force effects, and mashed the two together.
Lola wants to run away
The discordant notes, melodies and noises that sounded like the violin was going to break. The resulting cacophony made my poor puppy squirm.
Happy Halloween!
October 29, 2021 6PM-9PM
Performances at 7:00PM and 7:55PM
I am participating in a group Halloween show at The STANDARD. Butoh dancer Rachel Finan and I will explore deep psychological and physical torment that haunts us through sound design and dance.
The Standard is curated by Michele Bosak at 1419 Hope St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506-1613
The group show features artwork by:
Anna Bailey
Kristin Casaletto
Jodie Chilcote
Tom Duimstra
Melissa Duimstra
Ashlee McGreevy
David Nguyen
Matt Oberski
Cary Okoro
LeeAnna Pekel
M. Pinaud
Deborah Rockman
Stafford Smith
Briana Yarhouse
