Air Objects #3 is a new solo composition for the ElectroHorn, an original hybrid instrument which creates both the acoustic tones of a brass instrument, and, through added electronic circuitry, effects and loops which modify the original sound. The live and processed sounds interact and fill the space with a virtual orchestra of tones. The audience hears both the natural sound of the horn instrument, as well as loops and modifications of the sound coming out of the surrounding speakers, in a spatial environment which empowers the subjectivity of the listener. In the live performance aspect, the performer’s physical movements trigger changes in the music, adding a layer of visual interest, drama and even humor, as motion is translated into sound. The work is architectural in that the roaming performer can leverage the contours and depths of space in the venue to create site-specific air objects, or sonic shapes, in different parts of the building structure. The work is social in that the listeners encounter the performer moving around the space; create their own subjective mix of the sound by listening from different vantage points; and encounter the sound in a liminal/transitional space (the lobby), experiencing the sound as a seamless part of their conversations and social interactions in that temporary space. The tone of the music is mellow, constantly shifting, hypnotically suspenseful, ritualistic and actively meditative. It responds in part to Eno’s concept of ambient music – music meant to “reward attention, but not so strict as to demand it‚” and also to La Monte Young’s conception of “eternal music,” creating a sense of participating in a timeless duration.

BIO

John Berendzen has created noise for theatre, dance and arts in Portland and elsewhere for 25 years. He is co-founder and co-artistic director for Liminal, and has collaborated with Linda Austin, Imago, Mary Oslund, Hand2Mouth and many others. His works and collaborations have appeared at festivals such as NW New Works and Seattle and Vancouver Fringe Festivals. John creates and plays electroacoustic instruments, and spent a 2013 residency at Caldera Arts developing the basic technology behind the ElectroHorn. He enjoys the collision of technology with natural instruments and voices, and seeks a total immersion in and heightened awareness of sound and time. He enjoys socially interactive art, spatially-oriented acoustics, limitation of materials and processes, and nested time structures. John sings shapenote music and classical Indian raga. He spent a year as an intern, student, and sound recordist for minimalist granddaddy La Monte Young in New York City. He is currently working on an ElectroGuitar.

Fragments of a narrative arc are slowly revealed, inviting audiences to reflect on the role we play when loved ones experience loss. While searching for clues, they are invited to place themselves in the narrative. Text and song lyrics are sourced from phone calls with Britt’s mother, #shoutyourabortion rhetoric, and surveys sent to women on their experiences of fulfillment. A self-contained, largely geometric set is built and broken down by Britt herself—a nod to self-sufficiency and the load women bear. The dance movement begins tethered to a table center stage, developing into a stationary sprint that finally becomes celebratory among mountains of released confetti.

BIO

Britt Karhoff’s (Choreographer and Performer) work has been presented in Seattle at Velocity Dance Center, On the Boards, Behind the Pink Door, NEPO 5K and at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco. She has performed locally, nationally and internationally on stages, in historic buildings and on the sides of skyscrapers with artists and companies including Project Bandaloop, Joe Goode Performance Group, Flyaway Productions, zoe | juniper, KT Niehoff, Shannon Stewart, Coleman Pester, Anna Conner, Alice Gosti, Kim Lusk and Kaitlin McCarthy among many others.

Bayanihan is a tagalog word used to describe the physical representation of the spirit of community. Bayanihan: A Collection of Physical Tales is created as a structure that explores the stories of each member in a community. The work is a physical interpretation of the ways we, as intersectional dance artists from the PNW, have learned to support one another in our journey of realizing our true selves in order to survive. We will use storytelling as a way for us to heal and take ownership over the world that we want to live in, a world that we create where all parts can move, evolve, and exist together.

The audience will be taken on a journey through five different worlds. Each section is no longer than four minutes, allowing the audience to experience five different environments with six different storytellers. The work resembles a physical chapter book. We are inspired by popular music and music with rhythmic patterns, validating all styles of movement, high fashion, the freedom to show emotion or not, audience/ crowd participation, self care, feeling beautiful, the communities we come from, and the power to speak our truths to an audience that wants to hear them. It is important that we are intentional about not filtering or changing our cultural identities as young artists of color in a predominately euro-centric art form.

BIO

Eli will ask the audience for a volunteer to come on stage to play a game of “War.” They will explain that we are going to play with a special deck, “a deck dedicated to teach boys to be men.” Eli will describe the rules of the game: each player will start with half the deck; every round each player will flip over one card and read what is written on it out loud; then the volunteer will decide which card wins; this will be repeated until one player has all the cards and wins the war. The point of this game is to explore how we understand the interaction of different aspects of male socialization and the underlying structures that create and reinforce our personal experiences, while also examining how white-supremacy and racism are integrally intertwined with dominant notions of maleness. How has the audience experienced and perpetuated male-socialization (either as people taught to be men and/or people subjected to male dominance), and how do racism and sexism feed each other?

Planet Pink takes the audience on a real and personal journey of self-love and transness. Bouton, often perceived as a black man but identifying as a non-binary femme, challenges beauty standards by trying things that are typically only acceptable from cis women (think: flowy night gowns, bras & wigs, etc.).

Bouton says, “As a black queer person, sometimes making my unpopular thoughts public or a part of my art, not only empowers me personally, but it also challenges those who need it most and encourages others like me.”

In the White Frame is inspired by Sharon H. Chang’s book Raising Mixed Race. Using her book as a resource, Moonyeka and dancers will explore mixed race folks’ experience in a post racial world, while also specifically looking at Joe R. Feagin’s theory of white racial framing. White racial framing is when people ask mixed folks, or even non-mixed folks, “What are you? Where are you from? No really, where are you from?” This is people trying to figure out where someone lands on the black or white binary of race. In the White Frame also seeks to complicate the ugly/pretty, superhuman, mutt, “mixed people will end racism!,” 1-drop rule narratives of mixed race people. It will include black, indigenous, young, queer, and femme voices since this work would not be authentic or accurate without honoring their voices. Moonyeka and dancers dare ask the question, “is the racial discourse inclusive of our experiences? is it erasing us? are we (as mixed people) allowed to reject the racial framework being used today?”

Featuring dancers El Nyberg, Michael O’Neal Jr., Alyza DelPan-Monley, Bria Calhougn-Anderson, and Estrella Gonzalez. Ravella Riffenburg: Light Design + Nic Masangkay: Sound Design.