Featured image: Stones, Clouds performed by musicians and artists (Full Zoom Photography)
The final evening of Concurrent’s 2-day second public event showcased intriguing new approaches to combining the improvisation of leading dancers, musicians, visual artists and processors
image: Full Zoom Photography
The first two performances of the evening were the outcome of workshops led by Graeme Wilson, Raymond MacDonald and Cath Keay (ECA, University of Edinburgh) to explore strategies of choice within cross-disciplinary improvising based on Wilson & MacDonald’s psychological model. The workshops invited participants to consider how they responded within their own discipline when interacting with improvisers from another discipline; the aim was to allow participants to feel that their improvised acts could shape what those in the other discipline were doing. Live drawing from Keay, Emma Bowen (Garage Gallery) and Simon Ortega (ECA) reached an enthralling crescendo with the improvising of ECA’s Christian Ferlaino (alto saxophone), Ceylan Hay (lyre & electronics) and Una MacGlone (double bass) and the electric guitar of Mike Parr-Burman (Taupe). Tomke Kossen-Veenhuis and Mariola Albinowski (ECA) danced with Tess Latham in interaction with Sarah Gross (ECA, flute), Nikki Moran (ECA, viola) and Russell Wimbish (ECA, double bass), unfolding a dramatic landscape of shifting sounds and arrangements of form.
images: Full Zoom Photography
Two ensembles of musicians and dancers curated by collaborator PA Tremblay (University of Huddersfield) allowed improvisers to explore spontaneous practice through performance in unprecedented configurations. Philippa Derrington, (Queen Margaret University), Mike Parr-Burman and Nikki Moran created delicate textures through exchanges of sound and movement with Ana Almeida, Mariola Albinowski and Helga Schram. A second group bought saxophonists Christian Ferlaino and Franziska Schroeder (Queens University Belfast) together with Adam Linson on turntable and live processing and the dancing of Tomke Kossen-Veenhuis and Tess Latham for an energetic kaleidoscope of improvised ideas.
image: Full Zoom Photography
To close the evening, Concurrent premiered a new collaborative project by Schroeder, Jules Rawlinson and Dara Etefaghi (ECA, University of Edinburgh). Titled Re-breather (2017), the work constituted an improvised piece held together by a framework that is informed by the idea of breath and breathlessness:
Starting with the breathing sounds of the saxophonist – at first highly spare, subtle breath sounds that get pushed through the saxophone, exposing the resonances of the instrument and its materials – the saxophonist’s materials become the basis for the visual artist who uses these subtle sounds to inform and drive his response, tracing the gestures of the performer’s breath. Live processing of the breath sounds allows us to enhance, as well as to counter the performative materials through filtering, dispersal and accumulation.
The performers introduce a few objects which restrict the air column of the saxophonist, asking her to struggle for and with her breath. Physical engagement with these objects becomes part of the visual component for the work, where cameras transmit some of the performative engagement to the audience. The saxophonist’s struggle develops into a more animated part where the performer, using circular breathing techniques, continues to employ her breath in order to work herself towards physical exhaustion, which in turn serves as a trigger for the visual and sonic manipulations of the other artists. Realtime signal processing extends and augments the ecosystem of saxophonist, saxophone and the concert hall. Additional contractions, dilations and expansions occur inside of physical models of pipes and valves, exploring notions of slippage and seepage which both bridge and feedback into the saxophonist’s gestures.
What emerged was a dazzling match of digital visualisation and auditory manipulations of Schroeder’s authoritative deployment of the saxophone’s extended tonal gamut.
You can watch footage of performances from Concurrent#2 on the media page