Media updates

Lots of media goings-on these long summer days. I'm anticipating the arrival of raw footage from Percussing Difference back in March... on DV tape. Uhm, how to convert to digital...?

Network for New Music will be releasing the first of my five shorts on their website any day now. I have to admit I was never happy with the last of the series, but I'll take it Balinese temple style and let it be a work-in-progress, as is the world.

My visit in San Francisco is three-quarters done, and I'm as satisfied as I could hope to be. On Monday August 22nd (subject to change) I will be hosting a public Theatre of the Oppressed session in Berkeley. Doodle for a date here: https://www.doodle.com/54gc5dq42czptki8

Review of Makeout Room free first Monday

A friend had a rendezvous at The Makeout Room in the Mission District, SF last night and I went to a show. There were three sets.

MARANA JOCUND
Will Redmond, guitar
Rob Pumpelly, drums

PG13
Phillip Greenlief,alto saxophone
John Shiurba, guitar
Tom Scandura, drums

Kjell Nordeson - Aram Shelton Duo

I missed most of the first, but heard way too loud though interesting electric guitar improv. I stayed on the sidewalk, listening to the second set. I forgot noise concerts require earplugs. But these guys played the kind of noise influenced by progressive rock and jazz and who knows what contemporary explorations that kept me bouncing and savoring. I'd been in a critical, depressed head space walking to the show, so it really picked me up. I caught Tom afterward and demanded to be emailed as soon as PG13 puts out a CD. We'll see if those guys get it together.

After the first set they shut the bottom half of the bar door and I noticed when someone pushed it open, it freed lower fundamentals in lazy swings.

The last set was dreamy. The sax player said at the end of their first piece "I thought everyone had left. My eyes were closed... I heard something and thought they were stacking chairs." I actually got to sit and watch this set because it was unamplified. There were several moments the extended drum set got too loud for comfort, but they always passed with sensitive use of dynamics and textures. The drummer used hands, toy bongos, and cymbal on snare; the sax (alto and tenor alternating) traded long, long solos of fluttering runs, polyphonics, and breathy trills. The audience around the stage area listened with rapt attention, and cheered appreciatively. Near the front of the bar was constant conversation, which sometimes drifted over during the quietest moments. I appreciate that. I itched to jam with them.

Anything eccentric in the Mission attracts the white hipster, etc. crowd. Across the street a cafe had a student piano sextet playing Schubert, which created a glut of foot traffic. But it's satisfying to find a casually social audience for this kind of music, loud enough to compete with punk, tastefully complex enough for a classical tradition stage.

The calendar for noise style shows is the Bay Improviser.

Redefining 'drama'

I want to clarify what "drama-free" means. I don't use the term casually because, as a performer, I recognize that tension and conflict run beneath everything worth living for. Drama itself is a fact of human experience and expression. As Augusto Boal advocated, our gift of self examination allows us to exist in multiple and to empower ourselves. What I think the term refers to is communication that captures life's inevitable tensions and expresses and processes it in a way that reflects the respect, care, and compassion we deserve from one another.

Life hands me drama. I work to let it bring out truth between friends, to transcend it in relying on my family, and to signify it in my music. Deliberate, exploratory dramatization can help me tap into emotions I habitually tamp down to be "presentable" -- that's not drama-free; that's a public face. I try to respect others' public-private boundaries, but mine is an essential part of the exploration.

Evidence that through composition and improv do not conflict

Since I won't be updating en masse over the summer, here's what I've been working on. It makes me wonder if there's grad level research I can get my hands on so I don't have to figure it all out from scratch. But there is value in that, especially given who's been in grad school before me.

Yes, those are column headings.

As I play with improv beyond "here are your timing/ rhythmic/ dynamic/ pitch constraints" and toss around the questions of privilege around musical skill and audience fitness and class- and culturally-proscribed behavior, I find myself delighting in questioning also my role as composer. Am I equivalent to a BDSM Dominant, calling the shots and bossing my players and producers around? Or a submissive, catering to the whims of the talent, a beneficent performing group, and ultimately the paying, soul-hungry audience? Evidence supports the conclusion that it does not matter as long as details of the arrangement are transparent to all parties and consensual.

What does this look like in practice? A few months ago, a favorite pianist at New Keys asked for additional movements to The Jots, a four-hand, sight-reading piece I dashed off earlier this year. I was experiencing a personal renaissance in ... a universal daily bodily function pertaining to internal movement. Writing the companion movement as a multi-phase improv theater pierce set my mind reeling on the topics above.

What I want to do exceeds the human resources of a conventional music concert; it needs the participants of an improv theater workshop for an audience. Further, working with the subject is helping me cope with the offensive aspects of reality like unresponsive audience and power vested in skilled artists. It's not bad; it's necessary and colorful sensation.

If you're in the SF Bay area in the upcoming weeks I'm organizing casual meetups to play theater games. No acting experience required! just respond to a scheduling poll.

A lifelong search

After finishing a series of video shorts enticing shy listeners to new music, I've found myself distant and unmotivated from attending live performances.

In my work I have the luxury of seeking deeply in myself and the potentials of the world I know. With alarming frequency I uncover concepts and truths that challenge the way I think and live, forcing me into a struggle of emotion and problemsolving. There is a beautiful piece of poetry Coleman Barks translated from Rumi beginning "When you are not with me I resemble..." I love the casual way he treats the juxtaposition of yearning and celebration, all in absence of the beloved. It also directed me to consider how fantasy coexists with reality in our living and coping. Yearning need not be grieving alone but a powerful manifestation of the divine.

In the course of relating to many others as I develop, I notice patterns like friends don't stay fast over long distances, few friendships are ever carried out to mutual satisfaction, and investment in relationship building comes at the expense of that in my work. Other patterns are challenged by new experiences, for example I've come to believe differences never have to cast two parties apart, and when they do, it is for lack of trust in and commitment to resolution for the sake of the friendship. I used to respond extremely badly to strong "negative" expressions directed at me, but am practicing to respond contructively, step back and view the possible larger context of the scene (I might be wrong!), and redirect destructive energies.

This search has led me to a place of being with my self, trajectory, and environment that troubles me with irrelevance to the classical music community. As my original music source, its preoccupations with control and class leave little space for the work I'm interested in doing with audiences. Who hasn't felt captive by norms of conduct in the face of an awful or frustrating performance in any genre? I want to harness the power of those conventionally captive voices.

Tomorrow I attend the wedding of a childhood friend, a first attendance at that of my own friend, as opposed to a significant other's family and, well, my loved ones are scattered across the earth. As I watch the lovingly interpreted rituals unfold, I too will be part of a performance in which by attending I consent to a form of captivity. Sometimes I wonder at the image of myself holding simultaneously disjointed past years, potential future relations, the refracted interpretations of the moment, and their many alternatives.

Baffling: political protest of an LGBT film festival

I just got this on a queer Asians listserv:

PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND LIKE US ON FACEBOOK

SF Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Trans Film Festival PINKWASHESWar Crimes

Apartheid -- Occupation -- Invasion -- Murder -- Racism -- Ethnic Cleansing

The San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival has accepted
sponsorship and money from the Israeli consulate for the second year
in a row. Every Palestinian queer organization, along with a number
of local and international queer groups, have demanded that the
festival presenter, Frameline, stand up for human rights and
international law by refusing to partner with the Israeli
government. The Consulate and its supporters have threatened to
brand the festival as “anti-Jewish” if they decline their money. But
by accepting it, and ignoring the voices and the lives of Palestinian
queers, Frameline has shown itself to be anti-queer as well as anti-
Palestinian.

Join the Protest
Friday, June 17, 5:30-7:00 pm
Castro Theater, San Francisco

Shame on Frameline! All Queers Count!

Sponsored by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!), SouthWest
Asian and North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ), Middle East
Children's Alliance, Arab Resource and Organizing Center,
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Israeli Queers for
Palestine, Palestinian Queers for BDS

for info: www.quitpalestine.org; quitpalestine@yahoo.com; www.pqbds.com

***

I don't know the back story, but it seems these protesters don't understand what "anti-queer" and "anti-Palestinian" mean any better than the Consulate understands "anti-Jewish." Nonprofit arts organizations exert the most power through the art they promote. Unless Israel's support influences Frameline's screening choices it makes no sense to pick on a presenter about a domestic political issue. Yes, a U.S. policy problem.

LGBTQ Pride Month

Someone shared an appreciation of Pride events on a San Francisco radical queer social listserv I use. It was in the context of habitual distaste for assimilationist gayness and the persistent need for safety from persecution of gays. Here is my reply:

I had my first Pride outside SF last weekend in Washington, DC. It was a wake-up call that SF Bay is still very much a world class oasis. Compared to what I got used to in the Bay, it was a baby Pride: no barriers, little security, tiny contingencies, a few trucks instead of hours of floats. It was wonderfully homey, though: hotels, storefronts, and churches got decked out in rainbow around the parade route; lots of hand-painted signs and lovingly assembled costumes everywhere. Out here, I take comfort that the militant eccentricity, flamboyance, and diversity of the Bay goes on and on. It reminds me what sometimes annoys me comes from a genuine need.

As for making gender & sexual nonconformity more okay, the best work I've done is still CUAV's speaker bureau. They are now an independent volunteer-run collective, speakerscollective@gmail.com. I haven't spoken with them since they inherited the program from CUAV but I'd be happy to share my experiences with you if you email me.