End date 9/30/12
Press Contact: Beth Fleenor*
The Frank Agency
206.491.0516
beth@thefrankagency.org
*CDs, photos, and more information available upon request


55: MUSIC & DANCE IN CONCRETE
A MULTIMEDIA WORK CREATED BY COMPOSER WAYNE HORVITZ
WITH YUKIO SUZUKI / KINGYO (CHOREOGRAPHY/DANCE),  YOHEI SAITO (VIDEO),   
& TUCKER MARTINE (ENGINEER/PRODUCER)


Seattle, WA                             September 14-15
Port Townsend, WA                September 21-23
Tempe, Arizona                       September 27-29 / Installed through October 31
(see below for a full list of events)

Information: http://www.55inconcrete.com
Additional Information: http://www.waynehorvitz.net


This September, composer, pianist and electronic musician Wayne Horvitz presents his project 55: Music and Dance in Concrete – a shifting site-specific multimedia performance featuring dance, video and sound installation. 

Designed to highlight the unique visual and acoustic elements of the chosen sites, the project’s foundation is an electronic score -  a single work composed of fragments from 55 improvised and 55 composed pieces, recorded by ten musicians performing in the cistern and bunkers of Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA. Charged with myriad acoustic phenomena found in the corners and turns of the spaces, and the cistern’s 45-second natural reverb, the score was composed and recorded with engineer/producer Tucker Martine during a 2012 Centrum Residency, for a collaborative installation and performance with video artist Yohei Saito and choreographer Yukio Suzuki/KINGYO. Performances will feature the same score in a unique utilization of each venue’s specific architectural and acoustic spaces.

55: Music & Dance in Concrete will be premiered at Fort Worden as part of Centrum’s Reverberations series, in addition to the Arizona State University Art Museum. Additional site-specific versions of the piece will occur in Seattle presented by Rainier Beach Merchant Association’s (RBMA) Art Walk Rainier Beach, in association with SEEDArts.

55: Music and Dance in Concrete has received initial funding from the MAP Fund and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, as well as support from Arizona State University, and RBMA.  The project is supported by the Japan Foundation through the PerformingArtsJAPAN program. The Centrum Artist Residency program is made possible by support from the Washington State Arts Commission and the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. Additional support was provided by 4Culture Site Specific.

More information about the work below.



COMPLETE EVENT LISTING

SEATTLE

Friday, September 14: 8 pm
55: Music & Dance in Concrete LIVE MIX
Royal Room
Horvitz’s electronic score + live musicians, with Yohei Saito VJ (aka ROKAPENIS),
choreography/dance by Yukio Suzuki / Kingyo


Saturday, September 15: 1 – 1:30 pm
55: Music & Dance in Concrete SITE SPECIFIC ADAPTATION
52nd St. S. Walkway (also known as Mapes Creek Walkway)
Rainier Beach business district, Seattle
SEEDArts, with support from 4Culture Site Specific program, presents Horvitz’s electronic score installed as part of Art Walk Rainier Beach with choreography/dance by Yukio Suzuki / Kingyo 



PORT TOWNSEND

Friday, September 21 (associated event)
Woman of Tokyo
Yasujiro Ozu’s 1933 film with a score by Wayne Horvitz
Port Townsend Film Festival

Saturday, September 22: 11am – 6 pm (dance performances 11, 1:30, 4)
Sunday, September 23: 11am – 6 pm (dance performances 11, 1:30, 4)
PREMIERE of 55: Music & Dance in Concrete at Fort Worden
The audio & video portions of the installation, created by Wayne Horvitz and Yohei Saito, will be open to the public from 11-6. You are encouraged to explore the dark bunkers where the piece is featured, freely throughout that time.  Half-hour dance performances will activate the fort 3 times each day.



ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY – TEMPE CAMPUS

Thursday, September 27: 7:30pm (associated event)
Music of Wayne Horvitz
Katzin Concert Hall
Presented by ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Katzin Concert Hall
The Arizona Contemporary Music Ensemble, ASU Jazz Ensembles and ASU faculty come together for a concert of music by visiting composer, Wayne Horvitz.

Friday, September 28: 7:30 pm
Saturday, September 29: 7:30 pm
PREMIERE of 55: Music & Dance in Concrete at ASU Art Museum
Audio and Video portions of the installation will remain at ASU until October 31
Evening performances of the multimedia collaboration with music by Wayne Horvitz, video by Yohei Saito, and choreography/dance by Yukio Suzuki / Kingyo installed in the Nymphaeum at ASU Art Museum


MORE ABOUT THE WORK


Based on a construct derived from a combination of numbers, Horvitz created a series of works to be recorded in the bunkers and cistern of Fort Worden, with engineer/producer Tucker Martine.  55 short composed pieces and 55 short improvisations (featuring musicians Eyvind Kang, Beth Fleenor, Briggan Krauss, Maria Mannisto, Victoria Parker, Heather Bentley, Rowena Hammill, Kate Olson, Naomi Siegel, and Steve O’Brian) were captured in the phenomenally diverse acoustics of the fort, including the Harpole Cistern’s 45-second reverb, resulting in 110 acoustic fragments to be utilized for the multi-media work.

These fragments were then edited, sampled, processed and manipulated to make a single electronic score and multidimensional piece that can be modularly remounted in site specific locations.

Even as the piece transforms from space to space, augmented by varying treatments, it is grounded by the single piece of electronic music Horvitz created with Martine in the darkened crevices and underground chambers of the 115 year old fort, that once guarded nautical entrance to Puget Sound.

As a Centrum artist-in-residence on a number of occasions, Horvitz has long been fascinated with the unique spaces that make up the military fortification system of the circa-1900 army base, including the acoustic qualities of the Harpole Cistern. Nearly two-hundred feet in diameter and fourteen feet deep, the cistern was originally built as a water supply system. Now empty, the cistern features one of the longest known natural reverberation times of any interior space. Although the Cistern is internationally renowned for its acoustics, the batteries and horseshoe bunkers at Fort Worden offer equally beautiful and complex sound interaction. From the bright short slap-backs of the small spaces, to the languid pool of interplay in the winding hallways, each concrete room has its own acoustic quality, unique to its construction.

“I have been walking the bunkers and tunnels of Fort Worden since moving to Seattle from New York in 1988,” said Horvitz, “but it wasn’t until I found myself performing behind a brewery in the pouring rain with Yukio Suzuki (at Portland’s TBA Festival in 2010) that I finally had a vision of exactly what I wanted to do.  I connected with Yukio immediately. I found his movement stunning, disturbing but also easy to watch and joyful in its own way.

A year later I was asked to work again at the TBA festival, and although Yukio was present, I collaborated with another like-minded choreographer, Yoko Higashino. Involved in her work was the video artist Yohei Saito. In preparing for the piece I was sent an early draft of his part of the project. On a flight from NYC to Portland I watched the video over and over, and began to create a score on my laptop. 

After we finished at the festival, I took Yukio to Pt. Townsend to see the bunkers at Ft. Worden. The idea of having music and Yohei's video in these strange darkened spaces appealed to both of us, and we finally had a complete vision of what we wanted to accomplish.”

55: Music and Dance in Concrete is the manifestation of that vision.




MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS

WAYNE HORVITZ is a composer, pianist, and electronic musician. He has performed extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America. He has performed and collaborated with Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, John Zorn, Robin Holcomb, Fred Frith, Julian Priester, Philip Wilson, Michael Shrieve, Bobby Previte, Marty Ehrlich, Skerik, William Parker, Ron Miles, Sara Schoenbeck, Peggy Lee, Steven Bernstein, Briggan Krauss, and Dylan van der Schyff among others. He has been commissioned by the NEA, Meet The Composer, Kronos String Quartet, Seattle Chamber Players, Mary Flagler, PGAFF, BAM and others. Collaborations with choreographers include work with Paul Taylor/White Oak Dance Project and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. He is the year 2001 recipient of the Seattle Artist Trust Fellowship and the year 2003 recipient of the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture fellowship He is the 2002 recipient of the Rockefeller Map Grant for his chamber orchestra composition, JOE HILL, 16 Actions for Chamber Orchestra, Voices and Improviser, which premiered October 2004. In 2008 he received the NEA American Masterpieces grant for "These Hills of Glory," for string quartet and improviser.


YUKIO SUZUKI is a performer, producer and choreographer. He began training in butoh in the Asbestos House in 1997 and has performed in works by artists such as Ko Murobushi, Tuyoshi Shirai, Goro Namerikawa (the starting member of Sankaijuku), and performance group SAL-VANILLA. He founded Kingyo (the Japanese word for goldfish) in 2000. Widely reviewed in contemporary Japan, Suzuki's dance pieces disregard established ways of bodily expression, allowing for the maximization of the dancers' characters. He has received numerous honors, including the Lab Award from ST spot (Yokohama), and selection in the final performance of Next produced by the Saison Foundation in 2004. In 2005 he received the Audience Award at the Toyota Choreography Awards, and was nominated for the Kyoto Art Center Performing-arts Prize in 2007. In 2008, his work, "Confronting Silence," won the Grand prix at the Toyota Choreography Awards; in 2009 he participated in the Yokohama Triennale, Dance Triennale Tokyo 2009 and Hong Kong Art Festival. In 2010, he collaborated with Wayne Horvitz for a site-specific performance of the Offsite Dance Project in TBA Festival in Portland. Suzuki. He leads workshops based on the butoh method, including a series of workshops as the resident artist of Session House (Tokyo) in 2005.



YOHEI SAITO is a video jockey and filmmaker, as well as the visual designer for internationally acclaimed performance company Baby-Q. With a radical and avant-garde approach, including use of multiple projectors, live cameras and numerous monitors, he constructs spaces and visual performances that have been seen on four continents. Often blurring the line between music and visual art during live performance pieces, Saito has created a vivid, engaging, and often surreal aesthetic. In 2007 his piece Error Code, a video dance project, was nominated for the Dancing for the Camera: International Festival of Film and Video Dance.

Saito has directed music videos for numerous musicians, including prolific Japanese musician Katsuhiko Maeda (performing as World's End Girlfriend), Atsuhiro Ito, Cysts Rhyme, Damage, Supahaze, and Pig & Machine.  When not working on videos, installations or Baby-Q productions, Saito can often be found doing live video jockey sets throughout Japan.



TUCKER MARTINE is a Grammy nominated recording engineer also known for his work as a record producer and musician. He was named one of the top 10 record producers of the decade in 2009 by Paste Magazine. As a producer and/or engineer/mixer, Martine has worked with folks such as My Morning Jacket, R.E.M., Bill Frisell, The Decemberists, Mudhoney, Laura Veirs, Sufjan Stevens, Quasi, Spoon, The Long Winters, Jim White, Tift Merritt, Death Cab For Cutie, Wayne Horvitz, Jesse Sykes, Mirah, Brian Blade, Sam Rivers and Julian Priester. He has released 2 records under the name Mount Analog which finds Martine collaborating in a more experimental context with many of his cohorts from his other productions. His 2004 electronic music collaboration with Wayne Horvitz, Mylab, was picked as one of the years 10 best jazz CDs by both Amazon.com and The New Yorker.





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