2019 Live Composition Festival
May 29th and 30th, 2019
What is Live Composition?
Live Composition is creating an entire work in real time using a sign language, signing system, cue cards, light cues, etc. Many groups in the Festival use a gestural composing language called Soundpainting. The Soundpainting language was created by Walter Thompson in Woodstock, New York in 1974. The technique was initially only used for music, and later develop by Thompson to include actors, dancers and visual artists. Now, joined by more and more new ensembles, Soundpainting is on the verge of hitting NYC as a powerfully vibrant tool for spontaneous composition.
Live Composition is creating an entire work in real time using a sign language, signing system, cue cards, light cues, etc. Many groups in the Festival use a gestural composing language called Soundpainting. The Soundpainting language was created by Walter Thompson in Woodstock, New York in 1974. The technique was initially only used for music, and later develop by Thompson to include actors, dancers and visual artists. Now, joined by more and more new ensembles, Soundpainting is on the verge of hitting NYC as a powerfully vibrant tool for spontaneous composition.
DOORS OPEN AT 7PM - SHOW STARTS AT 7:30 PM
BOTH NIGHTS!
OPEN JAM afterwards
Live Projections by Jonathan Checler
Live Drawings by Samuel Ferri
Emced by Jeff Kissam
OPEN JAM afterwards
Live Projections by Jonathan Checler
Live Drawings by Samuel Ferri
Emced by Jeff Kissam
For more detailed information on the performances, keep scrolling!
WEDNESDAY, May 29th
Human Time Machine
Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Letter of Marque Theater Co.
Walter Thompson Orchestra
THURSDAY, May 30th
Billy Martin and Friends (of Medeski Martin & Wood)
Letter of Marque Theater Co.
Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Walter Thompson Orchestra
Limited FREE and $5 tickets while they last
$10 presale
$15 Festival Pass
$20 walkup
$10 presale
$15 Festival Pass
$20 walkup
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Walter Thompson Orchestra
The Walter Thompson Orchestra (WTO) founded in 1984, is on the vanguard of live performance exploring the interdisciplinary potential of composition through Soundpainting. At a time when most art forms are still bound by strict definitions, the WTO brings a fresh approach to the conventions of music, drama, dance, and visual arts. Thompson's Soundpainting demands that artists step away from what is familiar and predictable and commit to each expressive act without knowing where it will lead. The comparison to the experience of flipping through a television with 500 channels is not far fetched. In fact, flipping through 500 channels at random and then creating meaningful patterns from the musical, textural, and visual associations might be one way to approximate experiencing the WTO or describing the process of composition through which the Soundpainter goes. Of Thompson, Chris Kelsey of Jazz NOW wrote, "His work is spontaneous composition in its most highly realized form." The Walter Thompson Orchestra has performed in club and concert venues in the US and Europe, including The Irondale Center, HERE Arts Center, Lincoln Center, the Knitting Factory, Eastman School of Music, Bard College, The Bowery Poetry Club, Galapagos, Roulette, La Ma Ma, The Kitchen, The Stone, Brooklyn Museum, BimHuis (Amsterdam), Jacobs Pillow, and on National Public Radio's Fresh Air. |
Photos: Guillaume Le Baube
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Billy Martin and Friends
Billy was born in NYC in 1963 to a Radio City Rockette and a concert violinist. At age 17, he devoted himself to music and dove into Manhattan’s thriving, eclectic musical landscape. In the years to follow, he honed his craft everywhere from Broadway orchestra pits to Brazilian nightclubs and burgeoning underground performance spaces. From the roots of the downtown scene he emerged with Medeski Martin and Wood, bridging the harmonic complexity of jazz, the conversational fluency of free improvisation, and the groove and swagger of classic R&B and funk. A series of albums and high-profile collaborations with John Scofield, John Zorn, iggy Pop, Natalie Merchant, and others, brought the band international acclaim. Martin has relentlessly pursued diverse musical contexts, from free improvisation to chamber compositions to film scores. Much of his work is available via his Amulet Records label, which recently released the Road to Jajouka—a series of collaborations (produced by Martin) between the Master Musicians of Jajouka and such artists as Ornette Coleman, Flea, Marc Ribot, John Zorn, Lee Ranaldo, Bill Laswell, Mickey Hart, MMW and more. Martin is also an accomplished filmmaker and visual artist, whose work has been exhibited in solo and group installations around the world including 2014’s Cartegena de indias Bienal in Colombia and the Drawing Sound series at The Drawing Center in NYC (2015). Billy is currently president and CEO of the legendary Creative Music Studio. He also owns and manages his own record label Amulet Records. For more, go here: http://www.billymartin.net/ |
Letter of Marque Theater Company
Since 2013, Letter of Marque Theater Co., a proudly Brooklyn-based non-profit ensemble, has been offering plays, tours, festivals, ensemble training, and improv classes. Our mission is to spread ensemble culture through inclusive, responsive, and accessible theater. We envision a future in which success is pursued collectively, and ensemble ideology is a vital part of healthy communities.
The LoM ensemble includes actors, musicians, dancers, designers, visual artists, directors, playwrights, and dramaturgs. LoM is helmed by co-artistic directors Nolan Kennedy and Scarlet Maressa Rivera.
Since 2013, Letter of Marque Theater Co., a proudly Brooklyn-based non-profit ensemble, has been offering plays, tours, festivals, ensemble training, and improv classes. Our mission is to spread ensemble culture through inclusive, responsive, and accessible theater. We envision a future in which success is pursued collectively, and ensemble ideology is a vital part of healthy communities.
The LoM ensemble includes actors, musicians, dancers, designers, visual artists, directors, playwrights, and dramaturgs. LoM is helmed by co-artistic directors Nolan Kennedy and Scarlet Maressa Rivera.
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Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble
Established in 1997, the Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble is a permanent collective of jazz musicians, modern dancers, and actors. Performers collaborate through an ensemble-based process to create politically-charged, original works. Soundpainter: Leese Walker Discipline: Music, Theater, Improv How Strike Anywhere does it:
-Performers collaborate through an ensemble-based process to create politically-charged, original works. -Strike Anywhere performances always feature live music, physical theater and modern dance. -The company applies structures and concepts from American jazz to their inter-disciplinary improvisations to create performances that are provocative and alive. For more info on Strike Anywhere, click here. |
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The Human Time Machine
A group of improvising drummers and percussionists that use hand signals to shape rhythm in real time. The resulting music is an earth-shaking party of organically shifting patterns. Come listen, dance and be witness to the collision of chironomic, linguistic and sonic perspectives. MUSICIANS Brian Shankar Adler (Director), Ned Haweeli Drums (Soprano), Elizabeth Pupo-Walker (Tenor), Jake Landau (Alto), and Anna Wray (Bass). |
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VISUAL ARTISTS
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Jonathan Checler, Live Projection Artist Jonathan Checler is a French-American artist, born in Paris and now living and working in Brooklyn, New York. In Paris, Checler studied stage design and stage direction which heavily influences his visual art practice today. In 2005 Checler moved to New York City. His work explores various mediums such as painting, sculpture, analogue and digital photography, and live performance. "_E_N_M" An interactive projection art piece Multimedia, 6x8 screen, projector, LCD monitor, webcam, depth sensor camera, HD monitor The audience is invited to have their portrait taken and have the photograph split into 3 images. The first one is a cropped image of the eyes (_E), a second of the nose (_N), and a third of the mouth (_M). Those images are then stored in individual network folders. Jonathan will use computer coding and video mapping software to project those images randomly on a screen. The audience will be able to shuffle through the bank of images by touch a designated area. No button will be required as the depth camera will be set up for interactivity purposes. The camera will sense the player's hand gesture. By doing so they will compose new 'faces' made of the entire audiences' split portraits, infinite possibilities. To learn more about Jonathan, click here. "Soft Walls" **THURSDAY ONLY** 10:30pm SOFT WALLS is a artistic duo composed of Ryan Mulkey and Jonathan Checler (2019)////////. /// Ryan Mulkey AUDIO-visual artist /// /////// //////////////////////////////// Jonathan Checler audio-VISUAL artist ///// ////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////// They will perform a live audio/video SET //////// /////////////////// ///////////////////// ///////////// (Video material might contain explicit xx GRAPHIC ) ////////////////////////////////// ///////////// ///////////////////////// ///////////// Since 2005 Jonathan Checler and Ryan Mulkey have exhibited in various spaces around New York City. In 2007 and 2010, Checler and Mulkey were co-creators of the art collective The Band and The Violent Fluffers. www.ryanmullkey.com www.jonathanchecler.com |
Samuel Ferri, Comics and Ink Droppings
"Live Festival Drawings"
"Live Festival Drawings"
Sam lives in Brooklyn and draws stuff, and sometimes people laugh, and sometimes they throw things, and some multitaskers exemplifying the modern age will do both at the same time. Intrepid clickers among you will encounter a variety of material on this site (which he's made a New Year's resolution to update on a regular basis) including longer journalistic comics like those he's created for The NY Observer and Biography or short comics like the Photo Finish comic strip that ran from 2009-12 in Time Out New York or the Misconnected series which began as a weekly single-panel strip in the NYPress (2008) and in 2015 became a regular feature of MAD Magazine. Since 2013, Sam has been the official artist in residence for the Irondale Center, creating numerous posters, fliers and promotional artwork for their productions.
For more about Sam, visit misconnected.com
For more about Sam, visit misconnected.com
LOCATION: GEMINI & SCORPIO LOFT
255 Douglass St. Brooklyn, Gowanus. NY 11217
R Train to Union / Train to Atlantic Barclays
255 Douglass St. Brooklyn, Gowanus. NY 11217
R Train to Union / Train to Atlantic Barclays
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