Reponses: The Tiger Situation & Neuhaus Reading
March 5, 2007
On Friday night I went to see/hear the Tiger Situation at the Dance Theatre Workshop, witnessing Peter and his wife's collaboration first hand. Peter took great pains to pace himself and wait for the right moments to contribute sound, allowing the silences to frame the activity on stage, especially in the early going. In some ways it is unfortunate that the vents were running, therefore there never was true silence, but on the other hand, it may be a relief because some of the pauses were so pregnant it nearly drove some of my neighboring audience members insane with discomfort. On the floor, the proceedings of momentum and resistance took their own time to unfold, focusing at first on individuals or duos, one at a time, while other dancers stood in view off to the side. A major part of the form seemed to be frequent recurrences of a staged falling and getting back up, at times quite frantically. When all the dancers performed this in perfect synchronicity, I couldn't help being reminded of the look of waveforms themselves, ones quite jagged in their periodicity, and Peter's compelling noise generation that multiplied over a long span reflects this alternate vision. Peter seemed to have a real sense for creating a "golden section" which, in traditional classical music, occurs at .618 of the way through a piece and signals its climax. The contrast of an almost entire silence in the first half to this point in the piece cannot be overstated... a crackling and fuzz that swelled into an apocalyptic explosion of enduring proportions, to the extent that I was genuinely in some palpable state of fear, in suspension of my own disbelief. When it finally was over, I knew I had gotten my money's worth; nothing I've experienced recently has brought me so far into its space. How'd you do it, Pete?
In a previous blog where I spoke of Max Neuhaus' Times Square, I neglected to mention my reaction to the reading about him. Actually, it does well to introduce in general the concepts of audience participatory musical dialogue and sound as a function of the use of public space. I like the idea of egalitarian music, whereby no one needs prior knowledge to experience it, just a willingness to listen and perhaps to contribute something auditory to it. The Public Supply and Drive in Music installations in particular sound very interesting, so I would hope for them one day to be resurrected. Deep listening - as articulated by Oliveros - is again referred to in this essay, and the corollary to a general openness to the experience one must have is a willingness to commit enough time in the space to experience its subtle changes. The "temporalizing of space" has its analogies in science (the time-space continuum) and in architecture (Matta-Clark's work from the article). One of my favorite contemporary composers was trained as an architect - Iannis Xenakis - and his music is organized in such a way as to carve thick sonic structures through time and space.... highly recommended whether listening in concert or with headphones as you walk through your favoritely-designed building. One further rumination... wouldn't cities be very interesting indeed if city planners and the mayor hired these installation "experts" to work with architects and create edifices, public works and parks that were at once practical and beautiful and incorporated dialogue with its users in ways that engage all five senses - including sound?