Spell for Opening The Mouth of N
Joshua Fried
About this work:
THERE IS NO WRITTEN SCORE PER SE; SEE BELOW.
Spell for Opening the Mouth of N--a full-length performance created in collaboration with choreographer Douglas Dunn. The 10 members of Douglas Dunn & Dancers interact with 8 headphone-driven performers, with taped musical accompaniment (all instruments by Joshua Fried). Design is by Mimi Gross, texts by Ruth E. Margraff and Joshua Fried, lighting by Carol Mullins.
In HEADPHONE-DRIVEN PERFORMANCE performers try to imitate vocal sounds that are played over headphones. The performers have never heard these sounds before, and yet they are asked to reproduce the input as it happens--with every word, pitch and expression accurate and no lag time whatever. This last requirement makes the task quite impossible and the result resembles a bizarre unknown, mostly indecipherable language--even though the source material is, for the most part, plain spoken English. In some sections, simple movement directives are added, electronic signal tones cueing the performers to listen for instructions. To preserve the necessary element of surprise, each performer can execute a given role only once. Mock-up tapes are used for auditions, training and rehearsal.
Headphone-driven performance focuses attention on the present moment: no one knows what will happen next, and the performers can't afford to look back. The audience shares in the very real sense of tension and danger. Raw emotions become abstracted and aestheticized; vocal behaviors happen that are otherwise unobtainable. Electronics, normally associated with mechanical repetition, become a catalyst for a one-time-only live event, exposing raw human qualities in the performer.
In Spell, performers wear wireless belt-packs allowing complete freedom of movement. The interplay of performers' responses to various instructions (headphone input, choreography) becomes a metaphor for the intersection of cultural "instructions" in contemporary society.
Year composed: 2003
Duration: 01:20:40
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Unknown
Instrumentation: ,6 Medium Voice soloist(s), ,1 Prerecorded Sound (Tape/CD/Other) soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: 10 dancers, 8 singer/actors + tape. Full set, costumes, and wireless system