This photograph was taken by Pam White during the video shoot for In the Woods, a collaboration with choreographer Paula Josa-Jones, videographer Ellen Sebring, dancer Ingrid Schatz, rider Brandi Rivera and Mozart, the Friesian.
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Last night’s Oliveros at 80 concert at the EMPAC performing arts center, part of Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, New York, was simply the most astonishing music performance I have ever experienced. Pauline and her collaborators – Stuart Dempster, Brian Perti, and a host of guest artists, created a transcendent sonic experience.
The concert hall had been altered to sound like a two-million gallon, WWII-era water cistern with a 45-second reverb. Oliveros used a 32-channel loudspeaker system to capture and process the sounds of each of the instruments (electronically enabled accordion, trombone, digeridu, conch, voice and Dungchen, the long Tibetan horn that sounds like singing elephants.)
The result was a sound that was completely immersive, a sound that resonated the bodies of the audience as well as the instruments themselves. In the last piece, drummers from the school’s percussion ensemble were positioned around the balcony that surrounds the audience below. The result was a wild hive of sound that rose and fell in waves and felt, to this listener, like a “soundbodygasm.”
This performance had an almost liturgical quality, a feeling of deep, embodied ritual that took us within ourselves and at the same time connected us to each other through reverberation, heart and an experience of sound as bliss.
Today I am noticing how much more deeply I am listening and I have the feeling that I have been physically re-calibrated by the sounds from last night. As I was listening in the concert hall, I felt like my molecules were being directed to vibrate around my spine, as if I was being collected and spun.
If you have not experienced Pauline’s music live, you can find out more about upcoming events here.
This is an appreciation for Pauline Oliveros, an artist who has inspired me for nearly three decades. In 1985, I discovered Pauline’s music in a vinyl album called The Wanderer (Lovely Music).
Five years later, I found a way to collaborate with her. Pauline is the author of Deep Listening, which is based on her life practice: “Listen to everything all the time and remind yourself when you are not listening.”
I watched this video yesterday. It moved me to tears. Here is what I love: the seamless connection between the musician and the music. It is in her movement – watch closely – the way that she sometimes precedes the notes with the movement impulse. Other times, the music and the movement erupt simultaneously. It is like a current moving though her. I teach a practice called Authentic Movement – the mover, eyes closed, waits to be moved. That is what I see here. She is being moved by the music – as if she is being played. I love the quickness and the whimsy, the volatility and spaciousness. The color and contrast. But mostly I love seeing her dance with the music, be danced by the music.
My own practice has a performance artist, a dancer, has cooked down to this:
Listen. Move. Stillness. Breathe. Wait. Stillness. Feel. Let yourself be moved. Listen. Move. Wait. Feel. Wait to be moved. Move. Stillness. Breathe.
Thank you Pauline.
Pauline Oliveros is celebrating her 80th birthday Thursday night with a concert at EMPAC at Renssalaer Polytechnic in Troy New York. If there is any way for you to be there, do it. It should be a brilliant celebration of an iconic artist. The concert starts at 7:30 and is free, so get there early.
I have known Pauline for 22 years. We first collaborated in 1990 on a dance performance called Skin. For Skin, Pauline performed live with us using her Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed. That was followed by the international project (Mexico and Russia) Ghostdance, for which she created the score. Our last project was Antigone’s Dream. More recently, I have been a part of her AUMI project: an improvisational, adaptive use computer music system for profoundly disabled children that allows them to create sound and participate in music-making with other children.
Pauline is the fiercest artist I know. At 80, she is gathering momentum when many are settling. She was recently awarded the John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. For decades, Pauline’s music has lived deep within the worlds of digital and electronic possibility. She pushes boundaries, challenges assumptions, and is an untiring, uncompromising advocate for the improvisational arts and the under-served. Pauline’s music is not for the faint of heart. She will take you down the slot, into the wild heart of the moment.
See you there!