Playground Series Helps Fill

Zeitgeist Gallery Gap

By Susie Davidson

CORRESPONDENT

The Playground Improvised Music Series is helping to fill the bill for limboed performance art fans who await the resettlement of the burned-out Zeitgeist Gallery, at Norfolk St. and Broadway until this past April.

The weekly series, which had become a strategic center for the improv music scene, was in Friday night residence at the gallery for seven years, and featured musicians and dancers from around the world. In fact, the fated fire occurred two hours before a Playground event. While an Inman Square relocation for the Zeitgeist is rumored, most Playground shows have been deflected to the The Boston Dance Company, located on the third floor at 550 Mass. Ave. in Central Square.

“The series,” said Ben Kelley, who has curated the series since this past November, “attempts to gather a spectrum of improvised music into a regular space where musical boundaries are always transgressed and where genres don´t really exist.” He stressed its openness to new as well as established, local as well as international performers. “It is because of this,” he said, “that I always pair traveling musicians with local ones - not necessarily to perform together, though they sometimes do, but to perform separate sets on the same night.”

Tonight, July 5, The “BSC” features Chris Cooper on prepared guitar and electronics, Bhob Rainey on soprano saxophone and Nicole Bindler, Fran Clairmont and Mien Chyi on dance. Like many Playground productions, the scene will likely evade ready description.

“Here is a music that isn't quite music and a dance that isn't quite dance and an experience, wholly clear and present, that somehow defies category,” said Rainey.

So what goes down at the show?

“Silent dance and danceless music,” he answered, “echo across each other's borders, and the ‘isn't’ that each is provides a vertiginous meeting ground where preconceptions plummet and the attention rises.”

Oh.

Rainey’s own musical pedigree is less cryptic. An international leader in the improvised music genre, especially regarding the function of the saxophone, he has appeared at U.S. and European festivals and has led improvisational music workshops. His collaborators have included Axel Doerner, Kevin Drumm, Le Quan Ninh, Jerome Noetinger, Gunter Muller, Andrea Neumann, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Mat Maneri, Eddie Prevost, Gino Robair and John Zorn. He has worked with Greg Kelley in “nmperign” and now, with the BSC. His extensive discography is available at http://homepage.mac.com/bhobr.

Nicole Bindler, with a BA in Dance and Poetry from Hampshire College, has danced with Brenda Divelbliss and Jennifer Hicks. Her modern dance, improv and composition studies have been augmented by an influence in butoh and shintaido.

“Fran Clairmont and I use stillness and subtle movement,” said Bindler, “to achieve a similar heightened

awareness to Bhob's sometimes barely audible sounds. We

perform simple movement with a deep attention and clarity, avoiding extraneous movement, seeking a bare-bones, honest dance.”

Clairmont, with a BA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Hampshire, has shown work at Green Street Studios, and has performed with Brenda Divilbliss and Sarah Sweet Rabidoux/Hoi Polloi. Her passion is the movement form Contact Improvisation.

“(Chris) Cooper has knocked the noise scene on its dirty rear with his scratchy, deep, and often humorous brand of guitar anti-technology,” praised Rainey. Cooper, who has collaborated with “noise king” Ron Lessard, is also a member of the band Barn Owl.

“Only one portion of the show has dance and music together,” said Rainey, who is launching a national tour with this outfit. “The music will be present during the ‘silent’ dance, and the dance will reflect on the ‘danceless’ music. This is partly due to a normal phenomenon of juxtapositions within a relatively short period of time, but also to the effect of the music on the ambient sound environment. Made up largely of sounds as opposed to notes and oftentimes quiet to the edge of audibility, the music tends to raise the awareness of everyday noise to an aesthetic level.”

Howard Stelzer on tapes, and Jason Talbot on turntables, will be performing as well.

“The Playground,” Rainey said, “has always featured a wide variety of experimental arts, focusing largely on improvised music but branching into dance, film, poetry, and performance art as well. Given the casual but attentive atmosphere, it has been an excellent site for performers to test new works or to push their current work to its limits. It has also been the stopover for many a traveling musician and a welcoming space for newcomers to Greater Boston's

experimental arts scene.”

“Each performer,” Rainey concluded, “brings the focus and precision of a martial artist to a poetic display of the body at work: dance.”

Future Playground shows include July 12 with Jarrod Fowler on percussion and “found objects”, Jeff Arnal on percussion, Gordon Beeferman on piano and Katt Hernandez on violin, with dance by Estelle Woodward. July 19 is the Charlie Kohlhase 5 (renowned local jazz musician Kohlhase is a late-night voice on WBUR’s jazz show), Jonathan Vincent on accordion and piano, and dance by Zack Fuller. July 26 showcases Linda Aubrey on prepared harp, Howie Stelzer on electronics, Mike Bullock on bass and Katt Hernandez on violin as well as Carl Ludwig Hubsch, from Germany, on tuba. August 3 will feature Tom Plsek on trombone with Margorie Morgan doing movement.

“It has been a great opportunity,” said Kelley, “to have the Boston Dance compnay space, as it has encouraged musicans to collaborate more with dancers.”

For booking info, please contact zeitgeistplayground@hotmail.com.