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.