Musicians Minus Instrument: Beyond This Point
October 18 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Doors open at 7:00pm
About this program:
What does a musician become without their instrument? Can they use their skills in other ways, and still make music? What are the boundaries of what we can all agree is an “instrument”? What does musical virtuosity become if we don’t have 88 keys, 4 strings and a bow, or a polished brass tube through which to experience it?
Living up to their name, Chicago-based collective ensemble Beyond This Point explores these questions in a concert that both breaks and expands what it means to be a musician and a performer. The musicians’ “instruments” run the gamut from a loose jack cable to an IKEA desk lamp to their own bodies and voices. Each work is suffused with musical virtuosity, but that virtuosity is brought to bear on an object or context that seems to resist being labeled as “musical”. Yet, after passing through the eye of the needle, the performers and audience alike emerge on the other side having glimpsed at a possible future where musical expression is no longer constrained to the world of instruments.
Tickets
$20 for General Admission presale
$25 for General Admission at the door
$10 for Student (proof of ID will be requested at door)
Free for museum members
About the Ensemble:
Beyond This Point is a percussion-based collaborative ensemble that aims to engage diverse audiences through intersections across artistic mediums, presenting programs that synthesize musical performance with theater, movement, media/film, sculpture, social justice, and environmentalism among others.Founded in 2014, Beyond This Point has presented original hybrid works for percussion, vocals, visual art, and theater in Chicago at such venues as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Steppenwolf 1700 Theater, the University of Chicago, A Red Orchid Theatre, Epiphany Center for the Arts, and Constellation. Additionally, Beyond This Point has performed their original productions in Seattle at On The Boards, as part of the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, and as part of Chicago’s Ear Taxi Festival.
Program
(Please note that this program includes flashing lights which may not be suitable to those with photosensitivity.)
Situation No. 7 – Imagination
François Sarhan (b. 1972)
for 2 performers
Hypochondriac
David Bird (b. 1990)
for two performers, interactive electronics, and lights
Longevity of Lightbulbs (and how to make them last longer)
Stefano D’Alessio (b. 1987)
for IKEA desk lamp and live electronics
Home Work
François Sarhan
for solo performer
Situation No. 15 – Freiheit und Macht
François Sarhan
for solo performer and 2 assistants
4c0st1ctr1g3r
Kaj Duncan David (b. 1988)
for MIDI percussion pad, 909 Clap and 808 Kick samples, light/shadow.
b
Simon Løffler (b. 1981)
Trio for guitar effects pedals, fluorescent lights, and loose jack cable