Rite of Passage at Federal Hall

I had started this blog post and completely forgot about it. The farthest I got was inserting an image then saving the draft. Anyway. A couple of weeks ago I saw performance artist Erin Helfert's Rite of Passage at Federal Hall with sound design by composer Nina C. Young. Helfert stood in the center of the circular hall, where she would turn towards different directions of the space, and repeatedly recited a monologue about her rape and her 5-year struggle to seek justice for it. (You can read about her experience in more detail here.) 

Rite of Passage was powerful while it remained relatively simple. There were no other visuals aside from the artist herself, speakers, the space we were in, and other spectators. Helfert’s monologue, spoken into a microphone with live processing and electronics manipulated and created by Young, referred to “this body” and what it endured, the body that we were seeing right in front of us. To me, she was like a medium, channeling the past and speaking of it with both emotion and distance. The format of the piece itself, taking place in a government building, an amplified voice talking to strangers, took us back in time to the days of the trial. In her Chime for Change piece, Helfert writes: “Countless times, I’ve had to repeat the details of my rape before a room full of strangers, often into a microphone, the speakers blaring to a crowded courtroom audience.” 

It was a gray day when this took place and I was almost too lazy to leave the apartment but I’m so glad I did. I was moved by how Helfert, with Young, both created something beautiful and demonstrated great strength after such an ugly and horrific experience.

Breaking Habits & a Handheld Projector

On Saturday, April 2, I’ll perform an excerpt of Potential Energies, a ballet for musicians and dancers, with the original choreographer of the piece, Barbie Diewald, and premiere a new 6-minute piece called Test Site 1: (In)Habit, an experiment in process that I created with choreographer Coco Karol. All the music for the program is composed by Trevor Gureckis. In PE I’ll be playing the piano in the usual way (for the most part) and perform with Barbie, while in Test Site 1 I’ll be completely dancer-less but I will have a handheld projector and approach the piano in weird/wrong/unconventional ways. Over the past two years, I’ve been interested in exploring how musicians can use their entire bodies in performance, both the possibilities and the limitations , partly because I’m obsessed with dance, and also because I’m inspired by the amazing group I work with at NCP who are not only skilled instrumentalists but amazing performers in general.

I’m not gonna lie, this is a tricky thing to investigate because there’s always the danger of the cheese factor and things just not coming across effectively, of the work looking contrived or just straight up stupid. It’s not the most poetic or eloquent way to describe my self-consciousness, but it’s what goes through my mind, constantly. In creating Test Site 1, I wanted to immerse myself in a process (=3 hours in the studio every week since the beginning of February), get out of my comfort zone and let go of my judgmental mind, and create a solo work, which I plan to do more of in the coming years.

I won’t say too much about Test Site 1, because I can’t, because it’s an experiment, but it does revolve around the body, nature, urban life, & obligation (in this case, the piano), drawing connections & acknowledging tension between these elements. Tickets for the performance are here. In the meantime, below are behind-the-scenes photos!

This was a fun idea, but we ultimately scrapped it