Pangaea Recording On Sale
I had such an amazing and exhausting show for the Pangaea premiere. Thank you to everyone who made it out and to all those that supported the KickStater and to the great cast of musicians, singers, designers and staff that made it possible. Thank You!
You can now purchase the studio recording of this 19-track opera at earSnake.com. The recording is available digitally in high quality MP3/FLAC/ACC, as a digipak CD or a deluxe edition which contains the CD and a 60 page of the lyrics, linear notes, story and drawings (see photos below).
Lots coming up in December, including pictures and video from the premiere.
Gemini Wolf - Infinite Sand Dunes
The day is almost upon us. In January Megan and I went to the dunes to write a record a new spooky album, Infinite Sand Dunes. Many of these instrumental and vocal cuts made it to the final album (albeit with lots of layers of post production and magic). We’re super excited to release this album on clear vinyl record and high quality digital formats. It’s four songs on the A-side and four instrumentals on the B-side.
We’ll be playing the official Philadelphia release party on Thursday May 26 at Johnny Brenda’s. The new Gemini Wolf trio (with Jimmy Coleman on drums) is sounding tight. Please come out, here the new songs and buy the record!
Not Fragile
I just got back from an awesome week in Marlboro College in Vermont with Perpetual Mvmt<>Snd (Emily Sweeney, bilwa and Zornitsa Stoyanova). We were featured artists at an Embodied Learning Symposium. We spent several days working with a group of students and creating a multi-media performance of music, dance, props and projections. It was a super fun time and I think the people at the school really enjoyed the performance we did.
Coming up this week you can catch some new Mikronesia music playing at NEXUS Gallery for Kathryn TeBordo’s show Not Fragile.
6pm-9pm | Thursday | April 14 | Second Thursdays Opening Reception at NEXUS/foundation for today’s art
1400 N. American St. Philadelphia, PA
Choreographed by Kathryn TeBordo, Laura Neuman and the performers
Performed by Sarah Gladwin Camp and Greg Holt
Original score by Mikronesia
“Now the relation of human nature to the human mind is this.” – Gertrude Stein
Two bodies, entwined on the floor, move through imagery of wrestling grapples to invoke the battles and reconciliations that happen within each of us as we navigate through life. Playing underneath the surface of antagonistic imagery is a gentle, rhythmic, continuous push and pull between the two dancers. Calm comforting like a heart beat or like breathing, their actions bubble and burst into tiny moments of dancing and laughing.
NOT FRAGILE is a three hour performance sculpture where dancers explode on a scale of centimeters, testing and illustrating the elasticity of the relationship between human beings and their bodies.
Paloma and Raúl in San Serriffe
In 2010 I scored a short film by J. Makary as part of the Philagraphika Festival. This film was shot and installed the historic Powel House in Philadelphia, PA. The short 8:00 film is now up online to view - http://vimeo.com/20786798
It’s a surrealistic narrative with dance, dialog and my original score performed by New York based modern chamber trio, janus.
I’m very happy with this collaboration with J.
Married but unhappy, Paloma and Raúl live in San Serriffe, a fictional island-nation featured in a travel supplement in The Guardian newspaper in 1977. Through the use of sound and image, the film re-imagines its site — the 18th-century Powel House in Philadelphia — as an uneasy domestic space in a fluctuating time of civil unrest.
The Trinity Project
I’m very excited to be performing and composing music for Nora Gibson Performance group again.
Currently I’m writing a series of modern chamber / electronic music pieces for the choreography of Nora Gibson for her new piece, The Trinity Project. It’s going to be premiered for one night only at the CEC in West Philly with a Q&A reception with Nora and Olive Prince (who’s work is also on the bill) afterwards. In addition, I’m going to perform a solo Mikronesia set of electronic music and the composer working with Olive, Christopher Farrell will perform, as well. This is all happening Saturday February 26 ar 8:00. It’s an invite only show, so if you’d like to attend, please send an email to trinityprojectphase1@gmail.com
February 26, 2011: The Trinity Project - Phase I, Concert and Reception by invitation only. New work for three dancers, original music score by mikronesia. Email trinityprojectphase1@gmail.com for invitations to this special event to include live electronic music and $15 post-show reception. CEC Meeting House Theater, 3500 Lancaster Ave., Philadelphia, PA
Also Nora and her group will be participating in “open rehearsals” at the Gallery at 9th and Market in center city Philadelphia. So you (and thousands of commuters on their way home from work) can see Nora’s dance and hear Mikronesia’s music as they rehearse for the CEC show on 2/26.
February 7th and 14th, 4:30-7:00 - Dance in Public Places, Open rehearsals held at the Gallery Mall (9th and Market). Free and open to the public. Sponsored by Dance USA/Philadelphia. See Nora Gibson Performance Project in rehearsal for Phase I of The Trinity Project, to be performed 2/26/11. DanceInPublicPlaces.org has more details.
reflecTeD
Nora Gibson choreographed a new dance piece and I created the score! The performance of this new work will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Mandell Theater at Drexel University. It’s a wonderful show of student dancers and a wide mix of styles and sounds.
Tickets and more information here
WiNter DANce coNcert
reflecTeD
The Drexel Dance Ensemble’s winter concert will showcase choreography exploring how dance reflects our personal and collective experiences.
New work presented by 2010 Ellen Forman Award-winning choreographer Nora Gibson, the Drexel dance faculty and adjudicated student choreography will create an evening of intimacy and reflection.
Jan.27–29 8:00pm
SWS at Salzburg Festival This Weekend
Some Mikronesia music from Sick with Silence and an older album Host will be used for a dance piece by Erin Foreman-Murray at the Sead Dance Concert in Salzburg, Austria. So friends in Salzburg can check it out and I should have a video in a few weeks.
New Faces New Dances 2011
SEAD in cooperation with Szene Salzburg Festival present New Faces New Dances 2011, one of the highlights of the dance year in Salzburg!
Each year, New Faces New Dances is one of the driving forces of the international dance scene and a platform for both emerging and established dance talent. This year on the 24th and 26th of January 2011 in republic, Salzburg, five full-length works supported and created within SEAD will be showcased as part of the festival.
On the first evening, four new contemporary dance works will be presented. Members of the SEAD postgraduate international choreographic exchange programme Erin Foreman-Murray (USA) and Sonya Levin (RU), along with SEAD graduates Tomaz Simatovic (SI) and Costas Kekis (GR) will show their latest works, performed by students of the SEAD academy.
On the second evening, the postgraduate company of SEAD, BODHI PROJECT, will premiere their latest work Undergrowth, choreographed by international guest choreographer Maya Lipsker.
When: Monday 24th & Wednesday 26th January 2011
Time: 8:00pm
Price for one evening: €11,-. / Concession €9,-.
Combined ticket for both evenings: €18,-. / Concession €15,-.
Tickets available directly through Republic Salzburg, www.republic.at
Monday, January 24 at 8:00pm - January 26 at 8:00pm
Republic
Anton Neumayr Platz 2
Salzburg, Austria
Sick with Silence
Sick with Silence, a brand new Mikronesia album was released today (1/11/11). I’m very pleased with this album. It’s been about three years in the making. I started this album in early 2008, as a follow up to vxvii. The album is a mash-up of all my favorite types of music. It has elements of dub, glitch, hip-hop, gamelan and ambient electronic.
In the closing days of 2010, the album took on a much more dub-centric feel when Philly / now int’l dub master, bilwa was staying with us. He helped me mixed two or three tracks with outboard fx, King Tubby style. After that session I was able to finish mixing the album and release it pretty quickly.
Other collaborators on the record include, Erb Blazer (AKA Leon from Iron) who contributes vocals to most dubby of the track “Smuggler”. Also someone with which I’ve wanted to work for a long time, John Morrison, deals a very nibble vocal on the dark, yet upbeat “What What”. Ghost Darling (AKA Pandar from Gemini Wolf) also added some backing vocals to that track.
The cover art is an image I’ve admired for a long time from Derek Moench. It’s a classic surrealistic photo collage that I think works well with the music.
The whole album was mastered by James Dellatacoma at Orange Music Sound Studios outside of New York City at Bill Laswell’s studio.
You can get the album as a free download (for now) at mikronesia.bandcamp.com. After the 200th free download, I’m switching off the free download option and you’ll have to buy it if you want it!
Trinity Sun
You can now download, read and listen to Pangaea Trinity Sun. In addition to setting the stage for the Pangaea opera, it gives a context for entire saga of my opera Pangaea (2011).
This piece, Trinity Sun, is the creation story of the land of Pangaea. It tells the story of a perfect race of men who lived in the oceans of Pangaea. The mother god, Aeou created them to be timeless and present. Her children gods, Soren, the god of thought, Kot the god of time and Muta, the god of matter, began dabbling in the stone menâs affairs ultimately courupting them and driving them out of the sea. Over the years, these stone men because the ancient race of man that lived on the super continent Pangaea before it split. The story and sounds are by Mikronesia and the text and narration are by Christian Rabin. This is a free release by earSnake. It can be downloaded and streamed over at archive.org, where it is hosted or here at earSnake..
Download the ZIP file of Pangaea Trinity Sun with words, image and music.
