James McVinnie on organs, electronics and “Collapse” / April 24, 2019 by Liquid Music

On May 4, Liquid Music presents renowned organist James McVinnie with London-based electronics duo Darkstar in the world premiere of Collapse at Northrop (Minnesota debuts for all artists). McVinnie’s boundless approach to music has led him to collaborations with a fascinating variety of distinctive artists across musical genres. From 2008 to 2011 he held the post of Assistant Organist of Westminster Abbey. Read McVinnie’s generous program note for Collapse, which overviews more than his collaboration with Darkstar, but gives insight into his life as an organist and his relationship with electronic music.

I come from a thoroughly traditional background as a classically trained organist — I’ve held positions in church music and played the majority of the core organ repertoire. Music with less traditional roots has however always been a big part of my musical makeup and a fire to my imagination. It was through my record label, Bedroom Community, that my knowledge of electronic music really started to blossom. I came to know, as friends, a network of artists who were creating groundbreaking work — particularly Valgeir Sigurðsson and Ben Frost at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik — and a whole new world slowly revealed itself to my ears and mind. I’ve become fascinated with synthesis in music and how that relates to the pipe organ; the two seemingly opposite sides to a coin are in fact much closer to one another than one might imagine.

Each organ is different; each has its own unique disposition of ‘stops’, ‘registers’ (or ‘instruments’ in all but name) which are voiced to sound their best for the acoustic space they inhabit. The room that houses the organ therefore becomes part of the instrument itself and organists therefore become orchestrators — each piece has to be fitted to each new instrument, often taking into consideration the wishes of the composer and/or conventions about which ‘registers’ or ‘stops’ to use according to national styles or fashions of the day. Organists thus develop a highly attuned ear for adapting music to a particular instrument and acoustic space, a process which is identical to that of a producer, creating and mixing music originating from the studio using synthesised instruments.

The sound of the organ is created by air resonating through pipes. This sound is without modulation or change; the note stays sounding the same until your finger or foot releases the key (often unfairly earning the instrument an unmusical, inflexible reputation!). This super-flatness encourages the player to use various different registers (or ‘stops’ as described above) of the organ in imaginative ways to create variety of sound, just as a composer would chose their instruments in an orchestral work, or like how you would program a synthesiser. These registral colourations, coupled with careful and intricate deployment of compositional textures and figurations, provide limitless possibilities for musical exploration.

McVinnie at Eaux Claires’ Baroque Installment

One of the most appealing aspects of the organ is that its vast symphonic capabilities are accessible to a single person. The organist can change registration (through simple sequencing technology) in an instant. Tom Jenkinson (better known as the electronic musician Squarepusher who has written me a large body of music for organ) writes:

There are aspects of writing for organ which I find comparable to writing music for electronics. There is a very tangible weight to the amount of technology around you in an organ performance, unlike any other acoustic instrument I have any experience of. Sounds may be accessed by the touch of button, such that sonic variety is achieved by mechanical means as much as it is by the performer's skill. In that way I see the organist as immersed in technology much more than performers of other acoustic instruments and, despite its long history, it thus seems an eternally modern instrument. Maybe there is something reminiscent of the dark glamour of a computer genius about the organist, wrapped up in machinery, remote from and indifferent to praise.

The pipe organ is famed in popular culture for its gothic ‘dracula’ appeal, a notoriety which belies its subtlety, great nuance and strangeness. In working with James and Aiden on this project, I have tried very hard to make the organ not sound like an organ — I’ve tried to pair the notes written with unusual, characterful registral combinations to try to blur the edges between electronics and pipes. This performance represents our largest scale collaboration to date.

Liquid Music presents the world premiere of Collapse by James McVinnie and Darkstar Saturday, May 4 at Northrop. BUY TICKETS HERE.

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Six days out: Six questions for Dustin O'Halloran / April 13, 2019 by Liquid Music

In anticipation of Liquid Music’s Double Header: New Music & Dance Duos on April 17 & 18, Liquid Music blog contributor Nick Lanser interviewed composer Dustin O’Halloran to learn more about his collaborative project with dancer/choreographer Fukiko Takase, 1 0 0 1. Here they discuss inspiration, creative process, and the animating concepts of 1 0 0 1, a half-evening of new music and dance exploring territories of technology, humanity, and mind-body dualism in our electronics-forward existence.

Nick Lanser: How did you and Fukiko come to work with each other? What about each other’s art or practice made you want to collaborate?

Dustin O’Halloran: Fukiko and I first met when we worked together for Wayne McGregor's contemporary dance piece ATOMOS. I was so impressed with her instincts and intellect toward dance and felt that we had a connection in this way, and we planted the seed to one day do something together.

NL: When composing for dance, do you have movement in mind? As you create arrangements to support movement, do you have a different approach than you would, for say, a film score?

DO: Film is very much a box in some ways; it has defined borders, and timelines which can be restrictive. Dance is a much more open concept of working for me, and I approach it how I would write for myself, like a blank canvas that needs filling. I think its one of the purest ways music and visuals can connect as its completely organic. I learned from working with Wayne McGregor that music for contemporary dance doesn’t necessarily have to support movement in a traditional sense as much as it needs to create an atmosphere and environment that can evolve and shift and give space. This freedom is fundamental to me and its an area to be very creative and explore new ideas.

NL: Your Liquid Music project is about technology, humanity and mind-body dualism as we “approach the age of AI.” How did you and Fukiko arrive at this concept? Did another piece of artwork or literature inspire it?

DO: We're inspired by the concepts from the Japanese anime classic The Ghost In The Shell and also this new frontier that seems to be coming soon with AI and what it will mean for humanity. There are so many questions about the soul and technology and where it will lead us. We found these concepts inspiring for us as we both wanted to explore taking organic materials and transforming them with technology and how this could be interpreted through dance and to search for new languages in our art forms.

NL: What has been the most significant moment in the creation of this work, thus far, with Fukiko?

DO: It's always incredible how creative connections can inspire you, so for me each time seeing pieces of the choreography gave new light to the music and the directions it could go. It was helping me be more open and deeper into the process and take bolder steps where perhaps I would not alone. Also the conversations we had with our lighting designer, which were very inspiring as we discussed concepts of the soul, new languages and technology.

NL: Your body of work as a film composer is substantial. What has been your favorite film project thus far and what do you have coming up?

DO: Its been a busy few years, the highlight being the film Lion which I co-composed with German composer HAUSCHKA, it's rare when all elements come together like this. We just finished a new film entitled The Art Of Racing In The Rain which will come out this year, and I’m also completing a new record with Adam Wiltzie my partner in the ambient/drone project A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN.

NL: What is the biggest non-musical influence on your work?

DO: Paintings and books are always a significant influence on me. A great book will stay with me like a dream, and these subconscious thoughts still find themselves in the music. Abstract painting for me is always how I experience music, inexpressible colors and feelings that are visceral.

Purchase Tickets for 1 0 0 1, part of Liquid Music’s New Music & Dance Duos double header April 17 & 18, also featuring Mike Lewis and Eva Mohn’s When Isn’t Yet.

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“Your body has it's own mind": Fukiko Takase in conversation with Berit Ahlgren / April 10, 2019 by Liquid Music

Fukiko Takase was born in New York and raised in Japan. She has been dancing since the age of two under her mother Takako Takase and Katsuko Orita's dance training. When she was 14, Fukiko started creating and performing her work for competitions to develop her creativity and physical capabilities. She received the Cultural Affairs Fellowship from the Japanese government, studied at Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy, London Contemporary Dance School. As a dancer, she worked for Henri Oguike Dance Company (2006–2010), Russell Maliphant (2010), and Company Wayne McGregor (2011–2018). Fukiko danced with Thom Yorke in a music video and featured in projects for AnOther Magazine, County of Milan, Channel 4, The Brits, BBC Late Night Proms and Uniqlo. Her choreography includes Autumn Hunch and Cultivate a Quiet Joy.

Berit Ahlgren: It’s an honor to speak to you, Fukiko! Your work is very inspirational for me as a dance artist, and when I was asked by Kate [Nordstrom] to take this opportunity, I said “wow, yes”. So first, thank you, it will be really interesting to hear from your voice about your art and creative process.

Lets start at the beginning! Your parents were both dancers, and knowing this, I am curious what you were exposed to as a young child that no doubt shaped your interest in dance from a young age.

Fukiko Takase: I think about my Mom who danced with both Kei Takei’s company Moving Earth in Japan and New York City-based Laura Dean. Also, Tetsuhiko Maeda, a really talented Japanese costume and set designer, shaped my creative interests. But really, so many choreographers and dancers I saw daily. I was surrounded by lots of adults when I was little, constantly with my mom in this circle with different creative people. In the studio, theater… a lot of time it was like a kindergarten for me, hanging around in auditoriums watching my mom perform. I got in to a bit of naughty acts! I used to blow the ash out of ashtrays and make a mess, jump around the greenroom sofas and do things that kids do, it was just always in a theater setting.

BA: Like being on a playground.

FT: Yeah! I think I sort of naturally had an understanding of the theater space as a small kid. Being in the a black box and the sensing the people in it—or not!— with the effects of the lights within the space. The theater has a sense of, I don’t know, spirituality to it for me, as well as the studio. The studio has something. I was clearly interested in environment just hanging around in these spaces, and feeling how the thought comes up in a creative process. Sort of like a painter, looking at the paper, or similar to a raindrop—you drop it somewhere and it starts from there, whatever you feel with it.

BA: It’s really beautiful to consider the theater or the studio as, like, a sacred space, almost.

FT: Yeah, yeah.

BA: What comes to mind are temples and churches or place where some sort of precious, important ritual of sacredness happens. Regardless of whatever you believe in, a divine source of creation takes place. It’s a really beautiful way to think about that.

FT: Yeah, I mean sometimes I try to do some exercise at home but it’s not the same as in the studio.

BA: No, never, right?

FT: Weirdly. You think the same things working in spaces outside the studio or theater, but you don’t have the same feeling of tension. Maybe not the tension, but your body doesn’t quite get it.

BA: Agreed. The body doesn’t respond in quite the same way. Speaking of studios, your foundational training was in Japan, followed by Codarts Rotterdam Dance Academy and then London Contemporary Dance School—building a strong contemporary ballet base. Are there dance techniques that you wish you had studied or that intrigue you now that could be pursued at this point in your career?

FT: This is maybe slightly different, but quite recently I went to see a battle of Tutting. Dancers have one minute each with their choice of music or DJ, then improvise. Tutting is very specific form of dance using hands and arms to create the shapes and geometric structure in the space. I’m not that great at it, but it’d be nice to do a workshop. It’s totally different. I’m super curious and mesmerized by it, so I maybe start learning from a video, just the basics like figure eights and drawing. Perhaps one day!

BA: Are you still working with Wayne McGregor in London?

FT: I graduated from that last year. Maybe I’ll go back, I don’t know, but for now I want to focus on my work. We’re still in touch, but I’ve got to move on with my curiosities and interests.

BA: Mr. McGregor’s work is well known as being innovative, multi-disciplinary and technically precise. In terms in the way that he works as a creator and choreographer, and how you are making your work, do you find similarities, or are there things that you absorbed from working with him?

FT: Oh definitely, definitely. I learned a lot from working with him, as well as other choreographers over the years. He works with a neuroscientist, so imagery is very important to the process. I still use this lens, and constantly analyze what I’m getting data from in order to know, to understand, my thought process within the choreographic process. You know, I am quite anal with where the step is coming from. What is the source of the step? What does it mean? Why do I do this? Why am I in this space in this particular spot? To make sense of the piece, to understand thought process is quite important. It’s the key to the work.

BA: That sounds very scientific!

FT: Yeah, I know!

BA: …and organized and different. Not everyone choreographs in that way, so that’s really nice to hear! And in terms of collaborating with musicians, especially since 1001 is a shared project between you and Dustin O’Halloran, how has that fit in to your creative process and where might such collaborations lead? Is this something you really love to do, working with musicians?

FT: I first met Dustin through Wayne’s work Atomos. That was maybe 2013, and we clicked as friends but also… we sort of speak the same language! I’m not talking about English or Spanish, it’s an artistic language. We often said “lets do something together” but of course we’re busy people in a busy time, but I’m so blessed by this project with Liquid Music to make the time. I’m really happy to work with Dustin, he inspires me. When we discussed collaborating, we talked about how he approaches the music, how I approach the dance. Our lighting designer Yaron also speaks the same language. So just by talking on Skype or having a meeting, it doesn’t have to be a long phrase, it could be just one word, and it’s already inspiring for us what is exchanged. The notes, how he thinks about the chords, how I say “oh it sounds like this” or “I want a little bit more of this feeling”. We inspire each other by sharing our work.

BA: That’s great. I’m really excited to see and hear what you’ve put together, as well as the work of your lighting designer. It sounds like his involvement is a very important key to the piece! Speaking of 1 0 0 1, in this premiere you explore aspects of technology. It sounds like you and Dustin have known each other for a bit, so was there a specific process that distilled to this concept?

FT: We talked about what should we do, and around that same time the film Ghost in the Shell came out. I’m a bit of a fan of animation, so when I saw the film I was really impressed by it but I was also thinking “what’s next” from that animation. It was a mixture of feelings. You watch it and know it’s technology, but you know, at the same time, it gave me question as to our sense of reality. It’s a mind game. And it got me thinking how we could do that with the music. So that’s the beginning. But you know 1 0 0 1 is not about Ghost in the Shell, obviously. I thought, how can I relate to that feeling of a machine that has consciousness, and that the consciousness evolves? But the real question is “what is human being?” Because, basically if you have a source of consciousness, a human could be in anything. It could be a refrigerator, an icicle… those things could be human if it has consciousness or feeling.

BA: And so you’re saying consciousness and feeling are related, or connected—in order to have consciousness you have feeling, or if you have feeling you have consciousness.

FT: Yes, and that you are in it—your soul, your consciousness— you just have a shell of some form. But maybe also in some other form at the same time, out there showing intelligence, artificial life. It’s a crazy world we live in.

BA: Very, increasingly so.

FT: Right? And that idea evolved into considering the realm. We have a realm that we live in, and also the spiritual realm, and now there is the world wide web realm.

BA: The world wide web is it’s own massive realm.

FT: Exactly! And that’s why it’s such a confusing time. We had two and that was a handful, and now we have three. It’s crazy. There’s a lot of people doing a cyber detox—they stop emailing, Instagram, Facebook, everything. I do it as well sometimes. And when you do it you feel more dead than before. Like you’re dead to the world almost, but of course you’re not dead.

BA: It’s as if you don’t exist if you don’t have a form of yourself that’s on a screen. When you drop those profiles, you can’t exist or coexist or get around the day. It’s pretty fascinating. That these other versions of us are so real, yet so two-dimensional.

FT: I know, right? I mean, there are many things, it really doesn’t stop. It’s so unknown, there’s so much possibility. It’s really exciting but also daunting at the same time!

BA: Elaborate on the questions you ask the audience regarding 1 0 0 1: “How will a new form of consciousness manifest inside a body? What will happen to our soul?” What ideas were on the table for you and Dustin that got distilled down to these core queries? Do you feel these questions have been somewhat answered for you, and offered for the audience to sit with?

FT: I think for me the closest thing to relate to a machine feeling is when I performed some of Wayne’s pieces for 5 years, some pieces for 8 years. Some of those performances I remember feeling like a machine. When you do the same things over and over, you lose this raw feeling from the premiere to the 200th time you’ve done it. You don’t have the same feelings of excitement from the first time it premieres, but you’re still striving for perfection as a dancer.

BA: Always.

FT: Always, right? Your body has it’s own mind. It’s a result of repetition, striving for perfection, and such an intense concentration on your work. Also it’s a performing art, so you’re doing it in the theater—in a sacred space—with an audience of 2,000 people’s eyes on you. In this black box, every performance happens, but it’s not the same. This robotic feeling is muscle memory in dance, and it’s the same with music as well. Dustin plays piano, and his muscle memory is at work, as well as thoughts, feelings…

BA: You can become a bit numb with muscle memory.

FT: Yeah, exactly!

BA: Like you were saying before, performing over and over the same choreography is the most similar thing to being a robot that you can imagine. The more you perform a certain work, go through the motions, know the parts that are going to be more exhausting than others and how to mentally and physically to get through the piece… it becomes numb to the real experience of dancing instead of the joy and freshness that was once there.

FT: Yeah. I think I am still investigating, and it’s not an easy task for me. But something about repetition and maybe the way of repeating something.

BA: And predictability?

FT: Yeah, maybe predictability and also the accumulation of things.

BA: Moving forward, where do you hope to go from here? I know that’s a very general question, but you’re at a transition in your career. While you’ve done so much independent work already, where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years, considering the work that you’re making now collaborating with other artists? Is there some, I don’t want to say a “dream” idea of what life would look like, but something itching where we can find you in the future?

FT: I’ve always worked solo. I get to know myself by finding my language. In a dream, doing this commission with Liquid Music is a perfect opportunity for me to find myself. I want to keep doing this self inquiry. I’ve done it since I was 14 years old, though I haven’t been consistent with it. In contemporary dance, this research could be anything. There are so many combinations of steps, it’s not like traditional ballet, and I want to see how language evolves within me. Of course I’m getting older so I cannot do the stuff I could do 10 years ago, but that’s also a good challenge for me. The more restriction I have the more creative I have to be.

BA: Absolutely.

FT: And I have this opportunity to do Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece. It was first performed in 1964, ages ago. Yoko sat in a gallery with scissors in front of her and audience members cut her cloths, freely. It was up to them, so she, herself, became the artwork. I haven’t done it yet. I’m scared about that, but really excited. This is totally different—I’m not dancing in the gallery, I’m just sitting. To do these new challenges in this time period is an opportunity to grow as an artist. I want to do more of that, maybe more to do with interacting with other forms of art. I don’t know what will happen!

BA: One thing at a time!

FT: Yeah.

BA: Where do you call home now? London still, or…?

FT: I am here in Japan now and want to call Tokyo home again as an artist. London was home for the past 14-15 years. My family is in here, and I want to make Japan home too. That’s another project I have. But perhaps the country doesn’t really matter, I just want to find the place I can feel home after I’ve traveled around so much for a long time. Possibly a life where I can have a dog!

BA: That’s great, and a very important project that requires an artistic mind as well!

Berit Ahlgren makes dances and performs in other peoples’ work, searching for ways to best implement how these two activities weave most beautifully with the world around her. Her work as both performer and independent movement researcher has taken her from Klamath Falls, OR, to Rishikesh, India, with many well-established and tiny towns between. In addition to teaching gaga/people and gaga/dancer classes regularly in New York City and the Twin Cities, she’s been a guest instructor at the New York University, Wesleyan University, University of California Berkeley, Carlton College, St. Olaf College and The Royal Ballet School of Sweden to share her knowledge in the Gaga Movement Language. While a company member of TU Dance from 2006-2014, she made significant creative contributions to the projects of resident choreographer Uri Sands, and retains close ties to the company and its dance school, based in St. Paul, MN. Ahlgren completed her M.F.A. in Dance from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts in May 2016, and continues to invest herself in dance that resonates for both the artistic team and curious audiences with equal importance. Ahlgren’s global citizenship leads her in fresh directions regularly, and offers myriad opportunities to be humbled while learning from the surroundings she lands in.

Purchase Tickets for 1 0 0 1, part of Liquid Music’s New Music & Dance Duos double header April 17 & 18, also featuring Mike Lewis and Eva Mohn’s When Isn’t Yet.

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Receiving Music with Mike Lewis / April 9, 2019 by Liquid Music

by LM blog contributor Trever Hagen

Perhaps it is a bit tongue-in-cheek to call Mike Lewis a local musician. The saxophonist regularly (and literally) plays to hundreds of thousands of ears every year across the globe. But calling Mike Lewis “local” accomplishes three things: first, it gives us who live in the Cities some kind of pride, I suppose, that we can call him one of our own; second, it tethers ‘local’ to something socially organic, a luxury in the distributed digital culture of modern relations; third, Mike does in fact play remarkably often in the Cities. So how is he not local? For example you’ve surely heard Mike blow as part Happy Apple for the past twenty years. You’ve probably seen him at the Khyber Pass Café in St. Paul on Thursdays with Fat Kid Wednesdays. Or maybe you caught him singing background vocals while playing bass for Alpha Consumer at the Turf Club? Possibly you were lucky enough to catch him at First Ave. when Gayngs played their Last Prom (remember Prince gazing on from the side stage?). Or certainly you saw Mike playing with Bon Iver at Rock the Garden. If you haven’t seen him on any of these stages, then you have absolutely heard his recordings on KFAI or The Current. Mike is never far away, if you are listening.

This is all to say that Mike is a person whose depth of musical communication is matched only by his social grace. Furthermore, he has an innate ability to articulate his reflections on creative expression, which makes him well-poised to offer point after point of wisdom for any performer or curious mind. Why call it wisdom? Well, it seems that Mike has digested quite a bit of the contours of performance, improvisation, theory, narrative, storytelling, abstract communication and affect. He has digested it in a manner that feels natural—as if music was his mother tongue rather than a language learned in a classroom or through memorizing vocab flashcards. It is much less about the display of knowledge as it is about actually trying to engage communication. I recall some years ago asking Mike about his practice schedule when he was younger; I figured that he would confirm my assumption of musical learning by listing a host of jazz pedagogical materials. Rather, Mike stated: “I don’t like practicing alone, I just like to play with others.” Perhaps that statement could be considered an overarching ethos of Mike’s approach to playing music: to connect with other people.

On April 18, Lewis brings this ethos to When Isn’t Yet, a piece for Liquid Music with dancers Eva Mohn and Sarah Baumert, and Maggie Bergeron on lights. When Isn’t Yet is like a Zen koan, a linguistic paradox to expose intuition and reality. Their approach is with clear improvisatory intent, which requires one to shore up all of their perspectives on the unfolding drama of existence. Mike’s most recent work with dancers has been with TU Dance and Bon Iver’s Liquid Music-commissioned collaboration, Come Through. That project began with rehearsals in the spring of 2017 and most recently was performed at the Kennedy Center in spring 2019. However, Come Through is a much different collaboration than what we will witness in April. I caught up with Mike in Cincinnati via phone while he was on tour with Bon Iver to discuss how When Isn’t Yet will be realized.

Trever Hagen: What would be different for you in this scenario of dance and music? How do you approach performing something like this?

Mike Lewis: The primary thing is trying not to get so lost in what I'm doing—like the orchestration of what I am doing—so that I'm unable to pay attention to what's going on with the movement. That is part of the reason that I'm considering pulling JT [Bates] in. Just so I don't have to rely on myself for every single part of what I want to pull off. With what ends up being the composition or the general structure, I want to make sure that I can be engaged on a level beyond just the musical. Because [JT] will be taking on this conductor-type role and performing role I suppose. And yeah, just catching cues and providing them and trying to make sure that the narrative is somewhat clear. So that’s what I want to get [the performance] to be.

Is the narrative or orchestration something improvised or is there actually material you are composing?

We kind of put together an initial idea about it last year and right from the get go, we wanted to make sure that improvisation was a large part of it. Because that was actually the first conversation I ever had with Eva. [Dance can be] such an incredibly structured world and it's rehearsed so heavily—down to the most minute details—that we're kind of trying to play more with an idea of real-time reactions to things. Having areas that we know we want to hit, energies that we want to explore. So having “zones” that we arrive at but then within those zones, we try to have room to have things happen in real-time that are that are different. That's a nebulous answer. [laughs]

*Sarah Baumert and Eva Mohn in residency at Carleton College, September 2018*

We're trying to embrace the title of the piece. It's kind of playing with the idea “what is yet”, or “when ‘when’ isn't yet”, kind of that idea. It’s the mastery of “Why did things happen when they do?”, “Why do you make the decisions that you make when you make them?”, “What makes one decision feel better than another one or translate better?” So much of the answer to these questions has to do with years and years and years of learning to create in abstract contexts. So improvisation is definitely a huge part of it. We're going to be relying on those skills that we've honed over long periods of time, and, you know, and try to really get inside of why those things happen when they do.

In terms of aesthetic decision-making, this approach or awareness you are speaking about seems to tease out all of this tacit knowledge we carry on our bodies.

It's like we're driving from where we have arrived at after all of this time. Like figuring out how to improvise—figuring out how to have it not just be wild scribbling but rather how to be centered in an idea, in an energy. So a lot of how we've talked about it thus far has been maybe not even necessarily like “Okay, when this happens, we'll do this.” Instead we'll talk about how we've been feeling that day; we've talked about film or what spaces and moments feel like.

So attempting to connect almost on an extra-musical level first?

Things are interesting, like simply the world that you exist in on a daily basis, just as a human being. And how that is affecting you. Like the way that people relate to each other, or like the way that people relate to a time in their lives and their equilibrium within that: communication between people even if you don't have anything in common. How do you connect? How do we translate something into something not necessarily extremely descriptive and specific, but how do you create an energy? How do you create the kind of give and take and release that everybody deals with? That's a difficult question.

How do you attempt that or know when that occurs?

There're definitely moments when it happens. Yes for sure, you know when you know. You're weirdly always able to tell when you're in the midst of one [of these moments] and that has to do so much with an openness and an energy that you're offering, how it's received and reciprocated by people that are in the room with you. And once you have successes in those lightning strikes, it's like [that energy] tells you when to do the next thing. You just get immersed in it and then that helps you, like, hold a note out longer or hold the pose. How do you make something come off pretty? How do you create tension in dissonance and then release it into something that makes people feel like they’ve had some travel?

It's like if we pull it off, if we do a good job with this piece, I think there will be moments that are goofy and funny and I think there might be moments that are really lonely and kind of scary and desolate. You decide to make meaning out of it for you. I think that's what we're playing with right now.

There's a lot of intent in that but you're leaving so much up to like just emergence. As if it isn’t completed until the audiences hears it.

Yeah which is why it is hard to put any of “improvisation talk” into exact words. This approach [with Eva] is almost obsessively restorative in terms of what a performance could be for people together. It's like you go back to the title of the piece and realize how true it is. It's like how do you know “yet”? It probably won't known until the day of the performance. You kind of have to just show up. That's the biggest, most important thing. And actually a measure of that.

Do you see dance and music as two different languages? Or could you say they're the same language? Or there's two different languages speaking together on the same topic?

I'd say like two different vocabularies. But not wildly dissimilar conditions. My understanding of modern dance is basically nil. I am approaching that purely from a completely reactionary and up to certain extent, obliterated perspective. But I'm also trying to trust my ability. Instead of just deciding that, I don't know anything and deciding that I don't get it. If you know who you are, where you are, and what you think about, then you're able to be able to receive—like the ethereal part of [performance]. At the end of the day, that's how any artistic output is working. Because you can’t expect anybody to know anything about what’s going on.

Indeed, aesthetic affect should be able to be received no matter of what age, concept, background, school, etc.

I think that about jazz music all the time. It's sometimes a major downfall with jazz music. Especially when it comes to the musicians who are working in such a small camp. It is so misunderstood, for lack of a better term. So often the way jazz music is sold is like what's playing in the background while you eat dinner or it's like a weird, corny aesthetic that people make fun of. And I think a lot of musicians get bitter about that and then just end up saying, like, “Well, you wouldn't get it, because you don’t know Eric Dolphy.” Or “You wouldn't get it because you don't know what was happening in New York in the 50s.”

I think that's really unfortunate. I think it's understandable because we're all human beings, we're all real and we're insecure. And it's like, so easy to kind of lash out in the context of that insecurity. And to get defensive. We're all animals. It's like if you're afraid of something, you lead with anger. But I do believe that if you drop me in the middle of a shopping mall food court in Oklahoma City, you know, with JT and we played free music, I think we could translate something. And I could get some people with an open heart and with the idea of like, truly trying to connect as opposed to some ego-based activity. Something to make myself feel better. I think that you can translate to anybody and I don't think that prerequisite knowledge has to be involved.

I have a tendency to I lean away from the “placard”, you know? I know they're there. But I also know that that's somebody’s summation of what I'm supposed to receive. I don't know if I want to be told. Maybe that's why I'm an artist. I would rather know absolutely nothing and be completely cleared out so that I have every faculty available to me. Like in terms of how I think about the world at large or how I live so that I can be more fully present with a completely open mind as I'm receiving whatever that given moment offers.

How do you see this type of so-called specialized language and its relation to communication?

It's not like ridiculous to want to showcase your work. But it's a very slippery slope. That's why when you're younger you're amassing so much knowledge and technical ability to play fast or to play complicated or jam, you know, like or if you're writing, you know, you have an insane vocabulary and an understanding of all these different theoretical ways to write where you can display the raw intelligence of whatever. And I think sometimes it takes a long time to realize sometimes you get so far down the rabbit hole of that you're not—after all this work that you already did—in the present moment anymore.

It became for me a long time ago so much more about how do I clear as much of my fragile human psyche. The vessel, you know. How to clear as much of that shit out as I possibly can? So that whatever actually is happening is something that I can translate to whatever actually is happening in the room.

How do you see theory entering into our understanding of musical communication?

Some of my favorite [former students] to teach were kids who wanted to learn about theory, you know? And it's like, “Okay, cool. Let's talk about theory.” But understand that theory is math. It's a code. It's a way to code what's happening. It's not the reason why. And it doesn't mean some people don't take theory to such an infinite degree that it becomes just a tool with which they used to arrive back at that original point. Why you're doing anything in the first place.

Theory lessons for me, inevitably, always turned into: let's play the melody of the song. Where did that melody come from? Where's the song from? It had lyrics. Go back and listen. Oh there's this whole other phrasing. It is all about relation. What is the trail of breadcrumbs? In any given piece of art—what is the melody? What is the theme? Then as you create around that, that's why the melody sounds like it does and it becomes so malleable and simple in a way. You can add more color wherever you want to. But it has so much more to do with the relation of the colors next to each other. No color exists purely on its own. You don’t know red until it's next to blue.

Many of these conclusions that Mike speaks about are kind of like musical exemplars: phenomena that happen while making music that can be abstracted in order to understand non-musical situations. How can we approach our fears that arise from lack of knowing? How can we shed perspectives that do not arise from direct experience? How can “the unfamiliar” in fact be a place of learning? How can all that knowledge that we share and confirm with those around us be used to connect to people far away from us who have different ways of receiving information? How do you communicate with other people when speaking languages that complement rather than denote or specify? How can “room for error” be a positive thing? Perhaps these questions are only for the world of ideas and philosophy, but only if you wish for them to remain there. Music, clearly, is a limitless resource. Music, in anybody’s hands, can be a champion of communication, a point of connection, a way to understand humanity and a method to negotiate one’s fragile place in it all. The context of music is people, in other words.

Trever Hagen, PhD is a writer, researcher and trumpeter living in Minneapolis. A former Fulbright Fellow, JSPS Fellow, and Leverhulme Trust Fellow, Hagen’s work targets how the arts function in societies. Hagen's newest book, "Living in the Merry Ghetto: the music and politics of the Czech underground" will be out on Oxford University Press in 2019.

Visit this link to purchase tickets for When Isn’t Yet April 17 & 18, part of Liquid Music’s New Music & Dance Duos, also featuring Dustin O’Halloran and Fukiko Takase: 1 0 0 1.

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