Real Enemies Featuring Darcy James Argue’S Secret Society
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Streaming Premiere – Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 7pm Real Enemies featuring Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society This film version of Real Enemies was created exclusively for Cal Performances by Darcy James Argue, Isaac Butler, and Peter Nigrini, and produced by Beth Morrison Projects. Darcy James Argue, composer Isaac Butler, director and writer Peter Nigrini, media designer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society Darcy James Argue, conductor Dave Pietro, piccolo, flute, alto flute, soprano and alto saxophones Rob Wilkerson, flute, clarinet, soprano and alto saxophones Sam Sadigursky, E-flat clarinet, B-flat clarinet, A clarinet, tenor saxophone John Ellis, B-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone Carl Maraghi, B-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone saxophone Seneca Black, trumpet, flugelhorn Jonathan Powell, trumpet, flugelhorn Matt Holman, trumpet, flugelhorn Adam O’Farrill, trumpet, flugelhorn Ingrid Jensen, trumpet, flugelhorn Nadje Noordhuis, trumpet, flugelhorn Mike Fahie, trombone Ryan Keberle, trombone Jacob Garchik, trombone Jennifer Wharton, bass trombone, tuba Sebastian Noelle, acoustic and electric guitar Adam Birnbaum, acoustic and electric piano, synthesizer Matt Clohesy, contrabass and electric bass, electronic effects Jon Wikan, drum set, cajón Special appearance by James Urbaniak Production Staff Daniel Vatsky, film editor Vernil Rogers, recording engineer Brian Montgomery, recording and mixing engineer Paul Suarez, assistant recording engineer Bradley Buehring, photography consultant Andreas Roalsvig, camera operator Melanie St. Claire, assistant camera operator Sam Campbell, assistant camera operator Ryan Gohsman, assistant stage manager Tim Love, assistant stage manager Chris Clark, gaffer Co-commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Fromm Music Foundation, and Beth Morrison Projects Real Enemies is supported by the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funds come from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Note: following its premiere, Real Enemies will be available on demand through January 19, 2021. 1 PROGRAM NOTES Shadow Histories and Hidden Breaths: E.M. Forester famously wrote, “The king How Real Enemies Investigates died and then the queen died is a story. The the Conspiracy Theory king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.” by Isaac Butler Causality lies at the heart of all narrative. As the five years since we originally madeReal Without causality, all that remains are isolated Enemies have made abundantly clear, conspir- events. Conspiracy theories take these isolated acism is less a river running through our cul- events, and insert causality, making them into ture than the ocean on which our national a plot. On a basic level, conspiracy theories are psyche floats. Belief in conspiracies is one of the simply another form of narrative sense-making, defining aspects of modern culture. It tran- like taking the stars in the sky and weaving scends political, economic, and other divides. them into mythical scorpions and crabs and Conservative or liberal, rich or poor, religious hunters. or secular, across all races and backgrounds These particular narratives tend to flourish there exists a conspiratorial strain of thought at times when we have genuine cause to distrust that maintains the existence of secretive forces those in power. When we learn that the NSA plotting against us, or controlling our fates. The has been monitoring our emails and cataloging Declaration of Independence contains a con- our phone calls, or that the FBI ran a secret ille- spiracy theory about King George III’s plans gal program for decades dedicated to destroy- for the colonies, weaving conspiracism into the ing the American Left, or that the CIA secretly very fabric of our nation’s origin. dosed prisoners, drug addicts, housewives, and When composer Darcy James Argue, media prostitutes with LSD as part of its mind control designer Peter Nigrini, and I set out to investi- research, the only natural response is: “What gate conspiracy theories, we realized very swiftly else are they hiding from us?” that we were actually investigating the nature of As befitting a journey into postwar paranoia, narrative itself. The word “conspiracy” comes the score draws heavily on 12-tone techniques from the Latin conspirare, which literally means even as it departs at times from conventional “to breathe together,” but in its everyday usage notions about how those techniques are sup- meant “to agree” to or “to plot.” A plot is, of posed to be employed. In Real Enemies, the course, also a story, or a narrative. 12-tone row is a deep structural device, not just 2 PROGRAM NOTES for the music, but for the formal and visual and ideas found in the American collective con- development of the entire work. Other musical scious. Nearly every image and word you will touchstones include the film scores of Michael see or hear while watching it is a quotation from Small and David Shire, Nicaraguan singer- a primary source, the result of years of intensive songwriter Carlos Mejia Godoy, early 1980s research into the historical roots, iconography, LA electrofunk-influenced hip hop, intricately ideology, rhetoric, and psychology of conspira- layered polyrhythms at the intersection of post- cies and the theories that love them. Everything minimalist classical music and contemporary in it is something someone, somewhere, has jazz, and much more. asserted is the truth, but in an age when the Real Enemies is ultimately a work of nonfiction, truth has become increasingly elusive, we all which is to say, it is an exploration of real-world have to decide what we believe, what stars we’ll beliefs. The show collages together text, imagery, connect, and what new constellations we’ll form. CREATIVE TEAM heim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and countless commissions and fellowships. His Darcy James Argue (composer/conductor) is the most recent recording—2016’s prescient Real “hyper-literate composer who leads the Secret Enemies—was named a Top 20 jazz recording Society” (Nate Chinen, NPR), an 18-piece big of the decade by Stereogum. band ensemble “now renowned in the jazz world” (Giovanni Russanello, The New York Isaac Butler (director/co-creator) is the co-author Times). Argue brings a seemingly anachronistic of The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent ensemble into the 21st century through his of Angels in America and the forthcoming The “ability to combine his love of jazz’s past with Method, both published by Blooms bury. The more contemporary sonics like indie-influenced World Only Spins Forward, an oral history of electric guitar and bass, as well as arrangement Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America and its tricks culled from his study of classical music” era, was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR (Seth Colter Walls, Pitchfork). As a Vancouver- and a Stonewall Book Awards Honor Book. born, Brooklyn-based “visionary arranger” Butler’s work as a theatrical director has been (Steve Futterman, The New Yorker), Argue has seen on stages across America, including at the earned three Grammy nominations, a Guggen - Brook lyn Academy of Music, Town Hall, Joe’s 3 ABOUT THE ARTISTS Pub, Woolly Mammoth, and La Jolla Play house. PRODUCTION STAFF He also created Lend Me Your Ears: A Podcast About Shakespeare and Politics for Slate.com, Daniel Vatsky (film editor) has worked on a where he now co-hosts the podcast Working, wide range of projects that include film pro- which features interviews with artists about the ductions, documentaries, live performances, creative process. and theatrical projection design. He has collab- orated with noted artists including Laurie Peter Nigrini (media design) has been a pioneer Anderson, David Byrne, Ric Burns, Bill Moy - in the integration of digital projection technol- ers, and Sufjan Stevens. Selected film credits in- ogy and live theater for the past 15 years. Some clude the PBS/WGBH American Experience of his designs on Broadway include Ain’t Too documentaries New York: A Documentary Film, Proud—The Life and Times of the Tempta tions, Death and the Civil War, and The Eugenics Beetlejuice, Dear Evan Hansen, The Sponge Bob Crusade. Recent theater credits include editing Musical, A Doll’s House Part 2, Amé lie, An Act of for Dear Evan Hansen, Ain’t Too Proud—The God, The Heidi Chronicles, Gore Vidal’s The Best Life and Times of the Tempta tions, and Sweat Man, and Fela! Projects of note in other venues on Broadway, and Here Lies Love at the National include Man in the Ring (Hunt ington Thea - Theatre (UK). He holds a BFA in filmmaking tre), The White Card (A.R.T), Here Lies Love and from the State University of New York Purchase Grounded (The Public Theater), Dave (Arena College, and an MS in integrated digital media Stage) Wakey Wakey (Signature), The Grace from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Jones Hurricane Tour (NYC), Don Giovanni and Lucia di Lam mer moor (Santa Fe Opera), Blind Vernil Rogers (recording engineer) is a live Date (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance), and Life sound and studio recording engineer and in & Times (Nature Theater of Oklahoma/Burg - 2019 became the assistant director of concerts theater, Vienna). Nigrini is currently working on and touring at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has Deep Blue Sea (Bill T. Jones at the Park Avenue been engineering for over 16 years and has Armory), MJ: The Musical (Broad way), and worked with acclaimed artists such as the late Ritual of Breath, a new chamber opera by Oscar Peterson, Ron Carter, Arturo O’Farrill Jonathan Berger. (and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra), and Cecile 4 ABOUT THE ARTISTS McLorin Salvant. Rogers has engineered for The Cat. Mont gomery has won three Grammy Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society for the past Awards for his work with Paul McCartney, seven years and has toured several times locally Esperanza Spalding, and the Maria Schneider and abroad with the band.