Bellowing Sun MIND OVER MIRRORS Wide Lights Low Apr 6–7, 2018 Fri–Sat, Notes Program

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Eyes Bellowing Sun MIND OVER MIRRORS Wide Lights Low Apr 6–7, 2018 Fri–Sat, Notes Program

at MCA

Stage Theater Edlis Neeson STAGE MCA

Winter/Spring Bellowing Sun running 2018 time is ninety minutes with no intermission. SUPPORT FOR THIS Created and performed by Mind Over Mirrors in Bellowing Sun MIND OVER MIRRORS MCA STAGE PROJECT collaboration with Timothy Breen, Eliot Irwin, ABOUT THE WORK Lead support for the MCA Stage New Works and Keith Parham. Initiative is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– “For a moment of night we have a glimpse of Bellowing Sun is a PERFORMERS National Performance ourselves and of our world islanded in its Network/Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN) Oberheim SEMs, Jaime Fennelly stream of stars—pilgrims of mortality, voyaging Creation and Development Fund OB-6 synthesizer, and between horizons across eternal seas of space Project co-commissioned Indian harmonium by the Museum of and time.” Contemporary Art Chicago in partnership Lead vocals, zither, Janet Beveridge Bean —Henry Beston, The Outermost House (1928) with Alverno Presents and NPN. Additional and percussion support comes from the NPN Forth Fund and from the NPN Fiddle and vocals Jim Becker Performance Residency In 1925, a thirty-seven-year-old American writer and WWI Program. Major contributors of NPN Drums and vocals Jon Mueller vet named Henry Beston bought fifty acres of desolate include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, dune land on Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod—the the Andrew W. Mellon –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Foundation, the Ford PRODUCTION peninsula’s furthest fingers reaching into the gray Atlantic— Foundation, and the National Endowment and designed and built a small cottage overlooking the for the Arts (a federal Artistic Director Jaime Fennelly agency). ocean. He named it the Fo’castle. For an entire year Music Composition Jaime Fennelly, beginning in September 1926, he lived alone there in the in collaboration with hostile, briny wilderness and dedicated himself to closely Janet Beveridge Bean, Jim Becker, observing the multifarious but unforgiving ecology of ever- and Jon Mueller changing sand and sea and to integrating his mind and body within its clamorous calm. He walked, he watched, Stage and Timothy Breen and Visual Concept Jaime Fennelly he listened, and he wrote. The result was his masterpiece The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach SUPPORT FOR Zoetrope Textile Timothy Breen of Cape Cod (1928). A seminal work of naturalist literature THE ARTISTS Painting that remains revered by environmentalists, animal National Performance Network (NPN) is the Zoetrope Design Eliot Irwin, with assistance rights activists, and poets alike, it elevates description of fiscal sponsor of Mind and Metal and by Jaime Fennelly the natural world to an incandescent metaphysical pitch. Over Mirrors. Motor Fabrication Additional support for Bellowing Sun has been provided by The Richard Lighting Design Keith Parham Ninety years after Beston’s book was published, composer, H. Driehaus Foundation and by an Individual harmoniumist, and synthesist Jaime Fennelly completed Artist Program Grant Live Sound Engineer Elliot Dicks from the City of Chicago his ambitious multimedia production Bellowing Sun. Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, Coproducers David Ravel and Commissioned for its world premiere performance by the as well as a grant from Apr 6–7, 2018 Fri–Sat, Notes Program the Illinois Arts Council Jaime Fennelly Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the work Agency, a state agency through federal funds developed over the course of nearly three years, gradually provided by the National Record Label Paradise of Bachelors Endowment for the Arts. accreting into a rapturous, prismatic seventy-three-minute

This production is also partially supported by Album Public Relations Jonathan Williger / composition. In live iterations, the audience encircles the an Individual Artist Motormouth Media Support Grant from the musicians—Fennelly, Janet Beveridge Bean, Jim Becker, Illinois Arts Council Agency, the record label and Jon Mueller—each of whom plays multiple instruments, Paradise of Bachelors, and individual donors. with a large kinetic light sculpture hovering suspended above the players. This monumental zoetrope which rotates to create an ever-changing architectural kaleidoscope of Theater Edlis Neeson STAGE MCA Bellowing Sun is a commission by the MCA New organic shapes and color, a delicate but imposing Works Initiative, which provided design, sound, and firmament-tent that simultaneously evokes astronomical technical residency support for Mind Over Mirrors and their collaborators using the theater between objects and microscopic life-forms. May and December of 2017. Additional MCA support included video documentation and a taped live A twelve-faceted sonic inquiry into celestial cycles, the CONTINUES IN interview with Jaime Fennelly for future netcasting MARGIN ON PAGE 4 and for the museum’s archive. rhythms of the natural world, and the illuminating nature SUPPORT FOR THE ARTISTS of darkness, Bellowing Sun is the majestic culmination of Throughout, Fennelly’s Oberheim synths and sequencers (Continued) Fennelly’s immersive explorations of the natural world’s stitch together a colossal quartet counterpoint, driven by a sensory dimensions and the dialogues between musical new emphasis on interlocking full-band rhythmic grooves. traditions—acoustic and electronic, vernacular and avant- He relies less than ever before on the harmonium, though garde. It deliberately situates its questing, edge-of-earth it still features prominently, contributing an airy link to spirit within the context of Beston’s Fo’castle. The link to the rhythms of human breathing. Bean sings on half of the Beston is not merely intellectual, but rather experiential tracks, including early stunner “Matchstick Grip” and the and geological. The solitary compositional genesis of the spectacular closer “Pause to Wonder.” Whether piece, and a significant portion of its early recording articulating words or intoning phonemes, her powerful, (before tracking and mixing sessions with John McEntire lucent voice elevates the proceedings to a devotional plane of Tortoise), occurred at Bean’s home atop a dune of fine whenever it emerges from the saturated field of sound. quartz “singing sands” on the shore of Lake Michigan, an environment akin to the Cape. Beston directly inspired The mood is at once ecstatic and elegiac; death and decay certain moments: the gulls he describes frantically are present here. The exuberant kosmische pulse of “Feeding on the Flats” are mirrored here by a percolating “Zeitgebers” (the title refers to environmental cues, such as synthesizer that mimics their dance with surf and sand; light or dark, that synchronize an organism’s biorhythms) “Lanterns on the Beach” is named for a chapter about is tempered by the seething dirge of “Vermillion Pink.” night in The Outermost House; and “Pause to Wonder” Timothy Breen cites the elaborate funerary textiles of the draws directly from his gorgeous description of butterfly Paracas culture of Peru as an inspiration for his paintings Mind Over Mirrors would like to thank migrations. But his methodology of extended, observational on the zoetrope. (“Oculate Beings” is not coincidentally a David Ravel and Yolanda Cesta Cursach contemplation of nature, of carefully transcribing a world reference to the Pre-Columbian coastal society that shared for initiating and supporting an idea of witness, pertains most prominently. beliefs of regularly communing with the spirit world.) to create beyond what we think is possible. But the degradation of our planet, and particularly the Additional thanks go to the following, who Sonically, Bellowing Sun is both kaleidoscopic and telescopic impending end of deep night, provides a melancholy, have been supportive over the last three in nature, offering a radiant palette of rhythmic, textural, reverent subtext to the otherwise celebratory tones. years in the creation of this work: Brendan and tonal complexity, as well as rapid shifts in scale, from In most places on Earth, careless and overzealous artificial Greaves, Chris Smith, Jonathan Williger, the intimately corporeal to the dizzyingly cosmic. Though lighting, coupled with overpopulation, mean that many Phill Cabeen, John Rich, Peter Taub, Richard long associated with his meditative solo work for of us will never see a truly dark night sky, with its Norwood, Dennis O'Shea, Andy Kauf, and harmonium, tape delay, and other effects, with Bellowing vertiginous, multihued clots of seemingly infinite stars, all of the staff at the MCA, Stanlyn Breve Sun Fennelly has ascended to a thrilling new planets, comets, and galaxies punctuating the black. As and all at NPN, John McEntire, Bob communicatory stratum, departing from the solo, interior Beston wrote even back in 1928, “The world today is sick to Weston, MINBAL, Jeff Pachman, Bob Shook, monologues of his early work and the deeply focused its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before Saverio Truglia, Julia Dratel, Martin Andrew, dialogues of the album’s recent predecessor Undying Color the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the Glenn Kotche, Marcy Dinius, Haley Fohr, (2017) for something broadly communal, massively dear earth itself underfoot . . . Our fantastic civilization Doug McCombs, Miguel Gutierrez and Sally polyphonic, and unabashedly spiritual in its scope and has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with Timms. And to Serena Lander, Mike Wilke, scale. All four J’s—Jaime, Janet, Jim, and Jon—appeared none more completely than with night.” Matt Rizzo, Michelle Hartley, Teresa Mueller, together on Undying Color, but have since solidified into a Meghan Ryan Breen, Janet Ecklebarger and formidable, cohesive unit, a true band capable of In 1978, a decade after Beston’s death, a violent winter Jackie Stone for their limitless love. In memory increasingly expansive arrangements. Though divided into storm spun the Fo’castle out to sea, leaving nothing but of Lenore Doxsee (1965–2017). Rest twelve movements, or aspects—zodiacal sectors, perhaps— the glint of a commemorative brass plaque in the lucent in Power. the piece functions as a heroic, integral whole. Several moonlight. Can you imagine the sound of that? Mind instrumental components and vocal motifs function as Over Mirrors can, and does, with Bellowing Sun. It’s an modular and parallactic, originally recorded for different elemental thing. sections but interchangeably transposable elsewhere, much as certain constellations share stars in common. The —Brendan Greaves, Paradise of Bachelors, 2018 album’s sequence reveals a dynamic push and pull between contemplative stasis and headlong momentum, imparting a palpably physical mass to the cataracts of sound. The original version of this essay can be found online at paradiseofbachelors.com/pob-040. ABOUT THE ARTISTS JAIME FENNELLY is an artist, JIM BECKER is a Chicago-based composer, and musician who has musician, producer, and sound been making work as Mind Over engineer who has played around Mirrors since 2010. Buttressing his the world since the 1980s. He modest instrumental foundation has recorded and collaborated with of Indian harmonium with an array a long list of rock, folk, and of tape delays, effect processors, experimental bands including and synthesizers—which belong to Califone (2000–2010), Iron & Wine the world of classic analog electronic (recently nominated for a Grammy composition—he creates immersive for their album Beast Epic), Dirty interdisciplinary work that NPR has Three (Cinder Tour), Scott Tuma, described as “an out-of-body and Bitchin’ Bajas. He is a founding experience.” His explorations of the member of old-time string band natural world’s sensory dimensions The Paulina Hollers, with Lea Tshilds, and the dialogues between cultural around since 1996. Jim plays guitar, traditions—vernacular and avant- banjo, fiddle, mandolin; is known garde—have led him down a path for his original improvisations and of creating work that deliberately use of effects; and draws from a situates itself in a questing, edge- wide range of inspirations, from of-earth spirit. After five solo classic rock to Appalachian music. albums on several labels, Paradise Becker has been a member of Mind of Bachelors released Fennelly’s first Over Mirrors since 2016. work for an ensemble, Undying Color (2017), and now Bellowing JON MUELLER has been a drummer Sun (2018). Since 2001, Fennelly has and percussionist for more fostered a close collaborative than twenty-five years, performing relationship with dance artist throughout the United States, Miguel Gutierrez. Recently, they Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, have performed their long-standing and Japan. His solo recordings have duo at Centre Pompidou (2014), been released by Table of the Thalia Hall (2016) and American Elements, Type Recordings, Taiga, Realness (2013). In 2002, he Important Records, and others. He cofounded the musical group was a founding member of the Peeesseye in Brooklyn. Fennelly bands Volcano Choir, Collections of received his MFA from Bard College Colonies of Bees, and Pele, and also (2006), where he studied music directed the multidisciplinary and sound with Maryanne project Death Blues. Amacher, David Berhman, and Pauline Oliveros, among other sonic TIMOTHY BREEN is an artist and and visual luminaries. designer residing in Chicago. His multimedia work weaves color and JANET BEVERIDGE BEAN joined her topographic pattern into psychic- first band at age sixteen as a means expressionist imagery. His art to get into twenty-one-and-over practice, which includes painting punk rock clubs. Thirty-five years and and printmaking, stop-motion more than thirty critically acclaimed animation, and large-scale full-length albums later, she’s still installation, deals with morphological at it. The multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, movement, prehistoric spirituality, and songwriter is a founding member and the construction of dreams. of the long-standing post-punk As the founder of Field Of Grass band Eleventh Dream Day (Thrill design, he has worked with a Jockey Records) and the genre- multitude of collaborators, bending gothic folk country band publications, and labels—including Freakwater (Bloodshot Records). the design of the Environments app, More recent projects include playing a digital catalogue of the historic the jazz folk ensemble The Horse’s long-form field recordings of Irv Ha (Fluff and Gravy Records) Tiebel and Syntonic Research, and along with Sally Timms of the Inc. He was awarded two Grammy legendary band The Mekons, nominations in 2017 for best Mind Over Mirrors: Bellowing Sun, Band and Zoetrope the dadaist response to disaster boxed-set and special packaging Pictured left to right: Jim Becker, Jon Mueller, Jaime Fennelly, and Janet Beveridge Bean Photo: Saverio Truglia, © Mind Over Mirrors 2018 capitalism duo !MOXIE TUNG. design with The Numero Group. ACCESSIBILITY Timothy has helped to realize the INFORMATION physical documents of Mind Over Select MCA Stage performances include Mirrors since 2011. open-captioning, sign-interpretation, listening devices, or ELIOT IRWIN is an artist/craftsman are relaxed sensory. who enjoys solving design problems Please call in a variety of media, mostly 312-397-4010 in metals. Mesmerized by how things advance to reserve seats and work, he constantly adds to his inclusive services. inner library of components, processes, and procedures. Using 3-D modeling and exercising the art of tinkering, he investigates mechanics, form, connections, and aesthetics for a multitude of applications. Irwin maintains a –––––––––––––––––––– studio practice in North Carolina. BUY TICKETS ONLINE KEITH PARHAM is an Obie Award– mcachicago.org/stage winning lighting designer working BY PHONE in the fields of theater, opera, and 312-397-4010 music. He is a company member of AT THE MCA TUTA, where his credits include BOX OFFICE Gentle, The Edge of Our Bodies and 220 E Chicago Ave Music Hall, among others. On Chicago, IL 60611 Broadway he designed the world Single performance premiere of Thérèse Raquin at tickets starting at $30; Studio 54 with Roundabout Theatre $10 for students, limited Company and has worked availability. extensively on many Off-Broadway Performance view, Mind Over Mirrors: Bellowing Sun, MCA Chicago. April 6–7, 2018 Groups of ten or more Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago save 20% on full-price productions, with Austin Pendleton, tickets; call 312-397-4010. Adam Rapp, and David Cromer being his closest collaborators. In addition to working in New York theater, he designs regularly for FREE MUSEUM most of the major regional theatres ADMISSION in the United States. In the field of WITH TICKET live music, he has designed Karen ––––––––––––––––– Present your MCA O’s Stop the Virgens at St. Ann’s Stage ticket stub to Warehouse and the Sydney Opera receive FREE ADMISSION* and 10% House. He also designed her concert off your purchase at tour of Crush Songs, which played the MCA Store.** Or become an MCA in the United States and Europe. Member and save 15%. Ticket stub is valid during regular hours up to seven days after the performance date. * Not accepted for special ticketed exhibitions. ** Regular price, in-stock merchandise only; no other discounts apply.

Mind Over Mirrors: Bellowing Sun, Band and Zoetrope Pictured left to right: Jon Mueller, Janet Beveridge Bean, Jaime Fennelly, and Jim Becker Photo: Saverio Truglia, © Mind Over Mirrors 2018 CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES SEASON CALENDAR Anne L. Kaplan PRITZKER DIRECTOR 2017 Madeleine Grynsztejn CHIEF OPERATING DATE NIGHT OFFICER Sep 7–10 600 HIGHWAYMEN Teresa Samala The Fever de Guzman JAMES W. ALSDORF CHIEF CURATOR Michael Darling Oct 5–8 Marc Bamuthi Joseph/ –––––––––––––––––––– PERFORMANCE

The Living Word Project CURATOR /peh-LO-tah/—a futbol Yolanda Cesta Cursach ASSOCIATE CURATOR framed freedom suite . . . Tara Aisha Willis MANAGER John Rich THEATER PRODUCTION Nov 9–12 Faye Driscoll MANAGER Thank You For Richard Norwood CURATORIAL ASSISTANT Coming: Play Phill Cabeen ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Dec 7–10 Twyla Tharp Kasey Trouba INTERNS Minimalism and Me Mike Anestor (The Mission Continues) –––––––––––––––––––– 2018 HOUSE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES Jan 25–28 Federico León Megan Cline Cameron Heinze Las ideas Lacey Whittaker –––––––––––––––––––– BOX OFFICE Feb 8–11 Claire Cunningham MANAGER Matti Allison Marisol Escobar. Photo: Herman Hiller. & Jess Curtis ASSISTANT MANAGER Phongtorn The Way You Look Phongluantum (at me) Tonight COORDINATOR Join us for dinner or drinks before or after the theater at Molly Laemle VISITOR SERVICES Marisol, named one of the hottest restaurants in Chicago ASSISTANTS Julia Kriegel by Zagat and one of Vogue's "Six Chicago Restaurants You Apr 6–7 Mind Over Mirrors Caitlin Joseph Should Know About Now." Call 312–799–3599 to make Bellowing Sun ASSOCIATES Graham Feyl reservations. Cagla Gillis Peyton Lynch Janelle Miller Apr 12–15 Okwui Okpokwasili Georgie Morvis Mistead Sai Lisa West Poor People’s TV Room Lacey Whittaker Program notes compiled by May 24–26 Kaneza Schaal Tara Aisha Willis Jack &

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