Of, With, Towards, on JULIUS EASTMAN INVOCATIONS 24.03
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We Have Delivered Ourselves From the TONAL– Of, with, towards, On J U L I U S EASTMAN I NVOCATIONS 24.03.–25.03.2018 ARTISTIC DIRECTION Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung CURATOR Antonia Alampi RESEARCH CURATORS Kamila Metwaly and Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock CURATORIAL ASSISTANCE Kelly Krugman PROJECT MANAGEMENT Lema Sikod PROJECT ASSISTANCE Gwen Mitchell COMMUNICATION Anna Jäger and Jörg-Peter Schulze A project by S A V V Y Contemporary and MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues, conceived by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Antonia Alampi and Berno Odo Polzer. New works have been commissioned and produced by S A V V Y Contemporary, co-produced by MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues. The project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. SAVVY Contemporary The Laboratory of Form-Ideas OUTLINE WE HAVE DELIVERED OURSELVES EXHIBITION 24.03.–06.05.2018 FROM THE TONAL is an exhibition, and OPEN Thu–Sun 14:00–19:00 a programme of performances, concerts and lectures WITH Paolo Bottarelli Raven Chacon that deliberate around concepts beyond the predomi- Tanka Fonta Malak Helmy Hassan Khan Annika Kahrs nantly Western musicological format of the tonal Pungwe (Robert Machiri and Memory Biwa) or harmonic. The project looks at African American The Otolith Group (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) composer, musician and performer Julius Eastman’s Christine Rusiniak Barthélémy Toguo work beyond the framework of what is today under- SAVVY Contemporary stood as minimalist music, within a larger, always gross Plantagenstraße 31, 13347 Berlin and ever-growing understanding of it – i.e. conceptually and geo-contextually. Together with musicians, visual INVOCATIONS I 24.03.2018 16:00–24:00 artists, researchers and archivers, we aim to explore INVOCATIONS II 25.03.2018 11:00–20:30 a non-linear genealogy of Eastman’s practice and his silent green Kulturquartier cultural, political and social weight, and situate his work Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin within a broader rhizomatic relation of musical episte- mologies and practices. In INVOCATIONS I composers, performers, collaborators, and researchers who have been engaged For the project, new substantial artworks and musical with Eastman’s work and are responsible for much pieces have been commissioned and will be world- of his legacy such as Kodwo Eshun, Dustin Hurt, premiered in Berlin. These include a filmic work Petr Kotik, Josh Kun, Mary Jane Leach, George E. Lewis, and performance by Annika Kahrs; a musical composi- The Otolith Group and Christine Rusiniak will deliver tion and a sculptural work by Hassan Khan; a sound lectures and perform new pieces. installation by Pungwe (Robert Machiri and Memory Biwa); and an installation of minimalist drawings It will comprise of two panels in which Eastman’s by Barthélémy Toguo. The exhibition also includes companions will share personal and professional experi - drawings by Malak Helmy, a film by The Otolith Group ences of working with or on Eastman, as well as a session (Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun), paintings on the entanglements between (minimal) music, by Paolo Bottarelli and a score by Raven Chacon. atona lity and politics of race, economy, identity and geographies. INVOCATIONS I will also feature two new world premieres: the lord loves changes, it’s one of his greatest delusions by Annika Kahrs and tainted by Hassan Khan. In INVOCATIONS II performances and talks on re-rooting and re-routing the history of minimalism, will be enacted by sound and music theoreticians and curators Christine Eyene, Jean-Christophe Marti and Sumanth Gopinath in dialogue with artists and musicians Malak Helmy, Sean Griffin, Rocco Di Pietro and Pungwe. On the role of spirituality in minimalist traditions, and the exercising of rituals framed around sex, sexuality and gender discourses, will be engaged with, through performances by Raven Chacon, Sofia Jernberg, and Elaine Mitchener. SAVVYContemporary – The Laboratory of Form Ideas 02/12 PROGRAMME INVOCATIONS I prominence, that he and his music disappeared 24.03.2018 16:00–24:00 so suddenly and so thoroughly. silent green Kulturquartier Mary Jane Leach met Eastman in early 1981 and knew him as a colleague, loving his 16:00 INTERLUDE music and entertained by his larger than life perso- WE HAVE DELIVERED nality and wit. In 1998 she began to search for OURSELVES FROM THE his music and research his life, and over the next TONAL: OF, WITH, TOWARDS, twenty years unearthed some of his amazing ON JULIUS EASTMAN music, while at the same time confronting the An introduction to the programme by the cura- enigma that was Julius Eastman the man. In her tors Bonaventure Ndikung, Berno Odo Polzer, talk, Leach will be addressing both the biogra- Antonia Alampi and Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock. phical and the musical parts of Eastman’s life. Making sense of the growing interest in Julius MARY JANE LEACH is a composer / Eastman’s work. Festivals, publications, exhibi- performer fascinated with the physicality of tions in the last decade have made space for an sound, its acoustic properties and interactions almost forgotten Eastman – catapulting him into with space, and uses difference, combination, the minimalist canon. But who is and what are and interference tones to other-worldly effect. the interests behind these events? Why posthu- Her music has been performed internationally, mously? And especially, how is Eastman framed and recorded on numerous disc labels. She within these contexts, and how can we put the is co-editor of Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and spotlight and the ear on Eastman’s music/work? his Music. 17:00 TALK Petr Kotik MUSIC, MYTH, MAN– S.E.M. ENSEMBLE AND EASTMAN JULIUS EASTMAN The man Eastman and his work are epitomes Petr Kotik met Julius Eastman in 1969 at the of myths. Eastman the genius enfant terrible, State of New York University in Buffalo, shortly the tragic artist, the provocateur are few of the after his arrival from Prague. Both of them were clichés bestowed on Eastman. This panel invites Creative Associates, members of the Center of Eastman’s companions, researchers, artists the Creative and Performing Arts. Two months and collaborators to ruminate on his life and later, with other Creative Associates, Kotik music, helping us in unfolding the myths and re- founded the S.E.M. Ensemble. From 1971 to humanising Eastman, as well as reviewing his 1974, S.E.M. was a collaborative effort of two legacy. After delivering Eastman from the myths, composers (Eastman and Kotik) and a handful it is crucial to focus on the brilliance and unique- of musicians, the most prominent among them ness of his compositions. were Jan Williams and Garrett List. 16:30 TALK In those years, Eastman and Kotik were Mary Jane Leach inseparable. Their close collaboration was based LIVING ROLES on shared ideas about music, performance, TO THE FULLEST and composition. They lived closely to each Julius Eastman was a larger than life figure in other, which made it possible to develop a close the art world; an artist who, as a gay black man, personal relationship, and Eastman became aspired to live those roles to the fullest. almost a member of Kotik’s family. What really Everyone who met him seems to have a story tied the two composers together, however, were about him, recounting some kind of outrageous their performances and the music they com- behavior or incident. But he was more than just posed. Both distanced themselves from the a colorful fringe character – he was not only prevailing post-Webern, Darmstadt-driven new a prominent member of New York’s downtown music scene that was the norm in the U.S. music scene as a composer, conductor, and and Europe at that time. They both struggled performer, but he also performed in such places on the fringe of the new music scene and their as Lincoln Center with the New York Philhar- relationship provided each other an important monic and could be heard in music played encouragement and inspiration. Petr Kotik’s talk in dance clubs. So it is ironic that with all of this will illuminate this period. 03/10 SAVVYContemporary – The Laboratory of Form Ideas PETR KOTIK is a composer/musician 19:00 PERFORMANCE based in New York. In 1970, he founded the WORLD PREMIERE S.E.M. Ensemble along with Julius Eastman. George E. Lewis with Elaine Mitchener (voice), It has since expanded into The Orchestra Sean Griffin (harp), George Lewis (electronics). of The S.E.M. Ensemble. In 2001, Kotik started Texts by Julius Eastman and the Ostrava Days festival. In 2005, he founded Keorapetse William Kgositsile the international chamber orchestra Ostravská ELEGY 2018 banda. Elegy emerged from Lewis’s foreword to 17:30 TALK Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music. Dustin Hurt While researching Eastman, Mary Jane Leach, (RE)DISCOVERING EASTMAN: composer and co-editor of Gay Guerrilla, EXPERIENCES AND grew suspicious that “Eastman’s spirit was QUESTIONS FROM trying to sabotage the dissemination of his PRESENTING THE LIFE music.” Robin D. G. Kelley, plagued similarly AND WORK OF while researching Thelonious Monk, wondered JULIUS EASTMAN IN THE aloud if Monk were involved. “Did you ask 21ST CENTURY Thelonious’s permission to write the book?” Dustin Hurt first got the idea of presenting asked a friend. After making this request, things a large-scale retrospective of Julius Eastman's improved. life and work in 2014. Bowerbird, the Phila- So, with this piece, Lewis is asking Julius’s delphia based non-profit where Hurt is founding permission to create an elegy for him, with the director, had just finished large scale retro- help of his friends Sean Griffin and Elaine Mitch- spectives of Morton Feldman and John Cage. ener. They will perform Memorial, a work written Eastman had emerged in both of those for Mitchener in 2015 incorporating text by narratives, mostly through his time in Buffalo.