original score – Seth Nehil

Linda Austin Dance – A World, A World

My original sound score for this dance piece reflected the wildly divergent approaches in the two halves (or “worlds”). In the first, sonic fragments were culled from a long list of movie scenes, old television commercials, YouTube videos, pop songs, nursery rhymes etc., gathered by the dancers. These short bursts of micro-edited media were synced to precise cues – shards of not-quite recognizable sonic detritus colliding with elaborate onstage recitations.

After an interlude/scene change (performed by the dancers to a stripped-down rhythmic track) the strategy changed completely. Within an all-white set, the dancers followed a loose improvisational score, adjusting plants, holding positions and speaking words. Each dancer approached a microphone to ring a bell or click stones and speak. I altered and mixed the dancer’s sounds, creating loops within loops. To this, I added a sparse backing of pure tones.

Performance Works NW

Portland OR , Dec. 2017

Video by Karl Lind Films

sound

Hand2Mouth Theater – Psychic Utopia

This experimental, interactive theater piece was created by the cast, based on dozens of interviews with current and former residents of communes in the Pacific NW. My sound score used only the sounds of the human voice – from chanting, singing and toning to whispering, hissing and glossolalia. Vocal recordings were sampled, looped, filtered and processed to create a wide range of textures, from shimmering drones to New Age melodies, at times merging with the live voices of the actors. Tones emerged from a glowing “sound box” in the middle of the performance area and expanded out to fill the room on a four-channel system.

sound

Linda Austin – A Head of Time

My sound score for this dance performance was developed through an extended series of improvisations with the company, in rehearsal and various in-progress showings. I asked Linda to keep an audio diary, collecting the sounds of family events, passing conversations, interactions with strangers and ordinary environments – specific moments in time. These everyday sounds were mixed live for each performance, along with ambient drones, airy hissing and musical textures. Additional sounds emerged from multiple on-stage televisions displaying video documents of the choreographic process.

March 23 – 25, 2012, Imago Theater, Portland OR

performance, sound, video

Bandage a Knife (with Linda Austin Dance)

This dance performance, created and co-directed with Linda Austin, was based on a strategic “forgetting” of Seijun Suzuki’s 1967 cult yakuza film, Branded to Kill. Themes, images and language emerged in our thinking through , writing through, dancing through the freewheeling surrealism of the film. Against the back wall, projected fragments of video narrative and noir imagery flashed amidst the dancers.

Choreography, including long “non-sequitur” movement sequences, interspersed with moments of dialogue, abstracted violence and shards of action. Along both sides of the stage, dancers silently mimicked and responded to movements behind semi-transparent black curtains. Mounted on the ceiling, a television monitor played a continuous hour-long action by Kaj-Anne Pepper (coming slowly unraveled in an all white “weatherbox”). An ambiguous narrative included slow-motion mock battles, chanted syllables and swung lightbulbs.

Much of my original score can be heard on the album Knives.

Co-written and directed by Linda Austin & Seth Nehil

Choreography: Linda Austin
Sound and video: Seth Nehil
Dancers: Anne Furfey, Kaj-Anne Pepper, Linda Austin, Lucy Yim, Bonnie Green, Rebecca Harrison.

Performance Works NW, Portland OR, November, 2009

sound

Linda Austin Dance – Circus Me Around

My original score for this dance piece featured 4-channel sound, spread throughout a reclaimed warehouse. Audiences were seated in one of three performance areas while simultaneous dances could be glimpsed through gaps. Three times, audiences switched areas and the repeating dance was witnessed from a new perspective and with new music.