Went to see the three choreographies written for three Duivelsdansen of Simeon ten Holt at the Oude Kerk. I did not go to hear the music of Ten Holt. I will gladly admit that his music has its own value and its own signature – but I experience it as high culture kitsch. I went there because F. has worked together with Hillary Blake Firestone – one of the 3 choreographers/dancers.

I didn’t like much of the dance either. The first dancer moved very beautifully but ran out of ideas after five minutes, the rest was fragmentary and overly dramatic. The last piece was even worse. It was full of moments were I imagined myself as a teacher asking the aspiring student “why didn’t you go for this, why didn’t you explore that, try to be more radical, dare to be minimal.” It was utterly boring, stupidly dramatic, and well, a sort of good taste amateur theatre, only better performed and with a much more expensive decor. And then there was this superfluous gimmick of the grand piano slowly making its way through the space…

Hillary Blake Firestone’s piece saved the night. She used gaffer tape (an idea she “stole” from F. – who used tape extensively for the decor in Hillary’s Featherweight). She demarcated the space, she dared to be playful and she dared to be minimal. Her physical dance – in which she referred to the body movements of track atlethics – grabbed the attention, and what’s more, through her dance she made me realize how Ten Holt also refers to stride piano in his work. (Which made me a more sympathetic towards the music).

When you want to make a choreography for Ten Holt, you have, I think, two choices: be just as minimal as the music (wear yourself out, as a dancer, doing the same thing over and over again), or completely go against it. The other two dancers didn’t do either and just brought some unbearable ‘drama’ to ‘kitschy’ music, in a beautiful church. Hillary dared to do something different and dared to be minimal – as long as she did that, it was utterly convincing.

As promised, Serge’s footage (alas just 20 seconds) of Jack Gallagher and Oorbeek in the pouring rain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLplqeQAKJM.

Oorbeek was scheduled to play at the the Vondelpark Openluchttheater tonight – the outdoor theatre in the park, together with the dance group Bodies Anonymous of Jack Gallagher: http://www.openluchttheater.nl/ and http://www.bodiesanonymous.nl/. The weather forecast was: 90% chance for rain. We were supposed to perform on the dancefloor outside, (so not under the roof on the podium), and for that it had to be dry. To dance on it, it would have to be completely dry.

Well, we set up out equipment on the podium. Knowing the chance for rain was simply to great to put amplifiers out on the dancefloor (that had been the plan). At 6.30 it began to rain. Then it started pouring. And then: lighting and thunder. First we’d still hoped to play, now we even had to turn off all the electric equipment. It was 7.30. It kept on raining. No soundcheck. We were supposed to start at 8.30. The group after us – the much more famous dance ensemble Leine and Roebana – would play from nine on.

We heard that the dancefloor had not been used yet. Every friday since june the 3d they’d put it there, and every time they had had to cancel due to rain.

It kept on pouring. Even if the rain would stop at 8.30 there was no chance the dancefloor would be dry. There was like a few centimeters of water on top of it. The rain was torrentuous.

And then, when finally the moment came to decide what to do and everybody – and surely the people of the Vondelpark – thought the programme would be cancelled, Jack said: “I just wanna do my thing, rain or not, water or not.”

The Vondelpark people were happily surprised. The soundman was off to his booth and quickly turned on the mics for Maarten.

And at 8.30 Jach Gallagher was out there in the torrentuous rain on a horribly slippery dancefloor, and we were on stage with our instruments, and the lightmen turned on the stagelight, it seemed as if the sun was coming out to shine, we gave the sign: he danced, slided through the puddles of water – finally the dancefloor was used – and we played.

About 40 people had come out to watch.

It was wonderful.

We played for just 10 minutes, and Jack danced.

Funny to think, that one lives for such moments, those 10 minutes to do one’s thing.

Leine and Roebana had already decided to not play, but when they saw that we played, they decided to come out and do something too. Not the whole performance (the dancefloor was unusable, dangerous – what Jack did was extraordinary), just two Rennaissance songs, accompanied by theorbe and dance from their star performer.

That was beautiful. Breathtaking. (Is it allowed to exaggerate a little?)

The rain did not stop for one moment.

Serge made at least one little movie. When he’s uploaded that to Youtube I’ll post the link.

& the start of summer, they say. On friday 15th, from 20.00h on, at Mediamatic in Amsterdam: DNK end of the season event. With an installation, Open DI Night (with a.o. Yolande Harris, Brian McKenna, Marko Ciciliani, Ivo Bol, Alfredo Genovesi and Taylan Susam) and of course party with DJ Bumbum Hey and DJ Scumbag.

Be lots of fun.

Info: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-17358-en.html

& also check out the new stunning website of DNK: http://www.dnk-amsterdam.com/.

(Euh, with in the photo-section, a photo of me, looking at my laptop during the previous Open DI Night, trying to make my improvised piece work, which wasn’t a success. Luckily it was just a few minutes).

Friday the Urban Explorers Festival starts in Dordrecht – some interesting things there. Of course on saturday a performance of Oorbeek (alas without me, since I’ll be in a car on my way to France), but also for instance Cilia Erens, Machinefabriek, Toktek, Jack Gallager and a circuit bending workshop: http://www.urbanexplorersfestival.nl.

For more urban exploring and game-based art you’ll have to go to Enschede the same weekend (or the week after, since this runs on till the 20th), where Planetart put together an exhibition as part of the Balenfestival: http://www.roombeek.nl/balenfestival/expositie/planetart_expo.html, with Joane Leandre, Julian Oliver, Jodi and lots of street art.

The Bayerischer Rundfunk does have a podcast for Hörspielen: http://www.br-online.de/download-podcast/mp3-download/bayern2radio/mp3-download-podcast-hoerspielartmix.xml. It now features many short re-makes of Ruttmann’s Weekend. Alas, very short bits.

I don’t really use podcasts as such. The main reason is my dislike of Itunes – that program has simply become too big and too slow to use. I prefer Cog. Podcasts I download as I download mp3’s. I also rarely use playlists since my music doesn’t fit on the harddisk of my laptop anyhow, certainly not on my ipod, and even at home I do not always have the external harddisks connected to the laptop. I only use playlists for ‘research’. Yesterday for instance I ‘lost’ 2 hours building a chronological playlist for all the Anthony Braxton I have collected, covering the first 10 years of his career as I’d like/hope to listen through all that in the next few days.

That said, podcast-functionality is perfect for keeping track of programmes that you forget about. I for instance forget that I am interested in audio art, radio art, German Hörspiel. I don’t encounter it in the places that I visit (places = websites, blogs, real places). Yes, I would subscribe immediately if the WDR and Deutschlandradio and Cafe Sonore would offer podcasts of their programs. There is a stream of course.

(Btw: yes, I saw that remark about no podcasts for audio art, during the discussions about Radio at the Balie running at the bottom of the screen).

So here, as a reminder, when the good stuff is on:

WDR 3: http://www.wdr.de/radio/
wednesday 22.00 Hörspiel; 23.00 Studio Elektronische Musik (yes, still wednesday, I am able to remember that!);
saturday 23.00 Studio Akustische Kunst;
sunday 23.00 Studio Neue Musik.

Deutschlandradio Kultur (well, that’s what I know as Deutschlandfunk) has a Hörspiel des Monats, and – that’s a coincedence – on the 13th of May that will be a piece by Raymond Federman: http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/hoerspiel/610766/. An overview of their Hörspiels is here: http://www.dradio.de/portale/hoerspiel/. I’m afraid I don’t see any podcasts.

Cafe Sonore is the only programme left on Dutch (national) public radio that covers the ars acustica. Here luckily we have audio on demand (but not for download): http://www.vpro.nl/programma/cafesonore/.

Just reminders to self.

Brian Olewnick is writing a biography of Keith Rowe, & has a very nice blog: http://olewnick.blogspot.com/.

I hardly ever buy CDs. I would have to buy too many… would want to buy too many to satisfy my need ‘to know everything’. That’s why long ago I decided not to create a nice collection of favorite music. (Meanwhile I have 600 cassette-tapes and about 200 GB of mp3s).

Saturday a package from Italy arrived: the 2 CD / 1 DVD box of Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuovo Consonanza. I guess I’ve surfed to the site of Die Schachtel ten times at least to look at the box: http://www.die-schachtel.com/. Last week I finally ordered one.

Well what to say… Being used to listening to mp3s I’m first of all amazed of the sound — or is that because of the music and not only because of the sound quality?

Secondly I become agitated and even angry: this music is so good! How is it possible that this is the very first time in my life that I (consciously) hear Gruppo Improvvisazione Nuovo Consonanza? Of course, I’ve known of their existence since years (this after all is the collective of composers that Ennio Morricone was part of), and true, I never dug deep enough into libraries to get my hands on one of their LPs. Their music was never played in any radio programme, hardly was mentioned at any time (except in some books). Of course it’s nice to that you can discover something new that is so close to your heart when you’ve been on this globe for more than 41 years. But also imagine what this says about the quality of our life, or our media, what ‘they’ play back to us.

This is also a lesson for myself: don’t compromise. Please don’t compromise. Life’s too precious for that.

… as a record of my enthusiasm.

http://www.die-schachtel.com/html/ds13.htm
http://www.nuovaconsonanza.it/

One of my favorite mp3-blogs Church Number Nine of Atanase recently put up a blindfold test. Thanks to the stuff that Atanase uploaded I have been able to fill in some significant gaps in my knowledge of seventies free jazz (Frank Lowe, Air, Sam Rivers, early Anthony Braxton). There is so much good music around, and so much great music made in the past…

http://churchnumber9.blogspot.com/.

I downloaded the 19 tracks of the blindfold test and have been listening to it for a week. I think I know quite a bit of free jazz and free improv, but I couldn’t do much better on this than wild guesses and just thinking, “well, this is great music, but I have no idea whatsoever who this is.” I only was certain that one track was Derek Bailey with Anthony Braxton and I was sure one other was Kaoru Abe.

These were the tracks:

1. Chicago Underground Quartet – Same – A Reoccurring Dream (Thrill Jockey USA)
2. Chicago Underground Duo – In Praise Of Shadows – Pangea (Thrill Jockey USA)
3. Flaherty, Corsano Duo- Full Bottle – Blanket Bombing (Ultra Eczema BELGIUM)
4. Rauhan Orkestri – Same – Suklaamuusi (LaLaLa FINLAND) Ltd 300
5. Masayoshi Urabe, Hiroshi Hasegawa – Duo 88 – Side B (Siwa USA)
6. Spontaneous Composition – Same – Bird Dirge (Private Press USA)
7. Braxton, Bailey – Live @ Wigmore – Another Rehearsal Extract – DBL LP ((Inner City USA)
8. Laterna – Laterna – Piesn Opuszczonej Latarni (OBUH POLAND)
9. The Pyramids – King Of Kings – Mogho Naba (Pyramid Records – Private Press USA)
10. Blowhole (Jeff Jerman) – Guerrilla Jazz – Frig (Zabriskie Point – Private Press USA)
11. Sphere (Larry Nozero, Eddie Nuccilli, Keith Vreeland, Jimmy Peluso, John Dana) – Inside Ourselves – Alicia (Strata USA)

DISC TWO:

1. Milo Fine (Fine, Maureen Mailey, John O’Brian, Curtis Wenzel) – Improvisations– Quartet (Shih Shih Wu Ai – Private Press USA)
2. Masahiko Togashi (Togashi, Albert Mangelsdorff, Takashi Kako, Jenny Clark) – Colour Of Dreams – Crystal (Take One JAPAN)
3. Nedley Elstak Trio + Voice (Elstak, Sofie van Lier, Martin van Duynhoven, Maarten van Regteren Altena) – The Machine – The Machine (Fontana-ESP UK)
4. Harrissa (Mark Sims, Mike Ellis, Jacques LeRoy, Raouf Jasouli, Beb Drewry) – Harrissa – Harrissa (Acoustic Life Records – Private Press FRANCE)
5. The Blue Notes (McGregor, Pukwana, Dyani, Moholo) – In Concert Vol 1 – Manje (Ogun UK)
6. The Trio (John Surman, Barre Phillips, Stu Martin) – Conflagration – Malachite (Dawn UK)
7. Jothan Callins – (Callins, Joseph Bonner, Norman Conners, Cecil McBee, Roland Duval) Winds Of Change – Winds Of Change (Triumph Records – Private Press USA)
8. Music Improvisation Company (Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Hugh Davis, Jamie Muir, Christine Jeffrey) – Same – Dragon Path (ECM GERMANY)

Huh? Okay, strange that I didn’t recognize The Blue Notes and, being Dutch, I should’ve guessed Nedley Elstak. I did get the Braxton right. But Kaoru Abe was Masayoshi Urabe with Hiroshi Hasegawa. And for the rest, so many names that I have never ever heard of… amongst a few known names. Yet it’s a great collection of 19 tracks…