]MA[ – The Space between the Interval

Authors

  • Dylan Bolles Thingamajigs Performance Group
  • Keith Evans Thingamajigs Performance Group
  • Suki O'Kane Thingamajigs Performance Group
  • Edward Schocker Thingamajigs Performance Group

Abstract

“]MA[ – The Space between the Interval” is the fourth movement of ]MA[, a multidisciplinary performance created in 2013 by Thingamajigs Performance Group (TPG) and performed at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. In 2019, group member Dylan Bolles conducted and recomposed a series of interviews in which TPG reflected on the process of making and performing ]MA[. We asked questions such as: How does embodiment create particular amalgamations of influence and technique that trouble distinctions between thoughts of East and West? How do cultural artifacts change when passed through different bodies and contexts? What are the underlying principles which allow for sometimes effortless musical communication between seemingly distant cultural representatives? Our conversations, disjointed as they are, intermingle both shared and previously unshared experiences from many years working together and apart on intercultural performance projects. What emerges is a glimpse into a process of intercultural integration in motion.

Author Biographies

Dylan Bolles, Thingamajigs Performance Group

Dylan Bolles makes performances with people and environments, many of which involve the design and construction of new musical instruments and the cultivation of relationships based in listening practice. His activities include a wide range of performance-based collaborations, time-based arts, installations, and sound compositions rooted in shared temporal experience. His various intersections with Japanese cultural arts include playing the end-blown bamboo flute, attempting to play various traditional Japanese transverse flutes in a noh and gagaku context, collaborations with Bay Area groups such as Theatre of Yugen and inkBoat, and years of consideration and intermittent practice of various aspects of Zen philosophy and physical arts. He is a member of Thingamajigs Performance Group, received his master’s in composition at Mills College, and his doctorate in performance studies at UC Davis.

Keith Evans, Thingamajigs Performance Group

Keith Evans bridges the space between cinema and sculpture through his films, performances, and installations. His works include whimsically repurposed audio visual equipment and found objects to evoke fascination devices. His work has been included in international festivals, including the Whitney Biennial.

Suki O'Kane, Thingamajigs Performance Group

Suki O’Kane is a classically trained mallet percussionist, media ecologist, and a composer working with artists from a wide array of music, movement, expanded cinema, public art, and social practice genres. A practitioner of monumental and durational forms, she began studying noh with Theater of Yugen (San Francisco) in 2002 in her first of many collaborations with that experimental ensemble, centring her Western identity and tools in essential noh concepts of kamae, jo-ha-kyū, and ma, with immersions in the Kita and Hōshō schools. She is a core member of Thingamajigs Performance Group, the composing performance collective, and her compositions for physical theatre include commissions for Theatre of Yugen with playwright Erik Ehn—Frankenstein (2003), The Cycle Plays (2007) and Cordelia (2011), part of Ehn’s Soulographie project—and two compositions for inkBoat—Line Between (2011), 95 RITUALS (for Anna Halprin) (2015) and The Storm in My House (2020).

Edward Schocker, Thingamajigs Performance Group

Edward Schocker is a composer and performer who creates music with made/found materials and alternate tuning systems. He holds an MA in composition from Mills College, where he studied with Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and independently with Lou Harrison. He composed music for a UNESCO sponsored large bicommunal project in Cyprus that helped build understanding between communities in conflict, and he developed a cross-cultural performance piece for the 2019 San Francisco International Arts Festival. Edward is an ensemble member of the Thingamajigs Performance Group, a Bay Area arts and education organization devoted to alternate methods of creating sound and art. He creates works in a group process with Dylan Bolles, Suki O’Kane, and Keith Evans. Edward’s residencies and commissions include National Gugak Center in Seoul, Stanford Lively Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra, Headland Center for the Arts and Yōkobo Art Space in Tokyo. He was awarded The NEA/Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship to research Japanese musical instruments and tuning systems. Recently he has been guest artist and lecturer at Pusan National University and Keimyung University in Korea, International College of Liberal Arts in Japan, Mills College, and UC Berkeley.

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Published

2024-03-11

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2024): (Re)sounding Bodies East and West: Embodied Engagements with Japanese Traditions

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2024 Dylan Bolles, Keith Evans, Suki O'Kane, Edward Schocker

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