I wonder whether there is such a process as collective improvisation in a musical or movement/performative sense, and how long one indeed could sustain it.
It seems, Alan, you were experiencing the 96 hour concert as such a strong continuum, where musicians would arrive, at any given time of that day, those days, and start playing with others, and this went on and around, and I imagine it to have been an amazing experience if one could dedicate time and enjoyment of time into it. Did performers play right into the small hours of the morning, and then the morning 'shift" arrived? did some play continuously? would it make sense to play so long? in dance terms (raves notwithstanding), it is not possible of course, nor desirable, to dance continuously, not even the whirling dervishes do it that long (within the sama ritual) even if, thinking of the Indian traditions of sanskrit drama, kutiyattam, and Kathakali, some of those performance lasted for a week or more, audience were participating, eating, sleeping, listening. The communal affect of music (and dance) is powerful and we know this - i was reminded also of a need for concentration, last night, and I gave it my very best, trying to listen to each instrument of the 'notes inégales" ensemble, performing last night at London's Club Inégales, conducted by Peter Wiegold (instruments were: violin, clarinet, piano, electric guitar, santur & accordion, bass, percussion and electric piano) - and also to the words, and the historical resonances of the music which was taking off from and returning to Jewish Klezmer. The words came from a recital, by writer Will Self, of Kafka's short story "A Country Doctor," which was intertwined with the music in a breath-taking manner i had not imagined possible. It seemed the concert was improvised almost completely, at least with the writer – the musicians had a structure and some of the "scores" available (composed by Wiegold) as they had already recorded a suite of these Klezmer variations (on CD now) for the KAFKA'S WOUND project I mentioned here a few months ago (http://thespace.lrb.co.uk/ ) it was mesmerizing to listen to the santur, touched lightly with two brushes, the softness and disappearance of melodic fragments, the faint trickle of bass and piano, while the voice told a story of the doctor's journey into wintry landscape and distant village where the young man, suffering on his wound, awaits him, then the more dissonant outbreaks of violin, clarinet, percussion, that started with Klezmer and then drifted into a foreboding, sometimes surreal tonal scape, not sure, a film/soundtrack of one's imagination, as we huddled, about 5o people, in a tiny underground bar, connected through whatever that music or these words evoked, 'community' I do not know but a sharedness hard to define, then we break up immediately and walk to the subway and our way. so what binds what? is it, as the music and Kafka imply, the troubled side, the trauma, in our lives, our near hysteria, which can be contained if possible for some time? pacified-agitated, transcended? This is Klezmer detuned, if i were to use Alan's phrase, and yet returning, at the end, to something also ecstatic, gypsy dance-like, & we broke out into wild clapping, no that is not true, most everyone clapped in good control of seated body undisturbing of the neighbor, and then the hands clapping stopped, with the last beat of music. Then the vigorous applause. Peter sold some CDs later that evening, cold winds outside, and slow train. regards Johannes Birringer _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
