︎︎︎Info
Title
Occultations
Inventory
3 perc, hexbugs, sinetones, lights, fog, video
Year
2015
Duration
45’
Commission
Avant Music Festival
Publisher
Adrian Knight Music
Premiere
February 20, 2016
‘Day Trip’ (10h Performance Installation)
Wild Project
New York, NY (US)
TIGUE
Matt Evans, perc
Amy Garapic, perc
Carson Moody, perc
Lighting design, Kryssy Wright
Costume design, Alice Cohen
‘Day Trip’ (10h Performance Installation)
Wild Project
New York, NY (US)
TIGUE
Matt Evans, perc
Amy Garapic, perc
Carson Moody, perc
Lighting design, Kryssy Wright
Costume design, Alice Cohen
︎︎︎Detailed Inventory
Personnel
3 percussionists*
Lighting designer
Sound engineer
3 Fog operators (unless controlled via DMX)
Instrumentation
3 floor toms (16-18’) or other low drum (coated heads)
6 Hexbug microrobotic creatures (3 for backup)
3 Stopwatches
6 Speed Drum Keys
Black electrical tape
Sound
3 SM57s, SM58s or equivalent microphones
3 Powered PA Speakers (60-20000Hz)
2 Subwoofers (30Hz)
4-Bus Mixer
Graphic EQ Reverb
1 Laptop with Max/MSP
Audio interface with 4 discrete outputs
Lights
3 Fog machines (one of which may be a hazer)
3 Clip or work lights Stage lights
1 Laptop for video projection
1 Projector
Large projector screen or white wall
Costumes
3 masks
3 robes
3 sets of black longsleeved shirts and trousers
︎︎︎Note
Co-commissioned by TIGUE and Avant Media for the 2016 Avant Music Festival, Occultations combines a number of elements: microrobotic toys (HexBugs) with traditional percussion instruments (floor toms), and an ever-changing counterpoint sinetone drone accompanied by a fog and a light show. The three masked and robed performers emanate from clouds of fog in low light and perform a 45-minute ritual, filling the space with fog until the video projections all but disappear, slowly conjuring it back for the last segment of the performance.
An occultation is defined as “the state of being hidden from view or lost to notice” or “the interruption of the light from a celestial body or of the signals from a spacecraft by the intervention of a celestial body.” To varying degrees, both meanings apply here. I first had the idea of using vibrators on drum heads and cymbals in 2013, and I first used them for the backdrop in Humble Servant. I wanted to extend the use of these vibrators to instruments capable of more complex resonances, and found a perfect vehicle in the standard 16-18” floor tom. Formally, the piece consists of three series or permutations of rhythmic modules in the form of pitch bends, played simultaneously by the three percussionists. Liberated by the automated “rolling” of the vibrators, the performers are encouraged to navigate infinite spectral variations by meticulously detuning and re-tuning the drums. In addition to the performative element, an ever-changing sinetone component, tuned to the drums, pervades the space and creates complex beating patterns against the drum melodies, ‘occulting’ them. Despite the fact that nearly every parameter in the piece is in constant flux, heard from a certain ‘distance,’ Occultations may appear to be completely static. Poetically, it is thus also a form of occultation of itself.
︎︎︎Image
︎︎︎Score Excerpts
