A wonderful preview article by Ben Waterhouse here... A work-in-progress showing of Children's Games will be presented at the Portland Actors Conservatory, this Saturday, September 17th at 2pm. I welcome your feedback on this still-developing work! Joining me will be Hand2Mouth, with an excerpt of their sci-fi meditation, Uncanny Valley. You can learn more about Children's Games (and download free albums) at my website, and help support this performance at our IndieGoGo campaign. Here again is the trailer for the performance - look for a new trailer and rehearsal videos coming soon!
The Children's Games campaign has been launched! We need your support, large or small. The entirety of your contribution will go to the actors, singers and musicians. Please visit our indiegogo site to learn more and make a donation. Come to a free work-in-progress showing SATURDAY, Sept 17 at 2pm: Hand2Mouth's Uncanny Valley + Seth Nehil's Children's Games - Portland Actors Conservatory, 1436 SW Montgomery.
In Mary Sutton's basement, Matt Carlson leads the trio in process-based scores: lovely rotating and hocketing phrases are locked into a steady groove held by the keyboards. Minimalism with slightly melancholy or elegiac tendencies...
Meanwhile, at the Mouth Studio, the chorus has been exploring vocal patterns and physical shapes. Some of these shapes are determined by the score or follow a simple geometry, others are taken from the actions depicted in Brueghel's painting. His dynamic clusters of game-playing children give us body configurations, and we can expand or contract into those arrangements. The "entropic process" has been one of the most prolific techniques in Children's Games rehearsals - morphing a phrase through rapid and repetitious passing. In this recording, you can hear the development of a sound and its associated melody from the beginning of the process. Starting with the name of a game ("Bowling with Knucklebones"), Elie and Katy face each other, passing the phrase back and forth. Meanwhile, the other four performers take turns pounding rhythmically on the singer's backs. Through incremental change, the phrase mutates, ending in beautiful onomatopoeia bell sounds and trilled tongues. In this way, a melody emerges.
I'm an artist, performance-maker, and composer. This blog documents my thoughts in relationship to the act of making.
My work moves between and across multi-media performances, sound compositions, drawings, sculptures, and other things.
I teach Sound and Video, Time Arts, Film Sound, and Art Theory at PNCA and WSUV.
You can contact me directly at s_nehil(at)yahoo(dot)com
