Choreographer Susan Osberg’s Workwith Company
As the ultra gentrification of Manhattan continues, “downtown” artists have responded with an amoeboid exodus into the hinterlands of Queens and Brooklyn, where lower overhead expenses enable venues to support avant experimentation. The Improvised and Otherwise festival, an outgrowth of this burgeoning “across-town” scene, is fast becoming an important forum for the continuing “researches” of these sonic scientists and their visual-kinetic collaborators.
The festival’s forth annual edition opened Thursday night [May 5th, 2005] with HorseEyeless, a dipsomaniacally dancing duo accompanied by percussion and electronics. Mary Halvorson (guitar) and Jessica Pavone (viola) followed with a musical dialogue that alternated pointillistic exchanges with sustained, soothing sonorities wandering in and out of tonality. In the next piece, Estelle Woodward’s statuesque sensuality provided a kinesthetic counterpoint to John Hughes’ intimate “dance” with his bass, concluding in a poignant moment when the improvisors made I-contact…
Ubiquitous Gestures & Found Object
The Susan Osberg Workwith Dancers Company performed Ubiquitous Gestures & Found Object featuring five dancer-narrators and the emphatic yet empathetic piano of David Arner…
Blue Collar, including downtown mainstays Tatsuya Nakatani (percussion), Steve Swell (trombone) and Nate Wooley (trumpet) concluded Friday’s festivities with a strong set. Swell played disassembled horn parts, Wooley experimented with multiphonic textures through simultaneous singing and blowing, while Nakatani expressed himself with Japanese “singing bowls” and dramatic body-English…
[Saturday] evening ended with a powerful set by Ken Filiano & Collected Stories, a dynamic group cross-fertilizing European free music sensibilities with In a Silent Way-era Miles Davis; compelling solos, a houserockin’ solo from trombonist Steve Swell, frenetic “fiddling” from cellist Tomas Ulrich, and Jackson Krall’s cookin’ drum gumbo brought the festival’s final night to a satisfying closure.
As it continues to build momentum and expand its aesthetic scope, I&O remains a reflection and extension of its communal roots: a melting pot-pourri of improvisational artistry.
Thomas Greenland, Signal to Noise, Fall 2005