resnance
Cross art form performances
that bring together music, new instruments, sculpture, dance and words
in exciting ways.
Cân Y Graig - Slate
Voices
Created in 1990 around the industrial rural culture of North Wales, this
project combined music for six llechiphones (slate marimbas) and the voice
of Sianed Jones with film, poetry, sculpture and textile art. It played
at slate quarries and community venues in North Wales, then at arts centres
in South Wales and England, including Arnolfini, Bristol and ICA, London.
"Highly original and yet extremely accessible. I think we were
all unprepared for the joyous, celebratory effect of the piece." David
Ambrose, St Donat's Arts Centre.
Click
!Listen!
to hear short extract (File size 191K)
Click !CD!
for details of recording of Cân Y Graig
- Slate Voices.
For more, see slate.
Strong Winds and
Soft Earth Landings
The culmination in 1994 of three visits to Zimbabwe over seven years and
a long involvement with mbira music through making and playing. Five British
and five Zimbabwean artists were involved in this performance based on the
theme of migration between the two countries.
"A
gorgeous hybrid bloom.. . . Menter created a rare opportunity for these
artists to meet and share ideas, experiences and instruments." Kristyan
Robinson
"Will's new work
is bound to be interesting musically. He doesn't stop taking risks like
some people." Venue
Click
!Listen!
to hear short extract (File size 268K)
Click !CD!
for details of recording and book of Strong
Winds and Soft Earth Landings.
For more, see Flight.by Kristyan Robinson, and
Moving Towards Africa by Will Menter
Bouliers Ballants
/ RoTerre / La Cueillette Cuite
An ongoing series of collaborative performances with sculptor Jane Norbury
and musician Will Menter, and sometimes a dancer. The most recent version
was in a garden at Bezouotte, near Dijon in September 1998, open to the
public for Les Journées du Patrimoine. The performers moved between
two ponds and a 200 year old walnut tree, harvesting walnuts and terra cotta
musical balls, making sounds with seed shakers, slate and pottery percussion,
water, clay trumpets and soprano saxophone.
How Near Is Krocas?
A cross art form
presentation of Krocan culture - a unique culture that has developed relatively
free from outside influences, but still feels familiar to contemporary western
audiences. Here is an extract from the development document: A
basic concept in Krocas is measuring distance with the voice. The unit
is the range of the voice in calling.
Krocan culture
and art aims for a balance between four elements: stone, wood, wind
and skin. For the Krocans, stone represents the static unchanging element
of the natural world. Wind is the changing in time element of the natural
world. Wood is the static part of the living world, life that is over.
Skin is the living world in motion, skin is alive now. The four elements
are linked and nourished by water. In Krocas water is not considered
an element but an agent of change. It is carried by the wind to give
life to wood and skin. It moves stone around the bottom of the ocean.
It moulds the land when it falls as rain, then as rivers it carves out
the shape of the landscape in deep features.
Text and
images © copyright Will Menter.
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