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 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.