BENWILLIS; BASSIST, COMPOSER, ANIMATOR, FILMMAKER
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into the next garden

9/6/2016

 
I'm thrilled to currently be in Milwaukee for Wild Space Dance's production of Into the Garden, a site-specific performance at the Villa Terrace Museum of Decorative Arts. The company, led by Debra Loewen, has been doing important site-specific work for 30 years. The music for this piece is directed by the excellent saxophonist/composer, Nick Zoulek. For this piece, we are performing a combination of newly co-composed and improvised works, as well as music from Nick's solo saxophone project Rushing Past Willow, and my solo bass project Egret/Flatlander.
Picture
Roy Staab's sculpture at the Villa Terrace Garden. Photo: Wild Space Dance

out of the garden

9/4/2016

 
Summer of 2016 marked my first project with the Detroit-based Nerve, a boundary-crushing performing arts company led by the brilliantly demented writer Kathe Koja. The summer piece, held in the garden of Ann Arbor cultural ambassadors Stan and Robin Mendenhall, was a take on Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. For the piece, I broadcasted sounds out to radios (designed for me by the ever-talented Eric Sheffield) that were spaced throughout the audience space. The sounds of my bass were affected and combined with the sounds of bells and voices. I performed acoustically perched on a raised folly, nearly nude in an amazing bird mask made by Mary Perrin. (Basically the ideal performance setting.) Movement artists Marianne Brass and Rachael Ahn Harbert brought the garden to life and became the interface for the audience. The sculptures and designs of remarkable artist Rena Hopkins mutated the environment.
​
Currently working on a finalized recorded version of the piece, which will likely take me through the fall.

Also through the fall, I'm working on Nerve's next piece--one that will proved to be much darker. Night School, based on Marlowe's Faustus, will be staged on January 21st at the Jam Handy in Detroit.

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  • home
  • blah'g
  • about
  • music
  • video work
  • discography/catalog
  • subatlantic songs