Displaced Horizons (co-composer, video artist)
Displaced Horizons was a multi-year collaboration between me and composer/bassist/water-infrastructure agitator Rob Lundberg. With a team of other artists, we built an evening of music and video performed June 9, 2018 at SITE Santa Fe (as part of the Currents Festival that year), and in October 2018 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. DH was a collaborative multimedia performance focusing on the socio-cultural and historical complexities of water infrastructures. We used music and video in an installation setting to explore water systems, such as dams, acequias, arroyos, and rivers. DH was co-produced by the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and The Center for Culture, History, and Environment.
SITE/Currents Performers
Chris Jonas (Santa Fe), saxophones, vibraphone
Robert Lundberg (Wisconsin, Santa Fe), double bass
Cory Wright (Bay Area), piccolo, flute, bass clarinet
Katie Harlow (Albuquerque), cello
Ryan Packard (Stockholm/Chicago), percussion, vibraphone, accordion
Dylan McLaughlin (Vermont, Santa Fe), live video
Acushla Bastible, stage direction
University of Wisconsin–Madison Performers
Chris Jonas (Santa Fe), saxophones, vibraphone
Robert Lundberg (Wisconsin, Santa Fe), double bass
Cory Wright (Bay Area), piccolo, alto flute, bass clarinet
John Dieterich (Albuquerque)
Ryan Packard (Stockholm/Chicago), percussion, vibraphone, accordion
Displaced Horizons was a multi-year collaboration between me and composer/bassist/water-infrastructure agitator Rob Lundberg. With a team of other artists, we built an evening of music and video performed June 9, 2018 at SITE Santa Fe (as part of the Currents Festival that year), and in October 2018 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. DH was a collaborative multimedia performance focusing on the socio-cultural and historical complexities of water infrastructures. We used music and video in an installation setting to explore water systems, such as dams, acequias, arroyos, and rivers. DH was co-produced by the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and The Center for Culture, History, and Environment.
SITE/Currents Performers
Chris Jonas (Santa Fe), saxophones, vibraphone
Robert Lundberg (Wisconsin, Santa Fe), double bass
Cory Wright (Bay Area), piccolo, flute, bass clarinet
Katie Harlow (Albuquerque), cello
Ryan Packard (Stockholm/Chicago), percussion, vibraphone, accordion
Dylan McLaughlin (Vermont, Santa Fe), live video
Acushla Bastible, stage direction
University of Wisconsin–Madison Performers
Chris Jonas (Santa Fe), saxophones, vibraphone
Robert Lundberg (Wisconsin, Santa Fe), double bass
Cory Wright (Bay Area), piccolo, alto flute, bass clarinet
John Dieterich (Albuquerque)
Ryan Packard (Stockholm/Chicago), percussion, vibraphone, accordion
GARDEN Series (composer, video artist, producer)
After Molly Sturges and I got the United States Artist Award in 2008, I wanted to use the opportunity to reach out to one of my all-time favorite new music string quartets—the Del Sol String Quartet—to see if they would be interested in a collaboration, building a multi-media immersive evening-long live performance, exploring the marvelous and subjective domain of darkness and nighttime. Together, we built the first of what became a trilogy of live music and video pieces called GARDEN.
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Performance of Garden I with Del Sol String Quartet
For GARDEN, I collaborated with Del Sol on “Night” which was performed (and installed) in its premiere format at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts, with subsequent performances in the Albuquerque black box theater at the North Fourth Arts Center, and in the extraordinary Z-Space in San Francisco.
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Garden Install with Del Sol String Quartet
GARDEN 2 “House” was a collaboration with the TILT Brass ensemble in with performances in NYC at the Stone, Downtown Settlement and finally at Roulette (as part of the Tri-Centric Festival) with a concert in the Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts (part of the Currents New Media Festival).
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Garden II with TILT Brass Ensemble
GARDEN 3 “Home” has only had a few draft performances including a concert of works in progress at Santa Fe’s St. John’s College in 2016, and with the Arcote collective in Turin, Italy (as part of the 2017 Narrazioni Jazz Festival). “Home” was created in collaboration with the Sonoran Poet, Logan Phillips.
After Molly Sturges and I got the United States Artist Award in 2008, I wanted to use the opportunity to reach out to one of my all-time favorite new music string quartets—the Del Sol String Quartet—to see if they would be interested in a collaboration, building a multi-media immersive evening-long live performance, exploring the marvelous and subjective domain of darkness and nighttime. Together, we built the first of what became a trilogy of live music and video pieces called GARDEN.
For GARDEN, I collaborated with Del Sol on “Night” which was performed (and installed) in its premiere format at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts, with subsequent performances in the Albuquerque black box theater at the North Fourth Arts Center, and in the extraordinary Z-Space in San Francisco.
GARDEN 2 “House” was a collaboration with the TILT Brass ensemble in with performances in NYC at the Stone, Downtown Settlement and finally at Roulette (as part of the Tri-Centric Festival) with a concert in the Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts (part of the Currents New Media Festival).
GARDEN 3 “Home” has only had a few draft performances including a concert of works in progress at Santa Fe’s St. John’s College in 2016, and with the Arcote collective in Turin, Italy (as part of the 2017 Narrazioni Jazz Festival). “Home” was created in collaboration with the Sonoran Poet, Logan Phillips.
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Garden II with TILT Brass Ensemble
For Braxton’s third major production of an opera, he asked me to create the projected video environment that would wrap the four-act opera Trillium J (The Non-Unconfessionables) in images and landscapes. To build this multi-video environment, I worked with Braxton, the Tri-Centric staff, a young video artist, Dylan McLaughlin, and created projected media that would completely change the feeling of the environment of the premiere venue: Roulette in Brooklyn, NY. Participating in this remarkable project was one of the highlights of my life.
As an artist and director at Littleglobe, I have been lucky to be able to take my affinity for multi-arts performance and work with teams of artists and non-artists to bring to the surface stories of the people around me, living in New Mexico. Working with my fellow residents using multiple arts provides two remarkable possibilities: (1) there are many ways for people to access their stories—different people have resonance with different artistic frameworks to explore and find form for their stories, and (2) there are many ways to amplify and share those stories.
¡Presente! is a multi-year project collecting and sharing the stories of Santa Fe’s residents who face the flattening and emptying effects of affordability and gentrification. This is especially agonizing in a place so rich with history, with personal connectivity to the past, and a complex social fabric deeply relevant to the question of how people live and thrive in such a world today.
Over six years, SITE Santa Fe commissioned from Molly Sturges and me three musical pieces responding to their 2004, 2006, and 2008 Biennials.
The first year of this project was the commission of a live/silent film soundtrack for Paul Leni’s remarkable 1927 film, The Man Who Laughs, which was performed for a sold-out audience at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe.
The second year, SITE decided to commission a site-specific work, occupying and responding to the current installation. IN-SITU was performed January 2007 in collaboration with a small ensemble of musicians and performers who were positioned throughout the SITE space. Molly and I worked with writer Melody Sumner Carnahan and Theater Grottesco actor/performer John Flax for the accompanying text. We performed this piece in front of hundreds of audience members on a snowy night (only ten days after Molly’s oral cancer surgery). It was a remarkable evening.
Two years later, we expanded the idea, and collaborated with composer John Kennedy. This piece, Malangan was a site-specific composition for a nine-piece orchestra, the UNM Children's Choir (co-directed by Molly and Acushla Bastible), and two actors. As was the case with IN-SITU, the audience moved through the installation space to experience different parts of the composition, but never the whole piece at once, mirroring the subjective experience of life.
The Bus Opera was a MAP Grant funded project working with the City of Santa Fe to build a non-linear and looping multi-temporal set of stories as seen from within a bus route in Santa Fe. Bus Opera was written in collaboration with a wide range of residents, bus drivers, musicians, and writers.
The bus opera creative team included Molly Sturges, Acushla Bastible, Valerie Martínez, Chris Jonas, Erin Hudson, Kevin Berriz, Dylan McLaughlin, Robby Rothschild, Andrea Walters (Santa Fe Opera), and a wide range of community members who contributed to the creation of the performance.
Our project partners included the City of Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Trails Bus System, the Santa Fe Opera, and Santa Fe Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Funders included the MAP Fund, Black Rock Arts, New Mexico Arts (a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs), City of Santa Fe Arts Commission (1% Lodgers Tax Fund) and UNM.