Monday, August 15, 2016

The Bleeding Edge: 8/15/2016

Bearing in mind that August events at the Center for New Music have already been covered in an article written at the beginning of this month, other bleeding edge activities have been confined to only two days this week. Unfortunately, there are overlaps on both of those days; and they may involve some hard choices on the part of adventurous listeners. Here is a chronological account of this week’s events:

Wednesday, August 17, 7 p.m., Theatre of Yugen: This is the latest installment in the Pacific Exchange concert series. Created by Thingamajigs, the series was inspired by the words of Lou Harrison, who claimed that there is a “Pacific Sound” that connects the West Coast of the United States with cultures and countries on the western Pacific Rim. This week’s concert will present and perform new works by Phil Dadson from New Zealand and Sooyeon Lyuh from South Korea with accompaniment provided by the Thingamajigs Performance Group. Dadson is the founder of From Scratch, a performance group inspired by Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. Lyuh performs on the haegeum, the two-stringed Korean version of a fiddle; and she has been working directly with both students and faculty at the University of California at Berkeley to expand both the repertoire and the performance techniques for this instrument.

The Theatre of Yugen is located at 2840 Mariposa Street (which is between 17th Street and 18th Street), between Alabama Street and Florida Street. General admission will be on a sliding scale between $10 and $15. Tickets may be purchased in advance from a Brown Paper Tickets event page, which has options for the six whole-dollar amounts within the range of the sliding scale.

Wednesday, August 17, 8 p.m., Second Act: This month the Monthly Experimental Music Showcase will go back to its usual four-set format. Jim Haynes will present a set based on microlevel signal processing. Ryan King will give a live performance as Bonus Beast to preview his forthcoming recording, Mental Decay. Dax Pierson will serve as “sound navigator” between the “twin suns” of love and hardship. The opening set will present the music and lore of Fanciulla Gentile created in homage to The Creatrix, a powerful genetrix existing outside the dichotomies of human thought.

The entire program is expected to last two hours, and doors will open at 7:30 p.m. Second Act is located in Haight-Ashbury at 1727 Haight Street, between Cole Street and Parker Avenue. Admission is only $5, but only those aged 21 or older may attend.

Wednesday, August 17, and Thursday, August 18, 8 p.m., SAFEhouse Arts: This will be a work-in-progress performance of Identity Theft, created by composer and multimedia artist Linda Bouchard. Bouchard’s partners in this project are dancer and choreographer Aisan Hoss, wind instrumentalist Kyle Bruckmann, and composer David Coll providing technical support. The work explores the nuanced, fluid, and threatened connection we have with our own identity in a rapidly changing world through dance, live music, electronics, live video, and everyday objects.

SAFEhouse Arts is located at 1 Grove Street at the corner of Market Street. Admission will be on a sliding scale between $10 and $20. Tickets will be available only at the door, and only cash will be accepted for payment.

Thursday, August 18, 8:15 p.m., Luggage Store Gallery: This week the Luggage Store Creative Music Series will present a two-set program of electric-guitar++ music. The first set will be taken by J.Lee, who performs as captjrab working with small treated guitars and modular synthesis gear:


Delicasie, uploaded to YouTube by captjrab

The second set will be the Marana Jocund duet of Will Redmond on electric guitar and Rob Pumpelly on drums. Eclectic visual artist Megan McKearney will provide real-time synthesis of psychedelic imagery synchronized to the music. The Luggage Store Gallery is at 1007 Market Street, directly across from the Golden Gate Theatre at the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street. As always admission will be on a sliding scale between $6 and $15.

No comments: