Cross posted from my mailing list - MAGNETIC LADIES
I am writing you from my atelier in Krems, Austria, a small and lovely town about an hour outside of Vienna. I've been here since Monday and will be here, more or less, until the end of October. I have a residency with an organization called Klangraum, that runs four music festivals a year including the one in which i performed last night, Kontraste.
My atelier faces a prison. It is so strange to think that a prison would be smack dab in the middle of a pretty little town, surrounded by museums and a university, that it took me a couple days to sort out what all the razor wire was about. Then I saw a large computerized door open and some type A studly men in full ninja cop gear walk out... Presently there is one man leaning into the bars on his window blowing smoke into the sunday sky. I can only hope that the Alexis O'Hara show (running thru oktober 07) is occasionally entertaining. Today, Rainer (one of the many handsome Austrians running this festival) said to me: "Well you musnt worry about the prison. There are only the hardest criminals in the country there and therefore the security is at maximum." Well, that's good. The view from my upstairs balcony is decidedly more edifying: the Danube river flowing to by. The river does not know where it goes, it simply flows. That's how i'm trying to do things these days.
Which is not to say that there is no plan. For last night's show, I made 9 flashcards, each representing a mode or concept or maybe just a description of some type of specific sound i could make with my voice. I shuffled them, making sure that "Press Record" - a superfluous attempt at getting documentation right - was on top. Of course, the battery went dead six or seven minutes into my concert. I did not completely surrender to this randomness, making executive decisions along the way.
The piece is called "City of Sighs" or "Seufzernstadt", an idea inspired by a Jacqueline Humbert song composed by Joan LaBarbara. That song is called Via Dolorosa and features a lot of sighing. It had me thinking about how there are actually many different emotional states that provoke sighing and i saught to explore them in a vocal but non-verbal way. it's always a tricky thing composing music based on breathing - it's hard to avoid the innate eroticism, especially as i am a prisoner of this female body and therefore can never escape the Hot/NotHot binary that blankets feminine performance. Generally I try to use humour to undermine sexiness but this piece didn't come out funny at all, although there were definite grotesqueries.
Here are the title cards:
Mean red & the blues
¡Que Lastima !
L'épuisement
A horse of course
(Fab)Elation
Your unstoppable heart
The death rattle
Unfunny caveman
Why I oughta
very deep, non?
Well i should cut to the chase a bit. It was wonderful. My voice held out incredibly, the audience was very generous. I had been feeling a bit clouded (reading about the Limbic System has wound me up in the realm of emotions and of course i always get a bit squirelly before a show). I should mention that also on the bill was none other than Diamanda Galás. Right before i went on, listening to the german introduction I thought to myself: "This is the biggest show of your life, isn't it?" Now there's a thought to freak you out. But i was prepared and centered and did not hold back. I loved it.
Dorit Chrysler is an Austrian born NYC based Theremin virtuoso. She sweetly provided a sort of light sorbet between the goth-ness of myself and Ms. Galas. Diamanda was absolutely brilliant, powerful yet kind and indefatiguable (sp?). After the show the three of us bonded over the tribulations of being solo female performers. What a trip. I was thrilled to sit across from Diamanda at post show dinner (she only ate dessert), she's incredibly funny and charming and warm. It's high time she wrote her memoirs. She had some scathing things to say about other famous people - I ate it up.
Today i was a bit rough around the edges (the schnapps was not necessary at all) but feeling so grateful and happy. Dan Devening, a Chicago painter who is also doing a residency here at the Kunstmeile Krems, and I went for a 2 hour bike ride along the Danube, through bursting apple orchards and vineyards and the most picturesque towns you can imagine. Dan mentioned that he never knew how to feel when he was in the midst of these brochure-type moments - co-opted? Nah, I replied, we're living the life that some folks only ever get to see in photographs.
Tomorrow I take a train through Salzburg to get to Ljubljana and the City of Women festival.