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| Larry Ochs (photo by Claudia Casanova) | Dohee Lee |
The Center for New Music is partnering with The Contemporary Jewish Museum to present four site-specific performances as part of the upcoming exhibition “Work In Progress: Considering Utopia.” The performances will be presented by improvising duos consisting of one musician and one dancer.
Occurring within the gallery, these performances will “activate” Ohad Meromi’s sculpture 1967 and the gallery itself. Meromi is an Israeli artist based out of New York whose work is being exhibited on the west coast for the first time. 1967 is an interactive installation inspired by the community stage in the kibbutz. The work explores the concept of utopia through the lens of the kibbutz across time.
Born on Jeju Island in South Korea, Dohee Lee studied Korean dance, music, percussion, and vocals at the master level. Since her arrival in the U.S. she has been a vital contributor to both the traditional and contemporary arts landscape. Lee’s distinctive and profound performance style evokes the full spectrum of human emotion, the primordial, futuristic, visible and invisible realms. A review that appeared in the Chicago Tribune stated, “Lee unfurled an extraordinary lexicon of vocal colors, tones and textures. Yet she deftly controlled these otherworldly sounds…with her sinuous, thoroughly personalized one-woman choreography, self-styled art form.”
Since 1978, Larry Ochs‘s professional activities have been primarily centered around the Rova Saxophone Quartet, which has made over thirty European tours and numerous concerts throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as recording over 30 CDs as a quartet and/or in collaboration with other artists. In 1986, Ochs formed one of the first bands to combine acoustic instruments and computer electronics in formal compositions that involved improvisation. In 1998, he toured and recorded with guitarist Fred Frith and koto player Miya Masaoka in a trio called Maybe Monday. His most recent composition was commissioned by Chamber Music America / Doris Duke Foundation, and he has twice previously been commissioned by Commissioning Music USA / Meet the Composer Fund. He composed the music for the film Letters Not About Love, which won best documentary film award at the 1998 South by Southwest Film Festival. His monograph on “Strategies for Structured Improvisation” was published in 1999 as part of the book Arcana, a collection of composers’ writings edited by John Zorn (Granary Press, New York).
The full slate of performances:
Jacob Felix Heule & Christine Bonansea
Thursday, Oct 10, 2013 | 6:30-7:15pm
Steve Adams & Shinichi Iova-Koga
Thursday, Nov 7, 2013 | 6:30-7:15pm
Jon Raskin & Justin Morrison
Thursday, Dec 5, 2013 | 6:30-7:15pm
Larry Ochs & Dohee Lee
Thursday, Jan 16, 2014 | 6:30-7:15pm