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Pioneered by Lelavision, Physical Music is the complete integration of music and movement: the choreography, instead of being performed to a musical score, as is traditionally the case, arises entirely from the performers playing the instruments , which are designed specifically to evoke such movement. Centered around the "ingenious musical sculptures of Ela Lamblin" (the Seattle PI) and Leah Mann's choreography that "...turns ordinary movement into mystical flight" (the Atlanta Journal), Lelavision in any of its shows is a delightful display of physical agility and musical prowess bouyed with an intrinsic sense of humor . "The effect of this concentration on listening is that of seeing sound as shape," said the Seattle Times. Performances consist of several shorter works, similar to movements in a musical composition, centered around themes of invention, discovery and play. The Longwave: A horizontal harp played not by plucking but by stroking the 35ft rosined strings. The performers play the nearly invisible strings from behind the wave shaped instrument. As they gesture and dance they brush the strings with their hands and their bodies, producing polyrhythmic and sequenced patterns of music and of movement, canons and polyphonic harmonies arising from the dance, as though the musical notes were inherent in the body. Performers: 2-6; time: 20 min.
Orbacles: Fabricated, steel, ball-instruments that serve as containers for an intricate weaving of rhythms, phrases, and textures of sound ranging from gong-like bass tones to sighing resonances and calypso-like notes . The performers animate these musical spheres from the inside, causing them to roll and scurry about like huge bugs that meet and converse in a language of creaking, thumping, and pinging. Then, in a metamorphosis, people emerge magically from the Orbacles and begin moving, rolling, clanging, and pounding out a musical score. Performers: 2; time: 15 min. The Orbitone: A 15-foot, free-standing acrobatic swing. Performers dance with and on this bowed-bell sculpture, playing this musical instrument with their acrobatics, imbuing the Orbitone with a lithe and whimsical chase-like play that has them climbing, swinging, flipping, and orbiting around the Orbitone, climaxing in a full 360-degree circle, with the performers flipping again and again, creating, with the swing, a wheel of acrobatic musical delight. Performers: 2-4; time: 20 min. Singing Stones: The Singing Stones are 100 river rocks suspended by music wire from a wing shaped sound box. The strings are sounded according to the performers' movements by stroking with rosined gloves. Lamblin and Mann gathered stones from the ocean, resonant slate from the Cascades, and rocks from the Applegate River to create this breathtakingly beautiful combination of sculptural stone, delicate movement, and symphonic sound. Performers: 2; time: 10 min. |
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