Lelavision's Heavy Metal DëVices promo on Vimeo
Big metal objects as likely to flip a body 16' in the air on a steel pyramid as to produce exotic melodies that would soothe the wildest child or the staunchest art critic. Some spin, some rock, some fly, some are worn as costumes. Some are bowed, some are hit; some honk, some sing. These devices, are based on archetypal forms like the spiral, the wave, the circle, and the flower. They function as musical instruments, stage sets, and dance playground.

Now booking

Large-scale musical devices are brought to life and the result is outrageously entertaining performances based on the instruments of Ela Lamblin, the choreography of Leah Mann, and the compositions of Jason Staczek. Directed by AJ Epstein.

Large and small venues

Special events

Festivals

Born from the performances collaboration with research scientist Collaboration with David Lyn, the Warm Pond is a spinning stainless steel helix rising out of a small pool. The piece get's it's name from a quote by Charles Darwin referring to the possible origins of life on earth: "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are present, which could ever have been present. But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes..."

At first the Orbacles, two large fabricated steel balls, give no hint that they contain scrunched performers hidden inside! Then the balls come to life, rolling and scurrying like huge bugs, conversing in an Orbaclean language of
creaking, thumping, and pinging that audiences easily understand as the bugs' drama unfolds. Finally, metamorphosis! Legs, torsos, heads emerge as bugs become people, moving, rolling, clanging, and pounding out a musical score.

Like superheroes the performers fly through the air, smashing out a thunderous score on drums and cymbals hanging in the air.

Standing behind this horizontal, wave-shaped harp, stroking rather than plucking the nearly invisible, 25-foot, rosined strings, Lelavision's performers use gesture and dance to produce polyrhythmic and sequenced patterns of music and movement. Canons and polyphonic harmonies arise from the dance as though the musical notes were inherent in the body rather than in the instrument.

Like a viola-X-volcano, this conical steel sculpture with vertical piano wire strings can be plucked or bowed. Like a dulcimer or steel drum, it sings when struck. Like a ride at the fair, it spins. Lelavision performers catch a lift on the Violcano while playing their groovy tunes on it. To their surprise, they are sucked into the crater, then erupted for a seismic finish.

The Metalphor is a stringed instrument played by rolling a large stainless steel orb along the strings to bend the pitch, or by percussing its tounge-drum sides. Made from diamond plate and dished aluminum with 8 strings, the Metalphor shares commonalities with a steel guitar but has a distinctive timbre more akin to the Indian Rudra Vina. In performance it also serves as a percussive instrument and as a prop for acroballancing.

This spinning tubular-bell sculpture explores the aural and visual possibilities of a whirling universe.