Ideas from Mike Daisey

Finally, I have experienced Mike Daisey’s work. At the TBA Festival in Portland, I attended The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. The show is a wake-up call about where and how technical devices are made. I write about Daisey, because his work caused me to go backstage to shake his hand AND take multiple call-to-action flyers after his performance. Rather than write about the show, I will share notes from his artist talk.

I don’t care much for artist talks as they can be well-rehearsed-press-quotable-after-the-fact statements-about-work. In other words, the talks can be stale and aggravating rather than illuminating. Yet, I wanted to be in Daisey’s presence, because I feel he is one of the greatest living philosophers that philosophy hasn’t claimed.

Here are tidbits from the conversation with Daisey and his director Jean-Michele Gregory, moderated by TBA Festival guest artistic director Cathy Edwards:

• Labels (e.g.- storyteller, comedian, actor) are used to eliminate having to think. They provide a way to reduce and sell work as an object, yet because of this reduction and circulation in the marketplace, labels accumulate baggage. Labels must be unpacked and/or placed alongside each other to create hyper-terms that cause people to pause and think.
• Daisey performs from a non-script. Each scene of The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was marked by him turning a page. On this page are notes from which he improvises. Using a non-script allows for an experience rather than commodity to exchange between performer and audience member.
• Rarefication in art is a lie. Daisey does not believe in “white wall art.” To have an honest exchange, is to place the work within a living context. In his performance, I noticed how even though he was on a proscenium stage, he aligned himself with the audience through his words and actions.
• During The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Daisey said that he can feel the waves of nausea throughout the audience as he alternates between speaking about Jobs with labor abuses in China.
• Daisey doesn’t believe in world premieres. He said that the idea of the premiere is akin to losing one’s virginity. It can only happen once. Presenters do not necessarily want to have the world premiere, rather they do not want any other venue to have it.
• Technology promises a utopian future where the object and body dissolve.
• The hubris of Google is that we think we have access to knowledge when there are stories not on the network.
• The through-line of Daisey’s work is “the struggle to live an ethical life in the world.”
• The best storytelling is gossip because the stakes are clear.

If you miss Daisey at TBA, you can attend The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Rep (January 11-February 27, 2011) and the Seattle Rep (April 22-May 22, 2011). I wish Daisey would post upcoming performances on his website. (Oh, I found an “upcoming” column on the right, when I enlarged my screen. Neither the Seattle Rep nor Berkeley Rep performances are mentioned though.)

At any rate, GO SEE MIKE DAISEY.

 

Thoughts about the TBA Festival opening weekend

Last Thursday, I hitched a ride to Portland for PICA’s annual TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival. Close to midnight, I wandered through the free opening night party at Washington High School (built in 1909/closed in 1981). The ominous brick venue was renamed THE WORKS (yes, all caps, dunno why). TBA Fest volunteers were a harried bunch like chaperones at a party where they’d rather be drinking.

Some volunteers abused their black PICA t-shirts telling visitors to clear out of art installation rooms. Other folks were too polite, leading me down hallways searching for a coat check that didn’t exist. Eventually, I found myself outside the main auditorium where punksters Japanther and Nightshade shadow puppeteers tried to out-rock the crowd.

The audience won. Halfway through Japanther’s set, auditorium lights went on and the crowd stormed the stage and tore the shadow puppet sheet down. The flimsy separation between art and life was revealed.

I was in the beer garden where the concert was projected through a cyclone fence. Watching from this vantage point with the ambient audio of drunken conversations plus aroma of the nearby taco truck was an auspicious start to this year’s festival.

I didn’t intend to write so much about the opening, yet this encapsulated the first weekend of performances for me. With an empty high school as festival headquarters, an adolescent awkwardness and curiosity whetted my apetite for what was to come.

Artistic director Cathy Edwards describes the theme of TBA 2010 as “storytelling.” This is an apt description. (Read more in Portland Monthly, where writers Claudia La Rocco and Anne Adams have been posting insightful entries about the festival.)

Performances I attended ranged from the highly-saturated, multiple narrative threads of The Wooster Group’s interactive 360-degree film collage There is Still Time… Brother and Dana Hanson’s work-in-progress absurdist-rock-dance-theater-elegy Gloria’s Cause to the singular narratives of Jérôme Bel’s direction of dancer Cédric Andrieux in a work about Cédric Andrieux dancing and Mike Daisey’s heart-opening tirade The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Daisey and Bel’s work touched me with their no-nonsense staging and direct deliveries. Andrieux performed on a bare stage with a bottle of water and gym bag, Daisey performed seated at a table with a few sheets of paper.

One more note from my experience last weekend – for those of you at Mike Barber’s Ten Tiny Dances 22, you’ll remember the orange. For those of you not there, Ten Tiny ended with Daisey spitting an orange into the sold-out crowd. Need I say more? GO. The TBA Festival runs through September 19th in Portland.

 

Bicycle as Spinning Violin

Conscientious about not reviewing works-in-development, Christopher Arnott wrote an article about the partnership between the International Fesival of Arts & Ideas and the Yale Institute for Music Theater. He undestood the mission of the Institute to pinpoint and develop distinctive and original music theater works.

… there are genuine efforts to find new ways of telling stories, creating characters through song, and arranging those notes for a wider range of instruments.

In addition, Arnott mentioned one of my favorite instruments, an amplified bicycle wheel built by Paul Kikuchi.

OK, so I will reveal one thing about the performance of Stuck Elevator:  It’s about a Chinese food delivery person, so among the arsenal of instruments beat by percussionist Candy Chiu was a bicycle wheel which she bowed like a spinning violin.

I’m glad that the bicycle caught Arnott’s imagination as librettist Aaron Jafferis and I work on an ending with multiple bicycles. Read Arnott’s Arts & Ideas: The Stuck Elevator Non-Review in the New Haven Advocate.

 

Wherefore Art New Opera?

I used to be concerned by Stuck Elevator. After all, this work hovered awkwardly outside opera, musical theatre and performance art. Hip hop writer Aaron Jafferis and I nonetheless continue to develop this project encouraged by our experience last month.

Stuck Elevator was developed in June as part of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven. Director Chay Yew started the workshop process with the question: Is this an opera or a musical?

Aaron and I decided not to answer this question but rather focus on character and narrative. Performer Francis Jue played the Chinese take-out guy stuck in an elevator with nuance, intelligence and humor. Music director Perry So helped with the clarity of what I was composing. The comic-rap-scrap-metal string/percussion music came alive through Perry’s conducting.

These past few weeks, Aaron and I heightened the drama through surprising yet conventional ways. For example, the bladder rap now has a workable groove and we have a sketch of a rapping General Tso battling our singing delivery man. The most exciting discoveries for me included figuring out ways to integrate rap with classical music and learning how to earn a musical moment. Now, I consider adding a beat-boxer and bass to the instrumentation of violin, cello, percussion, and bicycle wheel.

Anne Midgette wrote recently in The Washington Post (Is anybody listening?) about how contemporary American opera faces a crossroads because of audience expectations, unwieldy budgets, the question of genres and the paradox of presenters. How can new opera survive within outmoded infrastructures?

For me, being part of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre felt like camping out at the crossroads. Aaron and I chose to inhabit the unknown and write what the characters and story needed rather than what budgets or presenters wanted. The audience at the two sold-out showings provided a helpful gauge. Between the two performances, we switched songs around and inserted new material. The work made more sense after these changes. One audience member wrote:

I was not looking forward to watching a man go berserk in a confined space…. but what a miracle worker you are — you managed to make his confinement very real but bearable. His flights of  fancy, his dreams, his sense of humor, his conversations with his wife and child, pulled me into his life while sympathizing with his predicament.

Yale offered a support team that included vocal coach/rehearsal pianist Andrew Byrne, sound designer Hillary Charnas, percussionist Candy Chiu, violinist Sun Min Hwang, cellist Alvin Wong, mentor Scott Frankel, co-producer Belina Mizrahi, stage manager Maria Cantin, and production assistant Greg Nobile. Aaron and I had access to two grand pianos, rehearsal rooms and printers for our revisions which helped us learn more about how to make Stuck Elevator compelling.

Producer Beth Morrison and artistic director Mark Brokaw have created a viable solution to incubate new opera even if we choose not to define the work as an opera or musical. Additional kudos to Mary Lou Aleskie and Cathy Edwards at Arts/Ideas for believing in Stuck Elevator. Far from concerned, I am now energized by this work knowing that growing pains are necessary when stretching existing systems of music, genre and presenting.

 

How to get tickets for sold out Stuck Elevator

I write this on the 10th floor of the Mad Towers in New Haven. Today is technically my day off, but Aaron Jafferis and I have a number of songs to revise and a few to write. We prepare for showings June 25th and 26th as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas presented with the Yale Institute for Music Theatre (YIMT), a collaboration between the Yale School of Drama and Yale School of Music.

Stuck Elevator is the operatic solo performance about the Chinese delivery man trapped in an elevator for 81 hours. The workshop showing is sold out, but don’t worry. I can get you tickets.

This past week, YIMT has been an amazing host. Producer Beth Morrison, artistic director Mark Brokaw, associate producer Belina Mizrahi, and production stage manager James Mountcastle have created a music-theatre writing haven. I have access to two grand pianos, three large work spaces, and a kick-ass support staff. Stage manager Maria Cantin and production assistant Greg Nobile have been keeping rehearsals on track.

Additionally, Aaron and I work with:

Superstar Francis Jue
Director Chay Yew
Music Director Perry So
Rehearsal Pianist Andrew Byrne

Musicians include violinist Sun Min Hwang, cellist Y. Alvin Wong, percussionist Candy Chiu, plus sound designer Hillary Charnas.

The Wall Street Journal and News-Times both mention the Stuck Elevator Workshop Reading at Arts/Ideas.

Friday, June 25, 7PM
Saturday, June 26, 1PM
Off Broadway Theater
(through The Yale Bookstore archway)
41 Broadway, New Haven CT

Both showings are sold-out, but I can get you a comp ticket. Let me know if you want a seat.