Requiem for Anchorage (Partnering Passing Time)

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Requiem for Anchorage (Partnering Passing Time) (2020) is a nostalgic ode, a mourning for a time passed, desperately trying to hold onto it, and what was in it. A liberally-treated Requiem setting, it consists of the last two movements that specifically concern the body: Libera Me (said/sung at the burial site before interment), and In Paradisum (traditionally said or sung as the body leaves the church).

The sounds in this piece are founded and built on movement; the core of the score is the accompanying video of my choreography/dancing, along with written instructions and cell prompts of notated material for the performers to play with.

The piece is also accompanied by electronics I pieced together from my improvisations on the Eurorack at Columbia’s Computer Music Center as well as a field recording I took of the Riverside Church bells on a rainy Sunday morning. Interestingly, the taps of the rain on my umbrella and the perceived arc-shaped heightening in frequency of the softened screech sound of the car’s wheels passing by against the wet gravel are reminiscent of the articulations and texture changes of the Eurorack. Both the Eurorack and rainy bell recordings express trying to hold onto time differently; I manipulated many of the sounds on the Eurorack as simultaneously static and in motion - trying to hold onto time as it relentlessly moves forward - and I always thought of the Riverside bells as a suspension or breathing space in time, while the rain and cars/people passing by gently remind the listener that the surrounding world is still moving.

This is Movement I of a two-part work; the first is my most internal interpretation of the material - playing the four roles of flutist, dancer, composer and choreographer - and the second is an external interpretation performed by Apply Triangle. It is also the third piece in my series "Pas de deux sans un" ("dance for two without one"). In the video/score for this piece, I partner passing time, treating it as something to move with, interface with, communicate with. The interaction is based on how my actions shape the abstract substance of time around me, and the dialogue my movements create with “a world stuck on play” (Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows), desperately trying to pause it.

My prior two pieces in this series, partnering a wall and a floor, involved surfaces physically fixed in space. This piece presents a paradoxical case, in that the only fixed element of time is its passing.

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