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TIMARA Students Create a Projection System for World Premiere of Tania León's "At the Fountain of Mpindelela" at The Kennedy Center
By Emily Manzo
RELATED INFORMATION
Visit the African Odyssey Interactive web site for an ongoing exchange of ideas, information, and resources between artists, teachers, and students of African arts and culture. Check out the AOI-Zine, African Odyssey Interactive's weekly magazine.
The Kennedy Center African Odyssey Africa! Spirit Ascending concerts are also part of the NMA series Music Becomes Us, a multi-year collaborative educational project launched with the Getty Conservation Institute. For upcoming National Musical Arts program information, call (301) 946-0355.
Oberlin's TIMARA department holds an international reputation in the world of multi-media art, so it wasn't surprising that Dr. Patricia Gray ('67), artistic director of the National Musical Arts, looked to her alma mater when she wanted "to fuse a new concert experience for audiences" with her production entitled Africa! Spirit Ascending, presented by the Kennedy Center and the National Musical Arts (NMA) chamber music ensemble.
Under the advising of visiting professor Tom Lopez ('87), students Eric Suquet ('00), Kristen Waite ('00), Jim Altieri (geology/TIMARA with a composition minor ('00), and Mark Bartscher ('00) created a 14-minute, three-screen projection system to accompany the world premiere of "At the Fountain of Mpindelela," by African-American composer Tania León. The piece, a tribute to Nelson Mandela, premiered on February 3 as a part of Africa! Spirit Ascending, an offering of the Kennedy Center's four-year African Odyssey.
 In TIMARA Studios, Jim Altieri, Tom Lopez, Mark Bartscher, Kristen Waite and Eric Suquet work down to the wire the night before their Kennedy Center debut. Photo by Michael Chipman |
In the hopes of reversing the effect of "dwindling attendance figures for the classical music concert," Gray began rethinking what goes into making a live musical performance. This query resulted in her "realization that the visual stimulation at a traditional chamber music concert was not rich enough and that an event such as Africa! Spirit Ascending -- where we are presenting music not necessarily based on western music's constructs -- would benefit greatly from additional layers of sensual input."
Gray had found the work of the Oberlin faculty and students "artistically inspired and presented." Gray "didn't want the product for Africa! to look like a Las Vegas show -- but subtle, provocative, integrated."
In addition to Africa! Spirit Ascending, the concert program, performed mostly by the National Musical Arts, included:
- Traditional Mbira music performed by Forward Kwenda and Erica Azim
- A chamber-music version of the epic oratorio UShaka, by esteemed South African composer Mzilikazi Khumalo (World Premiere)
- Three Paraphrases, for two string quartets, by Carl Van Wyk, a leading contemporary South African composer
- Walking Song for flute, piano and hand clappers, by Kevin Volans, a leading contemporary South African composer (who was in residency at Oberlin last year).
The Process
During
fall semester, the students collected raw footage with the
digital audio camera and then produced clips from the
footage using effects in the programs Media 100 and After
Effects. Working through this material, the students focused
in the end on human forms, water and smoke, which
coincidentally aligned with the title of Leon's piece, "At
the Fountains of Mpindelela."
In a few marathon sessions over Winter Term, they compiled and catalogued all of the footage and drew up a graphic score from which they would compose the piece. As they put the clips together in After Effects, a program which allows the use of numerous types of effects to combine the images, they ran into a challenge of hardware limitations. Unable to see moving pictures of what they were working on -- only stills -- they were forced to work on the piece in three main chunks, and then put them on tapes using Media 100.
The experience revealed much to the students about their role in a professional multimedia production. Bartscher, who had worked with Suquet on a similar project for Gray four years earlier entitled India, felt that "it was difficult going into a big project like this with a very vague idea of the artistic content. We were only given the theme of the 'coming together' of African and American cultures. León finished her piece a week before the performance, so we had no way of knowing what we were contributing to."
"The students had a difficult time without the music to work with," admitted Lopez. "They had expected it would be a collaboration, and it was not one. They prepared a number of different scenarios for the final combination and as it turned out, there was only one run-through before opening night, so they chose the scenario they thought would work best. Fortunately, the video and music fell together beautifully. There were a number of 'chance' moments between the two, and I was thrilled."
Working in this detached way proved to be a true compositional test to the students. "We tried to keep it as fluid as possible," said Altieri. "It was hard, because when I create, I like to be process-oriented. Content is the same as form, and this is not the way this project has worked."
Gray
felt that the students, on the whole "were terrific; very
professional. As you can imagine, preparing a world premiere
of very difficult music and adding the dimension of
technology creates a lot of pressure on everyone. The
Kennedy Center staff really enjoyed working with the whole
show and making it the big success it was."
"This was a great opportunity for the students to receive national exposure," said Lopez. "The experience of interacting with arts organizations, stagehands, producers from the Kennedy Center, and National Musical Arts is something that some artists don't have until years after graduation. And many people never, for their entire careers, have a work presented at such a highly-esteemed venue."
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