PERFORMANCE – {69 Broadway}
Friday, September 29, 2017 at 5:30pm
Music for Modernist Shapes: Reimagining Spectodrama
Performance artist Martha McDonald and composer/multi-instrumentalist Laura Baird perform in McDonald’s installation, Music for Modernist Shapes: Reimagining Spectodrama.
FREE
Music for Modernist Shapes was an installation and performance that reimagined a 1936 theater piece that Bauhaus alum Xanti Schawinsky made at Black Mountain College. The historic performance, Spectodrama, included folded paper costumes, light projections, and live music. Composer/multi-instrumentalist Laura Baird wrote an original score drawing on archival scores from Schawinsky’s performance collaborations with Black Mountain College music teacher John Evarts, 1930s avant garde music, and Appalachian folk songs from the Black Mountain region. Martha and Laura activated the objects and costumes, conjuring the memory of this little-known piece from the experimental college’s rich performance history.
Helen M. Post, “Xanti Schawinsky’s Spectodrama,” 1936-1937. Collection of Michael Reid.