PERFORMING INSPIRATIONS

Finding videos of jazz musicians approaching their performance in an interdisciplinary way proved difficult. Some collegues of mine mentioned a performance by Ornette Coleman where he uses dancers. Unfortunately that video was no longer available anywhere on the internet so I could not watch it to analyse how a jazz musician was incorporating dance in his performance. When looking up interdisciplinary performing arts in general, what came up was a lot dance mixed with electronic music and visual arts, or “installation” performing art pieces.

So instead, I decided to look for Youtube videos of performances that I found inspirational, or that I felt were a good example of the usage of certain elements that I want to incorporate in my performances.

David Awotwi’s Dance with Mosquitoes; a piece for Body Percussion and Electronics

This performance, for me, is a good example if an interdisciplinary performance. The disciplines or elements at play here are electronic music, movement, and body percussion. If one takes a look at each discipline on it’s own, it is incomplete and has no meaning. Without the electronics, the David’s movements are random and and reason of him slapping himself is lost. If you only listen to the sound without viewing David’s movement it also comes across as random noise. But put the two together, and a full picture is presented. The story of a mosquitoe bothering somebody.

Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling’ (Montreux Jazz Festival)

Nina Simone is a great example of a jazz musician with great stage presense. I believe this is because she is focused on getting whetever message she has across to the audience. This focus brings an intensity to her performance which draws the audience in.

I performance in particular because it is a good example of how a convension is broken in order to grab the audiences attention and get your message across. Normally, musicians will start a song, and not stop in the middle to speak with the audience, and then start again, then stop and start and so forth. She does this in this performance, of a then well known tune, to bring focus to the lyrics. She questions the authenticity of the lyrics, and forces the audience to really think and engage with the text. To think of the person who would write such lyrics. By doing this the audience becomes deeply involved in the music than sitting back and enjoying the music on a superficial level.

Ella Fitzgerald – One note Samba (scat singing) 1969

Ella Fitzgerald is considered one of the greatest jazz singers and is also acknowledged as a great improviser. She is also the reason that I started liking jazz. In this video she shows her impressive singing and scating capabilities.

I like this video in particular because I find that it is an example of how improvisation can be used theatrically, and not only to show virtuostic musical skill. She paints a picture with the movement of her voice and hands. She is also able to add humor and share another side of her personality with her improvisations.  She also appears to be very comfortable on stage, moving around at ease. These are skills I hope to gain and use in my performances.