Percussion Theatre: a body in between

Jennifer Torrence

What does the musician become when sound and instrumental thinking are no longer privileged as the foundation of a musician's practice? In what ways does an emphasis on the musician's body cause music to approach art forms such as theatre and performance? After a generation of pioneering work from Mauricio Kagel, Dieter Schnebel, John Cage and many others, where is the theatrical and the performative in music today? How do its recent developments shape, alter, constitute a musician's artistic practice? Through her research, Jennifer Torrence argues that this type of music demands the musician assume a different understanding and relation to their instrument and therefore a different relation to their body. This relation calls for new ways of making and doing (new artistic practices) that foreground the body as a fundamental performance material. Through an emphasis on the body, the musician emerges as a performer. This exposition is a reflection on the research project Percussion Theatre: a body in between. This project is comprised of a collection of new evening-length works that approach the theatrical and performative in contemporary music performance. These works are created with and by composers Wojtek Blecharz, Carolyn Chen, Neo Hülcker, Johan Jutterström, Trond Reinholdtsen, François Sarhan, and Peter Swendsen. The exposition contains reflections on recent developments in contemporary music that mark a mutation of the executing musician into a co-creating performer, as well as images, artefacts, videos, and texts that unfold the process of creating and performing the work that constitutes this project. The ambition of this exposition is that through the exposure of a personal artistic practice an image of a larger field may come into focus.

Project Dissemination

Peer-Reviewed Publication:

Rethinking the Performer: Towards a Devising Performance Practice, VIS Nordic Journal for Artistic Research

Performances of Artistic Results:

Between 2015 and 2018, the pieces created and realized through this project were performed in festivals, on series, and at universities in seventeen cities within ten countries.

2015

No Say No Way, Gothenburg Art and Sounds Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden, October
No Say No Way, Gothenburg Art and Sounds Festival, Trollhätten, Sweden, October
No Say No Way, Arena Festival, Riga, Latvia, November
No Say No Way, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

2016
No Say No Way, Dark Music Days, Reykjavik, Iceland
No Say No Way, Ilios Festival, Harstad, Norway
No Say No Way, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway
No Say No Way, Soundacts, Athens, Greece
How to Fight, Eyedrum, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Blaha Lujza Tér, Klangbotton/Levande Musikk, Gothenburg, Sweden

Blaha Lujza Tér, Klangbotton/Levande Musikk, Fengers Fors, Sweden

Blaha Lujza Tér, Khimaira, Stockholm, Sweden

Blaha Lujza Tér, Oberlin College and Conservatory, Ohio, USA

What Noises Remain, Oberlin College and Conservatory, Ohio, USA

Blaha Lujza Tér, Quiet Que, Berlin, Germany

2017

What Noises Remain, Sentralen, Oslo, Norway

What Noises Remain, Stormen, Bodø, Norway

Nine Bells, Instalakcje Festival 6, Warsaw, Poland

Blaha Lujza Tér, Venice Biennale, Research Pavilion, Italy

No Say No Way, Venice Biennale, Research Pavilion, Italy

Etudes to become a deer, Holdeplass, Oslo, Norway

Blaha Lujza Tér, Levande Musikk, Gothenburg, Sweden

2018

Institute for Post-Human Performance Practice, Dark Music Days, Reykjavik, Iceland

Institute for Post-Human Performance Practice, Ultima Festival/Ny Musikk, Oslo, Norway

Sound Touch, Instalakcje Festival 6, Warsaw, Poland

Nine Bells, Final Artistic Presentation, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway

Institute for Post- Human Performance Practice, Final Artistic Presentation, Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway

Sound Touch, NeoArte Festival, Gdansk, Poland

Supplemental Performances:

2017

Bonnie Whiting/Jennifer Torrence, a duo project for two speaking percussionists, including new works by Bethany Younge and Paula Mathussen.

Artistic leader, Trondheim Sinfonietta, ABSURD!, music by Jessie Marino, Carolyn Chen, Natacha Diels, Francois Sarhan, and Neo Hülcker.

2018

Ng Revisited (2018), by Johan Jutterström, Ny Musikk Stavanger

Musik-Teater-Labor, percussionist and mentor for new music theatre works with the master students of Carola Bauckholt, Bruckner University, Linz.

Workshop Instruction:

Co-Art Collaboration Workshop, co-led with Erik Dæhlin, November, 2017.

Research Symposium Presentations:

2016

"Percussion Theatre", Norwegian Artistic Research Forum, Holmsbu, Norway

2017

"Percussion Theatre", Norwegian Artistic Research Forum, Hønefoss, Norway

“Embodiment in No Say No Way”, Embodied Monologues Conference, Maynooth University, Ireland

2018

"Percussion Theatre", Norwegian Artistic Research Forum, Bergen, Norway

University Lectures and Presentations:

2016

“Percussion Theatre”, Percussion Forum Lecture, Norwegian Academy of Music
Research presentation, Fellesdagen, Norwegian Academy of Music
“Collaboration in What Noises Remain”, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, USA
“Staging Shakespeare”, panel discussion, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, USA

“What Noises Remain”, Composition Forum Lecture, Trinity College, Ireland

“Towards a choreographed percussion practice”, Uniarts Stockholm, Sweden

2017
“What Noises Remain”, Composition Forum Lecture, Norwegian Academy of Music
“Percussion as Choreographic Practice”, University of Washington, USA

“Percussion as Choreographic Practice”, Beloit College, Wisconsin USA

“What is a performer for?”, Co-ART, Norwegian Academy of Music

2018

“What is a performer for?”, Anton Bruckner Private University, Austria

"Methods of Collaboration in Contemporary Music", Arts Council Norway, Oslo

Press:

“Slagverksteater – en merkelapp for hvem jeg er” (“Percussion Theatre – a label for who I am”), interview and article by Bodil Maroni Jensen, Norwegian Academy of Music, 11 March 2016.
“Avant garde percussion”, Radio New Zealand Broadcast, 3, August 2016.
“Et studie i større armslag" (“A study in bigger elbow room”), interview by Linn Carin Dirdal, Ballade, 2 February 2017.

"Zukunftsvisionen. Das MusikTheaterLabor in Linz" (“Future visions. The MusikTheaterLabor in Linz”), by Marie-Therese Rudolph, MusikTexte 158, August 2018.

“Å slå eller ikke slå” (“To hit or not to hit”), portrait interview by Marte Bjerke. Musikkultur, Issue 8, 2018.

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