John Lely - Performance of Treatise
11 July 2009, 14.00 – 20.00
Composor and musician John Lely will collaborate with contemporary musicians to perform Cardew’s Treatise. The group will create an environment and a sustained space through installation and performance, which would develop over a period of time and will culminate in a 5-6 hour performance. They will use the score as a way of producing a situation, following the score but exploring the instruments and the space.
Collaborative musicians: Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, James Saunders, Lee Patterson, Tim Parkinson.
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Blog notes from inside the performance, written on my phone..
Initially felt a bit dated, bits of stuff and string everywhere, with performers working in front of audience, would they be different if they weren’t working on a performance - are they making stuff slightly wierdly, forced to do things? Is this real work? Where is the work - in sticking tape to things or all of them just in the room together? They didn’t mix, apart from when Tim and James swapped motorised toys.
Need to see the score.. - what is going on„,
Lots of tape and electric toys playing instruments- I’ve seen things like this before (that is no reason why they should not do it again) but drawing room crowd really wowed - as they should be when they see alternative invention on display..
Been good to have Treatise on show, or context …
It is live process. Or just a live bag of performances and methods - are they making something real? That Cardew gets the credit for?
( interesting action - John Lily ) Dictaphones recording each other in a box which is opening and closing - sound from the room mixing in and out - live mixing.
Do we need to know what’s in the script, what the artist brings, what was cardew - what was them.
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Afterwards much cleared chatting to artists. Had a look at the score - a book of drawings and shapes over a musical score. There are no instructions and musicians can work with it as they please. Tim, Angahard and Rhodri (who i spoke to ) had responded visually, had taken the drawings as patterns to recreate visually and their process of doing this had created a sound. Did Lee do anything visual or respond visually?
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Notes relating to Beckett after Not I preformance
Cardew’s score is all about interpretation and Beckett really really isn’t. Yet at the Beckett event everyone spoke about the actress and her being herself, yet at the Cardew I felt a bit awkard at some points that the musicians could not be themselves - the weight of interpretation was also quite rigid… hmmmmmm…
