Constellation, Chicago
22/04/2018
US launch event of Ode (owed) to O (Wandelweiser editon, 2017)
This is Chicago-based performance collective a•pe•ri•od•ic first encounter with my work
(Story of)
O(hh)
A series of acoustic rendering of Pauline Reage’s infamous novel Story of O (1954), using minimal narration and musical translation of re-composed texts that blend erotic literature, experimental writing and verbal scores.
Three pieces are performed (story of), O(hh) and O(nly), based on text scores for voices and instruments that take the work away from its original literary context into the field of performative reading and experimental music.
For (story of) I read 10 to 15 phrases from Pauline Réage’s book Story of O (1954), chosing those where O is subject (as opposed to passive object), accompanied by a•pe•ri•od•ic ensemble who chose to use balloons as instruments to accompany me. It is impossible to alter the very graphic words of the infamous original story, yet one can attempt to change the way they are is consumed and shared.
O(hh) the final ode to O is composed of seven phrases from the original story which are gradually crumbling away, until only O remains before being breathed away.
For O(nly) The English (and French) content of this infamous erotic novel has been tempered with, so that only words containing the letter o remain. O is released vocally while instruments, one per chapter, read her as a note or chords on a stave of words. Each voice and instrument is now concentrating on the ‘O’-ness of O as a vowel and as a note, invoquing her again and again, as if inviting her to join them.
a.pe.ri.od.ic
a Chicago-based performance collective featuring post-Cagean notated, acoustic, experimental music. Founded in 2010*, a.pe.ri.od.ic’s repertoire explores the indeterminacy of various musical elements including instrumentation, structure, pitch, and/or duration.
The three works were also performed at Klangraum in Düsseldorf in July 2017 and café Oto in London in February 2018.
Ode (owed) to O double cd (Wandelweiser editon, 2017) is available here and on bandcamp here
Ode to O
A body of work (book, cd, text scores, performances, prints) based upon the infamous erotic novel Story of O, in an attempt to navigate a passage through this difficult literary work and its notorious yet little known history.
The work began as a series of private love letters handwritten by Anne Cécile Desclos to her lover Jean Paulhan. It was first published in French in 1954, under the pen name Pauline Réage, and the official English translation appeared in 1965.