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Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
Taketo Shimada, Larry Miller and Alison Knowles with co-performers from Goonkins and Higgins families (12 year old Beckett Gookin, 5 year old Zora Gookin, 4 1/2 year old Clara Joy Selman (Dick Higgins’ Granddaughter) as well as Kirby Gookin, Robin Kahn and Jessica Higgins, plus Kirby’s student Noura Al-Salem, artists Nancy Hwang and Nelson / Electric Chaircut did vintage pieces plus Alison’s new piece “Play Paper” featuring her bean instruments and a toy.The standing room only crowd was jammed in to the Harvestworks recording studio on a rainy Valentine’s evening in SOHO NYC to celebrate performance art in its refined and vulger forms! |
Nivea Cream ruined two microphone (which later were repaired) and splattered all over the floor, Alison’s glasses and made a general musical mess! The Joe Jones’ piece “Flux Music Box” worked well because of personalities of two 5 year old girls with Taketo’s elegant turntable magic which included drilling holes into vinyl LP to achieve strange wobbly sounds. Children speaking during the performance was priceless. |
| Larry Miller’s “Finger Exercises” included such activities as Knuckle Cracking, Tooth Plucking, Snapping Fingers and Drumming the floor. Who could guess our fingers were by themselves musical instruments. |
One of the amazing visual in this concert was provided by Nelson / Electric Chaircut and Alison Knowles performance of Dick Higgins “Danger Music #2″. Alison’s white hair floated in snowy snippets and each scissor cut and razor sweep sounded like screeching car repair electrified. What an event for a Valentines night we had.Thanks to Taketo and Harvestworks, all the performers and guests. We are working on a DVD and CD of this event. |
| Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center Presents: Fluxsweet: Organized by Taketo Shimada Feb 14th 7pm to 9pm Harvestworks 596 Broadway #602 tel: 212.431.1130 |
| 1. Play Paper by Alison Knowles (2003) “Consider fragments of onion skins as a musical notation. Perform with handmade musical instruments and toys” Performed by Alison Knowles, Larry Miller and Taketo Shimada 2. Flux Music Box by Joe Jones (1966) (arranged by Taketo Shimada for two 5 year olds, their moms and turntables) “Modify two or more music boxes and play them simultaneously if possible use children.” Performed by Zora Gookin and Robin Kahn + Clara Joy Selman and Jessica Higgins + Taketo Shimada 3. FINGER EXERCISE by Larry Miller (1983) “Perform with finger(s).” Performed by Alison Knowles, Taketo Shimada, Kirby Gookin and Larry Miller 4. DANGER MUSIC #2 by Dick Higgins (1961) “Hat. Rags. Paper. Heave. Shave” Performed by Alison Knowles and Nelson/ Electric Chaircut 5. Nivea Cream by Alison Knowles (1962) “First performer comes on stage with a jar of Nivea cream. The performer massages hands in front of the microphone. Other performers enter one at the time. They make a mass of massaging hands and leave one at a time following the first performer.” Performed by Alison Knowles, Kirby Gookin, Beckett Gookin, Jessica Higgins, Nancy Hwang, Noura Al-Salem and Taketo Shimada” |