UPDATE: Watch our video report for this story above.
This week the Timber Creek band will redefine what you know as “band” music.
Band students will undergo a “sound painting” workshop during their classes this week.
Head band director Darla McBryde describes the workshop as “a performance art around improvisation.” The workshop will be challenging band students to “think outside the box.”
“It’s an interesting take on what people view music as,” junior band student Sam Himes explained. “It’s this new style that is surprisingly catchy. Plus, it opens the band up to new ideas and keeps things diverse.”
The band hopes to accomplish a new sound and develop new skills as well.
Following the workshops, student performers will be presenting a show of the techniques at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17.
Find a full press release on the event below:
Theatre, Band Students to Join Forces for Soundpainting Performance
Guest Artist Leese Walker to introduce “Soundpainting” to TCHS students.
Students of both band and theatre alike will step out of their comfort zones next week when guest artist Leese Walker visits Timber Creek to teach an experimental form of performance known as Soundpainting. Students will spend the week learning the technique and will present a public performance on Thursday, 12/17 at 7:00pm in the Central High School Auditorium.
What is Soundpainting?
Soundpainting is an improvised form of live performance that uses a system of sign language gestures led by a conductor to create a multidisciplinary performance. The language comprises more than 1200 gestures that are signed by the Soundpainter (composer) to indicate the type of material desired of the performers. The performers then improvise using the “instructions” provided by the gestures.
About guest artist, Leese Walker:
LEESE WALKER is an interdisciplinary performance artist, director, producer and teaching-artist. Leese is the founder and Artistic Director of NYC’s Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble. The company is comprised of jazz musicians, modern dancers and actors. She established the company in 1997 to create politically-charged, original works. Leese figures strongly in the history of Soundpainting. She was the first actress to be soundpainted and was instrumental in helping inventor Walter Thompson to adapt the Soundpainting language for theater. The language has since evolved to include all performance disciplines and is now practiced in 33 countries world-wide. Leese has been a core member of the Walter Thompson Orchestra since 1997 and is one of three certified multidisciplinary soundpainters in the United States. Leese has soundpainted at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Airlines Theater, the Irondale Center, Bard College, and internationally in Paris, London, Tours, Bordeaux, Barcelona and in Bali, Indonesia. Her work has been featured on Radio France, NPR, German Public Radio and U.S. television. Leese is the recipient of the 2011 BAX Arts Educator Award, the 2010 Arts Presenters Emerging Leaders Scholarship, and the 2004 APPEX Fellowship in Ubud, Bali. Leese freelances as a teaching-artist with B.A.M. and Roundabout Theatre. She served on the board of directors for the Network of Ensemble Theatres from 2003-2008. www.strikeanywhere.info