Performance Installation
Activating Public Spaces with New Music and Interdisciplinary Performance
the SOUND. 2018
Presented by New England Foundation for the Arts | Northeastern University Center for the Arts | The Emerald Necklace Conservancy | Boston Public Library | Museum of Fine Arts Boston | Pao Arts Center
Gathering voice recordings from 75 immigrant students of the Boston International Newcomers Academy [BINcA] and connecting them throughout the city of Boston in a series of performances and sound installations — conveying a single story of hope, family, and success (past and present) from the perspective of newly immigrated young adult Bostonians.
Movement 1: the SOUND [if tree were water] Calling upon the tree as a metaphor for family & heritage, water as a symbol for immigration & connection, this first operatic movement was presented within Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculpture along the Emerald Necklace.
The operatic movement features six dancers and a solo soprano, wearing a 40-minute sound installation, constructed of student perspective of success, soprano, cello, and move through the audience while a live soprano musically responds to the recording, dancers, audience, and environment — all under a blanket of Nakaya’s ethereal fog installation.
Concept & Composer: Beau Kenyon | Choreographer: Peter DiMuro | Costume Designer: aricoco.
Sopranos: Sarah Brailey & Anna Ward | Cello: Sarah Brailey | Dancers: Ann Brown Allen, Allyson Esposito, Kara Fili, Ann Fonte, Irene Lutts, Olivia Moon, Hai Dang Nguyen, James O’Gilvie, Lonnie Stanton, Michael Winward, Kristin Wagner.
Movement III : the SOUND [of hope extending] A solo dancer performs to an original cello solo, played live over a 60-minute spoken soundtrack of spoken perspectives of success.
Concept & Composer: Beau Kenyon | Choreographer: Peter DiMuro | Costumes: aricoco Cello: Javier Caballero | Dancer: Irene Lutts | Video Production: Hairpin Communications
The House of Accumulated Beauties. 2018
Presented by The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
A performance installation, directly informed by the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, her impressive art collection, and the palace itself. Portable speakers hidden in lanterns activates the follow audience members and alight dancers in each of the rooms. Each room with a different character, dance, and music provided an interconnected experience — just as the museum itself carves out countless unique experiences to create a single perspective.
Choreographer: Peter DiMuro | Dancers: Ann Brown Allen, Ann Fonte, Kara Fili, Allyson Esposito, Lindsay LaPointe, Irene Lutts, Hai Dang Nyugen, Lonnie Stanton, Tony Guglietti, Michael Winward
Composer: Beau Kenyon | Mezzo-soprano: Christina English | Alto: Emily Marvosh | Piano: Beau Kenyon + Typewriter, Found Sounds, and Fabricated Sounds (50 min.)
And all the men and women merely players. 2017
Presented by the Boston Public Library
An immersive, site specific performance installation, deconstructing Shakespeare's As You Like It in a weeklong public performance of six live musicians and five dancers that tackled gender roles, love, and the unequal distribution of time and wealth
Composer & Concept: Beau Kenyon | Choreographer: Michelle Chassé | Soprano: Anna Ward | Mezzo-Soprano: Christina English | English Horn: Elizabeth England | Violin: Heather Braun | Double Bass: Kate Foss | Marimba & Suspended Cymbal: Maria Finklemeier | Dancers: Liv Nurmi, Annabella Barks, Katie Brunson, Niani Feelings | Actor: Jessica Webb | Photographer: Binita Patel | Videographer: Dave Jamrog
Book of Questions. 2015
Presented by Mass Cultural Council | Urbanity Dance
Site-specific and immersive performance installation based on Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions based on the themes of Neruda’s poetry while producing both linear and non-linear audience experience.
Composer & Concept: Beau Kenyon | Choreographer & Concept: Betsi Graves
To soothe the awoken monster. 2015
Presented by Illuminus Boston | Maria Finkelmeier and Ryan Edwards
Waking the Monster, transformed Boston’s most iconic structure - Fenway Park’s Green Monster - into a three story percussion instrument. Nine percussionists mounted the structure to perform six compositions commissioned specifically for the Monster as an instrument. Eight triggers were placed on the structure, which interacted with the animation at specific moments in the compositions. The theme, color scheme, and movement of the animation varied from piece to piece, working hand-in-hand with the music. The performance drew over 30,000 visitors to the festival on Lansdowne Street. To soothe the awoken monster was commissioned for this ambitious public performance.
Concept & Production: Maria Finkelmeier and Ryan Edwards | Composer: Beau Kenyon | Percussionists: Yuriana Sobrino, Joe Galeota, Jonathan Hess, Laura Jordan, Aaron Trant Greg Jukes, Reyna Herrera, Wendyam Emerson | Light Projection Mapping: Sam Okerstrom-Lang