dream seminar

Excerpts from dream seminar to be performed in NYC January 16!

2010-01-04T11:04:22-05:00

Please join Skogensemble for an evening of Nordic New Music, including excepts from drömseminarium, on:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010 8PM, TENRI CULTURAL INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK, 43A WEST 13TH STREET, NYC.

The company of players from dream seminar/drömseminarium has created the new music ensemble Skogensemble.

Skogensemble is an international new music ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music from Nordic Peoples and Cultures. Our repertoire highlights music from Scandinavia, Canada, Northern Europe and from composers whose heritage is bound to the North. Skogen and skoven are the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish words for "the forest" and has roots in Icelandic and Old Norse.

Skogensemble grew out of development work done on "dreamseminar/drömseminarium" This "forest ensemble" is so named because it is a natural outgrowth of the organic, collaborative process created by Companion Star to develop "dreamseminar/drömseminarium". Currently, the ensemble's repertoire ranges from large-scale multi-media works to the most intimate of chamber music pieces.

For more information, please see our event listing on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=230386444538&ref=mf

Update from Västerås, Sweden!

2009-06-04T16:13:52-04:00

We are in Sweden and the workshop is off to a good start! We spent Tuesday in Stockholm and while it rained ALL day, we had a productive time checking out four theatres for the Swedish premiere of dreamseminar in 2011. On May 31/June 1, Pat, Ellen, Michael and Kathleen ran a very successful two day class on “Composing Through Improvisation” at Mälardalens University in Västerås. Company members continue to arrive this week and on Friday we will continue work on dreamseminar in earnest. Above is a picture of Björnögården, where we are living!

Character 3: This time it really is About Robert and Kathleen

2009-05-23T00:18:12-04:00

SO, in looking at the idea that you might have a character that would manifest in both worlds- Michael's "real world" and Aaron's "world of imagination"- it seemed that Robert would very clearly be crossing lines between worlds quite a bit. I have felt this from the beginning of my work on the piece, as Robert has a more ethereal presence on his hand-held clarinet than on the bass-clarinet. And so, it seems clear that the bass-clarinet with its inescapable timbre would be a part of the "real world". Indeed, it is the "traffic" with the French Horn and Trombone.

This meant that Robert would have to be going form one world to another. Often. And, I have to say, that I was struck by a conversation I had with Robert last year, in which he talked about his association with the Speaker in the poem Eld-Klotter, and he also talked about his thoughts on the word that we translate as Stealthily. ("Stealthily we milked the cosmos and survived.") In that line, he said that he would think of it in the context of a burglar, taking something undetected. This idea of stealing time or energy was really what resonated. And I started to think of Robert's character in very human terms. So it made sense to me that he would not be someone who was going to live his whole life in the imaginary world, and that as someone in the "real world" he would be working at not feeling trapped there. In a sense, he seemed like someone who was in Michael's world living a parallel life, but who was able to transcend the world in a way that Michael could not. So, in a sense, I see Robert moving from the periferal world where Michael is to, but being able to enter body and soul into the imagined world. Robert and I had a grea conversation which supports this that I will post the notes of later. Here is a snippet:

"Everyone has these two sides- the real world and the imaginary, but not everyone can be in touch with it, or connected with it. Some are only in the real world, Two sides for everyone. A journey for Michael to explore his imaginary side and getting in touch with that, and perhaps meeting Kathleen there or not. "

So now I was starting to get some ideas for movement and relationships within the space, and now clearly Kathleen was entering the picture.

How to explain this...? It seems that Kathleen somehow exists only in the imagined world. I had been thinking since my first workshop that Kathleen was going to be involved in something "on the other side"- I thought of her as dead by the end of that workshop. Now, I don't know if that's exctly true, but it seemed that given her interactions with Robert, Michael and Aaron in the past, that this might be true. Also, given her interactions with Robert on Eld-Klotter, and an interesting comment that Henny made on the phone regarding the nourishing energy that the Speaker is receiving from the every powerful cosmos, that perhaps Kathleen is related to an idea of light or energy.

In fact, Ellen and I even discussed the idea that she might be a star of some sort. But then I spoke to Kathleen, and asked her her thoughts. We went back to the discussion about her character seeming dead, and we traced through that, and the comments that Robert made about Michael's journey, and it began to seem clearer and more concrete: Kathleen was an individual that Michael was close to at some point, whom he lost. Michael has been unable to move forward, despite the desire that resides within him (Aaron) to move ahead, and leave his old world behind. It became possible that Michael was somehow mired in his "real" world.

This has led to some great ideas. For example, having Kathleen interact with Michael while he is in bed at the beginning. Having her draw Aaron out into her world in Minnena. There are other thoughts in her interactions with others in Minnena that Ellen may be able to color as well. This includes Angela in particular.

There is a point in all of this that makes me feel that Kathleen is somehow interacting with Aaron/Michael in an attempt to help Michael let go and move on. That somehow Michael has brought her here, and will not let her go. She, then must somehow get him to let her go. And her interactions with Aaron are towards that end. And also towards the end of Michael letting go in general.

Make sense? I think Kathleen might have some comments about this.

I sent this late. I am hoping to get caught up this weekend, and that tomorrow will be more about some other points with other players and their characters.

Character Part 2: A little bit regarding Laura Karney

2009-05-21T11:07:59-04:00

This entry promises to be a bit more bite-sized. I just want to remark, however, that even though your name may not be on the title, you should still read the blog, because often there is mention of others in these comments, and each blog starts to build the logic that the relationships between characters is built on.

So In looking at the relationship between Michael and Aaron, it seemed that Aaron would be this freer aspect of Michael, and Michael would be this less free aspect of Aaron. Part of the reason for this was so that there could be a real world character in Michael who was going through some literal aspects of the poems (putting his pen aside, being in suffering's parking place)while at the same time Aaron would be experiencing the fantastical side. Sometimes these things might cross over into Michael's realm, but Michael himself was not free to engage with them otherwise. IN some ways, we were discussing many of the other characters having a "realistic persona" and also having an imagined or fantastic persona. Especially those characters who play two instruments. Both Robert and Laura Karney came to mind here.

Laura was especially intriguing to us given her work on Lamento and Romanska Bagar last year. I think that both Ellen and I equated her character with the angel in Romanska Bagar at several points, and we were struck by the difference in her instruments. I especially was trying to recall my conversation with her last summer when we talked about her thoughts about the two instruments, and the differences they had. Perhaps Laura can comment a bit below?

Anyway, it seemed like these two instruments might make it so she would be able to move between worlds. The idea of her having a person in the real world and another in the fantasy world that might somehow be interconnect was intriguing, and I began talking about having her appear in the real world in Flygblad at some point as a nurse at a bedside. Perhaps Michael's bedside, but still to be determined. And also though it would be great to have her reprise her angle role much as she had explored it in Romanska Bagar. The only difference would be that her interactions would be with Aaron instead of Michael. And it could possibly be something that Michael experienced through his imagination- seeing it as a vision in his world. I thought it might be interesting to manifest this through the shadow play we were working with last year, so that the shadow of Laura, combined with the shadow of the harp might somehow create a shadow of an angel that was cast in Michael's world.

Ellen discussed a fair amount of this with her, and I'm going to ask Ellen and Laura K. to blog about that to include some of the details.

In the next two blogs, I'm going to talk in more detail about Robert and Kathleen. I needed to set this up for the discussion about Robert.

Pat

Work on Character: Focusing on this Summer's Work

2009-05-20T17:32:13-04:00

This posting is just to give you a bit of the background for what we have been discussing. I am only going to outline the basic approach here, and will add more details everyday so that everyone can keep track in the days leading up to Sweden.

So, as Ellen and I have been talking, we have each been making contact with members of the ensemble to determine character. This has been a very positive thing, as the score, the design (especially the space and costuming) and the characters themselves have been evolving alongside each other (more of which will become clearer as you read on). My hope is that for this workshop, we will have an even better idea of relationships between the players and their characters, and how they interact as a result. Here are some of the things that have been discussed, and I'm hoping there will be responses to this, and that there will be discourse leading up to our workshop.

To simplify things, Ellen and I started going through poem by poem. We discussed all of the instrumentation, but we also were working from a perspective that there was a core quartet of characters who seem to go together, and who all share a certain degree of mobility. The quartet consists of Kathleen and Michael ( who are our vocalists- it seemed important to broach the question of text early in the process) and Robert and Aaron who both seemed closely connected to Kathleen and Michael, and whom Ellen, Kathleen, Henny, and I had discussed as being essentially central in January. I think a lot of the reason for this was their mobility, and their functions in past workshops- especially Aaron's beginning the music for Madrigal. Aaron really has seemed like he is central to the action. Robert seemed to be cultivating a clear relationship to Kathleen, and also plays a stationary instrument at times.

So with this large number of characteristics between these characters, we certainly had a lot to figure out. I should mention, though, that a few people were constantly in our conversations as well. Laura B, Laura K, Christa, Mike, and Angela have also been figuring prominently into our discussions, and they have been hooking into our tracing Aaron, Robert, Kathleen, and Michael the whole way. Now, we have not gotten to touch base with all of these players, so this may be the first time that some of them are hearing about the discussions.

ALSO, I want to outline some of the design conversation which has influenced the character development. It was initially discussed that having instrumentalists at the center of the action was essential. This created a question about how the text was integrated into the action. In a sense, this meant that there was a kind of narrative coming form using the text. That made Michael and Kathleen somewhat periferal as characters. We had also discussed the idea of having some beds on the stage at the top of the performance. And the concept that the performance would somehow trace the life of these characters over the course of a day, beginning with arising from bed in the morning.

I digress here, but part of the reason I like this idea is because it gives us a context in terms of time. I do not think that we need to think of it as a literal day, but there are so many references to mundane life in the poems that it seems that putting the piece against the background of every day events like waking up, getting dressed, commuting, working, eating, etc, might make the more magical, out of time moments pop more (like the writing inside, the cherry trees embracing the lories, etc,). Also, I happen to like that a day is a cycle of time, which can easily be segmented and assembled to add up to something, and it exists in a larger cycle as well.

Somehow it began to seem that the day was marking a journey for Aaron. But what that journey is seemed a bit elusive. Aaron also seems to be connected to Michael, and so it was thought, in order to make Aaron central, and keep Michael more in the narrative position, that Aaron would be making a journey for Michael- a journey that maybe Michael could not make, but he could see, and he could comment on, and tell about.

Now, I'm actually not sure if this previous idea came first, or if it was just a realization that Michael was on the outside, commenting, but related to Aaron who was on the inside, but somehome, I started to feel that Michael should be in his own space, seperated.

To back up a bit, we had been discussing space, and what the configuration of the space would be. We had been thinking in January that a proscenium might be best, but in discussing what spaces the piece would premiere in in Sweden (both Stockholm and Vasteras), and talking about the possibilities of touring the piece in Scandinavia in the future, Torkel pointed out that most theaters in Scandinavia were black box, and that we might consider the idea of doing the piece in the round to limit the amount of scenery.

We all saw some benefits in this. I have begun seeing Michael as being physically seperated by space, above the action, and closer to the audience (maybe on a corner of the arena) rather than in the center of the space. And perhaps even in different corners around the space. But the idea has somehow become that Michael is moving through the course of a day, and that he is living in the "real world" which is full of all kinds of mundane activities (as mentioned above). Aaron, has become an entity that is somehow connected to Michael. I sense that Aaron is almost emerging from Michael as he leaves the same bed that Michael occupies at the beginning of the piece (in Minnena). And he ventures into the central playing space, and we follow him on his journey. So in this way, we have Michael in the real world, and Aaron living in an imagined space, sharing similar thoughts and feelings, but different circumstances. Michael framing and acting as counterpoint to Aaron's more central experiences, and, it feels, unable to participate in them.

This is the first blog. I will be adding to this daily. Tomorrow, I will move into Kathleen and Robert.

Poetry and Structure

2009-05-06T03:42:28-04:00

In the design meetings in January, we began talking about working with some poems as bigger structural elements in Dream Seminar. That is: some poems, while we do not necessarily use any of their text directly, can contribute to other elements of structure, design etc. In January, we discussed the following structure:

Prologue: 'Minnena ser mig'
Part 1, beginning of discovery: structural idea, 'Dream Seminar'
'Madrigal'
'Längre in'
Part 2, development of discovery, complications, walls: structural idea, 'How the late autumn night novel begins'
'Allegro'
'Lamento'
'Eldklotter'
'Flygblad'
Part 3, Resolution, embarkation on real discovery, towards the light: structural idea, 'Vermeer' ('I am not empty, I am open' will be woven throughout the piece...')
'Préludes (II)'
'Romanska bågar'
Epilogue: 'Näktergalen i Badelunda'

As Pat and I have worked with this more, it is of course evolving. Here is our current suggestion for structure--we can discuss it at the upcoming design meeting. Individual poems remain in the same places for now; I am listing only the bigger structural ideas below.

OVERALL idea: 'Dream Seminar'
(Prologue)
Part 1: structural idea,'Gläntan' (The Clearing)
Part 2: structural idea, 'Vermeer' (also, possibly, 'The Golden Wasp')
Part 3: structural idea, 'How the late autumn night novel begins'
(Epilogue)

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Talk to y'all soon...

Some images from Bjorno

2009-05-01T15:07:48-04:00

Hey all, I wanted to include some images I had from last summer one from Bjorno in June last year, and one of the Romanska Bagar Church in Vasteras.

enjoy!

More of this summer

2009-05-01T14:54:09-04:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know that despite our financial set-backs, Ellen and I have been working hard to develop the piece into a cohesive whole. We have been bouncing many ideas off of each other, and many off of a lot of you, and incorporating those ideas for the work over the course of this summer. For me, there have been some real break-throughs: sometimes things that have felt obvious from the beginning- like the separation of Michael and Kathleen being related to a past relationship and loss. Being redefined from living and dead, and yet, at the same time, containing the original nut of that idea. And discovering how everyone else relates to that. I am very excited to engage you all in the dialogue, and to develop more and more with this summer's work.

I would like to try to have a design meeting on the phone this week, and also to have conversations with both Michael and Aaron about character. Camille, even if we don't have a design meeting, I think it is important to touch base with you about the things I have started to solidify next weekend if possible.

Even though we have been hitting some hard financial straits, I really am excited about how things are taking shape.

Please hit comment to reply to this you all, and confirm times.

Looking forward to more!

Pat

Looking forward to June...

2009-04-22T14:33:06-04:00

I have really enjoyed my regular meetings with Pat this spring—it's been wonderful to dive so deeply into Tomas' poetry, in a way that we are only now ready to do. There is an incredible amount of material that has been generated through development workshops and meetings since we began work in earnest in January 2006...the sheer amount, richness, and diversity of material has been both incredibly inspiring and also a bit daunting. This time in the process is an exciting one...we have been swimming around in this ocean of abstract (but always compelling) material for nearly three years now, while dodging logistical and financial obstacles of all kinds, and finally....strong structural shapes, rich characters, and beautiful, complex inter-relationships are beginning to emerge from the mists.

I can't wait to see where we'll go from here. Thanks everyone, for your creativity, enthusiasm, and dedication.

Scores will go out in the first days of May. See you all in Sweden!

Working for this summer

2009-04-20T00:51:36-04:00

I just wanted everyone to know that Ellen and I have been working very hard together to get things organized for this summer. And when I say organized, I mean from a compositional point of view (both musical and visual). The discussions that came out of our meetings this January were very helpful in creating some structure for the piece in general, and has given us some context for the design, upcoming improvs, and the shapes of the pieces that we worked with last summer. If we contact you to discuss character and these developments, please do us the favour of replying quickly, as Ellen is trying to complete the scores soon so that you will have them well before the workshop. Also, below are listed possible times and confirmations for meetings this week:

Kathleen: can we try to meet on Tuesday afternoon? I think that would work best for me.
Aaron: I am still waiting to hear back from you.
Camille: can we try to meet Thursday?
Mike and Christa: meeting on Sat May 2 at 10am- in Manhattan if that works.
Henny, Torkel, Camille, Ellen, Katya, Marci: we need to set up another time to meet: can we do that later this week? Is Sunday out of the question?

Robert and I had a great meeting, and Laura K. and Ellen had one also. People I would like to touch base with after this week: Laura Barger, Angela, Malin, Nicolas.

So that everyone knows, Marci, our new Company Manager, and I have been working out some data bases for your characters and casting in each of the poems, as well as a general flow of the piece in general as it stands. I am hoping that this is something that we can all keep adding to up to the premiere. Perhaps these grids will be posted somehow online.

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Pat