dave watkins
  • home
  • sounds
  • videos
  • photos
  • studio
  • DMFW
  • shows
  • links

Octavo: ballet, kafka, dulcitar.

3/23/2011

1 Comment

 
"Everyone carries a room about inside them. 
This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing.
If someone walks fast and one pricks up one's ears and listens, say at night, 
when everything round about is quiet,
one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall."
-Franz Kafka
i am super excited as tomorrow is opening night for Octavo, a new work by choreographer Gina Patterson for Richmond Ballet. this piece has been in the works for a while now, and really heavily for me over the past two months. it features three original movements that i composed and recorded and the rest of the music is by Max Richter from his Blue Notebooks record (which is devastatingly gorgeous by the way). so suffice to say this is an honor i am truly excited to talk about.

The Richter music had some of it's inspiration from The Blue Octavo Notebooks, a collection of writings by Franz Kafka. i Had read this years before i'd ever heard the Richter music and had always wanted to do some sort of theatrical piece based on it, so when this opportunity arrived it was perfect.

So i set out to create music with Kafka, Richter, and Gina and the dancers i'd be composing for as my major influences and then to get even crazier there is an entire movement in the ballet that features the dulcitar! i may be out of line saying it, but this could be the very first dance piece to feature the dulcitar, if it isn't i'd love to hear about others that have.

so i've recorded real piano, fake piano, piano with lots of effects on it, all sorts of dulcitar madness, and some percussion and even a little fuzz bass... it's subtle, but it's there! all in big rooms and small rooms, and did some field recording to boot. these songs are exclusive to this ballet at the moment but will be included on my upcoming solo release on Church Hill Records. get stoked for that!

anyway here are some videos about the creation of the piece for your viewing pleasure:

an interview with choreographer Gina Patterson:

and an interview with me:

the ballet opens March 24 and runs through April 3, 2011 get tickets at www.richmondballet.com

as always, thanks for listening (and watching)
dave
1 Comment
Vikki Blankenship link
3/31/2011 01:37:30 pm

Hi David,

It's Vikki, yer old teacher (well, I'm a big kid and you know that. lol) I don't have myspace anymore, so I was trying to find you on FB after some searching, found your 'dot.com'. Glad to see you've been so industrious with your art, music and staying very active with it all. Is your phone number still the same? I'd like to catch up some. Good luck with all you're doing and continue putting good positive art and energy into the world.

Vikki

----------------
Facebook.com/Vikki Blankenship-Instrumental Guitarist

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    I am a musician, engineer, luthier and audio/visual artist currently residing in 
    Richmond, Virginia.

    Thank you for being here.
    Thank you for listening.
    You can find me on stage coaxing any number of sounds out of my homemade electric dulcitars in conjunction with assorted effects, looping mechanisms and sometimes sound reactive video projections.

    You can find me behind the scenes recording the music of fellow Richmond area artists in a addition to my own musical works.  

    I also work full time for
     Richmond Ballet as A/V supervisor and do freelance theatrical sound and projection design from time to time.

    Archives

    March 2022
    October 2020
    July 2018
    August 2017
    August 2016
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2014
    June 2013
    July 2012
    May 2012
    December 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    August 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    November 2009

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Colloquial Orchestra
    Dave Watkins
    Design
    Dulcitar
    Music
    New Album
    Richmond
    Rva
    Rva Music

    RSS Feed

All content © 2023 Dave Watkins unless otherwise noted