Title: Voices Bending Open
Premiere: Electronic Music Concert, Rackham Auditorium, December 10, 1988
Performer: Jessica Fogel
Duration: 6 minutes?
Music: Voices Bending Open for for violin, tape, and optional dance, by John Morrison
Costume: Jessica Fogel
Description: This was a single performance I gave as a solo improvisation on the small half-moon stage at Rackham Auditorium as part of the Electronic Music concert offerings. Professor George Wilson, University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, produced well attended and popular electronic music concerts annually. Composer John Morrison was a doctoral student at UM at that time whose music was included on the concert. I am not sure how it is I was paired with him—perhaps at Professor Wilson’s request. Morrison’s work was conceived as a collaboration with dancerJean McGregor-Wiles, who was pursuing her Dance MFA at UM at that time. This is what I can recall: I wore a black and white striped short swing dress and black and white striped leggings, costume pieces from Gay Delanghe’s dance, Dancin’ Fats. I treated the stage as a site specific playground. There was scaffolding on the stage to support speakers and other electronic equipment. I climbed up it to reach a high ledge on the back wall of the stage, a curtained area where a screen could descend to show films. I moved back and forth along the narrow ledge. I also moved about the stage and I went up and down the stairs leading up to the stage and leaned out from the stair railings. I do not know of any videos or photos of this performance.