Ex Pectation₈ is the eighth installment in a series of improvisational performance pieces where dancers attached to a growing sculptural installation communicate with musicians through a barrier.

Attendees are encouraged to walk around during the performance but should be mindful of where performers are moving as well.

Total run-time will be around 40 minutes. Free, in the 2220 main theater.

three hours of uninterrupted live low-frequency sound artists to facilitate a restful journey

February 23rd 1:00pm at The Broad Museum

AUTOMATA' s Experimental Sound series TAPETAIL presents

The Precision of Discipline

The Precision of Discipline is an evening of improvised sound exploring the simultaneity of the aimer and the aim, the interaction between gesture and result. Over a series of sets, precise actions are repeated with slight variation, morphing into entropy, disorder, until ultimately - understanding. 

"'I'm afraid I don’t understand anything more at all,' I answered, ‘even the simplest things have got in a muddle. Is it “I” who draws the bow, or is it the bow that draws me into the state of highest tension? Do “I” hit the goal, or does the goal hit me? Is “it” spiritual when seen by the eyes of the body, and corporeal when seen by the eyes of the spirit - or both or neither? Bow, arrow, goal, and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously simple…”

“Now at last, “ the Master broke in, “the bowstring has cut right through you.”

- Eugen Herrigel, “Zen and the Art of Archery”

Featuring: Melissa Achten, Jeonghyeon Joo, Eli Klausner, Ethan Marks, and Miller Wrenn

an improvised performance for two dancers and one musician, connected by a wearable sculpture

performed live on the rooftop of the 11-story Bendix Building in downtown Los Angeles

The fifth installment in a series of improvisational performance pieces where dancers attached to a growing sculptural installation communicate with musicians through a barrier. In each installment, musicians will receive specific instructions about how to move/play in relation to the other performer, however they should not share the specifics with the other performer.

Featuring:

Jessica Emmanuel - Dance and Movement

Melissa Achten - Harp

an evening of improvisation with lots of string-based sounds and some sounds that aren’t string-based at all…

Melissa Achten | harp

Pauline Lay | violin

Ethan Marks | trumpet

Kozue Matsumoto | koto

F l e s h D e t e c t i o n

inhabiting time , fleshing in

everything i touch becomes me, everything that touches me I become

do you remember this feeling?

if you listen closely you will hear the ocean in your veins

pulsing, fluid, formless

pleasure is not the goal but it will illuminate the way

///

the final performance exploration of a week-long residency by chef and multidisciplinary artist Heidi Ross featuring Melissa Achten

Space is limited - tickets available here

XyxyNyxyX is an unfolding bardic exploration of existential nonsense woven with equal measures of storybook whimsy, cosmic foolery, carefully composed nuance, and psychonautical dream theater. Three friends take a foray into defining the elusive XyxyxNyxyX through a series of vignettes that involve puppetry, homespun art objects, original score, live musical performance, video projection, and absurdist theater. Within intricate webs of stories and symbols, The THR33 of Playstructure Dreamcast create a kaleidoscope of poignant, idiotic, and surreal vignettes that serve as a romping rumination into how the frame of our belief drives us to folly, to beauty, to terror, and to tragedy as we attempt to avoid the unyielding perilousness of uncertainty.

Buy tickets here !

XyxyNyxyX is an unfolding bardic exploration of existential nonsense woven with equal measures of storybook whimsy, cosmic foolery, carefully composed nuance, and psychonautical dream theater. Three friends take a foray into defining the elusive XyxyxNyxyX through a series of vignettes that involve puppetry, homespun art objects, original score, live musical performance, video projection, and absurdist theater. Within intricate webs of stories and symbols, The THR33 of Playstructure Dreamcast create a kaleidoscope of poignant, idiotic, and surreal vignettes that serve as a romping rumination into how the frame of our belief drives us to folly, to beauty, to terror, and to tragedy as we attempt to avoid the unyielding perilousness of uncertainty.

Buy tickets here !

XyxyNyxyX is an unfolding bardic exploration of existential nonsense woven with equal measures of storybook whimsy, cosmic foolery, carefully composed nuance, and psychonautical dream theater. Three friends take a foray into defining the elusive XyxyxNyxyX through a series of vignettes that involve puppetry, homespun art objects, original score, live musical performance, video projection, and absurdist theater. Within intricate webs of stories and symbols, The THR33 of Playstructure Dreamcast create a kaleidoscope of poignant, idiotic, and surreal vignettes that serve as a romping rumination into how the frame of our belief drives us to folly, to beauty, to terror, and to tragedy as we attempt to avoid the unyielding perilousness of uncertainty.

Buy tickets here

Melissa Achten & Caroline Jesalva

Jonathan Paik & Will Fredendall

BearDuo

Jessika Kenney

$15 tickets at the door (Cash, Zelle, or Venmo)

Featuring House on Fire Trio, a performance by Melissa Achten & Eli Klausner, improvisation by Steve O’Brien, and late night jams by DJ Cashmere Safari of Baseman Vinyl

Directed by Mamie Green and Megan Paradowski of Volta, writers Sammy Loren and Ellington Wells reimagine Euripides’ iconic tragedy Medea, and otherworldly musicians Melissa Achten and Eli Klausner score the piece live. The immersive atmosphere of dark mania will seize more than eyes and ears, as the audience will be encouraged to sample edible installations by conceptual artist and chef Heidi Ross.

Buy tickets here

Directed by Mamie Green and Megan Paradowski of Volta, writers Sammy Loren and Ellington Wells reimagine Euripides’ iconic tragedy Medea, and otherworldly musicians Melissa Achten and Eli Klausner score the piece live. The immersive atmosphere of dark mania will seize more than eyes and ears, as the audience will be encouraged to sample edible installations by conceptual artist and chef Heidi Ross.

Buy tickets here

Directed by Mamie Green and Megan Paradowski of Volta, writers Sammy Loren and Ellington Wells reimagine Euripides’ iconic tragedy Medea, and otherworldly musicians Melissa Achten and Eli Klausner score the piece live. The immersive atmosphere of dark mania will seize more than eyes and ears, as the audience will be encouraged to sample edible installations by conceptual artist and chef Heidi Ross.

Buy tickets here

𝒪𝑅𝒜𝒞𝐿𝐸 𝐸𝒢𝒢 presents an evening of musical rituals, featuring Jessika Kenney & Niloufar Shiri, Melissa Achten & Eli Klausner, and distortion moth (Julio Lopez & Emmaline Saunders)

Schizophonia, from the Greek; schizo- to split / phonia- sound | the splitting of sound from its original source | 

The twentieth century development of sound reproduction and its cultural impact on society prompted Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer to coin the term schizophonia, writing that “…it was intended to be a nervous word… I intended it to convey…(a) sense of aberration and drama…” In his experimental theater work for harp, “The Crown of Ariadne”, Schafer employs schizophonia to mirror the trauma and violence of a Greek myth in the relationship between instrument and performer. Centered around that pivotal work, this program descends further into the labyrinth, exploring how the physical mechanism of the harp invites the use of schizophonic gestures to establish dislocated soundscapes. Each work is based on a unique choreography of sonic obfuscation where performative movement shapes new meaning and sounds, leaning into the aberration that Schafer spoke of. The harp is decontextualized, allowing it to evoke aching tenderness and brutal destruction simultaneously. Within this unsettling atmosphere, the instrument is transformed, taking the severance of sound and turning it into a ritual for understanding the ugliness and beauty of life.

This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

Schizophonia, from the Greek; schizo- to split / phonia- sound | the splitting of sound from its original source | 

The twentieth century development of sound reproduction and its cultural impact on society prompted Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer to coin the term schizophonia, writing that “…it was intended to be a nervous word… I intended it to convey…(a) sense of aberration and drama…” In his experimental theater work for harp, “The Crown of Ariadne”, Schafer employs schizophonia to mirror the trauma and violence of a Greek myth in the relationship between instrument and performer. Centered around that pivotal work, this program descends further into the labyrinth, exploring how the physical mechanism of the harp invites the use of schizophonic gestures to establish dislocated soundscapes. Each work is based on a unique choreography of sonic obfuscation where performative movement shapes new meaning and sounds, leaning into the aberration that Schafer spoke of. The harp is decontextualized, allowing it to evoke aching tenderness and brutal destruction simultaneously. Within this unsettling atmosphere, the instrument is transformed, taking the severance of sound and turning it into a ritual for understanding the ugliness and beauty of life.

This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.