Glass Head

Contact: Larry Ochs
larry@rova.org/510.908.1747
Collaborative performance dates available;

 

glass head

Glass Head (2006) is a collaborative performance by the Rova Saxophone Quartet (Larry Ochs, Jon Raskin, Steve Adams and Bruce Ackley) and Butoh-inspired dance collective inkBoat (featuring dancers Shinichi Iova-Koga and Yuko Kaseki, interactive media designer Eric Koziol, director Ernie Lafky and lighting designer Allen Willner). The work was commissioned by Rova:Arts with a generous grant from The Creative Work Fund.

Integrating sound, vision and movement, Glass Head explores the fabric of contemporary consciousness. Drawing from their wealth of artistic roots in the U.S., Japan, and Europe, the artists guide this expansive, evening-length work into universal territory, inspiring both surprise and recognition as facets of everyday life are wondrously transformed and reshaped onstage in the moment and without warning.

Much of the surprise arises from the work?s improvisational foundation, and Glass Head illuminates an evocative new unity forged across art forms that embrace this shared discipline. All of the collaborating artists are highly accomplished in their respective fields, and all view the ability to respond in-the-moment (?improvisation?) as a central element of their art. In Glass Head the performers have created a world that allows spontaneous inspiration and responsive gestures, yet follows a clear, choreographed transformation of dance, music and media imagery.

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Dancer, choreographer Shinichi Iova-Koga expounds:

"We show and tell, we improvise, we theorize. Sometimes we talk too much, sometimes too little. We have days that make us smile and think we?ve got it all together. Other days we should have stayed at home and had a good glass of wine.

And story emerges. Small stories. The music story. The video story. The dance story. The theater story. We each have our own overlapping perspective and somehow we fit with each other. And then comes the time to forget all stories, erase concept and live from within the piece. Erase the sketch. Look at what remains.?