Around 1:40 PM this Saturday I got a call from Russ. I was driving down Ashland with one earbud in, listening to an old episode of Comedy Death Ray Radio and thinking about stopping to grab a falafel from Taste of Lebanon on my way down to High Concept Labs. Russ’ key was not working in his car, would he be the second victim of key-related shenanigans before this Saturday meeting? Aurelien was to be skyped in to the meeting after letting his wife leave with his set of apartment keys that morning.
Luckily, Russ manhandled his car into working order and we arrived just after 2:00 at the artist-space and private-event-haven that is HCL. Remnants of the previous night’s event hosted by Dal Niente were still being cleaned up when we arrived, so while others prepared for that evening Russ and I sat down with Molly Feingold (Managing Artistic Director at HCL) and Mike Maizels (scholar extraordinaire).
This was the first pre-production meeting for our May 23 concert featuring George Crumb’s Black Angels alongside a compliment of multimedia art. Our purpose: creating a fully immersive, artistic response to the current American wars. This goal, while already having been discussed at length, came under intense scrutiny as we talked about the direction and intention of the event, as well as the way in which it could be framed to have the maximum impact.
The story of God and the Devil (Good vs. Evil) in Crumb’s piece and in Western Culture – and the breakdown of this concept since the Vietnam War – led us toward identifying the feeling of alienation in today’s America created by the disconnect many of us feel from the experiences our countrywomen/men are having overseas. Our stated goal: to find the language that expresses what we feel the individual elements of our show have to say about this chasm.
Moving beyond these broad topics and into the brass tacks, after Mike left, we began discussing each individual element of the show with Molly and talking about how the event will be produced. Russ presented an initial budget, and we discussed the possibilities for how the event would progress. Will the tone be stark and serious, or attempt to make in-roads with people at the outset before delving into some of the darker reaches of what we hope to express?
Hopefully you’re curious about what all the elements are for this event and what it’s called. But, for now, you’ll have to be satisfied with knowing that we’ll be presenting it on May 23 at the Chopin Theater; that’s two days after Chicago hosts the G-8 and NATO summits and just before Memorial Day weekend.