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Q & A

WHAT are the INTERNATIONAL STREET CANNIBALS?

The name was inspired by an essay of Montaigne, "On Cannibals, which is an oblique condemnation of the customs and pretentions of his time. You might call the International Street Cannibals a collective; I'd be tempted to call it a Gemienschaft, which denotes an organic social entity of reciprocal bonds of kinship and sensibility, or of a common tradition.

In more practical terms, The International Street Cannibals are a collection of instrumentalists and singers, composers, videographers, audio technicians, dancers, puppeteers and visual artists. Among our players are instrumentalists from The Metropolitan Opera, The Orchestra of St. Luke's, The STX Ensemble, The American Ballet Theater, the New York City Opera, and The Absolute Ensembles, among many others. The Cannibals give much emphasis to the presentation of newly composed works, and part of the function of the group and its events is to serve as a convocation of composers whose influences and philosophy are rich and various, and whose works range over an ample latitude of styles.

We have two series at present, The "Holding Tank" Series, and a series called "STRIKE!", the latter in which performances - including boxing bouts, by actual boxers -- take place on boxing rings.

How long have they EXISTED?

I'd been dying to use the name since 1993; Yet I'd conceived of this particular group in fall 2002, having been fired by the idea of continuing and intensifying close associations with Gene Pritsker(compose/guitarist), Arthur Kampela(composer/guitarist/singer/Columbia professor), Margaret Lancaster(flutist), Erik Blank(puppeteer), Greg Kitzis(violinist), and Jay Elfenbein(bassist/gamba player/vielle and rebeq player/composer), all friends dear to me. Mat Fieldes(bassist) was another close colleague, who, though I'd conducted him and worked alongside him as a cellist, I'd always desired to work with on a more constant basis. The input of both Arthur and Mat were instrumental in the development of the idea of the performances occurring in "STRIKE!" John Feeney brought a heightened level of stylistic breadth and expertise to the ensemble, as well as his instinctive eye for stimulating presentation. His unique sense of programming(which was seen in a number of the "Holding Tank" concerts), his widely known instrumental expertise, his capacity to pen a most ironical and satiric species of composition, and his grasp of elements of filmmaking, render his contributions to this series invaluable. Later, in 2006, Franz Hackl, accoutered with his expertise in trumpet and composition, with sound and production, and with his genius in programming, helped to wing the project with new contacts and influences. Among those crucial contacts were Tyler Lerned(stage and technical expert), Chuck Moses(technical, sound and lighting expert) and Astrid Steiner (videographer, filmmaker and VJ.) The group, in its different formats, and as a unit rather undifferentiated, has been giving presentations since 2005.

WHO are they? - What is YOUR ROLE?

From inductions rather inchoate and straggling, we seem to have developed a palpable core of members. Those of the core are: Gene Pritsker(Composer in Residence/ Director of Programming/guitarist), Franz Hackl(Artistic Director/trumpeter, composer, producer,; Dary John Mizelle(Assistant Artistic Advisor/composer/trumpeteer), Dave Taylor(Artistic Advisor/ Bass Trombonist), Margaret Lancaster(Flutist), Arthur Kampela(composer/singer/guitarist), Michio Suzuki(clarinetist), John Feeney(bassist/composer/CO-"creator" of a number of our concerts), Greg Kitzis(violinist/violist), Jay Elfenbein(Bassist/gamba player/player of Medeival string instruments/composer), Charles Coleman(composer/baritone[voce]/emcee for "Holding Tank" Series), Borislav Strulev(cellist), Samuel Blaser(trombonist)and Julian Kampela(djembe). Chuck Moses and Tyler Lerned are our Technical Directors; The brilliant Astrid Steiner (AKA "VJ Luma") is our Resident Videographer and V.J .I'm the Director. Here's a list of our participants:

What are the goals of the Cannibals?

Our goals might be encapsulated in the following ideas:
I. The conscious de-sacralization of the concert hall, with the cognate process of the devaluing (a)the aura and attitudes which surround it and in which its specific identity is invested and (b)the specific codes and behaviors, including the use of specific types of dress which express the sacralization of exclusivity and of comparative power: military dress(the Tuxedo), managerial dress(suit and tie), physical and native superiority(leather jackets, leather pants, cowboy hats, combat fatigues, high boots, and other variants which signify the prestige of advantage, domination, strength, brigandage, superiority and invulnerability(A satiric use of these elements of apparel might be effective, on the other hand, as a statement of powerful irony.)
II. To show that many of the "alternative" forms of performance space - such as the "loft" -- serve as a tribute to the same exclusionary values which are implicit in the notion of the concert hall or of the royal court.
III. The transformation (or "translation")of the performing space into public or communal space.

We of course seek out elements unconventional and eclectic, but at the root of this striving to "make it new" (Ezra Pound's words) does not lie the voyeur's or fashion-peddler's chronic hunger for sheer novelty, a characteristic, which, along with a not uncharacteristic dearth of skill, trivializes too much of both the "Downtown" music scene and "performance art", for instance. Rather, we seek out, light upon, and then fix upon things -- usually musical materials, players or venues -- which, to the best of our knowledge and craft, we then twist, tilt, color, or alter as to allow latent nuances, meanings and functions to emerge, elements which may be seminal to the work. The same striving for ascertainment is present in the performance of works of standard classical repertory.

Such fresh application allows, through the attendant augmentation of perspective, a glimpse of the music's textual and expository parameters. This modus turns each piece and event into a process of the textual, historical and social defining -- the "locating", as it were -- of each work. That a piece of performed art is, in fact, a process -- as Lorca has with puissance asserted in his essay on the Duende -- and not a thing stable and concrete, cannot be stated with sufficient vigor.

The impetus of performances of this nature are a harnessed gust, captured, apprehended from the breath of the community of participants or larger community; The materials of the performance and its articulating gestures may arise like the formation of dew upon the dawn grasses, jet blue with the anticipation of being. The true art of exposition and presentation lies in the philosophical resistance to presenting: the express art of not presenting. It hinges on our capacity to lie in wait, like a ghostly sentinel, for the ripe and propitious psychological moment which will serve to alert us to some shared psychical need of the group presently at hand, and at which point the trap doors of possibility and textual necessity open, and real performance starts to emerge; Or perhaps that which prompts us may be the mad buzzing of our own antennae from some inexorable superabundance. Franz, Gene and I view these concerts as the expressive organ of a philosophic movement -- not a project, per se, but as philosophy acted through the materials of our events. Lina Wertmuller's exquisite phrase "Freedom in Disorder"(the which is declared, as a posit and leitmotif in "Seven Beauties")comes very close to describing the savor of what we're after. There are, indeed, times during our presentations, where the activities, spurred by a sense of freedom and invention, burgeon into utter and delicious insanity. I'd like our influence to be something like that delectable, infernal progress as witnessed at one of our concerts, as the various modalities ripen into a strangely logical mayhem. I would have it that The International Street Cannibals would "inoculate" with our structured disorder the various geographic areas out to which the group's music, art and influences may ultimately branch, or would promiscuously spread in a lovely conflagration.

What is the future for the International Street Cannibals?

We'll be doing more projects that utilize outdoor and natural settings. Such settings will force us to cooperate to a degree with the environment, as it will become part of the artistic fabric, and will actually determine much of the artistic content of the performance. Acoustical contexts, in addition, give us the opportunity to investigate and realize various possibilities in the realm of audio transmission.

Four "Holding Tank" events are to happen this year. We're still coordinating schedules, and determining the venues. We'll keep you all posted.

Street Cannibal's "Holding Tank" Series: BEST + WORST elements?

The personnel are an unsurpassable collection of artists, in both uniqueness and in quality. Dav Taylor for instance is renowned for his work in classical, big band and free improvisatory styles, in solo, chamber and orchestral settings, as well as work in an enormous range of instrumental settings. Krista Bennion Feeney is a phenomenon, unexcelled as a violinist in purity of tone and pitch, in suavity of technique and in clarity of phrasing. John Feeney, with his many creative sides, and a universally acclaimed master of his instrument, has lent the numerous facets of his very distinct world view to a number of these projects; and those concerts which have involved his American Refugee Band(these concerts almost invariably employ John's particular talent of interwedding fragments of classic foreign film -- like Murnau's Faust, for instance -- with clips of political subjects)are among the most multifarious and colorful. Jay Elfenbein, who many regard as the finest medieval and renaissance musician in town, is as well an astoundingly unique jazz player, and a composer of undeniable brilliance.

I have enjoyed our occasional practice of dividing the "Holding Tank" concerts into two segments, each of which give one artist or features ensemble -- such as bass trombonist Dave Taylor, the American Refugee Band or the duo Noizepunk and BorisLove - the opportunity to, as it were, strut there stuff, and to allow the audience a certain full immersion in a particular sound language, and a focus on the work and personality of particular individuals.

The variety exhibited at all of these concerts, the curiosity of the many combinations that are present and the expertise with which these new forms are handled, all these elemnts signal the uncommon. To see and hear a performance in which the magnificent belly dancing of Amanda Mottur (a young artist of superb discipline) coalesces with a performance of Jay Elfenbein playing, on his 2-string Arabic Rebav rebav(a bowed instrument of the medieval period), accompanied by dumbek expert Zahari Kazaitzis, a piece from the Caliphate of Cordoba; to hear these parts inlaid and interlaced with an audio track composed of fragments of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first"(played back at accelerated speed), an interview with Lee Harvey Oswald and the 1930s radio show "Space Patrol"; to note that behind this texture, Margaret Lancaster and Sam Blaser are interspersing quiet and sustained multiphonic tones(which create spectral "chords" on wind instruments), and that these with the cryptic verbal interjections of resident "prophet" Star Black, is to get a sense of the splendid heterogeneity which can be achieved by way of textural combinations. The conscious avoidance of meaningless space and time is a key aspect in the "Holding Tank" performances. Setup time is either supplanted of filled by the introduction of thematic material and with eventful, genuine transitions.

Finally, it is worth noting, that the age range among our players extends from 9 years of age(in the case of Julian Kampela, our djembe player)up through 68 years; all of which is for me yet far too narrow a window. This age range, however, is a rarity among chamber groups, as they so much tend to center around groups of age peers, and derive from this, a rather clique-y dynamic among themselves, as well as among others.

What is "Strike!"?

This particular series was created with help of a visionary boxing gym president, Bruce Silverglade, the president of the legendary Gleason's boxing Gym, at 79 Front Street in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn, where we have given almost all of our performances. Gleason's is the training home of 127 world champions, among them Mohammad Ali, George Foremen, Robert Duran, Mike Tyson and Zab Judah. "STRIKE!" combines boxing matches and contemporary chamber music. Most of the performances are done on boxing rings. In combining genres that draw audiences not generally associated with each other, the crowd of "STRIKE!" is unusually diverse, and one might assume, incongruous. But the series derives much of its fundamental vitality from such a mix, and everybody gets to learn a little about the other "world". From the almost bizarre wedding of genres, "STRIKE!" creates a perceptual apparatus wherein music has a chance to seen in the light of explosive engagement - both physical and interpersonal - and of a sort of strategic craft, and boxing in the light of chamber music. But "STRIKE" is a phenomenon both presentational and educational, the latter in a strict sense. Our audiences and participants get a chance to see hot-off-the-press compositions and musical ideas being fashioned in front of them, get a chance to be informed by the players as to what ideas are behind what the audience is hearing, and they get a chance to hear about the boxing gym as its background relevant to its function as a social entity. And in many ways, in the realm of many facets, people are simply exposed. The corollary to all of this is that "STRIKE" funnels funds into a program, still in its formative stages, which is centered around seminars, for the children who train at Gleason's, in various provinces of human knowledge: art, literature, music, mythology. John Hunter Gunn, of the Queen's College faculty, is in the process of helping me to design a program upon Dewey-an lines, which emphasize, in his words, learning that is stimulated by the process of the pupil's "enactment" and by subsequent "empowerment"(that which both enables to learn and equips or supplies with particular ability).Such methods highlight modalities of learning that bring the student into the actual constructive process of the thing being studied. This would mean, for instance, that if a student was looking at a Homeric fable, the student would have the chance to help "construct" the work, by, removing or inserting the interchangeable Homeric epithets according to his own predilections; In so doing, the learner gains a feel and a compositional sense of the work, and a sense of the nature of art and composition in general.

But let me illustrate "STRIKE!" in the most basic format, such as it was first conceived, and upon lines somewhat skeletal. Short 10 or 12 minute "sets" of chamber music are presented in alternation with 8 minute matches, the latter of 3 rounds each. Because the "STRIKE!" events are in many ways both presentational and educational in their emphasis, at times short verbal introductions might proceed each "set"; Such introductions orient the audience to the nature or background of the compositions, and to the origins of the instruments, especially if the latter exotic. This format is less formal and more lively than are program notes. Spatially, and with regard to sequence, the event is generally configured over the 4 rings of the gym, progressing from ring to ring, and utilizing the space so that a smooth and seamless effect of the interlacing of music with bouts is achieved (the preparation for one performance going on while its antecedent is in progress). The 4-ring configuration of the gym lends itself to urging the audience into different areas of the space. A theater-in-the-round effect begins to form around each ring, as we pass from one ring to the next. And as the audience moves from ring to ring, with the sequential flow of the concert, the mind and ear follow the alternating concert events of music and boxing. Within such a context, the audience is here neither sequestered nor imprisoned, as might be the passive audience in the inexorable square of the concert hall. A democratization of space and function occurs: the audience, neither herded in standing room nor enthroned in balcony box, neither groundling nor patrician, is at leisure to move freely about the space; he or she may sit on the floor within inches of the ring, or on the boxing ring's edge; one may choose as his seat a light movable chair, or he choose to stroll and nibble on food; here taking in the concert at whatever proximity to the stage (boxing ring) would gratify him; here allowing his curiosity to guide him momentarily away from the performing area to a hanging boxing bag that may now engage his attention; here toward the indolent examination of a boxing action photo in a far corner area of the space. And the players, within the new psychological architectonics of this space, are become, in a sense, boxers, independent journeymen; the boxers for their part are become instrumentalists, nuanced technicians and custodians of their tradition. In this way, the meaningful utilization of space becomes the instrumentality through which the more mutually empowered functions of the participants -- what hitherto was audience, athlete and artist -- are released like so many caged birds.

How long has it existed?

2 years; Yet I dreamt of it, and planned it 12 years ago, after reading on French director Jacque Copeau's staging of "Twelfth Night" in 1913, in a boxing hall, in Paris. Discussions at the Abbey Café with composer Arthur Kampela helped me to invision the kind of event I was looking for to a keener degree. And my friend, bass player Mat Fieldes gave some input, that has, as well, proved quite valuable, this with regard to the music that might actually accompany the boxing.

Who are the main participants in it and what do they do? What is your role in it?

"STRIKE" uses many of the players of the "Holding Tank" Series, and of course all of our core players participate. In this event, the Street Cannibals are joined by boxers, who not only box in actual matches, but utilize the activity of shadow boxing a kind of kinetic dance, which may accompany or be accompanied by music. As staging in this event can be intricate and coordination can be an issue rather touchy, the roles of our stage manager(Tyler Lerned) and of our technician(Chuck Moses)are expanded. The video projections of VJ Astrid Steiner are used to highlight and illumine certain human elements and themes of the performance; the which at times acquires the savor of annotations to a text, at other times of a web wrought of elements of subtext, superimposed. Bruce Silverglade, the Gleason's Gym President, serves in this event in the dual role of Emcee and presenter; he as well assists Franz, Gene and I in marshalling the forces and steering the event while in progress. "STRIKE" uses many of the players of the "Holding Tank" Series, and of course all of our regulars participate. I, however, for the most part, pilot the general event, and with Tyler, Chuck, Franz and Gene, make sure that events and staging go according to the "figure" of the concert which we've composed, the notation of which -- a sort of a "blueprint" - is provided to the performers.

Thematic sound design created by Co-director Franz Hackl - chiefly composed of sounds acquired from Gleason's during the periods in which the boxers train -- enriches the intermission.

What are the goals of "Strike!"?

We show the commonality of these two passionate activities, or, if you will, rituals. Even a cursory observation of Man's history and of human affairs would convince any sentient being that a passionate engagement with our tasks, and a sense of purposive ritual are essential to a vital existence, and must have certainly been indispensable with regard to our survival. Participation, whether it be that of "audience" or of a "performer", requires the selfsame intensity. Without such intensity there is no living ritual, no living through and with the life and world, no real communication, and, for that matter, no community, no tribe. But immersion and an awareness of the consequences of neglect are prerequisite to performance. Boxers know and live this, respectfully; Will they disregard stern necessities in the practice of their craft, they will be, and inevitably are, reminded forcefully. The serious and at times motionless intensity of many of our historic performers have shown us this kind of immersion: the work of Casals, Richter, Horowitz, Heifetz, Coltrane, Feuermann, Oscar Peterson, Art Blakey and Art Tatum. For these artists there was little show, unlike, for instance, the violin and cello soloists of today's marketplace. If a boxer would carry on to the extremities of degree as are sometimes witnessed among the present favorites of the market, they'd get knocked out, their health perhaps permanently compromised. Boxing can remind us of this lesson: Stick to your work, and don't be afraid to be dead serious. Focus on the task at hand, and concern yourself with apprehending the meaning of its details.

So the message of "STRIKE!" bears an accent of rigor, as it carries into the province of music some of the ethos of boxing. But one must not be led to think that the goings on of "STRIKE!" are exhibitions in the humorless and grim exercise of will. The series is fraught with invention and a kind of constructive insanity, as the novelty of the context allows for so many unexpected combinations, invites such a degree of experimentation, and invariably gives rise to many fine monstrosities. Of a sudden we may witness composer Dary John Mizelle enter into a boxing ring in which Borislav Strulev and myself are carrying out a 2-cello full-out improvisatory assault; the former, in a Sprechstimme(a type of chanted speech)of simulated German, seems all to be howling at the moon, the existential vacuum and the agony of his childbirth, while Dave Taylor, barks out, in unmentionable splutters, the musical equivalent of the utterance of a sacred bagmen in the bass trombone; all this in accompaniment, response to and exhortation of a boxing match on the other ring. One may see a boxing match enacted by a trumpet player, French horn player and bass trombonist in which the former two circle jab and feint with their musical emissions, and with the physicality of their instruments, in an attempt to read the sheet music that has been taped onto their shirts, the bass trombonist staying sedulously with the action, in the role of referee.

What has been the public and critical response to "Strike!"?

People have verbalized enjoying the challenge of trying to discern its meaning and the intent behind the event. Alan Lockwood of the NY Press was taken by it; loved it; thought it inmitably unique. Hans Janecek of Austria's main paper, Die Kronen Zeitung(Vienna), went crazy over it, and has evinced an ongoing fascination with the project.

What are the best and worst aspects of "Strike!"?

Again, it's the personnel involved, their eclecticism, their expertise and their commitment. The personnel of the ensemble are unsurpassable, in both uniqueness and in quality. The presence of educational elements, both those inherent in the performance aspect, and those in the development of an actual learning program, is another facet that possesses peculiarly strong possibilities of application. It lends, as well, more philosophical coherence to the overall picture. Incident however, to the duel emphasis of the expositional function of the concerts, on one hand, and the educational components on the other, are the problems that will no doubt arise as we attempt to fashion proposals for a project so manifold; this will require diverse strategies, great discernment, and the capacity to condense this profusion of ideas into concise descriptions and unified, practicable formats.

What is the future for "Strike!"?

We've already had our first international installment of Strike at the Outreach Festival, in Schwaz, Austria, on August 3, 2007. Besides the four concerts which we are planning for this year at Gleason's in Brooklyn, we are setting up for a show at Gleason's in London within the next few months; we anticipate a show in Russia, as well, for the late spring. This is an international series.

What is the relationship between the International Street Cannibals and "Strike!"?

Both the "Holding Tank" Series and "STRIKE!" flow from the same philosophy of performance, the thematic core of which consists of the ideas of: (A) the dismantling of conventions, and (B)the striving for textual renewal, and(C)the resuscitation or introduction of ritualistic elements.

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