Kipworld

Saturday was Otto’s composition recital. I was appointed videographer, so I was on hand to document the crazy circus that was Circo Anegando (”The Drowning Circus”).

I got there during the dress rehearsal. There was a group of singers and instrumentalists rehearsing a selection from his opera. I started filming everything, especially Otto’s explanations of what was supposed to happen and his general frazzled state.

Several Titanic Players were on hand to act as ushers. Not just seat ushers, they had popcorn trays and they were supposed to instruct the audience on the installations that Otto had set as his first attractions. For one, the audience member wore headphones with some recorded music. In front of the cd player was Cory on xylophone, who would attempt to play the music that the person was listening to by interpreting the person’s movements. At another, Gary and Laura stood on two sides of a box on the ground. As people walked into the box, they would mimic the person and make fun of them while a harpist and several other instrumentalists improvised music based on Gary and Laura’s movements. At a third, the audience member would pass out cards with political roles (”sovereign”, “plebian”, etc) to the instrumentalists, who would play improvised music based on their role. I thought the improv stuff was very Otto, since I know him from his improv piano playing for Titanic.

I went around interviewing people who were playing in the recital and also audience members who were milling in the hallway. (Standard question: “How does Otto’s music make you feel?” Non standard answer from Cory: “Horny.”) The light was pretty bad inside the room, so I think most of the tape is going to be murky darkness, but that’s OK.

The audience came in and started interacting with the installations, tentatively. There was a huge table of food laid out in the center of the room. Fondue. Grapes. Chips. Sangria like liquid.

Otto thanked everyone for coming, and the first piece started: the opera. After that was a group singing session. Otto said that the only thing he knew about his recital was that he definitely wanted to force the audience to sing. El played a film score he’d composed for a film about seagulls. I cracked up when the video loop showed a bird flying backwards. I’m such a philistine.

There was a quartet.

Otto’s friend Jess played the harp while from speakers came two monologues: one from a girl talking about her autistic brother and the other from a man talking about a day on his deck.

More group singing. I make no claims as the veracity of this piece order, since I was running around the room trying to move the tripod without bashing people this way and that.

Finally a sextet played several movements of a piece. Some of the movements were one bar long, consisting of Cory playing a bell. I could feel Otto beaming from his seat.

One more group song, combining the themes from the first two.

And then it was over. I went around getting reaction clips, especially from Otto, who doesn’t do the talking performing thing as well as he does the piano performing thing (he puts so many jokes into our pieces). Milked him for a bit until he asked, “How much tape did you get for that thing?”

I got enough, Otto. Enough.