Summer 4: Co-Incidents

Tuesday, June 28, 2011
10:50am-11:40am, Aullwood Garden MetroPark
breezy, sunny, a few clouds

Today I came to Aullwood with my friend Chris Shea, who, in addition to being the director of Free Shakespeare, plays some amazing singing bowls. (That's a little internet-bonus secret of our upcoming performance Translations).

We were excited to find the perfect spot in the woods for him and his otherworldly bowls, and we began to hike up the long loop trail to find it.

I was concerned that the trail was simply too narrow, but as we neared the area I imagined for him, a little side loop appeared, magically. A perfect co-inciding of our needs with this space.

We placed his table on the main trail, by a fallen tree that crosses it, and it's as if the side loop was made to divert walkers around Chris and his bowls, instead of the tree.

Second coincidence: two of the three bowls that we randomly grabbed for the soundcheck correspond perfectly to the pitches of one of the birds in the woods. Nice.

Here's the bird, and my version of it:


I like the idea of co - incidents. Two (or more) things happening at the same time, and there being some significance to their contemporaneity. That's kind of the underlying principle of the sound for Translations - how the happening of this bird here, plus the statements of that bird there, each basically doing his own thing, creates its own kind of meaningful music. I am seeking to emulate this principle in human forms. Co - incidents.