Usine C Love You, Porgy
10 minute excerpt with Fred Basil, Mike Bjella, Ted Crosby, Erik Hove, Micah Langer, Etienne Lapierre, Averil Parker, Liam O’Neill & Stefan Schneider. Video by Samuel Trudelle-Gendron
In March 2014, Usine C asked if I wanted to make a musical performance for the lobby of the theatre. I’ve always loved and hated that lobby. It’s both beautiful and imposing and it has a way of suggesting that, no, the party is not for you, it’s for someone richer than you. To counteract the feeling of not belonging, I filled the space with my people: saxophonists and other musicians in the city who I know and love.
The space is too big for a performance, but we tried to use it all. My plan was to disperse 10 musicians around the sprawling lobby and choreograph a dance of melody that moved between us. Meanwhile the audience had to perambulate in order to actually hear the concert, as the music seemed to always be moving slowly elsewhere.
We used the Gershwin tune “I loves you, Porgy” as a shared ground because I’ve always wanted to hear that song coming from everywhere at the same time. The song is a kind of currency, a way of being in a space together.