Improvisation Performance Features International Musicians and Dancers

The free improvisation group Noru Ka Soru Ka will perform Sunday, July 1, at 7 p.m. in Hudson Hall at Willamette University. The performance features American and Swiss musicians and Japanese dancers, and will be recorded for a live-concert DVD.

Noru Ka Soru Ka (“Take the Leap”) emerged from a jam session performance in Tokyo in 2006. A chance conversation in a local restaurant there led to this collaboration between the group Carr Nord Hofmann Maddox (Richard Carr on violin, Mike Nord on guitar and electronics, Georg Hofmann on percussion, and Art Maddox on piano) and Japanese dancers Makoto Matsushima, Mao Arata and Kenzo Kusuda. The artists, who share a passion for collective free improvisation and the blurring of artistic boundaries, will make their first American appearance as an ensemble.

Carr Nord Hofmann Maddox has performed live and on broadcasts in Europe, the United States, Japan and Mexico. The group shares a dedication to jazz as well as a desire to explore classical, blues and folk traditions. Their improvised works embrace everything from abstract textural ambience and “noise” to groove, swing, and tonal lyricism.

Describing their recent recording, Biosphere, Down Beat Magazine notes that “Outcomes are driven by the inspirations and impulses of the participants. Their performances transcend established idioms of jazz, folk or classical music.” The quartet, they write, “constructs eerie organic landscapes with levels of detail that stand up to repeated listening.”

Tokyo dancer Matsushima was a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Japanese dance theatre company Pappa Tarahumara, which has toured internationally for more than 20 years. Dancer and choreographer Arata, who joined the dance company in 1997, creates solo dance pieces and collaborates with musicians, object creators and sculptors. Kusuda, a choreographer, dancer and performing artist from Tokyo and Amsterdam, has performed traditional and modern Japanese dance forms worldwide.

The Amsterdam magazine Theater Maker observes, “By virtue of Kusuda’s fluent and intense movement language, his ability to interweave disparate emotional layers, his sense of irony and, not least, by the breathtaking dancing, his ‘Hypnos Loco Locomotion’ is a performance both touching and impressive.”

Tickets at the door are $10 for adults and $3 for students with ID. Visit www.willamette.edu/~mnord or www.fsinet.or.jp/~miracle/pine_island/e_profile.html for more information, or call 503-370-6255.

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Ken Butler Workshop and Concert Canceled

A children’s workshop and concert by Ken Butler planned for Saturday at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and the Historic Elsinore Theatre have been canceled.

Artist Ken Butler had to cancel both events due to health reasons. He had planned to offer an afternoon sound workshop for youths at the museum and an evening concert at the Elsinore. Anyone who had purchased tickets for the Elsinore concert may contact the theatre at (503) 375-3574 for a refund.

Both events had been planned in conjunction with Ken Butler: Hybrid Visions, an exhibition opening Saturday and continuing through Aug. 26 at the museum. The exhibition features Butler’s inventive “hybrid” instruments made from found objects, including film reel guitars, cowboy boot violins and axe cellos. The exhibition will continue as planned.

For more information about the exhibition, call (503) 370-6855 or visit www.willamette.edu/museum_of_art.

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Exhibition of 'Hybrid' Instruments Includes Concert, Sound Workshop

Film reel guitars, cowboy boot violins, axe cellos and Styrofoam packaging pianos are among the “hybrid” musical instruments that will be on display this summer at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University. Ken Butler: Hybrid Visions, featuring 56 of the mixed media artist’s inventive and humorous instruments, opens June 9 and continues through Aug. 26.

Butler studied viola as a child and maintained an interest in music while studying art at Colorado College and Portland State University. He has shown and performed at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has been featured on PBS, CNN, MTV and NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His music and performances have been described as “Kurt Schwitters meets Rube Goldberg meets Laurie Anderson meets Miles Davis.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, Butler will lead a free sound workshop for youths (grades K–8) June 9 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in the Roger Hull Lecture Hall at the museum. He will show how simple instruments can be created from household objects, and participants will discover the relationship between sound, noise and music and hear their voices altered with electronic effects. Enrollment is limited to 25 students plus their parents, and pre-registration is required. To register, call (503) 370-6855.

Also on June 9, Butler will present a concert at 7:30 p.m. at the Historic Elsinore Theatre in Salem. The concert will be an evening of mesmerizing sounds and melodic grooves as Butler performs on an arsenal of amplified hybrid string instruments made from household objects and tools. Neil Strauss of The Village Voice has said of Butler, “It’s not just that Ken Butler knows how to bow stringed instrument parade rifles, play dental dams like trumpets and construct keyboards from aluminum crutches, it’s that he knows how to play them well.”

Admission to the concert is free to Hallie Ford Museum of Art and Historic Elsinore Theatre members, but a ticket is required at the door (tickets may be picked up at the museum or theatre). Tickets for non-members are $10 and may be purchased at the museum or theatre, or online at www.elsinoretheatre.com. The box office and doors open at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call (503) 370-6855 or (503) 375-3574.

Ken Butler: Hybrid Visions was organized in collaboration with the Art Gym at Marylhurst University. Local support for the exhibition was provided in part by grants from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax and the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State St. (corner of State and Cottage streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children younger than 12 are admitted free, and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For more information, call (503) 370-6855 or go to www.willamette.edu/museum_of_art.

Please note that the concert and workshop scheduled for June 9 have been canceled due to health reasons. More Information

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