collaborations | catalyst, dances by emily johnson
BLACKFISH
"So smart and harrowing and frightening and beautiful that it’s a revelation."
- Space City Rock
“At once subtle and driving.”
- Anchorage Daily News
BLACKFISH is James Everest (Minneapolis, MN) and Joel Pickard (Portland, OR) performing live improvised duets in a series of surround-sound installation concerts that accompany live performances of The Thank-you Bar. Joel Pickard plays pedal steel guitar and upright bass, and James Everest plays nylon and steel string acoustic guitars through a myriad of effects and looping pedals to create spontaneous sounds and songs that span from the intricate and spare to dense, layered, sonic constructions. These concerts are recorded live, with select recordings released as an ongoing series of CDs & downloadable mp3s, documents of this unfolding collaboration.
Multi-instrumentalist/composer James Everest is based in Minneapolis and has worked on a variety of musical projects, including Lateduster, Neotropic (UK), Sans Le Systeme, Roma Di Luna, Vicious Vicious, The Grave Trio, and with collaborators Walter Kitundu, Eduard Nesterenko (RUS) and as a solo artist. Since 2002 Everest has been a close collaborator with choreographer Emily Johnson and Catalyst, —writing and performing original scores for several performances with Lateduster, as a solo artist, and most recently with Joel Pickard and Bethany Lacktorin. Since 2005, he has hosted and curated the MAKING MUSIC conversations series at the University of Minnesota's Whole Music Club and the Walker Art Center. jgeverest.com
Joel Pickard is based in Portland, Oregon and works as an improviser and composer creating music for dance, theatre, video, commercial advertising, and performance. In 2003 he created Hatfarm (a music production company) as a name under which all of these various projects come together. Joel has an MA in Composition from Mills College in Oakland, CA where he studied with Fred Frith, Alvin Curran, and Pauline Oliveros. Active as a performer, Joel plays guitar in Jigsaw with cellist Jacqueline Ferrier-Ultan and pedal steel guitar in Mire with electronic artist Elise Baldwin, guitarist William Collins, and drummer Seth Warren. hatfarm.com
Discover the music of BLACKFISH in the Catalyst store.
capture!rama: a dance film mashup
Part of the Capture! dance film series, co-presented by Catalyst and Firetrunk.
One camera, one tape. All "in-camera" edits. Five different short dance films "performed" and shot live before a theater audience, then projected on the big screen. followed by Q&A. Previous participants include Mad King Thomas, Galen Truer, Emily Johnson, James Everest, Sean Smuda, Randy Kramer, Body Cartography, & Elliot Durko Lynch.
local strategy
Local Strategy is the collaborative effort of a multidisciplinary team of artists from Minneapolis, New York, and Seattle. Lisa D'Amour, Katie Pearl, Emily Johnson, Eleanor Savage, Krista Kelley Walsh, and Joel Pickard are a playwright, director, choreographer, video artists, visual artist, and musician, respectively, who work together to investigate and animate public spaces. Together, in 2005, they created "Landmark: 24 Hours at the Stone Arch Bridge," an event that won "Best Public Art Performance" in the Minneapolis City Pages.
lateduster
Lateduster is a cutting-edge instrumental music ensemble specializing in intricately arranged modern chamber music. By using a variety of sounds, gear, instruments and techniques both conventional and ground-breaking, Lateduster’s sonic palette covers a wide spectrum and translates into emotionally raw and evocative soundscapes. Formed in 1999 by 4 luminaries of the Minneapolis underground, Lateduster has been recognized around the world for its dynamic compositions and intricate sound - highly evocative, heavily textured, alternately delicate and ferocious
Catalyst and Lateduster have collaborated on three pieces, beginning in 2001, producing Plain Old Andrea, with a Gun, our "postmodern, feminist western," FIERCE:WHOLE, (2003) a plodding landscape divided between hope and desperation and Give me a story, tell me you love me, (2003) a danced duet measuring lies against truth.
The ongoing collaborative relationship pushes for deep investigation into the process through which choreographer Emily Johnson, and band members, JG Everest, Bryan Olson, and Martin Dosh create work.
With a joint artistic sensibility rooted in emotional and idiosyncratic compositional styles, Catalyst and Lateduster combine deft sweeps of detailed imagery with a visceral flow of sound, resulting in a fiercely focused and gently unbound collaboration.
Catalyst + Lateduster Performance History:
Velocity, Seattle, Washington February 2005
ODC Theater, San Francisco, California February 2005
Southern Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota February 2005
Give Me a Story, Tell Me You Love Me, Illusion Theater, Minneapolis, MN 2004
Fierce:Whole, Carleton College, Arena Theater, Northfield,MN, 2003
Fierce: Whole, Red Eye Theater, Minneapolis, MN April 2003
Excerpts, Flatland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN April 2003
Plain Old Andrea, With a Gun, Southern Theater, Minneapolis, MN 2002
