NON:onLINE
NON:op's immersive platform for virtual performance
volume 1:3
Please Join Us
as we investigate alternative futures
through music, poetry, performance, and observation
SHARE. INTERACT. COLLABORATE.
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A note from NON:op's founder and artistic director
Welcome to NON:op's July/August issue of NON:onLINE!
As
we settle into the “new normal,” we prepare for major changes in how we
conduct ourselves as a society. The new normal, at least so far, seems
merely to be a heightened version of the old normal; the only change is
our awareness of what has always surrounded us. A pandemic rages; what
differs is our response to political irresponsibility. Voices are
silenced; what differs is our desire to recognize the thousands of
voices silenced in decades past. Our democracy is challenged by systemic
oppression, racism, and murder of black persons; by economic hardship
and political degradation; by unbridled capitalism and greed; by the
destruction of our environment. What differs is our desire, our
commitment, to resist and to act creatively to bring about change.
In
response to these multiple crises, NON:op Open Opera Works is
developing multiple participatory projects that enable lost, suppressed,
and neglected voices to be heard. Tentatively entitled THE MEMORY
PROJECT, this initiative will encompass all that we will do for the
foreseeable future. Beginning this month, and over the next three to
five years, we will welcome creative contributions from you—fellow
musicians, writers, artists, performers, and all who choose to
create—that we will present in various online formats and in-person
manifestations.
Each
of these projects will focus on different aspects and unheard voices of
our American experience, and each will invite different types of
participation from YOU! While we develop this ambitious set of projects,
we expect to make mistakes, and we ask you to hold us accountable. Each
project will be allowed to develop in its own time in its own way,
based on your input and participation. Then, beginning in 2021—or when
we are able to be with each other again—we will present each project in
one or more live, in-person, performance-based manifestations that
follows from your work.
In June we introduced two participatory projects: Blood Lines – SAY THEIR NAMES,
an online version of our 2019 installation in which you can say the
names of those killed in the 1919 Chicago race riot or say the names of
other black persons killed by law enforcement; and The Gas Heart,
a video version of Tristan Tzara’s 1921 classic Dada play (a revolt
against the bankrupt culture and structures of post-war Europe) that
invites participants to contribute TikTok videos.
With this issue of NON:onLINE, we introduce two additional interactive projects: American Biography and L's GA: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. American Biography
is a shared digital archive dedicated to gathering diverse and unheard
experiences with America; submissions may be any combination of words,
sounds, or still or moving images. L’s GA: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
asks for updated productions of and responses to Salvatore Martirano’s
1967 anti-war classic; in making your own version, you are invited to
ask questions like “What masks are you forced to wear?” NON:op provides
the original production materials, from which you may create your own
personal response.
As
we struggle through the darkness of multiple crises of our own making,
I’d like to offer a message of hope and optimism. We find ourselves,
according to Nicholas Kristof, at a similar juncture as when Roosevelt
took office in 1932. “The result was the New Deal, Social Security,
rural electrification, government jobs programs and a 35-year burst of
inclusive growth that built the modern middle class...” It is because
and in spite of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers that we find
ourselves with a chance, just a chance, of getting something done and
making real and lasting change. It is with this hope and optimism that
NON:op shares multiple participatory projects that are
radically inclusive, radically experimental, and radically personal. We
are dedicated to interactions that provide opportunities to connect, to learn, to engage, and to collaborations that create not just art, but also permanent social, economic, and cultural change.
Find out more about L's GA and American Biography below, check out the updates to Blood Lines and The Gas Heart, and visit the NON:op website
to read more about what we are doing to make positive change. We hope
you and yours are safe, and we look forward to your participation as we
create an alternative future.
CHRISTOPHE PREISSING
SHARE. INTERACT. COLLABORATE.
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[ UPDATE ]
Blood Lines - SAY THEIR NAMES
We are currently seeking a diverse group of readers for an online recreation of our 2019 Blood Lines installation. During this time of social distancing and cultural change we invite you to participate in this project by video recording yourself reading
the name of one or more persons killed in the 1919 uprising. Readings
will be combined with sound from the original long wire installation at
Augustana and a video with maps, historical newspaper accounts, a
timeline, and images from the live installation and the surrounding
neighborhoods.The deadline for submitting videos to this part of the project is Monday, September 14. NON:op is offering a $5 honorarium for each video reading we include in the online installation (up to 5). Visit the Blood Lines – SAY THEIR NAMES project page on our website for detailed information on participating in Blood Lines - SAY THEIR NAMES.
For the SAY THEIR NAMES
component of the project we are seeking volunteers to assist Ron Browne
with the development of a database of black persons killed by law
enforcement since 1919. If you would like to assist Ron, please visit
the Blood Lines - SAY THEIR NAMES page and click on DOCUMENTS for more information.
• • •
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[ SHARE ]
L's GA: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
concept by Salvatore Martirano
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NON:op's 2017 production of L's GA featuring Sam Porretta as the gas-masked politico.
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[ COLLABORATE ]
L's GA: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
It
was 1967. You don’t remember that, do you? Probably you weren’t even
around then. But I was. And it is one of my memories; what I remember;
part of our American Biography; part of what made us all—even you, who
might not have been born—what we are.
Young men were being drafted and dying in the jungle. Young black men were dying more often.
Resistance was growing. I was white, and I was safe: I had a deferment.
I could watch while SDS and Black Muslims contended with each other as
well as with the government. It was very confusing.
There was a concert, and Sal Martirano presented L’s GA for the first time: a composition for gas-masked politico, with helium bomb, assisted by a nurse.
Lincoln’s iconic words struggled to be heard through the mask. The
voice struggled to be a voice, bombed as it was by helium. American
words of inspiration were turned into fascist chanting, mindless
calisthenics, totalitarian mockery. And all drowned out by sound and
image: love duets at 110 dB; war games played on naked bodies; thunder,
drums, and death.
FIFTY-THREE YEARS LATER
Masks
are everywhere: masks for defense against illness, masks for defense
against tear gas, masks to conceal identities. Everyone can be—everyone
is compelled to be—a gas-masked politico.
Are
you choosing your mask? Choosing to be safe, to be separate, to be
secure? That mask enables you to breath without fear, to venture
outside, to care for yourself and for others.
Or
has the mask been forced upon you? To smother you, silence you,
suppress your very being? That mask cares nothing for you or for others.
With
some masks, words struggle to be heard: I can't breath. Be safe. Black
lives matter. With other masks, words are amplified: Be free. Make
America Great. All lives matter. Nothing matters.
Lives
are taken, voices suppressed: by gas, by knees, by gunshots, by
chokeholds. Inspiration is replaced: by fascist tweets, lies,
distortions, fakery, greed, racism, abuse, indifference.
Fifty-three years later, so much has changed. Or has it?
THE CHALLENGE
Make L’s GA your GA. Text, sound, and image remain; all else is mutable.
Which masks are you forced to wear? Which do you choose? What keeps you from breathing? What drowns out your voice? Who is your nurse—or oppressor?
Send us your performance, your response.
What, fifty-three years from now, will be so important to you that you
can write: You don’t remember that, do you? But I do . . .
To find out more about L's GA, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and how you can contribute or interact with the project, visit the L's GA project page. In September we will issue a call for funded proposals to create your own version of or response to L's GA.
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[ PARTICIPATE ]
American Biography
Our American Biography is useful knowledge for the future history we are making now.
American Biography is inspired by Gertrude Stein's American Biography: Why Waste It? in her book, Useful Knowledge.
NON:op invites you to participate in building a shared online American Biography.
An open, digital archive, it is intended to grow as an ongoing, living,
collection of personal histories, stories, and memories—as writings,
images, videos, sound, or any combination—a place to hold individual,
specific, personally-remembered experiences.
American Biography is dedicated to gathering diverse and unheard experiences
with America, by people living in America, visiting America, or who are
experiencing America from outside America. We are beginning the project
with histories focused on experiences of missing voices—of sounds we can no longer hear.
We invite you to contribute your experience with America using one or any combination of these electronic media:
• writing
• poetry
• video
• image(s)
• audio
Whether you:
• live in America
• are visiting America
• are experiencing America from outside America
Begin with what you remember:
What have you not heard?
What voices—whose voices—have you not heard?
Whose voices did you not hear?
Whose voices did you missing hearing?
Whose voices could you not hear?
With your permission, we will publish your work as an addition to American Biography.
Individual contributions will be independently displayed and available for viewers to experience as independent items. Altogether they will form an evolving, collective, dynamic virtual mosaic, displayed, as it grows, on NON:op’s American Biography website.
Want to contribute your American Experience, or do you have questions American Biography? Please contact: ann [at] nonopera [dot] org
Read more of Gertrude Stein’s words about listening: “they do not listen to hear” in American Biography: Why Waste It? on page 166 of her book Useful Knowledge.
Our American Biography is useful knowledge for the future history we are making now.
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[ UPDATE ]
The Gas Heart
Tangerine and white from Spain
I'm killing myself Madeleine, Madeleine.
Your play is quite charming, but no one can understand any of it.
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The Gas Heart
invites your participation with short TikTok videos. Tristan Tzara's
1921 three-act Dada play resists both the art and conventions of theater
AND the bankrupt culture and society in post-war Europe. With Trump and
his enablers—the ultimate bankrupt grifters—in charge, The Gas Heart is once again relevant. One can easily imagine these banalities
coming from our commander in chief: "I have an American hairdo." "Your
daughter is quite charming." "Do you care for sports?" "You know, of
course, that I own a garage."
Here's where you come in... Do you TikTok? We do!!
In this time of political depravity, you are invited to submit TikTok videos for our Gas Heart
video production. We will post six videos—two per act—on TikTok (search
for nonopera) and on YouTube (links are on our website). Consider submitting a video an act of resistance, a political statement, your American duty.
The deadline for submitting videos is October 1.
In exchange for your participation in The Gas Heart, you will receive a $45 honorarium
for every video we include in the final video (up to two). You may
choose to receive the money yourself, or you may opt to donate the money
back to NON:op to support this and other participatory programs, or you
may ask NON:op to donate your honorarium to Black Lives Matter.
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[ NEWS ]
Illinois Humanities recently awarded NON:op a CARES Act Emergency Relief Grant
for general operating support. Illinois Humanities activates the
humanities through free public programs, grants, and educational
opportunities that foster reflection, spark conversation, build
community, and strengthen civic engagement. Illinois Humanities is a
nonprofit organization and the state’s affiliate for the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
Welcome NON:op's social media assistant, Jahan Nolley.
 Jahan
R. Nolley is a composer of concert music, whose work aims to explore
the vital role of human connection in the performance of live music by
closely studying the limits set by the barriers between audience,
performer, instrument, and composer. She is an Iranian-American trans
woman who is deeply invested in fostering the connection between the art
world and the public. Jahan believes that the best way to accomplish
this goal is to create opportunities for the public to engage directly
with the art and for those opportunities to be tied to social,
environmental, and political issues that audiences are facing in their
lives. She received a BFA in Music Composition from the California
Institute of the Arts and an MM in Applied Music Theory from the
Norwegian Academy of Music, between which she taught music theory and
composition at a variety of community initiatives both in Chicago and in
northern Iceland.
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Part Time Opportunity
Web Developer/Designer –
NON:op is seeking a web designer to take our website to the next level.
The Web Designer will work with the Social Media assistant to integrate
Social Media and email platforms with our NON:onLINE immersive platform
for virtual performance. Qualified applicants will have proficiency in
video hosting, live streaming, online interactivity, and Zoom, and they
will have demonstrated organization skills, the ability to manage
multiple projects, a willingness to take direction and the technical
ability to create a website that supports NON:op’s vision and goals.
Please contact non [at] nonopera [dot] org to be considered for this position.
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Board and Artist Opportunities
Do
you support NON:op's mission? Do you enjoy immersive performances that
are fun AND intellectually challenging? Want to become more involved?
Join our board and artist team as we build a more diverse and nimble
organization to respond to these critical times. Please contact
Christophe at non [at] nonopera [dot] org for more information.
• • •
SUPPORT NON:op by purchasing HPSCHD@50 merch!
Also available are Musicircus T-Shirts, John Cage CDs, HPSCHD@50 buttons, and souvenir programs. Click here to order and support NON:op and its artists.
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Thank you for taking care of each other by staying indoors and practicing social distancing.
We hope you and yours are well and staying safe as we create an alternative future.
SHARE. INTERACT. COLLABORATE.
Christophe, Ann, Bill, Theo, Joshua, Saba, and the rest of NON:op's Artists and Board of Directors
If you are able to support NON:op's artists and mission, please donate today.
All donations are tax deductible. Thank you.
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