Poetry in Motion/Words on Music
Muyassar Kurdi w/
David Samas: new works for mouth and movement
Luciano Chessa
+ Brothers’ Quarrel (
David Samas & Ian Saxton)
As I Lie Naked feat. burlesque legend Isis Starr
& Philandering Moon feat. poet Tom Clark
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Muyassar Kurdi is a musician, performance artist, dancer, filmmaker and educator from Chicago, Illinois, and currently living, traveling, and performing in Europe.
In performance, she explores the relationship between abstract sound and metaprimordial movement, obliquely confronting ideas of masculine subjugation by reappropriating and then distorting hegemonically sexualised figurative motion and juxtaposing it with random, abrasive and jarring acoustic and electronic sound components along with wordless vocalizations.
A joyfully self-exorcizing ritualist, Kurdi studied voice and dance with legendary vocalist, dancer and ECM recording artist Meredith Monk via The House Foundation for the Arts as well as learning Japanese dance tradition Butoh with Tadashi Endo, director of the Butoh Center MAMU and Butoh Festivals in Germany, and Mexican master of the form Diego Piñon.
As a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist, Luciano Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., Asia, Australia, and South America. Recent record releases include PETROLIO, a monographic CD of chamber music released on March 11, 2015 by the Italian label Stradivarius.
Chessa is the also author of Luigi Russolo Futurist. Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult, the first monograph ever to be dedicated to the Futurist Russolo and his Art of Noise (UC Press, 2012). Chessa’s Futurist expertise resulted in an invitation by the New York-based Biennial of the Arts PERFORMA to direct the first reconstruction project of Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra, and to curate concerts of music commissioned for this project. This production was hailed by The New York Times as one of the best events in the arts of 2009 and is now touring internationally.
David Samas is a composer, cosmologist, poet, painter, performer, philosopher, farmer and father of 4. He has a BFA from the SF Art Institute in conceptual art and studied poetics at the New College of California. As a young man he performed with the SF Boys Chorus, the SF Opera and the SF Symphony with which he won a GRAMMY for the “best classical recording” of 1994. He has performed at the Exploritorium, Grace Cathedral, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Cal Shakes, and Center for New Music where he also curates the Window Gallery for Invented Instruments. In his free time he is artistic director of the Turquoise Yantra Grotto, a house concert series for free improv, ethno-modernism and invented instruments. He gives back to his communities through teaching workshops and curating events with and for school kids through Thingamajigs in Oakland, CA, with which he served as festival director in 2015. He also makes sacred geometry amulets, is an excellent cook, and self publishes small editions of hand bound art books.
Brother’s Quarrel is the avant improvising duo of
David Samas, invented instruments and Ian Saxton, extended percussion and original touch apps. We will be joined by the disembodied voice of poet and mentor Tom Clark, performing Philandering Moon and burlesque legend Isis Starr dancing and performing As I Lie Naked.
Isis Starr is an accomplished Tantrika and Sacred Dancer. She has studied the Temple Arts for many years, is a Priestess of Isis and a published poet. Her performances are an outpouring of feminine power and sensuality.
Isis began studying Ballet at 7 and at the tender age of 12 decided to be a Burlesque Queen after seeing the movie Gypsy. She perfected her bumps and grinds and took them to Ballet class where they were not appreciated. Nine years later she was working at the Condor Club in North Beach, San Francisco. Realizing she was born too late to be a true Burlesque Queen, she started stripping from a Burlesque perspective. Since then she has been around the world twice on a g-string and is now a Living legend and the Goddess of Burlesque.
Isis has performed at the Crazy Horse in Paris, Beirut and Australia. She also did 3 months at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. She has worked the Windmill Theater in London and Paul Raymond Revue Bar, as well as the Olde Latin Quarter.
Tom Clark has combined the diverse roles of poet, biographer, novelist, dramatist, reviewer, and sportswriter during his writing career. In addition to dozens of books of poetry, a play, two novels, two story collections, and numerous biographies of literary figures, Clark's works include a book co-written with star baseball pitcher Mark Fidrych, poems about such sports legends as Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Bert Campaneris, and a history of the Oakland A's baseball team.
He was Poetry editor of the Paris Review from 1963-73; an instructor in American poetry at the University of Essex from 1966-67; a senior writer at the Boulder Monthly from 1978-79; and an Instructor in Poetics at New College of California from1988 until its demise in 2008.
You can find him daily at his poetry blog, tomclarkblog.blogspot.
Ian Saxton is an experimental percussionist and theatrical activist with a background in computer music and a deep passion for complex polyrhythms. He completed a music BA at UC Santa Cruz with David Cope, a Computer Music MA at UC San Diego with Miller Puckette, and worked closely with David Wessel while in the Music Composition PhD program at UC Berkley before leaving in “protest” over the corporatization and militarization of public education and arts research. He was the founding drummer for Cash Pony and long time percussionist for Sun Hop Fat, both Bay Area bands who traverse the ethno/prog/jazz/white-boy-funk/rock fusion space.
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Now in our 5th season, the Turquoise Yantra Grotto is a house concert series for avant improvisers and invented instrumentalists with a focus on ethno-modernism and extended techniques. We hold a monthly event which is part concert and part social club, near Twin Peaks in San Francisco. The Turquoise Yantra Grotto is home to many unique invented instruments including the Zen Industrial Gamelan (or grand metalliphone), the Gamelan Piano, and several sonic paintings, as well as instruments by Bart Hopkin, Tom Nunn,
David Samas, Dan Gottwald, Peter Whitehead, Bryan Day, Susan Rawcliffe and many others. The 4 pianos in the house are each uniquely tuned for a variety of repertoire showcased in our solo piano series.
Cost: 10-15