Programs

Gaijin

“Gaijin is a commonly used Japanese slang term for ‘foreigner’. It is the (often derogatory) shortened word for the (neutral) ‘Gaikokujin’, which literally means ‘foreign-country-person’. During the first six months of 1999, I lived as a Gaijin. I was in Tokyo on a residency granted by the NEA and the Japan/US Friendship Commission. It was a rich and rewarding experience, during which I learned a great deal. One of the most profound lessons was finding out what it is like to truly be an alien in the place where you live.” Performed by Pamela Z on voice, processors, samples and BodySynth™, and with Butoh dancers, the music for Gaijin consists of layered, dynamically varied sound works with text derived from PZ's own writing as well as stories gathered from various people's "foreigner" experiences. The texts are spoken, sung, played as samples, and projected in the space along with other images. The Butoh movement was developed by Z and three dancers (Kinji Hayashi, Leigh Evans, and Shinichi Momo Koga) and takes place on various levels, throughout an environment designed by set designer Lauren Elder, lighting designer Elaine Buckholtz, and videomakers Jeanne Finley and John Muse.

Voci

On the heels of her critically acclaimed show Gaijin (Theater Artaud 2001) San Francisco's pioneer experimental audio artist, Pamela Z presents Voci (voices). Hailed as "one of San Francisco's creative treasures " by Brad Rosenstein of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the electric Ms. Z investigates the immeasurable power of voice.

Voci is a highly theatrical multimedia work exploring the sonic, cultural and artistic worlds of the voice. Written, composed, and performed by Pamela Z, Voci celebrates the broad range of colors in the singing and speaking voice, as well as the many metaphors for voice, with great warmth and humor. Maintaining her innovative edge, Ms. Z digitally processes her voice and triggers samples with light sensors designed by Donald Swearingen, as well as a gesture controller called the BodySynth, designed by Ed Severinghaus and Chris Van Raalte. In addition to Pamela Z's dramatic on stage presence, Voci features vivid, tall video projections designed by filmmakers Jeanne Finley and John Muse and a stunning lighting design by Elaine Buckholtz. The integration of the various elements is seamless, and Ms. Z orchestrates the electronic components with such virtuosity that the performance is ultimately one of great humanity and wit.

Voci is comprised of several vignettes inspired by the many incarnations of voice in art and life. The dynamically varied segments keep the stage alive with unexpected visual and auditory transformations and, from time to time, Z performs "virtual duets" with some surprise guests (such as cellist, Joan Jeanrenaud) who appear in the form of video samples on giant screens. Weaving together stories about voice with arias, non-verbal utterances, cries and whispers, choruses of "real" and synthetic voices, and fragments of scientific information, Pamela Z builds a kind of polyphonic mono-opera.

The foundation of Voci's high tech symphony is Ms. Z's powerful, classically trained soprano voice. With her exceptionally wide dynamic and pitch range, she fluidly traverses vocal styles encompassing everything from classical bel canto method to experimental extended vocal techniques. In Voci, she manages to juxtapose Italian Opera with passages informed by Tuvan throat singing and the bright timbres of Bulgarian song- creating a rich mix of vocal colors while challenging the often Euro-centric point of view of Western Classical music. She draws on her fascination of vocal anatomy, voice interaction with telecommunication technology, everyday sounds, and studies on phenomena such as "voice-profiling" to create this engaging, polyphonic mono-opera. With this electrifying leap into the power of voice, Pamela Z delivers a masterpiece!

Pamela Z's Voci is generously supported by grants from the Creative Capital Foundation and the San Francisco Art Commission.

Metal/Vox/Water

Metal/Vox/Water is an engaging evening of Pamela Z’s solo works for voice, electronics, and video. Ms. Z digitally processes her voice in real time to create lush layers of sound that are at times frenetic and rhythmic and at times ambient, intense, and hypnotic. She weaves these layers together with sampled concrete sounds which she triggers with physical gestures via a MIDI controller called the BodySynth™, fragments of text, and found objects sampled and looped in real time. Featured amidst all of this cutting edge technology is her powerful, trained voice with which she seamlessly navigates through operatic bel canto, spoken word, and experimental extended techniques with a remarkably wide timbral and pitch range. The evening takes it’s title from a segment in which she performs a “trio” with amplified strips of metal hung in the space and a video that samples metal, water, and voice. In another segment, she uses the sound of her live voice to control dark, rich video imagery projected behind her. And in many segments she sculpts beautiful sound pieces using only her voice and real-time digital sound processing. The segments in Metal/Vox/Water are drawn from excerpts of her acclaimed large-scale multi-media performance works (Parts of Speech, Gaijin, and Voci) along with short concert works that have been her signature throughout her career as a composer/performer. She presents these segments with a theatrical flare employing elegant physical gestures and a full, rich, enchanting voice.