Against Hard Matter
Øyvind Mæland · Anna Gaïotti
A new work by Øyvind Mæland for six percussionists and ceramic tiles; tap dance and noise by Anna Gaïotti.
Hard surfaces resist. In Øyvind Mæland’s Quality Finish, six percussionists play instruments built from large panels of ceramic tiles, wood, metal and other materials. The performers become string players of a kind, moving through a strange, quasi-melodic landscape of noise, friction and fragile cooperation.
In the second part of the evening, tap dancer Anna Gaïotti joins us on stage. Microphones beneath her feet pick up the sound of her dancing and feed it into the electronics. She taps against the old wooden floor of Kulturkirken Jakob, turning the movements of her feet into percussion. The creaks and vibrations travel from the floor into the body.
Noise, this evening, is not a genre or a gesture. It is in the crack of a tile, the strike of a foot, in the hard matter that responds.
Want to know more?
- Quality Finish is a central work in Øyvind Mæland’s PhD in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Flow-obstructed phrasing, his term for music where breath and body meet resistance, is not an end in itself: it is a way of sharpening presence.
- The title [Quality Finish] refers to the language of production, craft and surface treatment, suggesting polish and smoothness but also the physical labour behind a finished surface: rubbing, sanding and covering traces.
- Tap dance developed in the United States from West African percussive dance traditions and European step dances, moving through vaudeville, jazz clubs and musicals. Anna Gaïotti places tap in more experimental contexts, including noise and performance art.
Nina Garcia & Anna Gaïotti. Photo: Icilonde
Jennifer Torrence, Tomas Nilsson and NMH students © Saimi Kortelainen
Øyvind Mæland. Photo: Elvin I. Berg
Foto: Elvin I. Berg
Performers, Quality Finish
- Jennifer Torrence
- Tomas Nilsson
- Dagfinn Theodor Ingebrigtsen Holte
- Elvin Ingeborgrud Berg
- Sigurd Adrian Schøyen
- Amund Falk Morgenstierne
Choreographic advisor, Quality Finish
- Ingrid Berger Myhre
Composer, Quality Finish
- Øyvind Mæland
Tap dance
- Anna Gaïotti
Supported by
- The Composers’ Fund
- Norwegian Society of Composers
- Institut français de Norvège
In collaboration with
- Norwegian Academy of Music
- Festival Musica and La Muse en Circuit – CNCM as part of the RISE production platform supported by the French Ministry of Culture
