A Gun Show
Performance + post-show discussion
Sō Percussion with Emily Johnson
February 9, 2017, 8 pm
Fenwick Theatre, College of the Holy Cross
Directed by Ain Gordon
Lighting by Lenore Doxsee • Sound by Nelson Dorado
Also featuring:
Andrea Bucknam '20, Patrick Connolly '19, Jared Cosby '19, Francis Dwyer '19, Sydney Grosskopf '20, and Michael Shun '18
With support from the Holy Cross Concert Band
Free and open to the public.
Directions and parking >>
A Gun Show is an exploration of issues such as race, economic inequality, public safety and constitutional rights through music, text and movement. The work’s origins started as a way for the artists to process their emotions after the unfathomable school shootings in Newtown, CT but has since grown into a much larger collaborative process and conversation – What is it about our collective psyche that fastens so tightly to guns?
With its innovative multi-genre original productions, sensational interpretations of modern classics, and “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker), Sō Percussion redefines the scope of the modern percussion ensemble. For over 15 years, this ensemble, formed by Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting, has engaged in creative collaborations and released 18 albums.
POST-SHOW PANEL DISCUSSION with members of the artistic team and Judy Rose, Field Director, & Shante Leathers, Social Media Director at Operation L.I.P.S.T.I.C.K.; moderated by Denis Kennedy, Director of Peace and Conflict Studies (On stage)
Sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies
Funded in part by the Expeditions program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the six New England state arts agencies.
“In the year for which we had most recent data, the number for gun deaths in the United States was 31, 513. This number stuck in our imaginations, and many of the percussion pieces in A Gun Show are literal soundings of this pattern. It creates an off-balance meter of 13, which rarely allows us to play in a squarely satisfying groove. We’re constantly kept off-balance, and constantly reminded of this number.”
From “[Re:con]versations: Complicated work: Exploring ‘A Gun Show’ with So Percussion’s Adam Sliwinski” More >>
Sō Percussion
Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting
For more than 15 years, Sō Percussion has redefined the modern percussion ensemble as a flexible, omnivorous entity, pushing its voice to the forefront of American musical culture. More>>
