Steve Parker’s Traffic Jam
WHEN: Wednesday, November 30-Saturday, December 3, 2016
WHERE: Various times + locations, culminating in a free, interactive, public performance of unconventional music-making when artists will “play” their vehicles on
Final Performance Saturday, December 3 @ 3pm
Tickets: Free & Open to the Community
Presented by MDC Live Arts at Miami Dade College
Information: 305-237-3010, or visit mdclivearts.org
Highlighting a hot topic in Miami—ranked as 7th worst congestion in the nation—Traffic Jam is a quirky and thoughtful project which engages community to create compositions for an ensemble of cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and conventional instruments.
On Sat., Dec. 3 @ 3pm in the MDC surface parking lot on Biscayne Boulevard between Building 3 and the Freedom Tower between 5 & 6th Streets will be an all day free, interactive, public performance of unconventional music-making when artists will “play” their vehicles.
Featuring:
Inlets Ensemble presenting new site specific works for skateboarding ukulele players, car stereos, and electric car windows by Jorge Gomez and Robert Blatt. Inlets Ensemble is a Miami-based new music ensemble comprised of some of the city’s most adventurous musicians and sound artists.
Kunstwaffen 1916 will perform a quartet for choreographed musical bicycles. Prepared in the manner of John Cage and Frank Zappa, bicycle wheels will be outfitted with guitar strings and other noise-making objects. These sounds will be amplified and processed, ultimately creating a lush and unusual sonic fabric. Think a pretty junkyard music box. Kunstwaffen 1916 plays plays concert band music from the 1910s that is intentionally distorted and obscured.
Karen Peterson Dance presents an intimate duet for mixed ability dancers Katrina Weaver and John Beauregard. A live musical score will be created from amplified and processed components of the wheelchair and dancer bodies.
Emerge Miami will create interactive automobile installations that examine the different ways people engage with their vehicles. Featuring a make out car complete with an artificial “make out point” vista to facilitate canoodling! Emerge Miami’s mission is to strengthen social bonds between progressive individuals, organizations and independent businesses in South Florida in order to more effectively accomplish our individual goals.
Manita Brug-Chmielenska and Randy Burman will present a large scale, interactive xylophone made from automobile hoods and parts. The parts will be amplified and can be played by audience members with a variety of objects provided.
Students from Guitars Over Guns will present new works on car stereos made from sampled car sounds and field recordings. Created in workshops using DJ program Ableton Live. Guitars Over Guns delivers high impact arts-based mentoring programs to empower at-risk youth.
Leading up to the performance, visiting artist Steve Parker will lead workshops for community members to convert their bicycles into musical instruments. These fleets of bicycles will appear in pop-up performances throughout downtown Miami.
“Music in a traditional auditorium is well and good, but if we’ve learned one thing from Steve Parker, it’s that all the world’s a concert hall. His boldness and fervor inspire us and carloads of other music lovers to go off-roading with him at every opportunity.” –The Austin Chronicle