Video: Both Beaming and Beckoning (Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab)

Both Beaming and Beckoning live at Yerkes Observatory

Created for/with:
Anna Murray (composition/development)
Alex Koi (voice)
Michelle Hromin (clarinet)
Zachary Good (clarinet)
Andres Guerra (guitar)
Noelia Cruz (violin)
for the Eighth Blackbird Creative Lab 2023

Both Beaming and Beckoning is a phrase used by anthropologist Tim Ingold to describe the relationship between the light of stars and our eyes; when we look at the stars, we are looking at light, and it is that light that allows us to see. In Ingold’s words, ‘to witness the sun is to see by its own light’. This piece invites us to think about the paths that light takes as those objects move in space, as well as the lines and gestures we draw as we move through the atmosphere.

Movement is lines carved in space. Stars carve curves of orbits through the empty medium of space. We carve lines of gestures through the atmosphere. Sound carves paths through a room.

The score consists of a seven-part structure and some visual starting points for improvisation, drawn from the early photographic plates of stars produced at Yerkes Observatory, and its first performance was developed in response to the spaces and imagery of that building.

With special thanks to Dr. Amanda Bauer for her time, expertise and depthless enthusiasm for exploration

Commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for the Blackbird Creative Lab 2023.
Audio engineer: Matthew McCabe
Documentation: Camila Guarda, Brian Ashby, Ryan Bennett