||8ve: the parallel octave chorus

Many thanks to The Duc D’Angelos for letting us guest-chorusize as openers for their An Die Musik set last night! Electronic documentation of the event will be appended to this post when it is available. Audience who joined in the Carroll and Dickinson choruses with us: you all are jolly good fellows. All of you.

It’s been a year of actively active activity for ||8ve. With your choral cooperation and chorusizing suppport, we’ve performed three readings of TO DIE IN ATHENS in Baltimore and Poland (Komuna//Warszawa, Homewood House Museum, and Fabryka Sztuki), with a chorus always open to everyone; we’ve produced 26 short films as part of ANTHOLOGY II at the Creative Alliance; we taught a course called “Auteur 101: Short Film Laboratory” through JHU’s Summer Programs and the Program in Film and Media Studies (all student films here); and we have recorded poems upon poems upon poems in open sessions on the JHU campus and as part of CHURCH in Baltimore.

We hope to do all of the same things in the 2013, including, of course, ANTHOLOGY III (stay tuned!), and a new lineup of open poem-recording sessions on the JHU campus–there will also be a new cooperation with Baltimore’s Poetry Out Loud. As Annie Proulx says in “Bird Cloud,” “You bet.”

For now, we leave you with one of the films from ANTHOLOGY II, based on Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Fortschritt” (Progress), directed by Alexandra Nemetschke.

While we are not sure if what we are doing is “progress” or not, we know it has been tremendously fun, and we do not intend to stop. May 2013 bring you–and us–all the Greek choruses you can handle!

(You can watch all the ANTHOLOGY II films online at Parallel Octave’s YouTube channel.)

From the choral reading of “Umrzeć w Atenach//To Die in Athens” in Łódź, with a Parallel Octaveesque open-to-all chorus of students, parents, community members, actors, singers, and musicians reading “To Die in Athens” in Polish. All images by photographer Aneta Lukas.

More pictures:
Continue reading →

Whether you’re in Baltimore or in Łódź, Parallel Octave has all the Greek choruses you can eat this Sunday, December 2nd at noon!

A satyr chorus. Doing what satyr choruses do.

1) In Baltimore, organized by Tamar Nachmany:

This Sunday (12/2), Parallel Octave will host an open poetry-recording/chanting session as part of CHURCH, an afternoon of new spiritual rituals at the Holy Underground. 12/2/12. Come at 12 noon.

Holy Underground is located at 2021 Maryland Ave (between 20th and 21st). And BYI! (Bring your instruments!)

If you’re interested, feel free to email paralleloctave@gmail.com for more details.

2) In Łódź (details and Facebook event here):

The Parallel Octave Chorus, from Baltimore, and the Great Choir of Young Chorea, from Łódź, invite you to an unofficial showing for friends (“work in progress”) of a new project in Łódź: a reading of a play, in Polish and English, adapted from the
ancient Greek comedies and dramas.

UMRZEĆ W ATENACH
(To Die In Athens)

w Fabryce Sztuki / at the Factory of Art
niedziela 2 grudnia / Sunday, December 2nd
o 17:00 po południu / at 5 PM in the afternoon
w Łodzi / in Łodzi
ul. Tymienieckiego 3, 90-365 Łódź
(http://www.fabrykasztuki.org/pl/)

wstęp wolny / free admission

For anyone–actors, singers, etc.–who would like to join the Greek chorus of this production, all you have to do is show up at Fabryka Sztuki at 12 noon on Sunday the 2nd, the day of the show, and rehearse with us for four hours.

Dla tego pokazu, nasz chór projektu jest otwarty dla znajomych. Zapraszamy do udziału w chórze greckim, który wystąpi podczas tego spektaklu. Wystarczy pojawić się w Fabryce Sztuki w dniu przedstawienia — w niedzielę, 2. grudnia o godz. 12. Próba potrwa cztery godziny.

We have resolved to convene for the last time this semester to record a) poems chosen by our Anthology filmmakers and ParOct regulars, and b) as a backup, poems related to Joy and the Joyesque. THERE WILL BE SNACKS.

I’m William Wordsworth, and I find your lack of joy surprising.

We look forward to seeing you
in our usual Mattin Center room 105, on the JHU campus,
from 2-3:30 PM,
on Sunday, November 18th.

As usual, there will be a piano in the room. BYOinstruments. All performers, poets, musicians, and friends and foes of the poets are very welcome.

I may not look very joyful but I actually am tremendously joyful. And I think very well of (not very well of) him.

Continue reading →

Filmmakers and Paroctavians–for this coming session, on Sunday, November 4th, we throw it open to you to suggest which poems you would like us to record. If you have no suggestions, maybe Oscar Wilde does: or maybe we could talk about the MUTABILITY AND CHANGINGNESS of all things.

As usual, we’ll see you from 2 to 3:30 PM in Mattin 105 on the JHU Homewood campus.

[Sound files from this session not yet edited for posting]

Continue reading →