Master percussionist, improviser, educator and artisan Tatsuya Nakatani returns to the Chapel \for two improvised quartets. Tatsuya’s performances in Seattle over the past decades have included solo, duo and trio improvisations; as well as several incarnations of the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. This Chapel performance brings together artists who are working in multiple streams to serve their community. Musicians, dancers, educators, scholars, and curators: all of these joining Tatsuya weave a bedrock philosophy of improvisation and inquiry through every aspect of their lives. Their sonic and movement artistry shines forth from a lived commitment to a way of life that connects to others and creates community.
Curated by dancer Vanessa Skantze, who has collaborated with Tatsuya in many performances over the past 23 years; Tatsuya Nakatani in Community features two improvisational quartets.
Quartet I.
Tatsuya Nakatani/Greg Campbell percussion
Vanessa Skantze/Amapola Butoh dance
Quartet II.
Tatsuya Nakatani percussion
Jackie An violin
Kole Galbraith double bass
Salma Zenia violin
There are many interweavings among the performers: Greg Campbell has played in the Nakatani Gong Orchestra and has collaborated with Vanessa Skantze many times. Jackie An has also played in the Gong Orchestra and has collaborated with Vanessa Skantze and Salma Zenia. Kole Galbraith has collaborated frequently with Salma Zenia and also with Vanessa Skantze. Vanessa Skantze and Amapola have trained together for years and are excited to dance together in performance. We look forward to creating and experiencing these works in community.
Tatsuya Nakatani is an avant-garde percussionist, composer, and artist of sound. Active internationally since the 1990s, Nakatani has released over 80 recordings and tours extensively, performing over 150 concerts a year. His primary focus is his solo work and his large ensemble project, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra. He teaches master classes and lectures at universities and music conservatories around the world. Originally from Japan, he makes his home in the desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. With his activity in new music, improvisation, and experimental music, Nakatani has a long history of collaboration.
Nakatani’s distinctive music is centered around his adapted bowed gong, supported by an array of drums, cymbals, and singing bowls. In consort with his personally hand-carved Kobo Bows, he has spent decades refining and developing his sound as an arrangement of formations of vibrations, incorporated in shimmering layers of silence and texture. Within this contemporary work, one can still recognize the dramatic pacing, formal elegance and space (ma) felt in traditional Japanese music.