Season XXII                                                      Volume 4 Issue 2                                         April-June 2007

Gallery


Pictured: Jenni Lou Oakes performing in InterPlay: Nel Tempo di Sogno



Pictured: William Ferrer performing in InterPlay: Nel Tempo di Sogno



Pictured: Travis Eberhard performing in InterPlay: Nel Tempo di Sogno

Information

Office: (801) 531-9419
Fax: (801) 596-0811
e-mail: bam(at)anotherlanguage.org
jhm(at)anotherlanguage.org
www.anotherlanguage.org


ANOTHER LANGUAGE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS

National Advisory Board

Charles Amirkhanian
Executive Director
Other Minds Festival
San Francisco, CA

Jeff Carpenter
Multimedia Specialist, NCSA
Urbana Champaign, IL

Kent Christensen
Artist
New York, NY

Jennifer Gray
Associate Product Manager
Move, Inc.
Westlake Village, CA


Utah Advisory Board

Pauline Blanchard
The Pauline Blanchard Trust

Wayne Bradford
Systems Administrator
University of Utah

Susan Roberts
Computer Graphics Designer
Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library


Board of Directors

Kathy Valburg
President
Ice Skating Instructor

Victoria Rasmussen
Vice President
Broad Band Computer Professional

Sylvia Ring
Registered OR Nurse

Jan Abramson
University of Utah
Health Sciences


Staff

Beth Miklavcic
Artistic Director

Jimmy Miklavcic
Executive Director

BENEFITS


Asian Waterfall


Flowers Under Water


Ocean Life


Storm


Water Lore

Digital Images by
Beth Miklavcic

SPOTLIGHT

Another Language Performing Arts Company presented its fifth InterPlay on March 30-April 1, 2007 at the University of Utah Intermountain Network and Scientific Computation Center. Nel Tempo di Sogno involved the most local artists/performers than ever and garnered the most enthusiastic audience response. Articles about the InterPlay performance and the cutting edge technology used were written by; Salt Lake City Magazine, City Weekly, In Utah this Week, and write-ups were in the Deseret Morning News and the Salt Lake Tribune.

ART AS EXPLORATION - As work continues and ideas develop in this medium the process is becoming more intense, but from the experiences learned through each performance, the requirements are clarifying. It is by no means an easy process.

Technologist needed for this performance were; Sam Liston - Access GridTM Node Operator, Dean Brederson - Audio Engineer, Collin McDermott - Performance Manager, and Jimmy Miklavcic - Digital Mix. Director of Photography Natalie Murdock organized six Camera Operators and Assistants for every performance, with four cameras running each night. There was a live QuickTimeTM video stream of the digital mix sent out every performance from our web site, the link (that is no longer active) was http://www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay/ntds/video.html received a lot of accesses during the performance and seems to be the most readily available broadcast format for the remote viewers.

Those who attended the live performance in Utah were generally blown away by what they saw. This was the most structurally integrated InterPlay to date. The challenge this year was to achieve structural integration of performances from the artists, who were performing in very different places in the United States. This meant finding ways to perform together, not just simultaneously as in past InterPlays, but working within a cohesive structure framed by Beth Miklavcic with text contributions from almost all of the actors. This involved rewriting a script that took six drafts to develop, with a seventh and final draft still to be written.

This performance structure demanded specific timing. How does one coordinate six sites operating in different time zones? The solution involved intensive cuing from Colin McDermott the Performance Manager. During the performance he was typing cues into the Jabber Client (a communications tool available in the Access Grid), as well as, intensive cuing to performing artists in the Utah auditorium.

The research challenges addressed in this project were simultaneous vocalizations between performers and simultaneous music and vocal performances. This was quite the challenge with the echo cancellation inherent in the Access Grid tool. When a sound is sent through the Access Grid and a microphone at the receiving site picks up that sound, it will cancel the sound to avoid echo. This echo cancellation is very necessary, but how does one work with it in a performance situation? If it is turned off, the other sites hear an echo and it destroys the performance on the receiving end.

For instance, the Iris Merryweather scene was a duet between cello and spoken word, but if the microphones in Utah picked up too much of Junko Simons - cello the text would be cancelled and not sent out. This happened during the rehearsals and performances, even though speakers were moved and efforts were made to configure the tools and performance space. The audio in the Utah auditorium generally worked, the remote sites heard, at times, something akin to bad cell phone reception with pieces of text cut out.

This is not a problem when all the other participating sites do not have an audience. The easiest solution would be to prioritize the audio heard at the host site, but that is not what we want to do. We want audiences at all sites and we want great audio at all sites. So, how does one send and receive great multi-site audio during a performance especially when the artistic structure is moving towards more integration? That was a significant challenge this year, and it will take several years to hammer out a solution, involving changes in local configuration in hardware and software applications. These changes take time to develop and to fund.

But this is the nature of working in a new medium. We find ways to work within it, stretching the boundaries of the tool. We develop structures that embrace the tools while punching and pulling and screaming, "WE NEED MORE!!!"

In science a negative result is just as important as a positive result. For every InterPlay project undertaken we experience both results, providing little triumphs, as well as, a lot of information for improvement. Another Language Performing Arts Company is already in pre-production for the next InterPlay to be held March 28-30, 2008. We hope to see you there on-line or even better, in person.

Thanks to all of the incredibly talented artists and technologists who gave so much to InterPlay: Nel Tempo di Sogno. You are courageous pioneers! We are lucky to know you and incredibly honored to work with you.

-- Beth Miklavcic

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SPONSORS


Members:
Kathy Chamberlain
Tricia Chepanoske, D.C.
Dave & Mary Hanscom
Stephen Karlin
Eileen Keen
Jenni Lou Oakes
Becky Stout
Kathy & Darrell Valburg
Contributors:
Jan Abramson
Rindy Engleman
Patricia Green
Tanya Johnson
Sylvia Ring
Sponsors:
Pauline Blanchard
Barbara & Dave Chamberlain
Lynn Decker
Victoria Rasmussen

       

 

MEMBERSHIP

Another Language Performing Arts Company is a non-profit 501c(3) arts organization. Part of our mission is to combine different art forms in innovative ways and broaden access to cutting-edge performance art with today's technology. We have been able to pursue this mission with the generous support of our national, state and local granting organizations, and our contributing members

Please help us continue our innovative and ground-breaking work by becoming a contributing member. Simply select the link below and contribute now.

 

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Another Language Performing Arts Company [501c(3)] : Salt Lake City, UT 84105
PHONE: (801) 531-9419 | EMAIL:bam(at)anotherlanguage.org