Improvisations

Last night I had the incredible experience of performing with Katsura Kan, a Butoh master. He was on campus (Cal State, San Marcos) for a three-week workshop with our students; I was invited to play with our student gamelan ensemble to accompany his performance. Kan is an amazing performer... it’s impossible to describe his focused, expressive, moving work. Suffice it to say the audience was enthralled (as was I...). His work incorporates lots of improvisation and stylized body and facial movements and is influenced by the work of playwright Samuel Beckett (as is Butoh in general). The music ensemble improvised in response to his performance. It was a great night... I brought my electric mandolin (a Mandoblaster five-string), an EBow (a magnetic device that lets you sustain notes forever..) and my computer, using Pro Tools and various synth and effects plug-ins. This morning I woke up early and had to do an improvisation based on last night’s experience. It was recorded in one take on the Mandoblaster using