WELCOME TO "THE DOMAIN OF THE
MARVELOUS"
No longer is it a matter of the narrow
roads where traditional beauty is offered in its clarity and
obviousness to the admiration of the crowds. The crowds were taught
the victory of intelligence over the world and the submission of the
forces of nature to man.
Now it is a question of seizing and
admiring a new art which leaves humankind in its true condition,
fragile and dependent, and which nevertheless, in the very spectacle
of things ignored or silenced, opens unsuspected possibilities to the
artist.
And this is the domain of the strange,
the Marvelous, and the fantastic, a domain scorned by people of
certain inclinations. Here is the freed image, dazzling and
beautiful, with a beauty that could not be more unexpected and
overwhelming. Here are the poet, the painter, and the artist,
presiding over the metamorphoses and the inversions of the world
under the sign of hallucination and madness ... Here at last the
world of nature and things makes direct contact with the human being
who is again in the fullest sense spontaneous and natural. Here at
last is the true communion and the true knowledge, chance mastered
and recognized, the mystery now a friend and helpful.
-- Suzanne Cesaire, 1941
Welcome to the network
for KBOO-FM's second Dada/Surrealism Festival: 101 HOURS OF
INNUMERABLE SMALL EVENTS WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE RELATED TO ONE
ANOTHER which is scheduled to
run from Wednesday, August 27 at 7pm thru to Sunday, August 31 at
midnight.
EVENTS
Events
are to be independently produced. Some people signing up are only
interested in performing in the projects of others or producing
small readings of poetry or prose while other individuals, like
myself, will be producing much longer pieces, like plays, which can
run for hours. You are free to carve out your own time to produce
your own event. For instance, I will be producing the opening night
cabaret which will probably run a couple of hours and for which I
will be recruiting many other participants whom I will be responsible
for coordinating. Event lengths can vary from 30 seconds to 3 hours
and possibly longer if you can come up with some compelling reasoning
for needing more time.
I
and other producers should be emailing out open scripts with parts
for those interested. And once the readings start being produced,
emails will then be going out seeking musicians and/or sound
treatments. Hopefully, all participants will be emailing in their
needs and proposals, plus unusual finds during their own research,
texts, etc. which I will then forward out to everyone. In this way
we can all keep tabs on each others projects and determine what
events we might like to join.
We'd
like to keep this Festival as thematically pure as possible. Bastard
or legitimate offspring, adoptions and even some remotely
related isms and ists are fine and welcomed to both
provide context and to illustrate the rich variety in the genres.
When you enter the proposal for your event, don't worry about having
to prove your bonifides or relevance to the festival theme, although
with some contemporary performance pieces, it might be nice to have
that information included in some form in your proposal. Do be aware
that, if challenged, the one thing that will get your event rejected
is it not being in some way genuinely connected with Dada or
Surrealism or some of its above mentioned relation. If in doubt,
check Wikipedia or Andre Breton who expressed his opinions about
everything.
We
are striving this time for animated and dramatic performances rather
than simple vocal-only, prose-like readings. If you are producing
such a humble creature (and I do intend to generate a few myself) do
try to keep them under five minutes, closer to three or four.
This
festival I would hope to accumulate some larger events. For
instance, if you are going to read some poetry, especially by one
poet, is it possible to string some of the poetry together
thematically or imagistically so that it flows together into a single
performance? Still, short pieces are welcomed. It will be nice to
have just a few haunting lines appear every now and then.
If
you are doing a reading or performance of some text, please record
title first and the name of author or poet at the end. Or feel free
to leave that out of your recording and have the on-air operator give
it out later.
DEADLINES
All
event proposals must be submitted in full (using the proposal form
which you'll soon receive separately) by email to this site, or in
writing in my box (Richard Francis/A Different Nature) at the station
by Friday, July 18 at 5p. You don't need to submit a full
proposal to begin working on an event as most of the proposal form is
information which we will need for resourcing and scheduling.
All
pre-produced material, including major recorded events like plays,
must be received by me in my box (Richard Francis/A Different Nature)
at the station on disc by Friday, August 15 at 5p. or stored
and accessible on the air room computer by Friday, August 22 at
5p.
EMAIL
CODES
I
will be mass emailing all of the email which I receive. That way we
can use this email address as the main information hub. You will
receive other people's proposals, calls for openings in other events,
scripts and poems looking for producers and readers, find out what
major events are in the works, you can send out your own calls for
assistance or collaboration, etc.
If
you are new to KBOO this is how you can engage our technical
assistance to air or record your event. Anyone who does not get a
response using this mass-email method should then resort to the
old-fashioned method we used back in 2001: my phone number is503-240-6598.
And
if you bring new people into the Festival for your event, please have
them send in an email and get signed up to the network.
Because
we had some difficulty at the beginning with not everyone receiving
all the emails I sent out, I will be numbering all further
mass-emails beginning with this one as #1. So if you receive an
email that appears out of sequence, that means you missed an email
(just let me know and I'll resend).
I
will be putting the coding on all of the mass-emails so that you will
know what you are getting and whether or not you are interested
without having to open them. But I do hope that you will begin the
coding when you send them in to me.
I
have come up with five 4-letter codes which can be used alone or in
combination:
NEWS
– which will be general festival information as we move forward
PROP
– the full proposal form which you will submit for your event (to
be shared)
CALL
– anything that you are looking for in terms of personnel or
assistance
TEXT
– any texts that are available for use or any texts which are
being used (just to share)
PART
– any websites illustrating the work of any of our participants
SITE
– any websites which we discover in our research and want to
share
I
myself plan to produce both single and group readings and for all of
them I will prepare reading scripts which I will produce as a pdf
file to email out attached to my call for potential participants.
That way they can see if they are interested AND that way we can all
share what we are working on with each other (there are individuals
who are signed on just to receive the TEXT, PART and SITE emails).
So
again ...
NEWS
is any news I'll be sending out about the Festival in general, any
information which I think you all should probably know.
PROP
is how you would code an email to me about an event you are planning
to produce for the festival. Eventually, once you know everything
about your event including the final running time, you will need to
fill out the full event proposal form which you will receive
separately.
CALL
is any call you need to make for assistance, cast, engineer,
collaborator, pre-prepared event for which a soundtrack of some sort
is required, etc. Send in labeled that way and I will forward to
all. The more complete you make the information (like attaching the
script) the more likely you will be to get a response. People
answering a CALL email will
then contact the original sender.
TEXT
is any raw text material you have available for others to use, any
scripts you are sending out for casting or working on yourself and
can share. Send in labeled that way and I will forward out to all to
share.
PART
is an email with the address of any website where your own work is
available to be shared with other participants.
SITE
is any interesting web site you have found concerning dada or
surrealism or anything related. Send in labeled that way and not
only can I send it out to all, eventually we can have our own website
or something built onto KBOO's and have all sorts of links to
Dada/Surrealist sites available to people who log on there.
AND
WITH THIS CODE SYSTEM, IF YOU AREN'T INTERESTED YOU CAN SEE THAT
QUICKLY AND JUST DELETE IT.
AIR
OPERATOR OPPORTUNITIES
There
will be 25 four-hours shifts available (2 late Wednesday night shifts
actually 4.5). All submitted and scheduled events will be
distributed amongst all of the shifts so that each air operator will
receive a list of events which they must play during their shift,
some at pre-scheduled times.
That
list will also contain numbers which will refer to the festival CDs
which will be present in the air room, so that air operators can
easily find the material. The festival CDs will also have labels
indicating material which needs to be played between 10pm and 6am.
It
is impossible to say what the ratio will be for this festival, but in
2001 we were able to keep a large portion of each shift uncommitted
so that each air operator was able to bring in their own
Dada/Surrealist material or be free to draw from any of the festival
material and create their own mini-event. (If you are performing
live, or directing a live performance, please have someone else sign
up as air operator for that segment.)
We
will probably do the sign-up for that shortly before the festival to
give new people an opportunity to train and then play on the air.
SO
PLEASE use the system but feel
free to phone when all else fails.
Richard
Francis
503-240-6598