A Potentially Paradigm-Shifting Series of Women Performers at the New School

In conversation with the audience and performers at her potentially paradigm-shifting new series Women Between Arts at the New School yesterday, singer/actress/impresario Luisa Muhr contemplated the complexities of branding interdisciplinary works. How do you market something that resists easy categorization? Maybe by calling it what it is: outside the box. Considering the turnout, there definitely is an audience for what might be the only interdisciplinary series focusing on women performers whose work encompasses so many different idioms in New York right now.

When Muhr springboarded the project, she’d assumed that Women Between Arts would be one of at least five or six ongoing programs here. But this seems to be the only one at the moment – If there’s another, would they please identify themselves, because they could be doing very important work!

Dance on the same program as storytelling? Sure! Writer/choreographer Allison Easter wryly remarked that audiences at dance performances don’t mind being talked to. Her piece on the bill featured dancers Tiffany Ogburn and Paul Morland subtly and then explosively tracing Easter’s spoken-word narrative about a couple of American college girls intent on thwarting a would-be rapist on a train winding its way through the Alps.

Klezmatics violinist Lisa Gutkin proved to be the ideal headliner for a bill like this. Born and raised in a secular Jewish family in Sheepshead Bay, the songwriter/actress revealed an insatiably curious worldview that mirrored her sizzling musical chops, via excerpts from her one-woman show. Likewise, part of her eclectic background stems from the demands of being a highly sought-after sidewoman. Irish reels? OK. Tango? Si! Klezmer? No problem! She grew up with that culture, inspired by her immigrant grandmother, who would hitchhike upstate to her bungalow where she’d book artists like Pete Seeger to entertain her garment worker friends.

And Muhr illustrated her own, similarly eclectic background with wistful projections, a subtly humorous dance piece and poetry, following her own Greek immigrant great-grandmother’s journey as a refugee from Istanbul to Vienna. In pushing the boundaries of diverse idioms, a program like Muhr’s has the potential to spur the growth of new synapses for both audiences and performers.

The next Women Between Arts performance features songwriter Jean Rohe, choreographer Sasha Kleinplatz, brilliant carnatic violinist Trina Basu, singer/actress Priya Darshini and Brooklyn Raga Massive tabla player Roshni Samlal on January 7 at 3 PM at the New School’s Glass Box Theatre (i.e. the new Stone) at 55 W 13th St.

Gato Libre Bring Their Rapturously Pensive Accordion Jazz to Gowanus

Gato Libre began life as a quartet making pensive, often plaintively tuneful jazz out of Japanese folk themes. As the Spanish name implies, a Romany influence appears frequently throughout their work. The nucleus of the group is the most formidable husband-wife team in jazz since Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln.

The astonishingly consistent and prolific pianist Satoko Fujii plays accordion with her husband Natsuki Tamura, the shogun of extended-technique trumpet. Originally a four-piece, they tragically lost their bass player in the months after 3/11 and are now a trio with trombonist Yasuko Kaneko. Their new album, Neko (not a homage to a redheaded Canuck songwriter) is streaming at youtube, and they’re bringing their increasingly austere, gorgeously pensive sounds to I-Beam on Nov 17 at 8:30 PM. Cover is $15.

If you’re expecting Tamura to do his proto-Peter Evans thing here, for the most part you’ll have to look elsewhere: the Japanese maestro has never played with greater elegance. Tempos here are on the glacial side.

The album opens with moody variations over a low accordion drone, Tamura’s warmly welcoming melody giving way to the trombone’s more uneasy tones. The second track shifts from stately call-and-response to a grittily triangulated conversation, Fujii’s calm, musette-like lines the voice of reason.

Tamura finally turns the ghosts and the microtonal mist loose in the third number, Fujii again starkly alluding to classic French chanson, Kaneko adding muted squall while Tamura channels the spirits of the hearth. Then the horns switch roles.

Distanced from Fujii’s slow, loopy variatoins, Tamura’s deadpan approach on the fourth track is pricelessly funny – no spoilers here. The trio take turns on the fifth tune, Yuzu, Tamura opening with what sounds like a Civil War bugle call and an amusing classical quote before Fujii builds to an unexpectedly wary crescendo. Kaneko takes a turn to bring in some blues, then the trio join forces for a brief, careful processional.

Finally, their lattice of voices grows more lush and lively in the final number, Tora. coming full circle with a simple fifth interval from the trombone that could be a a call to arms, or at least a call to awareness: this is very guardedly optimistic music for troubled times. How many more months til impeachment day?

Because this album is largely improvised, you will definitely get the tunefulness but probably not these tunes in Gowanus on Wednesday night.