The events and performances we have planned include performers from the seemingly disparate worlds of punk rock and academia, works that are intensely personal and works that are acutely global in their focus, themes from the bridging of the physical and the digital to the conceptual linkage between Western scientific thought and Buddhism. It encompasses DIY technology and dance, the latest innovations in the creation of the moving image, self-taught animation, the aesthetics of arena athletics, and more.

It all begins with Filmmaker Brent Green’s stop-motion explorations of a dark and idiosyncratic inner–or other–world, to the live accompaniment of music by Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) and Jim Becker (Califone). Composer- interdisciplinary artist Sean Griffin follows with an evening of “percussion theater” in the delightfully titled “Hitting Things, Saying Things.” Then early-music ensemble Quicksilver performs a concert highlighting the innovative, experimental aspects of the “nouve musiche” –the new music–of 17th-century Italy; celebrated musician-vocalist-composer-iconoclast Bobby McFerrin performs a solo show; Cathy Weis premiers dance works in which performers pair with technology, playfully testing the boundaries of the human and the electronic, the real and the imaginary; the film “Zidane” offers a poetic examination of professional sport as performance with a surround soundtrack by post-rock legends Mogwai. Courtesy of Student Life and the Office of the Provost, Bela Fleck will perform music with some of Africa’s most famous performers. In April, theorist and author Stephen Connor delivers “The Chronographer”, his EMPAC-commissioned text about time and the voice; and onedotzero’s “Adventures in the Moving Image” festival will fill our studios, theater and public spaces with moving images and sound in a weekend-long celebration of visual innovation and experimentation” ... and, believe it or not, that’s not all!

It’s a full spring with much to explore. We hope you will join us!

Johannes Goebel — Director, EMPAC