[powerpress]
Today’s kaddish is an excerpt recorded on the floor at Space Place, the University of Iowa Dance Department‘s theater. I’m in town for two weeks for the annual Dance Gala. I’m working with tuba professor John Manning, dance professor Charlotte Adams, and ten dancers “in a challenging collaborative form, combining improvised music and structured movement,” as department chair George de la Peña’s introductory notes described it.
Today we had our tech rehearsal, and today’s kaddish is an excerpt from the opening of that, where I lie downstage on my back, playing Kogan’s “Kaddish” for about a minute, until a dancer runs onstage and grabs my horn away from me. At that point, a percussion track recorded by John Manning takes over, and he and I improvise over that as the dance continues.