Music composition Nick Brooke

Directed by Nick Brooke and Jenny Rohn
Produced by HERE, NY City, 2010
and Bennington College, Bennington, VT 2010
TIME AND MOTION STUDY
Time and Motion Study takes as inspiration technological culture of the 1920s and 1930s, when Muzak was first pumped over telephone lines to bolster worker productivity. In a large arena somewhere between a factory, an office, and a Wagnerian opera, eight performers sing, lip-synch, bricklay, and shovel, coordinating their movements precisely with a dense electronic maquette of sound effects, song fragments, and recorded text. Time and Motion Study sonically traces the history of background music, deconstructing how it has seeped into modern U.S. culture and influenced daily work rituals.
Set- 100+ wooden bricks, tables, chairs, flying microphones, newspapers, shovels, wheelbarrows
MASS
Mass reworks pop tunes heard over the last 30 years, creating a kind of secular service based on ephemera of U.S. pop culture. Mass is half American Idol and half religious service, combining virtuosic singing with hand-to-hand combat.

Set- chalk drawing on floor of a map of the USA. Microphone stands and mics

BORDER TOWNS
Border Towns explores how recordings have re-engineered the psychological landscape of the U.S., stitching together hundreds of recordings collected along the borders. Seven performers lipsync, sing, and move precisely with a dense map of song fragments, ambient sounds, and border broadcasts. Along the way, musical Americana gets reconstructed into a surreal theatrical collage reflecting on recording, location, and culture.

Set- chair on moving platform, table on heels, megaphone, chairs, canvas cloths, microphone stands, mics, old fashioned flying mic, poles, stands, canvas sheets to create “tents”, projections.

Sets: Sue Rees Lighting: Michael Giannitti