Second Act
1727 Haight St. SF
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ELECTRIC SHADOW THEATER: FILM TRUTH + SURREAL SOUND BY FUSHIGI KENKYŪKAI (不思議研究会)

◉ Silent films by Dziga Vertov (Дзига Вертов), Man Ray, and Maya Deren ◉ with music by Jorge Bachmann, Beth Custer, Bryan Day, Thomas Dimuzio, Tom Djll, & Joe Lasqo

Since the founding of Clubfoot Orchestra in 1983, San Francisco has been a leader in pairing film classics with composed or improvised scores. Not only is Clubfoot Orchestra still scaling new heights, but a rich new crop of ensembles for film + sound have created a second wave of Bay Area shadow play for the 21st century.

Fushigi Kenkyūkai are a collective of film and sound artists mixing veterans of Bay Area "wayang sinema" ensembles like Clubfoot Orchestra with pioneers of electronic, computer-based, and invented instruments.

The name Fushigi Kenkyūkai (不思議研究会) means "Paranormal Research Society". The truth is out there…

The program uses a classic from the "Film Truth" (Кино-Правда) movement of early 20th century Russia and two classic surrealist shorts to find it.

◉ Line-up:

— Jorge Bachmann (electronics)

— Beth Custer (bass & other clarinets, vocals)

— Bryan Day (invented instruments)

— Thomas Dimuzio (electronics)

— Tom Djll (surrealist prepared trumpet)

— Joe Lasqo (laptop/MSP | piano | objects)


◉ Part 1: Surrealist Shorts (20 min)

— Man Ray: Return to Reason (Le retour à la raison).
— Maya Deren: At Land

- break -

◉ Part 2: Mind-altering Main Feature (68 min)

— Dziga Vertov (Дзига Вертов): Man With A Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом).

Voted into the "Top 10 Movies Ever" in the 2012 Sight And Sound critics' poll, the astonishing Man With A Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом), is a tsunami of 1,775 jump-cut-like montage sequences which set up complex visual poly-rhythms. As Roger Ebert observes, it "opens with an empty cinema, its seats standing at attention. The seats swivel down (by themselves), and an audience hurries in and fills them. They begin to look at a film. This film. And this film is about--this film being made… The only continuing figure -- not a "character" -- is the Man With the Movie Camera… seen photographing many of the shots in the movie… Intercut with this are shots of this film being edited. The machinery. The editor. The physical film itself. Sometimes the action halts with a freeze frame, and we see that the editor has stopped work… there is a gathering rhythmic speed that reaches a crescendo nearer the end. The film has shot itself, edited itself, and now is conducting itself at an accelerating tempo… It assembles itself in plain view. It is about itself, and folds into and out of itself like origami."

Maya Deren's At Land (1944) is a drift-glass of images revolving around the land, sea and sky of Amagansett, a dinner party at which she is invisible, and a sensuous outdoor game of chess which she interrupts two alter-egos.

Man Ray's Return To Reason (Le retour à la raison) is a bopping Dada romp through objects of everyday life transmogrified into dancing rayograms, words seen through cigarette smoke, paper shapes in moving dialog with light about shadows, and the moiré patterns of a surrealist window shutter on the torso of his lover, the notorious Kiki de Montparnasse, model to artists such as Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, and Alexander Calder.

For discount code affording an additional $5 off online purchase, please email: joe@joelasqo.com.

Cost: $10 online purchase at least a day in advance at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2342237, $15 door

Cost: $10 online at least a day in advance (http://www.b

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