TUG​​​​​​​

RoCaMaYoHa

for electro-acoustic ensemble 

Composed by: Gustavo Aguilar

Performed by: soNu

 

 

 

 

 

Gustavo is performing on plucked dulcimer, whistles, bowed flexatone and drums, and doing live processing

 

RoKa came to me in a waking dream, in anticipation of attending my first live kabuki performance in Tokyo. Kabuki is often popularly translated to mean “the art of singing and dancing.” Yet in tracing the actual etymology of the characters to the verb kabuku (meaning “to lean” or “to act out of the ordinary”), some suggest that a more accurate translation would be “avant-garde” or “bizarre” theater. Reaching for a sheet of letterhead from the hotel where I was staying, I sketched out a loose structured improvisation, and presented it to Keiko Hatanaka and Robert Reigle, with whom I was rehearsing for an upcoming concert as the newly formed KYA Trio. The original version of RoKa was debuted by KYA at Tokyo Hall in 2002. This re-worked version with soNu, released on Henceforth Records,  includes just the right amount of live processing to make manifest a frequent theme of kabuki—that of a sudden, dramatic revelation or transformation.

 

​A simple song

explodes with grandeur.

Saliva drips from my mouth.