Liquid Music welcomes back Manhattan based composer, DJ, and writer Jace Clayton, also known as DJ/rupture, as our 2017.18 Artist in Virtual Residence. Described by The Wire as a “pan-global, post-everything superhero,” Jace is currently working with Minneapolis-based Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy (another LM Artist in Virtual Residence) on a commissioned project that will premiere here February 2019. In this blog post, Jace reflects on his creative process alongside Ashwini and the different ways in which they have slowly connected both as people and as artists in their shared journey.
Jace Clayton by Max Lakner
Blog Entry #2
By Jace Clayton
One of the most important aspects of working as an artist is being honest about deadlines. How much you can get done, how long it takes, when you can deliver, and when things require extra time to develop. This is my way of saying: this blog post is long overdue!
Seriously though, one of the exciting things about embarking on this collaborative creation process with Ashwini is having the time to slowly feel things out and let the ideas and brainstorm arrive at their own pace. Particularly for the performing arts – which are most often experienced as an event that happens over the course of an hour or two – all the days, months, and yes, sometimes years of preparation are ‘invisible’. The idea of a rehearsal is clear-cut: a bunch of people in the same room who have already decided, more or less, what the project is and how best to execute it. At the rehearsal they put that into practice – re-doing the tricky parts, recording it to watch or listen to later, giving trusted colleagues an early look. All in the service of making the final performance as strong as it can be.
Jace Clayton by Erez Avissar
But what Ashwini and I are doing these months is the thing that happens before the rehearsal. It’s the open-ended process of listening, sharing ideas, chatting about art or simply life – Ashwini’s post showed some of all this in action. On top of those critical things, there is also the need to let things sink in. Unhurried, unorganized time, where impulses can grow, unrushed, into ideas. Where subconscious hints and suggestions can slowly gain force to become full-fledged ideas. This rich time of waiting is hard to discuss, much less document. So here I am writing about it.
Ashwini Ramaswamy by Ed Bock
What’s next?
This March I was able to invite Ashwini and a friend of hers, Rajna Swaminathan, down to North Carolina. We’re working on a different project, but this is doubly useful insofar as it gives us an opportunity to get in the studio together and simply get accustomed to how each of us work – knowledge that will help the Liquid Music collaboration.
I’m spending the year in North Carolina as the Nannerl Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor, a yearlong position split between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It functions more like a visiting artist position than a regular teaching job; I’m working on several creative performance-based projects and bringing in students and faculty from each university to join me in the process.
One of these projects involves the creation of digital music-making tools inspired by non-western ideas of sound. Working alongside the students we decided to build some tools engaging with Indian conceptions of rhythm. The town of Cary, North Carolina has an active Indian classical music community, and slowly my student team and I decided that we would focus on the two-headed drum called the mridangam. When I mentioned the project specifics to Ashwini I was delighted to learn that she has collaborated with an incredible mridangam player – and that Ashwini’s dance form is intimately tied to percussion. From there it soon became obvious that we could brainstorm and refine our digital tools working with Rajna and Ashwini, and in turn open up that process to a kind of public rehearsal this spring. And maybe, just maybe, the tools I’m developing down in North Carolina will be used in whatever Ashwini and I cook up.
Jace Clayton by Max Lakner
The more honest a collaboration is, the more open you have to be to let it go in any direction. And to work as an artist is, partially, to be open to unusual and unlikely alliances. Inspiration can come from almost any direction.
Keep up with Liquid Music Artists in Virtual Residence Ashwini Ramaswamy and Jace Clayton through journal entries and updates on the LM blog:
Artist in Virtual Residence: Ashwini Ramaswamy
Artist in Virtual Residence: Jace Clayton/DJ Rupture
Liquid Music Connects: Students Visit "Virtually" With Artists In Residence Ashwini Ramaswamy and Jace Clayton AKA DJ Rupture
Follow Ashwini Ramaswamy:
Website: http://www.ashwini-ramaswamy.com/
Instagram: @ashwiniramaswamy (instagram.com/ashwiniramaswamy/)
Facebook: facebook.com/ashwini.ramaswamy
Follow Jace Clayton:
Website: jaceclayton.com
Instagram: @djrupture (instagram.com/djrupture)
Facebook: facebook.com/DjRupture/
Twitter: @djrupture (twitter.com/djrupture)
Follow Liquid Music for Updates and Announcements:
Twitter: @LiquidMusicSPCO (twitter.com/LiquidMusicSPCO)
Instagram: @LiquidMusicSeries (instagram.com/liquidmusicseries)
Facebook: facebook.com/SPCOLiquidMusic