John Oswald - Parade (1986)

*****Description from plunderphonics.com*****
Audio from AGP 181 (track 5)

PARADE (1986) by John Oswald, with reference to Erik Satie's Parade (1917), to accompany a choreography by Jennifer Mascall.

keyboard arrangements: John Oswald, Paul Plimley
guitars: Alex Varty
sax sample programming: Henry Kaiser
alto sax: John Oswald
baby: Cora Risdall
recording of live instruments: Doug J.Brown

produced by John Oswald @ the Western Front Lodge & EDAM dance sound studios, Vancouver with the financial assistance of the music section of the Canada Council. Post production @ Mystery Laboratory, Toronto

Parade is one of those notorious Ballets Russes productions from the 2nd decade of this century. A jaunty score by Erik Satie, including project engineer Jean Cocteau's additions of the sounds of typewriters, gunshots, sirens, & a wheel of fortune, accomp anied the choreography of Leonide Massine. A new version of the 1917 dance,commissioned by the Expo'86 World's Fair in Vancouver, although neither a reconstruction, nor even a ballet, retains elements of character & plot gleaned from the original.
The curtain opens on a stage carpeted in fog, human legs protruding from which support horizontal, hovering figures. A magician enters with his hands on fire. The opening tableau becomes animated: for the next 12 minutes a score of dancers & acrobats, spi n, flip, fly & sustain a rapid succession of geometric progressions, gymnastic interactions, & sleight of hand vignettes.

The choreography, by Jennifer Mascall, is independent of whatever movement Massine may have created. Dance, which, unlike music is rarely notated, is free to exist in vague interpretations of its past accomplishments.

Satie's music, on the other hand, is available, faithfully reproduced in concert performances & recordings. Some versions have gone so far as to modernize the sound effects.

The basis for the present derivation is a cube factor increase in the playback speed of existing recorded versions. Left intact the 16 minute score would thereby be reduced to 4, but it has been further embellished by interpretations, reflections, & some sympathetic incongruities - fragmented & reassembled in pursuit of a discursive choreographic process.

The result is a tape. The 2 live musicians incorporated for performance have since been recorded to make a final composite, in this slightly abridged version. The opening bars are a direct quote of the Satie, & everything goes from there.

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