Wolf 5 at Traveler's Rest

A Performance Work in a Sound and Sculptural Environment


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A Visitor

sculpture by Fernanda D'Agostino
sound installation by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
performance work by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz


created for
a field bordering Interstate 89
Randolph, Vermont
October 12, 1991

The video and audio documents of Wolf5 have never been completed. Only raw audio and video remain, and these photographs.


Wolf5

ThePerformance and Choreographic Score (PDF format)
The Chorale (PDF format)




The Water House

Introduction

Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos:
The Stilt Chair

Part I

Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos:
The Stilt Chair

Part II

Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos:
The Water Trough

Part III

Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos: *Hard-squeezed accordion bellows, stopped horn, flute harmonic chirps.
**If men, shirts off.
The Fire Ring

Part IV

Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos:
Panorama

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Choreography: Strings: Voices: Toy Pianos:

Original Traveler’s Rest texts on tape loops, used for reading in Wolf5:

  1. Modified excerpt from Isaiah 40:6-7,12,30 (low sing-speak):
  2. Excerpt from The Beginning, a Zuni tale (straightforward): The Screens on The Rest
  3. Excerpt from What Goes Around, Comes Around, by Gay Canough and Lawrence Lehman (nasal and hectoring):
  4. Edited excerpt from “Visions of the Other World” in Black Elk Speaks (wondrous): The Structure of The Rest
  5. Modified excerpt from “Accumulation of Capital” in The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (silly and teacherly — sing “parsimony”):
  6. Excerpt from Mouth Piece (Peace), a Dennis Báthory-Kitsz setting of Allen Ginsberg’s Rolling Thunder Stones. The text excerpt (tantric):
  7. Shakespeare’s Sonnet XXX (sung improvisationally and melismatically):
  8. Dennis Báthory-Kitsz phonemic improvisation.

Lining Out (Voices, Part II)

Use the respective melodic phrase from the chorale for your voice (or another voice), up to one cadence. Note the phrase length varies (3,2,5,2,2,3,3) and only carry the lining out that far. Repeat the phrase you have heard, and line out the new phrase while turning to the next person. That person will repeat your phrase, and line out the next phrase. The lining out will continue for all four voices and seven phrases of the chorale, and repeat, beginning to overlap. At the end of this process, the voices will be singing the entire chorale, switching voices if desired. Lining out may be done as vocalise, with syllables or with text. The person(s) lining out phrases determine that.

Instrumental Phrases (Parts I, II, III)

All special effects (except where scales or chord progressions are specified) are to be performed using fragments of the chorale.

Instrumental Phrases (Part IV)

The cello improvisation is in C, and an improvisational chorale is built in C, with the violin on a steady G. As this develops and splits up and returns, it returns to the original complete chorale as written.

The Six Windows in The Rest

Gravel WindowCorn Window
Grain WindowSalt Window
Stone WindowCoal Window
Gravel - Corn - Grain - Salt - Stone - Coal


Musical settings of chorales:
Reflection from The Rest
Wolf5
Music/Sound Environment       Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
Choreography                  Dennis Báthory-Kitsz
Traveler’s Rest
Buildings and Sculptures      Fernanda D'Agostino

Performers                    Stevie Balch - Dan Bruce
                              Richard Danner - Charley Freiberg
                              David Gunn - Susan Hydusik
                              Tomas Kalmar -  Rip Keller
                              Karen Kevra - Drusilla Macey
                              Debra Marshall -  Erik Nielsen
                              Gwyneth Walker

Cameras                       Charley Freiberg - Dennis Báthory-Kitsz

Sound                         Michael Smith

Editing/Mixing                Michael Billingsley - Dennis Báthory-Kitsz

Construction                  Elwin Preston & crew - Fernanda D'Agostino
                              Dennis Báthory-Kitsz - Stevie Balch
                              Brian Foulkes

Site                          Bobby Gosh

Plowing                       Louis G. Warlick

Power                         Dan Sicely - Felix Thor

Equipment                     Paul McGowan - Dorothy Tod

Director                      Dennis Báthory-Kitsz

Funded by the Artists
Funded in part by the Vermont Council on the Arts "New Works" Program,
      Onion River Arts Council, Fiscal Agent
Thanks to the Town and Village of Randolph, Vermont


More photos: Traveler's Rest in 2009 and 2011


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