Against Hard Matter
Øyvind Mæland | Nina Garcia & Anna Gaïotti
Hard surfaces resist.
In Øyvind Mæland's new work, Quality Finish, six percussionists play instruments built from large panels of ceramic tiles, wood, metal and other materials. Bows are drawn across the surfaces. The performers become string players of a kind, moving through a strange, quasi-melodic landscape of noise, friction and fragile cooperation.
In the second half of the evening, Nina Garcia and Anna Gaïotti appear together as a duo for the first time. Garcia's guitar practice is intense. Even the sparsest setup — one guitar, one pedal, one amp — can open into feedback, short circuits and raw, grinding noise. Anna Gaïotti taps on the old wooden floor of Kulturkirken Jakob, and the movement of her feet becomes percussion. We feel the creaks and vibrations in our bodies.
Noise, this evening, is not a genre or a gesture. It is in the crack of a tile, the scrape of a bow, the strike of a foot, in the hard matter that responds.
Want to know more?
- Quality Finish is a central work in Øyvind Mæland's PhD in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Flow-obstructed phrasing, his term for music where breath and body meet resistance, is not an end in itself: it is a way of sharpening presence.
- The title [Quality Finish] refers to the language of production, craft and surface treatment, suggesting polish and smoothness but also the physical labour behind a finished surface: rubbing, sanding and covering traces.
- Tap dance developed in the United States from West African percussive dance traditions and European step dances, moving through vaudeville, jazz clubs and musicals. Anna Gaïotti places tap in more experimental contexts, including noise and performance art.
Nina Garcia. Photo: Quentin Chevrier
Nina Garcia & Anna Gaïotti. Photo: Icilonde
Øyvind Mæland. Photo: Elvin I. Berg
Foto: Elvin I. Berg
Performers, Quality Finish
- Jennifer Torrence
- Tomas Nilsson
- Dagfinn Theodor Ingebrigtsen Holte
- Elvin Ingeborgrud Berg
- Sigurd Adrian Schøyen
- Amund Falk Morgenstierne
Choreographic advisor, Quality Finish
- Ingrid Berger Myhre
Composer, Quality Finish
- Øyvind Mæland
Electric guitar
- Nina Garcia
Tap dance
- Anna Gaïotti
Supported by
- The Composers' Fund
- Norwegian Society of Composers
In collaboration with
- Norwegian Academy of Music
- French programming in partnership with Festival Musica (Strasbourg) and La Muse en Circuit – CNCM (Alfortville) as part of the RISE production platform supported by the French Ministry of Culture
