Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Matthew Anthony Stokes solo show Camouflage opened in Los Angeles, which illustrates his unique multi-disciplinary background in performance, corporeal dramaturgy, dance, sculpture, assemblage, film, photography, and poetry. Multiple videos from the experimental MAQUETTE Theatre, which he co-founded, create a visionary alternative universe replete with silent dances and visual poems that “unveil” ephemeral sculpture, including costumes, sets and masks.
Composer, dishwasher, hobo, fruit picker, sailor, microtonal theorist, instrument builder, writer, visual artist, philosopher, musicologist, iconoclast teacher Harry Partch was one of the first 20th Century composers to work with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation.
Here we follow poet Lenelle N. Moise’s surreal submergence into her mother’s passion for water, the sea, vodoun. Imagery, juxtapositions, fluidity, they haunt this reverie, influenced by unseen forces, diaspora and the Haitian sea goddess Erzulie.