Tape
Piece
Released - 23 October 2020
We created Tape Piece in 2012 during a life-drawing class in Scheveningen, a seaside resort near The Hague in the Netherlands. Unfortunately there are no photos from that day, and the drawings seem to have been lost as well, which is probably for the best. Bored by the drawing and wanting to make a performative response to the human forms on display, we each took a roll of sellotape and simultaneously wrapped it rapidly around both of our bodies before pausing to catch our breath then trying to break free from the tape.
The piece was first performed in its entirety at Maakhaven, a freezing cold warehouse in The Hague's industrial canal side district a few weeks later, with the falsetto squeals of the sellotape launching fragmentary melodies into the air of the cavernous space. The title evokes 20th century avant-garde electronic music produced using magnetic audio tape, but the performance playfully recasts those complex rhythms and sounds using entirely physical means, as we use ordinary household tape to create an ever-changing choreographic musical work that fully integrates movement and sound.
That first version of the piece was exhausting and took almost an hour! Perhaps we used too much tape, or perhaps the tape was too expensive and durable. Whatever it was, we decided to buy cheaper tape, make the piece shorter and more energetic, and bring it across the Channel to the UK for a more streamlined performance in Birmingham.
We wrote a text score for it in 2014, and other people around the world began to perform it. First up was soundinitiative at Café OTO, then Mocrep in Chicago, Duobaan in Belgium, Bastard Assignments, Kirkos Ensemble and more. Each ensemble had their own style: some were tender and methodical, others were vigorous and aggressive, bordering on violent. An Assembly did a barnstorming performance at London Contemporary Music Festival’s ‘New Intimacy’ concert in 2017, described by Frieze magazine as “witty and fun … achieving something meaningful for both ears and eyes.”
In 2019 we returned to Tape Piece's spiritual home in The Hague to have it recorded by eminent Dutch composer Gilius van Bergeijk at his analogue studio, followed by a further recording session at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire later that year. In both sessions we chose to record directly on to reel-to-reel tape, then transfer the audio to limited-edition cassette to result in a piece for tape on tape on tape. This process was entirely analogue, and the sounds emerge from the subtle hiss and crackle of the magnetic tape itself. Each movement of the piece is cut off at the moment we break free from the tape, reinforcing the artificial nature of listening to a music-theatre piece as pure audio and further suggesting a link to electronic music.
Photos from our last public performance of the piece at Birmingham International Dance Festival feature on the cassette shell to give listeners an idea of what it looks like on stage. We would like to say thank you to everyone who's watched it, listened to it, performed it and written about it over the years, with special thanks to Jamie Savan at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham Record Company for supporting the release.
Maya Verlaak is a composer-performer whose compositions focus upon methods for analysing a given context such as place, musician, instrument, etiquette, conventions as a way to create and structure material for new works.
http://www.maya.ricercata.org/
Andy Ingamells is an interdisciplinary artist who develops unusual methods of composition that blur the line between composer and performer.
https://andyingamells.com/
Picture gallery
01.
Movement 1 – Poundland
masking tape
02.
Movement 2 – Poundland
clear tape
03. Movement 3 – Poundland
gaffer tape
04. Movement 1 – BNM masking tape
05. Movement 2 – WHSmith clear tape
06. Movement 3 – WHSmith gaffer tape
07. Movement 1 – Poundland masking tape
08. Movement 2 – WHSmith clear tape
09. Movement 3 – Poundland gaffer tape
10. Movement 1 – Eurogiant masking tape
11. Movement 2 – Poundland clear tape
12. Movement 3 – Icon Craft gaffer tape
