FLOODESIGN

M A R K D E C H I A Z Z A is a director, filmmaker, designer, and choreographer. Many of his projects explore interactions between music performance and media to discover new expressive possibilities. His work can bring together composers, ensemble, and musicians with visual artists, dancers, music ensembles, and makers of all types. Recent projects include Orpheus Unsung, a collaboration with composer Steven Mackey that premiered at the Guthrie Theater in June 2016; My Lai, an opera monodrama by Jonathan Berger featuring the Kronos Quartet, Vân-Ánh Võ, and Rinde Eckert; the film Hiraeth, which partners with performance of Sarah Kirkland Snider's 35-minute orchestral work of the same name, commissioned by North Carolina Symphony and Princeton Symphony Orchestra; and John Luther Adams's Sila, a massive site-determined piece for 80 musicians commissioned by Lincoln Center. H O W L Equal parts storefront theater, opera company, and grotesque chamber ensemble, HOWL was founded in 2012 by long-time collaborators Amy Beth Kirsten, Lindsay Kesselman, Mark DeChiazza, and Ian Rosenbaum to explore the edges of music and theater. A modular ensemble, HOWL's roster includes some of today's most sought-after young musicians, many of whom are multi-instrumentalists who sing and singers who play instruments. HOWL's mission is to transform the concert experience into a theatrical one by boldly animating all elements of performance and all resources of the stage. Choreographer Denisa Musilova and director Mark DeChiazza discuss staging. Performers Kirsten Sollek, Terry Sweeney, and Hai-Ting Chinn in rehearsal Percussionist Jonny Allen bandages Don Quixote (Terry Sweeney)'s wounds. Percussionists experiment with new sounds. All photos by Gennadi Novash www.peakperfs.org 37

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