by Andy Ingamells and Maya Verlaak
For two performers with masking tape, clear tape and gaffer tape
More info: http://tapepiece.ricercata.org/
Two performers each take a roll of tape and simultaneously wrap it around both of their bodies. They pause to catch their breath, then try to break free from the tape. The title Tape Piece evokes 20th Century avant-garde electronic music produced using magnetic audio tape. But this performance playfully recasts those complex rhythms and sounds using entirely physical means, as two performers use ordinary household tape to create
an ever-changing choreographic musical work that fully integrates movement and sound. Their dance creates purely acoustic sounds that are beautiful and compelling, yet could quite easily be replicated by the audience at home, encouraging mindfulness of everyday beauty in the listener.
“Tape Piece achieved something meaningful for both ears and eyes as these two composers rolled around the floor, ripping sellotape off each other’s (clothed) bodies. The falsetto squeals of the sellotape launched fragmentary melodies into the air. The piece was witty and fun.”
Philip Clark, Frieze
Tape Piece has been performed around the world, from Florida, Arizona, Ohio and California in the United States, to London, Dublin, Paris, Bruges and Berlin in Europe. It has been performed by leading contemporary music ensembles of the new generation such as soundinitiative, On Structure, Mocrep, Bastard Assignments, Kirkos, and An Assembly.
“The unusual composition method left the audience stunned, giving each sound its own life and soul, a gripping physicality and energy.”
Nonclassical
“Striking and rather wonderful”
Planet Hugill
“Absurd and curiously life-enhancing. Tape Piece has its own obscure rhythms of binding, grappling, stretching and ripping; its own clenched, involuted language of squeaks, tears and tugs, grunts, gasps and pauses for breath. At once a blatant absurdity and a comic tour de force.”
The Wire
“A cute pun, an amusing gimmick and an entertaining little piece … it opens up greater sonorous and structural complexity while also inviting unspecified cultural allusions.”
Ben Harper, Boring Like A Drill
“Weirdly addictive, you’re fucked if you stick it on at a party.”
Conor McCaffrey, mookidmusic.com
“Sonic purists and all who live with their ears wide open may relish this compilation.”
Geoff Brown, The Times
“The unspooling tape of Andy Ingamells and Maya Verlaak’s Tape Piece creates an absurd prison for the artists’ limbs, in which more becomes lessening as their movements are increasingly restricted.”
Tim Rutherford Johnson, The Wire
Performances
15 December 2012, Maakhaven, The Hague
21 January 2014, Birmingham Conservatoire
28 July 2015, Del Rex, Berlin
8 March 2016, Cafe OTO, London
30 April 2016, Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester
6 November 2016, Bop Stop @ The Music Settlement, Cleveland OH
9 December 2016, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt-Am-Main
10 February 2017, Bastard Assignements, Hackney Showroom, London
2 March 2017, National Concert Hall, Dublin
10 March 2017, The Hive, Flagstaff AZ
22 March 2017, De Montfort University, Leicester
9 April 2017, Concertgebouw, Bruges
19 April 2017, Conrad Prebys Music Center, San Diego CA
7 May 2017, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland OH
9 May 2017, Oberlin Conservatory OH
25 May 2017, L’Espace des Arts sans Frontières, Paris
29 October 2017, FETA 10 Fest Part 2, The Betsy South Beach, Miami FL
2 December 2017, LEGROOM, Manchester
7 December 2017, London Contemporary Music Festival, Ambika P3
11 December 2017, Fuel Cafe Bar, Manchester
15 December 2017, Leyden Gallery, London
17 January 2018, Nonclassical, London
20 April 2018, Slade Research Centre, London
3 May 2018, Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin OH
4 June 2018, Birmingham International Dance Festival
17 June 2018, Pumphouse, Aldeburgh
3 October 2018, Adam Concert Room, Wellington
28 October 2018, Salon 2. A couple of couples, Brussels
6 December 2018, Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University CT
21 February 2019, Dundee Contemporary Arts
13 June 2019, The Bomb Factory, London
2 October 2021, KNM Contemporaries, Berlin
17 March 2022, Bozar, Brussels
9 July 2022, Regelbau 411, Thyholm
Score
Andy Ingamells 