Immediately following the 2024 US Presidential election, MOCA and orchestral collective Wild Up (founded 2010 in Los Angeles) will create a hub to investigate democratic and cooperative practices during this pivotal moment of political change. Over three days, we will explore creativity, justice, determination, and liberation through a series of musical happenings and social assemblages. Projects will invite active engagement, with open rehearsals and porous boundaries between performers and audiences. The event offers space to contemplate how civic institutions, like museums and orchestras, can reinvigorate the promise of democracy through the lenses of creation and participation.
The three-day happening begins with a Friday evening concert followed by daytime events across the weekend. See full schedule below.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2024
DEMOCRACY SESSION 1: American Ledger
7:30 pm Performance
Raven Chacon, Compass
Rachel Beetz, Uninterrupted Labor
Raven Chacon, American Ledger No. 1
Louis Andriessen, Workers Union
At the conclusion of election week, Democracy Sessions opens with an evening that poses questions about our civic structures and identity through a musical blend of open interpretations, historical reflections, and experimental propositions. The evening challenges the audience and participants alike to consider the balance between individual freedom and collective responsibility, creating space to reflect on our roles within any group or community.
In American Ledger No. 1, 2018, composer Raven Chacon asks his audience to contemplate the symbols, iconography, history, violence, and sounds that built the United States while the harmony of chopping wood, fire, old songs, and the churning of nature fill the space. The work’s narrative score, printed on a flag, will hang above the concert space throughout the weekend as a reminder of the ancient history of this land. Chacon’s piece is followed by a new work by Wild Up member Rachel Beetz, Uninterrupted Labor, which draws on the Soviet-era concept of perpetual labor for the greater good and invites the audience to reflect on contemporary notions of rest, work, and revolution. The evening closes with a performance of Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s seminal piece Workers Union, in which he instructs the performers to play with each part having equal importance, as one would approach political or community organizing.
Performers
Mona Tian, violin
Andrew Tholl, violin
Linnea Powell, viola
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Stephen Pfeifer, bass
Rachel Beetz, flute
Matt Cook, percussion
mattie barbier, trombone
Archie Carey, bassoon and electronics
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2024
DEMOCRACY SESSION 2: The Dispossessed
1pm Reading
2pm Discussion
A work-in-progress reading of the libretto for a new musical-theatrical-operatic adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s seminal work of science fiction, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, by composer Ted Hearne and librettist Chana Porter. Through Le Guin’s nuanced allegory of individualism vs collectivism, The Dispossessed is a timely exploration of borders, freedom, utopia, and revolution. Featuring musical performances by members of Wild Up, and a conversation with the creative team following the presentation.
Performers
Christopher Rountree, conductor
Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman, actors
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Brian Walsh, saxophones
Catherine Brookman, voice and synthesizer
Archie Carey, bassoon
DEMOCRACY SESSION 3: Harmony Holiday, Ark of Bones/To the Race Industry In Crisis (after Henry Dumas and Frank O'Hara)
4 pm Screening + Reading, followed by a conversation
How are the current liberal political campaigns gutting Black radical and working-class sensibilities for their life force while betraying the very demographics whose cultural output they appropriate and dilute? Is Blackness itself becoming an asset to the propaganda machine before all else? When it's not being propagandized, it's asked to quiet down and wait for the self-actualization that the propaganda made of it precludes.
This work will be an archive, a mythologizing of the acoustics of this process, and an attempt at reverse engineering it or, at the very least, demanding some humility and self-recognition from the hijackers, the insincere, les faux negres.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2024
DEMOCRACY SESSION 4: The Democracy Bardo
12pm Performance
Installation on view and accessible to audience participation through Democracy Sessions.
This participatory work and performance invites audiences to share their hopes, fears, and reflections on democracy, civic engagement, and responsibility. The contributions, accumulated throughout the weekend, will be interpreted and responded to in a series of sprawling, improvised performances by Wild Up. Blending public dialogue with creative expression, this piece underscores the importance of individual opinions and collective voices for the future of Democracy.
Performers
Christopher Rountree, conductor
Ben Babbitt, electronics / organ
Catherine Brookman, voice / electronics
Julia Eichten, mover / speaker
Marlon Martinez, bass
Max Jaffe, drumset / electronics
M.A. Tiesinga, saxophones / hurdy gurdy
Lewis Pesacov, guitars / clavichord / electronics
Christopher Rountree, speaker / singer
DEMOCRACY SESSION 5: Stimmung
3pm Participatory Workshop
4pm Performance
A reimagined performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Stimmung, expanded with ritualistic elements and layers of live electronics by vocal ensemble HEX. Stimmung ("tuning" in German), explores harmony and the communal experience of making music to understand the vital and deeper social and political meanings and implications of sound and tuning.
Before the performance, the audience is welcomed into a participatory workshop of the score, revealing the process for developing the score and tuning into each other.
Performers
Chloé Vaught
Molly Pease
Chohi Kim
Fahad Siadat
Saunder Choi
Scott Graff
Electronics
David Saldaña
THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND
DEMOCRACY SESSIONS SCOREBOOK
A book of scores from the Wild Up community commemorates the weekend’s themes and program. Featuring contributions from Rachel Beetz, Elizabeth Cline, inti figgis-vizueta, Harmony Holiday, Michael Ned Holte, Sharon Chohi Kim, Elana Mann, Odeya Nini, Lewis Pesacov, Chana Porter, Sarah Rara, Christopher Rountree, Patrick Shiroishi, M.A. Tiesinga.
Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, and is produced by Amelia Charter, Producer of Performance and Programs with Michele Huizar, Programming Assistant, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.
Performances at MOCA are supported by the MOCA Fund for Performance with generous funding provided by Betsy Greenberg.
