Happening at AIRMW: Sandra Binion

Sandra Binion: Duras Piece and Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation

Duras Piece was first performed in 1998 in San Francisco and at other venues in Santa Fe and Chicago. It is an adaptation for stage and video from two related novels by the French novelist Marguerite Duras, The Malady of Death and Black Hair, Blue Eyes. Both novels involve the same characters and include suggestions for adapting them to stage or screen. In Binion's version, text, sound, and image coalesce into a live cinematic space in which performance has multiple manifestations as declamation, dramatization, role-playing, objectification. Performed by Sandra Binion with Jeb Bishop on trombone.

Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation was first performed in 1983 at the University of California at San Diego and in 1984 at Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago. It is a 20-minute piece performed by six bassists under the direction of bass choirmaster Tatsu Aoki, joined by six ironers with a projected video backdrop. The bassists and ironers follow a score that structures several improvised movements linked to specific colors. For the 2024 re-enactment of the piece, Binion will perform with invited ironers and Chicago bassists Sam Wagster, Anton Hatwich, Nick Macri, Zoe Markle, and Andrew Scott Young. After the performance, the six bassists will also present a collective improvised set.

Tickets $20

Available at the door or on Eventbrite

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Duras Piece and Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation are presented as part of the city-wide programming for Sandra Binion: Autobiography of Looking, a retrospective exhibition at Experimental Sound Studio with performances and events at other Chicago locations.

(Event image: Suite for Bass and Ironing Bored Variation, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, 1983, photo by Steven Blutter)