RAW:

In the past few years I have experienced a highly unpredictable journey discovering the realities of life with chronic illness. During this time, I have had to watch many of my creative expectations unravel, as I am—or was for a period of time—unable to play my instruments in the ways I had been taught. I gravitated towards visual art as an outlet, and started to become fascinated with the ways aural and optical art forms interact. 

RAW is a creative reflection on The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. Musical, visual, and performance art collide to facilitate reflection on the ways that resistance shows up in our lives. Pressfield notes that resistance is a universal struggle: it is impersonal and its goal is destruction. Resistance is a daily battle that all humans face.

At the same time, I have learned that liberation is often born out of limitation itself. Rather than constantly fighting our limits, we need to learn how to let go. In this way, resistance becomes a signal that something needs to change, similarly to the way that pain signals the brain of danger.

For a long time I was fighting to try and play my instruments in conventional ways, but I finally hit a point where there was no option but to let go. This has opened up new creative pathways for me that I never would have thought possible otherwise. Instead of just practicing one instrument, I find myself practicing creativity as a whole.

By exploring alternate notation in this piece, I hope to activate the creative agency of each individual player, as well as the cohesive ensemble. The musical purpose is to explore our instruments and see what more they have to offer us. 

The audience is asked to reflect on the concept of resistance through drawing or writing on a piece of paper during the piece. At two different moments, the act of letting go becomes physical as the audience is asked to rip their paper. At the end of the performance, the scraps of paper will be collected and used to create a sculpture about communal creativity at a later time.