[Radon DuRoche]
radon + duRoche with live version of "Aqueous (E)vent No. 1," at Fete du Penta. Nov 2004
Tim DuRoche (drums + little instruments) and Lisa Radon meld word and sound in live performance, as well as recording and sound installation. They co-write texts and collaborate on scores for improvised performance.
INCOMING
verse. chorus. bridge. (instruction: Improvise a bridge between here and there) for Gallery Homeland's Scratching the Surface Saturday and Sunday, July 22-23, 4 PM.
SELECTED PERFORMANCES
Poetland (Rake Gallery), April 2006
Pamplemoose Presents at the White Eagle, April 2006
Chambers Gallery, May 2006
Paxselin Presents at Red & Black Cafe, October 2005
Richard Foreman Festival at Performanceworks Northwest 2003-2005
Fete du Penta, December 2004
Spare Room Sound Poetry Festival, August 2004
Urban Vibe on Portland Community Access Television, August 2004
Spare Room Collaborative Poetry Festival 2003
2003 Experimental Music Festival at Modern Zoo (Portland Center for the Advancement of Culture)
They've also appeared at venues including Pacific Switchboard, Performanceworks Northwest, Stumptown Downtown, the Tugboat, Liberty Hall, and the Rabbit Hole.
REVIEW
INK’S NOT DRY:
To complete the evening in a radically different way, we zipped over to SE Division and the Red & Black Café to see a quartet become a quintet. In what they billed as an “abstract performance”, Portlanders Tim DuRoche (percussion), Lisa Radon (word) and Doug Theriault (guitar and electronics) were joined by Nobu Ozaki (contrabass) from New Orleans via Tokyo. In a casually surprise appearance, rounding out the group was saxophonist Jason DuMars. With overtures, the fivesome made reference and paid homage to the spirit of the deepest beatnik of energies, as well as the fluidity of Jackson Pollock (seemed like a running theme last night) as well as Morton Feldman. Radon’s hushed words spoken behind velvet and between textural, visual vernacular, staccato and riveted in a moment, withdrawn and fused with the various artists at others. While speaking consonants, the gongs, percussion and lilting strings supported her voice, wavering in and out of the café space partly like an orator, partly a bedtime story about a vibrant sense of just letting go. The cling/clanging from the kitchen space actually worked really well into their sound, which was an abstract assemblage in motion, with an ambiguous soft-spoken guitar. Silk whispers blended hypnotically with the improv jazz meets spontaneous composition. They were a complete unit up there, bringing back to mind the sideline jazz-beat work of the venerable duo of Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake. They merged the worlds of Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare with Dr. Who on their Full Fathom Five piece that presented phrases like “jangled truth and strange skies” as more than traditional lip service. In a breath, it was more than a breath. The mixed crowd were paying attention to the players over their coffee, newspapers and brew. The Peelings piece collected objects slowly as it progressed: “Properties: key, knife, mirror, egg and mobile…” As some of these folks have collaborated with the Spare Room collective, using phonetics in combination with other genres seems to be a second nature and was truly ablaze last night in a twist of tongues and bangs on the proverbial drum. The standout line of the night was “I am falling in love, with my falling.” Talk about nudes descending staircases..these were words ascending to no end. Thank you and ba-doo-boom.
--TJ Norris, Is it Art?
PROJECTS
Composition (Series of 4)
"Composition No. 3", Atlanta Poets Group's UNREADABILITY PIN-UP SHOW, 290 MLK Jr., Atlanta, GA. May 2004.
Aqueous (E)vent No. 1, 2003. A sound installation for Red76's Community Jukebox at Core Sample: An Exhibition of Exhibitions of Portland Art Now. Installed in the foyer Stumptown Coffee shares with the Aalto Lounge on Belmont in Portland, OR.
WORKSHOPS IN POETRY/MUSIC/SOUND/PERFORMANCE
DuRoche and Radon have conducted workshops in poetry-making and poetry in performance with music/sound for young people ranging in age from kindergarten to high school. For the younger kids, DuRoche and Radon perform a short set and then engage the children, encouraging them to play with words to make poems based on sound.
DaVinci Arts Middle School
DuRoche and Radon perform a short set and describe a method of composition based taking pieces from a source text. We address abstraction and the notion that the poem is the place that words don't have to obey the rules. The students were given a source text (prose) and asked to create a poem from it. The students can volunteer to read their work aloud.
The Emerson School (K-5)
For these elementary age students, DuRoche and Radon perform a short set and then engage the children, encouraging them to play with words to make poems based on sound.
Franklin High School (Sponsored by Literary Arts' Writers-in-the-Schools)
For Franklin High the duo created a two-day workshop. The first day focused on performance and explanation of a method of composition based on a source text. The students were given a source text and asked to create a performance piece or poem from it. Two days later, they came back with an astounding array of work, from high-tension dramatic scenes to music-only interpretations of the text, to mature poems and even a tap dance routine.
Portland Homeschoolers
Meeting weekly, a group of elementary-aged homeschoolers wrote work based on or in response to poems of Modern poets like William Carlos Williams, Arthur Rimbaud, and Gertrude Stein.
For more information on our workshops, please contact us. See below.
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