"defies category" - The Wall Street Journal
PROTOTYPE Festival's (2017) performance documentation / music video -- mvt. 5 from Secondary Dominance
"GRANDPA'S KALEIDOSCOPE"
“Docuconcoction of The Delirium Constructions” is a 75-minute fantasy-fiction/documentary hybrid conceived during the process of documenting the
creation of Small's Tableau Vivant performances. Vérité footage, conceptually-driven dreamscapes, and still photographs are interwoven together,
re-framing traditional storytelling into a filmic language constructed around intuitive nonlinear narration.
Classical, rock, choral, folk, and electronic soundtrack by Small. “Docuconcoction of The Delirium Constructions” supports its viewers to
re-imagine connection and intimacy in a world framed and constrained by our media.
75-minute fantasy/fiction/documentary feature film trailer - opening song music credit: Rima Fand + Luminescent Orchestrii | anticipated release - 2023
DOCUCONCOCTION OF THE DELIRIUM CONSTRUCTIONS
opening song music credit: Rima Fand + Luminescent Orchestrii
“One of the “10 Best Films of 2014” — Richard Brody, New Yorker Magazine
Psychological Thriller, Drama, Horror, Fantasy: a film about nerves, woods, ladies, and Balkan music, inspired by a Bulgarian folksong.
At a Balkan folk song and dance camp in the woods of Mendocino, California, Sarah reunites with her old friend Isolde and with a song she learned years before about dragons who entwine themselves in women's hair and carry them off through the forest, burning it as they go. When Sarah pursues a romance with a new camper Steph, the nights of sensual secrets and singing with Isolde come to an abrupt end. Sarah and Steph explore a simple attraction, but in Sarah's dreams,
women spin their wild hair and Isolde darkly approaches. When reality and fantasy collide, Sarah finds that the dragons she's visioning may be inside her.
narrative feature written and directed by Josephine Decker | starring Small
music video -- mvt. 12 from Secondary Dominance
"IN THE NIGHT ROOM"
BUTTER ON THE LATCH
"MOMA JESTE"
music video -- mvt. 7 from Secondary Dominance
"BLOWING DANDELIONS"
music video -- mvt. 4 from Secondary Dominance
"ZHENISH ME MAMO"
music video directed by Josephine Decker | performance by Black Sea Hotel | vocal arrangement by Small
The Tableau mounts a unique, participant-driven experience, providing a platform for realtime contact alongside multi-genre creation and performance.
Part homage to the history of art, part joyous communion, part party, part experiment, the Tableau challenges our social media paradigm which postulates that intimacy can flourish through flatscreen contact with 'friends'. The Tableau promotes close dialogue and close physical proximity, alongside radical art making, reconstructing the void in interpersonal connections created by this growing affection towards technological insularity.
The 'living picture' is a self-revealing celebration of image, sound and human communion.
As derived from Small’s 2001-2013 still photographic series, The Delirium Constructions (the birth medium of TDC), the project investigates the tensions and resolutions of close connection. Social, graphic, and musical contrasts are examined side-by-side: youth and experience, hysteria and discipline, hilarity and tragedy, and sexuality and desexualization. The scenarios are staged, yet the resulting emotions are born through guided improvisations and spontaneous interactions during rehearsals. Personal histories memorialized inside the 'living picture', an expression of
humankind’s timeless yearning to find connection within ourselves and with one another.
Incorporated into the framework of a 4-5 hour nightlife experience, the Tableau begins in silence and stillness, as the audience confronts a static composition:
a stack of human forms. As the performance unfolds, the forms come to life, singly and in groups, alternating between stationary poses
and surging gesture. Eventually, the performance melts into the crowd, eliminating boundaries between the observer and the observed.
Musical components include a Balkan vocal quartet, string quartet, classical arias, and choral droning.
Other elements include historical and contemporary dress, synchronized facial gestures and dance, and legal matrimony conducted by Small.
25-minute excerpt from Small's 55-min, 120-participant Tableau Vivant - ft. Shara Nova + Brooklyn Rider | spring 2011
TABLEAU VIVANT OF THE DELIRIUM CONSTRUCTIONS
music video, silent teaser -- from forthcoming album, Boomerang of Black Fluorescence; Songs I Forgot to Write as a Teen | release fall 2020
"DANCE OF THE FROZEN ANIMALS"
