The Meridian Gallery presents the Thingamajigs Performance Group (TPG), which will offer new works that combine Eastern sensibilities with modern American technologies and performance practices. Creating pieces in a group collaborative process that sometimes incorporate voice and other unusual musical instruments, this ensemble of musicians expands and contracts within each performance situation.... [read more]

The Meridian Gallery presents the Thingamajigs Performance Group (TPG), which will offer new works that combine Eastern sensibilities with modern American technologies and performance practices. Creating pieces in a group collaborative process that sometimes incorporate voice and other unusual musical instruments, this ensemble of musicians expands and contracts within each performance situation. This concert will feature works written for instruments created with made/found and recycled objects, Asian wind instruments and homemade electronics.

Each year the Thingamajigs Performance Group create new and innovative works that are performed in various artistic settings. Most recently TPG has been in a multiyear collaboration with poet Stephen Ratcliffe to create multimedia 14-hour works, each based on 1,000 of Stephen’s poems. The first piece of this trilogy is called Human/Nature and was premiered at UC Davis in 2008. The second piece called Remarks on Color/Sound was premiered at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2010, and the last work called Temporality will be premiered in 2011-12.

Dylan Bolles, Suki O'Kane, Edward Schocker and Zachary Watkins make up the nucleus of this new ensemble. Guest artists collaborating with TPG for this concert feature Keith Evens and others.



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The Thingamajigs Performance Group emerged from the long-term collaborations from the individual artists that now make up its ensemble members. Using unusual musical instruments, TPG combines traditional Eastern sensibilities with modern American technologies and performance practices. Creating pieces in a group collaborative process that sometimes incorporate voice and multimedia elements, this ensemble of musicians expands and contracts within each performance situation.

The Thingamajigs Performance Group’s unique process of creating work is closer to that of theater companies or dance troupes rather than standard music ensembles. Instead of commissioning one composer to write music for which the ensemble will play, TPG creates each of its original works in a collaborative manner with each ensemble member having equal creative input in guiding the work to fruition. The core ensemble members have been working together for over 10 years and have devised this unique system of creation through a deep musical and philosophical understanding that comes with years of working and developing together.

Since 2006 Thingamajigs have been collaborating with poet Stephen Ratcliffe to create long-scale multimedia works, each based on 1,000 of Stephen’s poems. Each work is approximately 14-hours in duration. The first piece of this trilogy is called Human/Nature and was premiered at UC Davis in 2008. The second piece called Remarks on Color/Sound was premiered at Headlands Center for the Arts in 2010, and the last work called Temporality will be premiered in 2011-12.

The core members of the Thingamajigs Performance group consist of Suki O’Kane, Zachary Watkins, Dylan Bolles and Edward Schocker. Key collaborators over the years include poet Stephen Ratcliffe, visual artists Michael Myers and Keith Evans.