San Francisco International Arts Festival: “Self_less” Musical Experience (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

San Francisco International Arts Festival and Thingamajigs Present “Self_less”, a musical experience that explores the complexities of identity.

Coming from South Korea, Ensemble PHASE will perform the world premiere of Edward Schocker’s Self_less, a multipart series of musical works created in partnership with the local community. Through a culmination of collective narratives arranged by Erik Ehn, Schocker delves into exploring the question of “what is the self?” from a cultural, spiritual, and social perspective. These stories are harmoniously intertwined with music and songs, brought to life by traditional Korean instruments and accompanied by live video projections from the talented Keith Evans. Audience members will be immersed in a space enveloped and animated through visuals and music.

Artist Biographies

Ensemble PHASE
Ensemble PHASE performs traditional, contemporary, and experimental music on Korean instruments. They are passionate in collaborating with living composers and performers from diverse musical backgrounds. In order to expand the interest in writing for Korean instruments, Ensemble PHASE has given workshops and lectures for composers and students to better understand Korean music and instruments, in and out of Korea. Ensemble PHASE’s projects have been sponsored by the City of Seoul, Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture, Arts Council Korea, National Gugak Center and Studio Paju.

Edward Schocker (Composer)
Edward Schocker is a composer and educator who creates music with made/found materials and alternate tuning systems, and is the co-founder/executive director of Thingamajigs. His music has been performed at Stanford Lively Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Internationales Klangskunstfest in Berlin, Cultural Station Seoul 284, and Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo. His projects have been supported by UNESCO, National Endowment for the Arts, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, the California Arts Council, Korean Traditional Performing Arts Foundation and New Music USA. Currently, Edward creates work in a group process and is an ensemble member of the Thingamajigs Performance Group.

Erik Ehn (Text Arrangements)
Erik Ehn is an American playwright and director known for proposing the Regional Alternative Theatre movement. Ehn is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Tenderloin Opera Company in San Francisco and also an artistic associate of San Francisco’s Theatre of Yugen. He is a co-founder of the RAT movement, an international network of alternative theaters, and was the former Dean of theater at the California Institute of Arts, and former head of play writing and professor of theater and performance studies at Brown University.

Keith Evans (Video Projections)
Keith Evans bridges the space between cinema and sculpture through his films, performances, and installations. His works include whimsically repurposed items, like turntables and telescopes. Evans’ creations frequently explore ideas of nature, science, and history, and much of Evans’ work belongs to the genre of “performance cinema” described as “an exciting and emergent genre of avant-garde moving-image art … arguing for the embodied, collective consideration of real-time, site-specific media experiences.” (Gray Area, 2016)

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.