BOG Works:  Maida Withers, dancer @ WPA  (no existing photos of homemade loudspeaker installation)   Photo: Adam Peiperl
BOG WORKS: John  Driscoll Instruments @ Washington Project for the Arts

BOG WORKS:  John Driscoll Instruments @ Washington Project for the Arts

1975 – Friday, August 15  BOG WORKS
Home-Made Speakers  and Dance Program:  Installation performance with MWDCCo and John Driscoll, electronic composer/musician/sculptor, in the open theater space of Washington Project for the Arts in the earliest location at 1227 G Street N.W., Washington, DC, in the large, high ceiling, 3rd Floor  performance space.  John Driscoll built an installation of several diverse home-made (audio) loudspeakers hanging by ropes that extended high in the room to the arched roof ceiling (old opera house space) and close to the floor through the large renovated WPA space, Washington, DC.  John was seated in the center of the open space and the audience sat there in the center and along the periphery.   Dancers moved among the loudspeakers, interacting with the space and the sound generated by John’s electronic music.  The speakers could also move (i.e. swing back and forth; wind up and unwind the ropes to spin, etc).   Dancers were also lighting designers by choosing to move the hanging battery-operated lights  (turning them off and on, spotlighting other dancers, audience and the walls, by swinging, rotating or focusing the light (turning on and off) on dancers or the musician located around the space and on the elevated platform. The audience could move to new locations in the space to hear the sounds in a new way.  Bog Works was an incredible visual and auditory spectacle!!!

Bog Works – Music, only:   “Bog Works music, written and performed by John Driscoll, is an electronic/acoustical sound environment which utilizes a number of specifically constructed speakers, electronic speed-controlled tape machines and home-built circuitry for simultaneously modiyfing tape signals.”  (John Driscoll, compose-musician)

Bog Works – Dancers:  The work began with dancers wearing battery operated lights.  The dancers had a loose, open script to accommodate physical interaction.  Battery operated lights were also hung on ropes that would swing, be turned on and off, and focused on walls, audience members of other dancers.  Original MWDCCo dancers: Maida Withers, John Bailey, Brook Andrews, JoAnn Sellars, Betty Tittsworth”

Music, Three in a Row, an electronic composition by Paul DeMarinis for custom-built electronic switching modules.  These modules are played as a musical instrument by the switching of electronically generated and concrete sounds.  Music by Paul De Marinis and John Driscoll.

John Driscoll’s Bio / 1975:  “BFA, MFA, has been involved in sculpture, dance, filmmaking puppetry, air conditioning and intermedia.  His present work with electronic systems for sound, movement and visuals include UNDER THE PUTTING GREEN, a two-year work in progress, and BOG WORKS.  John Driscoll, DCCo composer/musician, is presently performing with Pbnumbral Raincoast, David Tudor, and Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company.”  https://maidadance.com/collaborators/john-driscoll/

John Driscoll Archive:  Bog Works Document