Bog Works

Original Performance on August 1, 1975

WPA - Close up of Brook A and John B


BOG Works:  Maida Withers, dancer @ WPA  (no existing photos of homemade speaker installation)   Photo: Adam Peiperl
BOG WORKS: John  Driscoll Instruments @ WPA

BOG WORKS:  John Driscoll Instruments @ WPA

1975 – Friday, August 15, 1975
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 on G Street, Washington, DC, 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 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) by swinging, rotating or focusing the light 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!!!

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

Dancers:  The work began with dancers wearing battery operated lights.  The dancers had a loose, open script to accommodate physical interaction.  Original MWDCCo dancers: Maida Withers, John Bailey, Brook Andrews, JoAnn Sellars, Betty Tittsworth”

Music, Three in a Row:  The evening-length performance was a joint program lasting one hour and included a performance of Three in a Row, an electronic composition 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, dnce, 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.  He is presently performing with Pbnumbral Raincoast, David Tudor, and Maida Withers and the Dance Construction Company.”

John Driscoll Archive / Bog Works Document


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Artists and Collaborators
Concept
Dancers / Collaborators
Loudspeaker Installation and Music
Flashlight Installation - Lighting
Composer/Musician
Costumes