Flashdance
Duration: 10:00
Instrumentation: Piano, Keyboard Synth, 2 Percussion
Premiere: January 30, 2019 // yarn|wire Residency, The Stone, NYC
Premiere performer: yarn|wire (Laura Barger, piano; Ning Yu, synth; Russell Greenberg + Ian Antonio, percussion)
Publisher: A-Town Publications (ASCAP) © 2018
Flashdance was commissioned by yarn|wire.
Program Note:
“The music starts and you feel it, your body just moves, there’s something inside of you that just clicks and you’re gone. It’s like you’re somebody else for a while.” —Alex Owens, Flashdance
Iconic and cringeworthy, the 1983 flick Flashdance follows the path of a young dancer as she pursues her dream. Based in Steeltown (Pittsburgh), its two major soundtrack hits “Flashdance” (famously sung by Irene Cara) and Michael Sembello’s “Maniac” popularized the use of early model analog synthesizers and the Linn LM-1 drum machine. Both are used here, heavily masked through material combinations while references to familiar soundtrack themes hide in plain sight. —Erin Rogers (2018)
Reviews:
”For this performance Ning Yu played two MIDI controllers connected to Rogers’ laptop, Barger played the acoustic piano and Antonio and Russell tackled their usual large percussion setups but with a MIDI drum pad between them for triggering samples. The electronics, piano, and synths interlocked with each other in polyrhythms of 3 against 2, reminiscent of the pop music which makes up the soundtrack of “Flashdance” – but also with percolating quintuplets (used extremely deftly in much of Rogers’ music, the piece “Trajectories” recorded by thingNY in 2016 comes to mind).”
—Brian McCorkle, Jazz Right Now [Full article]