Before the Atomic Stone Age

Hugh and I were called in to write the music for
Atomic Stone Age on short notice.
I am not sure if some other composer had crapped out on her
before she called us in or not but,
I think we first heard about it less than three weeks before the show.
Hugh had been involved with Corinna before,
doing music for one of her earlier projects.
It was his enthusiasm for the project that got me involved.


The thing about this performance stuff in NYC is that
$   $   $   There's no money in it.   $  $  $
Or at least there's none that I've ever seen.
When Corinna first came over to my place to show me her video,
she came straight from her job doing some apparently nasty renovations
in the re-floated and resurrected as performance ship the Frying Pan.
She was filthy with rust scale, grease god knows what else.
I would have had to put a tarp down to let her sit on my couch.
She works hard to get her vision out there.
The video impressed me with her creative costumes and production design.
  She is able to evoke a complete alien landscape with
costumes and props made mostly of dumpster refuse and ingenuity.

This is a composite of video images from "Passion Vortex"
Corinna's  production at the Angel Orensanz Foundation
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in June of 1996.
(Sorry it is so blurry.  I was working with probably a 4th generation tape.)

Hugh and I subwayed to check out a rehearsal.
Corinna's shared space in a used-to-be public school
was on a fairly desolate side street in an iffy
(Even to my Lower East Side eyes) section of Brooklyn. 
In order to get to the decent sized performance
and rehearsal spaces, that can be had for little
or preferably no money,
you often end up carrying expensive electronic equipment
stumbling through places you would
rather not be, without an armed escort.
Though this was by no means the scariest place
I've ever gone to for art's sake.

We got to see what props and costumes were already constructed,
and the music-less choreography that was already in progress.

Above are captures from a video that I shot of a
rehearsal for Atomic Stone Age.
We are out on the street outside of where Corinna lives
as we needed some serious room to try out the props.
Corinna is bravely testing out her latest creation,
Brutotron's metal breasts with the flaming nipples
with the playful assistance of Erin (Alien Action) McGonicle.

Erin and Hugh Mann

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