Jennifer Walshe: he wants his cowboys to sound like he thinks cowboys should sound

I wanted to write a piece which dealt with loneliness, the idea of isolation and being separate. The group is made up of five soloists, so I liked this idea of working with five people who are two things at the same time–a member of a united group and also an isolated soloist. I wrote five different pieces, each corresponding to one of the different performers (these are not solo pieces, they feature all 5 performers) and created lighting settings corresponding to these different pieces. (These pieces are in some ways different versions of the same narrative, told from different internalized perspectives; in other ways they are completely different. There is not a secret code to figure out how they all fit together–too many pages are missing.) I edited these pieces together, so that there are cuts between the different streams of information, both sonic and visual. The basic physical situation of the performers (five people on a bench) remains the same throughout–this situation is sounded and lit differently through the piece. The different narratives manifest themselves in different ways through the piece–some in blocks, some in monologue and commentary, some in time-lapse blips, some paced like the credit section of a film. (The language I use when I think and talk about composing often comes from theatre, television, film.) Being able to cut in and out of silence and light was important to me, so that the focus would be on the sound quality and performative aspects of the piece, both while they are happening and in the space after.

(Jennifer Walshe)