Video works, Documentaries & Video Collaborations
Rainbow Nation for video, spoken word, piano, & toy piano
Premiered on Collaborations 2022: Re/Emergence presented by Cascadia Composers, Lincoln Hall, Portland, OR, 5.14.2022
Filmed in early 2021 in the midst of the Covid pandemic, Rainbow Nation began with an impulse to create art in deep response to the moment, relinquishing control and preconceived notions in favor of being still and listening to allow truths to emerge. In need of a positive vision, I invited young friends and their families to paint a communal mural imagining their ideal future. What wonderful creatures, plants, objects, people, stories, and ideas would populate this perfect world?
Two videographers roamed freely as we painted, moving intuitively between perspectives and the spontaneous, beautiful moments that arose. As I slowly sifted through the many hours of resulting material to discover the story embedded therein, a trinity of film, spoken text, and music emerged, each element growing in symbiotic relationship with the others.
The title is inspired by the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African bishop and anti-apartheid/human rights activist, and Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first Black president, to describe their vision of a just, equitable, multicultural, and peaceful post-apartheid South Africa. Rainbow Nation is an intimate narrative on the means by which new generations may absorb and rise to the challenges left to them by previous generations and circumstance, and leave the world better than they found it.
Premiered on Collaborations 2022: Re/Emergence presented by Cascadia Composers, Lincoln Hall, Portland, OR, 5.14.2022
Filmed in early 2021 in the midst of the Covid pandemic, Rainbow Nation began with an impulse to create art in deep response to the moment, relinquishing control and preconceived notions in favor of being still and listening to allow truths to emerge. In need of a positive vision, I invited young friends and their families to paint a communal mural imagining their ideal future. What wonderful creatures, plants, objects, people, stories, and ideas would populate this perfect world?
Two videographers roamed freely as we painted, moving intuitively between perspectives and the spontaneous, beautiful moments that arose. As I slowly sifted through the many hours of resulting material to discover the story embedded therein, a trinity of film, spoken text, and music emerged, each element growing in symbiotic relationship with the others.
The title is inspired by the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African bishop and anti-apartheid/human rights activist, and Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first Black president, to describe their vision of a just, equitable, multicultural, and peaceful post-apartheid South Africa. Rainbow Nation is an intimate narrative on the means by which new generations may absorb and rise to the challenges left to them by previous generations and circumstance, and leave the world better than they found it.
ReFuse: art in the time of climate emergency
World premiere: live-streamed online as part of the international New Music Gathering festival, 6.17.2020
This hour-long live-streamed video presentation combines five solo Skeleton Piano videos with a brand-new short documentary film "ReFuse: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency." The documentary follows my piano students for several months in 2019-2020 as they learned about catastrophic global warming and developed their own forms of climate artistry in preparation for a huge live show at the New Music Gathering - only to be hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documentary shows how students of all ages and levels designed and built their own large-scale, playable art sculpture made entirely out of trash and recycling. These wildly imaginative "Transmogrified Instruments" express the students' individual responses to climate change and represent their visions for a post-carbon future.
World premiere: live-streamed online as part of the international New Music Gathering festival, 6.17.2020
This hour-long live-streamed video presentation combines five solo Skeleton Piano videos with a brand-new short documentary film "ReFuse: Art in the Time of Climate Emergency." The documentary follows my piano students for several months in 2019-2020 as they learned about catastrophic global warming and developed their own forms of climate artistry in preparation for a huge live show at the New Music Gathering - only to be hobbled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documentary shows how students of all ages and levels designed and built their own large-scale, playable art sculpture made entirely out of trash and recycling. These wildly imaginative "Transmogrified Instruments" express the students' individual responses to climate change and represent their visions for a post-carbon future.
The Phoenix Project
Premiered at the Phoenix Project shows, 11.2021 @ Bodyvox Theater, Portland, OR
This 2nd documentary follows the students of Jennifer Wright Piano Studio as they create their massive "Transmogrified Instruments" out of mountains of trash and prepare for a massive professional live show in the midst of a world pandemic.
Listen to the Earth for video & fixed media (2018)
Video filmed & edited by Jennifer Wright, sound created by Daniel Brugh
This immersive art piece takes inspiration from Bernie Kraus’ book “The Great Animal Orchestra” and uses sounds of the earth and its creatures as its source material combined in Daniel Brugh's signature immersive synth environment. Wright’s video art envisions the workings of nature at the molecular level as a deep dance of sonic resonances.
The collaboration received its world premiere at the 31st Annual Festival de la Habana Música Contemporánea in Havana, Cuba in November 2018 and has been screened at Cascadia Composers "All Wired Up" Electronic Music Festival (April 2019) and at the "New Music Gathering" Festival (June 2020).
Video filmed & edited by Jennifer Wright, sound created by Daniel Brugh
This immersive art piece takes inspiration from Bernie Kraus’ book “The Great Animal Orchestra” and uses sounds of the earth and its creatures as its source material combined in Daniel Brugh's signature immersive synth environment. Wright’s video art envisions the workings of nature at the molecular level as a deep dance of sonic resonances.
The collaboration received its world premiere at the 31st Annual Festival de la Habana Música Contemporánea in Havana, Cuba in November 2018 and has been screened at Cascadia Composers "All Wired Up" Electronic Music Festival (April 2019) and at the "New Music Gathering" Festival (June 2020).
Cooking For One
This pandemic-edition video work premiered on the hour-long virtual Film Festival "Cooped Up 5" presented by site-specific dance companies Heidi Duckler Dance LA/NW on 4.12.2021. It's the 5th installation in a virtual series that has been exploring how/why/what art is being made in Covid Times.
What is it, you ask? Something very different than anything I have made before! It's a found-sound video piece in which I explore states of loneliness and the brokenness of modern society through making music with...a microwave oven and a Hungry Man frozen TV dinner.
This pandemic-edition video work premiered on the hour-long virtual Film Festival "Cooped Up 5" presented by site-specific dance companies Heidi Duckler Dance LA/NW on 4.12.2021. It's the 5th installation in a virtual series that has been exploring how/why/what art is being made in Covid Times.
What is it, you ask? Something very different than anything I have made before! It's a found-sound video piece in which I explore states of loneliness and the brokenness of modern society through making music with...a microwave oven and a Hungry Man frozen TV dinner.
Shed Life
Premiered at the "Cooped Up 2" Online Film Festival presented by Heidi Duckler Dance LA/NW, 6.29.2020
"Shed Life" was commissioned by Heidi Duckler Dance NW for a dance film short festival highlighting art made in quarantine. Conrad Kaczor, my dear friend/incredible movement artist/frequent collaborator, was tasked with sending me a mystery video clip and my challenge was to create visual music to it in split-screen format.
I had no idea what aspect of lockdown life Conrad was going to engage with. In the midst of worldwide tumult and uncertainty, he sent me a sweet and unexpectedly lighthearted clip of him grooving out...in his tool shed! That flummoxed me for a while, until I thought: OK, I will accompany him live, using only sound-producing objects that I can find in MY garage! This wonderful collaboration lifted my spirits and gave me a reason to reframe quarantine as a time full of possibilities for fun and exploration.
Premiered at the "Cooped Up 2" Online Film Festival presented by Heidi Duckler Dance LA/NW, 6.29.2020
"Shed Life" was commissioned by Heidi Duckler Dance NW for a dance film short festival highlighting art made in quarantine. Conrad Kaczor, my dear friend/incredible movement artist/frequent collaborator, was tasked with sending me a mystery video clip and my challenge was to create visual music to it in split-screen format.
I had no idea what aspect of lockdown life Conrad was going to engage with. In the midst of worldwide tumult and uncertainty, he sent me a sweet and unexpectedly lighthearted clip of him grooving out...in his tool shed! That flummoxed me for a while, until I thought: OK, I will accompany him live, using only sound-producing objects that I can find in MY garage! This wonderful collaboration lifted my spirits and gave me a reason to reframe quarantine as a time full of possibilities for fun and exploration.
Give me a shout!
jenniferawright (at) yahoo.com | 503-475-2406 | 3656 SE Morrison Street, Portland, OR 97214
Check out skeletonpiano.com to see what I've been up to with my Skeleton Piano!
jenniferawright (at) yahoo.com | 503-475-2406 | 3656 SE Morrison Street, Portland, OR 97214
Check out skeletonpiano.com to see what I've been up to with my Skeleton Piano!