Usurp Chance Tour

Usurp presents two ensemble performances exploring perceptual concepts of chance, time, listening and humour and the parameters of improvisational approaches in music.

Usurp Art Gallery and Sound and Music present two dynamic, ensemble performances that explore perceptual concepts of chance, time, listening and humour and the parameters of improvisational approaches in new music.

"Indeterminacy" was originally recorded in 1959, with John Cage reading aloud 90 stories, each lasting one minute. For this performance, Stewart Lee assumes Cage's role accompanied by contemporary pianists, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford improvising on pianos and objects.
"Humour and existentialist melancholy co-exist, perching on a knife-edge." Gramophone

"The Conspirators of Pleasure" featuring Poulomi Desai (augmented sitar), Simon Underwood (modified toys + electronics) and Seth Ayyaz ( daaf + electronics), create improvised soundscapes, twisting technology and transforming organic sounds into eerie calls with intense waves of noise, pulsating rhythms and melancholic, lyrical interplay.

The performances draw upon narratives of contemporary narratives of the role of the performer as composer; control, response and liberation in shared music-making and extricate the sonic and political potency of instruments, subaltern identities and recycled objects.

Programmed by Poulomi Desai. Supported by Usurp Art Gallery in partnership with Sound and Music.