Shila Anaraki

Letter Piece Company

2011-04-07T12:55:00.001-07:00

In 2009 Matthew Shlomowitz, Tomma Wessel and I formed the Letter Piece Company with keyboardist Mark Knoop and guitarist Tom Pauwels, with support from the arts lab Pianofabriek. We made an hour long show featuring two Letter Piece quartets that Matthew and I composed together.

We performed this show at the Transit Festival in Leuven (October 2010) and Huddersfield Music Festival (November 2010) and we'll play the show again at the Chisenhale Dance Space (London) and Soundwaves festival (Brighton) in July 2011.

Here are video highlights from the Transit performance.
For more video's and fotos please have a look at the Letter Piece Company blog !

The complete programme:
Shila Anaraki / Matthew Shlomowitz - LP Quartet 1: Five Finger Discount
Matthew Shlomowitz -LP 5: Northern Cities
Tom Johnson - Narayana's Cows
Matthew Shlomowitz - LP 3: Australia, Bolton, Clinton, Dachshund & Echinacea
Shila Anaraki / Matthew Shlomowitz - LP Quartet 2: Mixed Doubles

We are now developing the Letter Piece ideas onto a bigger scale, and adding light design by Tom Bruwier, by making an hour long piece called A to Zzz for Vooruit (Gent) 2011/12 season.
We'll also play this work at STUK kunstencentrum, Leuven and Concertgebouw Brugge.

Since 2008 I have worked with recorder player Tomma Wessel on the Letter Pieces. They are a series of short duos for dancer and musician composed by Matthew. Here is a performance by Tomma and I of our first performance at Rational Rec.

Tomma and I have performed these pieces at:
Rational Rec, London (March 2008)
Festival Made, Gent (September 2008)
Kings Place, London (March 2009)
BRXLBRAVO, Brussels (September 2009)
Queen's University, Belfast (November 2009)
Korte Metten - Vooruit (February 2010)
Living Room Music, Klara Festival, Brussels (September 2010)

Julie Pfleiderer

2011-04-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

I'm performing in 'Verschwinden Erfinden - Disappearance' (working title), a new work by Julie Pfleiderer and Gerhild Steinbuch. The work starts with an audiowalk through Graz. The second part is a performance which makes use of a pepperghost installation. The premiere will be at Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria at October 6th 2011. We'll then play until the 10th of October.

Joanna Bailie

2011-04-07T01:27:00.000-07:00

I'm currently advising composer Joanna Bailie on her new project 'Analogue' for amplified string trio, tape and camera obscura. It premieres at Spor festival, May 7th 2011

With Adva Zakai

2009-11-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

How to Spell a Piece is a fifty-minute duo piece by choreographer Adva Zakai that Adva and I developed and perform together. Here is a text about the piece:

Imagine a machine that generates metaphors artificially and arbitrarily, movements and words being the fuel that activates this device. Once the mechanism is set in motion, movement and words are brought together in explicit combinations, creating the trail from which stories simply pop out. Just when it seems that the logic of a plot unravels, new directions and stories emerge and you might find yourself re-evaluating what was told before.

In How to Spell a Piece, metaphors and images – the raw material, detached from context or content – form the building blocks of a narrative that is not premeditated. The inclination of a story fills in the gaps between these metaphors and images. How to Spell a Piece is not looking for a new narrative, but rather a new way of creating one.

We have performed the work at:
Working Title Festival - De Pianofabriek kunstenwerkplaats (Brussels, December 5,6)
kc nOna - nO new artists (Mechelen, March 2009)
STUK kunstencentrum - Festival Taste (Leuven, April 2009)
nagib festival (Maribor, September 2009)

InterInterInter

2009-11-06T05:23:00.000-08:00

InterInterInter is a group that produce inter-disciplinary art events featuring performances, audience activities and live book making. The group is made up of six people (David Helbich, David and Ping Henningham, Matthew Shlomowitz, Tomma Wessel and myself) with varied backgrounds in dance, music performance and composition, visual arts, literature and screen printing.

InterInterInter has performed at:
Rational Rec, London (March 2008)
De Bijloke, Gent (September 2008)
Borealis Festival, Bergen (March 2009)
Ultima Festival, Oslo (September 2009)

Here are some videos of our performances

David Helbich, Vorspiel

Matthew Shlomowitz, When Is a Door Not a Door?

With David Helbich

2009-11-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

I have worked with composer and conceptual artist David Helbich for several years on a variety of projects.

Keine-Spiele mehr
David Helbich and Shila Anaraki.
Concept for walking audience.
Performed in Brussels 2005, Antwerp 2007, Amsterdam 2007.

Keine-Spiele
Shila Anaraki and David Helbich
Performed in Berlin, 2003

Haltungsschaden
David Helbich
Performed in Netwerk, Aalst, Belgium in 2007
For three performers (David, Tom Pauwels and I)

With Paul Craenen - Dubbel Gaan, en de tijd daartussen

2009-11-06T05:05:00.000-08:00

In 2008 I worked with composer Paul Craenen on a 40 minute 'shadow play for two performers. Paul and I have performed it together at:

Festival Van Vlaanderen, Gent (September 2008)
November Music Festival, Den Bosch(November 2008)

See photos of the performance here
And a video fragment here