The Catacombs of Yucatan Video and music by Dan Senn 27 minutes (see video stills) This piece chronicles two events, one leading to the commercialization of a remote limestone cave and associated dance hall during the depression of the 1930s, and the other glimpsing a sound and video installation which took place in the same location in the Autumn of 1995. Using the stories of nine people who once worked at what was called "The Catacombs of Yucatan", the piece consists of an interweaving of the spoken word (see texts of spoken words) as accompanied by the instrumental sounds of my sculptural instruments. Both the spoken and instrumental sounds were part of a cave installation called The Catacombs of Yucatan Sound and Video Installation. The video was developed as an abstraction of the video interviews presented in the '95 installation and consist of images shot off the installation monitors. Inspiration for this piece developed directly from the pleasure of manipulating the spoken, instrumental, and video materials. For this reason, none the recorded stories have been altered; I have only arranged them to make narrative sense while pleasing an esthetic sense as a composer. (On the other hand, I have let these stories be told and am fully aware of their political, historical and social ramifications.) The instrumental sounds, however, are sectional, systematically derived and come from four of my sculptural instruments: a pendulyre (light pizzacato sounds); a two-string pendulyre (sounds like an out-of-tune piano); a penduling (has ringing and percussive sounds); and, a Shmoos Harp (long tones) which is heard as interludes to the other instruments. The non-Shmoos instruments are driven by identicial pulse scores (subaudio pulses drive weighted pendulums i n each of these) and, therefore, because the they reacte differently to the scores, exist as variations here. The Shmoos Harp is performed as an improvisation and arranged with the other instrumental sounds, to fit an overall duration of 27 minutes, a length established by the video and spoken materials. Simultaneities occurring bewteen the spoken and instrumental and video levels happen by distant chance, a fact to be considered in appreciating the esthetic underpinnings of the piece. Therefore, if a meaningfulness arises from this piece it will do so mostly on its own. The Catacombs of Yucatan music video has been preceded by a sound only version for radio which was commissioned by the 1996 KUOW Radio Arts Festival in Seattle. While the sound track for this music video version differs from the radio festival version, it may be played without the video; a CD or DAT is available for this. This piece was made possible in part by grants from the McKnight Foundation of Minnesota and KUOW of Seattle. Performance Considerations 1) The piece should not be played loud. Because the spoken parts were originally recorded on a video recorder, background noise (hiss) exists in contrast to the recorded instrumental sounds. Therefore, the levels should be set where this noise is just noticeable (and soon forgotten). 2) If only a VHS monophonic machine is available for performance, a DAT or a CD is REQUIRED for simultaneous play in stereo. The three white dots at the beginning of the video are for synchronization; when the third dot disappears, the taped sound should begin. 3) Copies of the piece are available in VHS-HIFI (NTSC) and SVHS-HIFI (NTSC) formats (versions for video alone, and, video and stereo sound). Video tapes, CDs, and DATs are available for a rental fee from: Newsense Intermedium 4218 N Cheyenne Tacoma, WA 98407-5010 tel 253 759 2556 fax 253 759 2623 newsense@newsense-intermedium.com TO MAIN INDEX