COLLATION 2 | SOUNDING PICTURES: LIVE SCORES TO SHORT SILENT FILMS

“We are immersed in visual culture. Films and moving images have become such a significant way of seeing and understanding the world around us. So, I’m interested in further exploring what happens when we turn to a dramaturgy of sound.” – Neo Muyanga 

From 31 October to 2 November 2024, The Centre for the Less Good Idea hosted Sounding Pictures: Live Scores to Short Silent Films, the second iteration of its COLLATION project – a short, focussed series of performance-based events around a central theme, method or point of interest – which focuses on the medium of Silent Films.

Conceptualised and led by The Centre’s Impresario, Neo Muyanga, this programme follows the hugely successful COLLATION 1 | Visual Radio Plays, and continues The Centre’s investigation into a dramaturgy of sound.

DEEP, RESPONSIVE LISTENING

Sounding Pictures: Live Scores to Short Silent Films, asks the question: what happens when we look at a silent film collectively and collaboratively, responding with live, improvisational sound, performance and text, and how does this influence the narrative of the film?  

“The opportunity is to watch a certain film with two or three different scores, and subsequently with two or three different narratives or interpretations,” says Muyanga. “We might discover a difference in the narrative of the film, and we’re trying to figure out what happens in that gap between intention and interpretation.”

Over three days, a series of contemporary, short silent films (between 3 - 15 minutes) became the provocation for musicians who, in many instances, encountered them for the first time, in front of a live audience. Muyanga explains that this is a process that requires deep listening on the part of the artists. 

“They have to be listening deeply and responsively to what the visuals are suggesting as a narrative. They have to be creative, and collaborative, and they have to, in a sense, work telepathically with one another to create a live score.” 

A performance programme in three parts, films were projected and performances took place in The Centre space, the Atrium, and in the Pepper’s Ghost mechanism, allowing performers to engage with and respond to the films in different ways. 

While performances in The Atrium demonstrated the potential for re-viewing a film and the incidental discoveries that are made each time a live, collaborative score is produced, the works in The Centre allowed for a methodology of deep, collaborative listening to emerge, where the commitment to the other sounds and impulses in the room became the most crucial part of the process. Finally, the three works in the Pepper’s Ghost revealed how film can become an improvisatory medium, with filmmakers playing a direct role in the live, collaborative nature of performance inside the Pepper’s Ghost mechanism.

Sounding Pictures featured short films by William Kentridge, Milisuthando Bongela-Davis, Penny Siopis, Thania Petersen, Msaki, Victor Gama, Diek Grobler, Naomi van Niekerk, Noah Cohen, Dana Walrath and Dylan Valley. 

Musicians and performers included Billy Langa, DAPHNE, Micca Manganye, Arnaud van Vliet, Shane Cooper, Reggie Teys, Aragorn Eloff, Bongiwe Lusizi, Pertunia Msani, Daniel Stompie Selibe, Tebogo ‘AusTebza’ Sedumedi and Mareli Stolp. 

In addition to the live performances, Sounding Pictures featured a HOW | Showing the Making led by Neo Muyanga, and a conversation between Bronwyn Lace and Joni Brenner to mark the new collection of Marigold beads in collaboration with The Centre.   

Special thanks to Archive Research Gail Behrmann for sourcing early archival films.

Full video recordings, photography, and written reflections on COLLATION 2 | Sounding Pictures: Live Scores to Short Silent Films are available here.