Reflections on 40 Years

Dear friends,

This is the 40th year anniversary of Overtone Industries. Livia Reiner, who has pretty much grown up with Overtone, helping backstage and now performing with us, was interested in the history of the company and found some old pictures from our earliest productions.

It’s impossible to sum up so many years of work in a little paragraph. But here are some non-linear impressions from the last forty years ;-)

FLASHES OF FORTY YEARS; MAKING ART FROM SCRATCH

40 years

Only seems like a hundred

All the composing that takes place in silence

Listening for the tempo, the rhythm that has meaning

Following after the faintly heard melody

Falling asleep at the keyboard between two notes.

And

The joy of finding the people I can work with –

Knowing we can see our way into the same dream

Nothing to do with education or upbringing –

an immediate recognition; a whole sensibility understood at the speed of intuition.

Recognizing our common desire to explore

What’s going on here -

how is the inner life exalted in the outer story

How to take flight -find the words that call up song and extravagant feeling

Clothing the invisible

And

The brutal editing

Whole chests of treasure thrown overboard for some other mermaid to find

And

Performing in magnificent old halls

In tiny start-ups

Dim makeshift dressing rooms

Pawing through my suitcase of stuff

Now we are on a hard-won trajectory of a much wider reach in state-of-the-art venues

But I still love these times in the earliest phases of development where I’m flopping around

on a grubby stage, bringing costumes from home

Instruments piled into the back of my car

Haggling with my beloved collaborators

about what comes next,

what works

Staring at each other looking for clues

Late night rehearsals locked in god’s workshop figuring out what we know

What curtain are we pulling back and looking behind

And

Coming back from the outer turmoil, the deadlines, the meetings.

Coming back to the point

To the initial particular moment or story that sparked the wish to devote

five years, ten years of life to bring it into the world.

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this community, we look forward to many more years of making art with and for you in the decades to come.

With love,
O-Lan Jones, Artistic Director

Reflections on 40 Years

Be the first to comment

Sign in with

Activate your account

Reflections on 40 Years

Be the first to comment

Sign in with

Or sign in with email

Create an account

Activate your account