Propositions from the DeadWIP: ...The Art of Not Playing…? / Leo Genovese

Thursday, June 24th at 8pm EST, 2021 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow Sami Hopkins presents her second program in Propositions from the deadWIP, featuring composer and Argentinian pianist Leo Genovese in collaboration with bassist John Lockwood and percussionist Nat Mugavero.

Propositions from the deadWIP is a multidisciplinary performance series that balances considerations of knowledge and fallibility launching from the premise that creative knowing imbues the process of making as much as a work’s eventual presentation or future iterations. By never claiming to reach finality, the works in this series accept the condition of being always “in progress,” with the potential to reimagine the status of a work-in-progress (WIP) altogether.

In this second installment of the series, Leo Genovese devises work in-trio with John Lockwood on bass and Nat Mugavero on drums. Using the notion of intuition-as-guide, together they will experiment with the idea of sounds which reevaluate, muddy, and at times reject the very foundations on which music is usually conceived. To paraphrase the artist’s words, this project will launch from the following guiding principles:

1. The practice of disappearing during the process of creating
2. Engaging in practice and study, followed then by the dismissal of the ideas that lie therein. Avoiding overthought or judgement.
3. Trusting the "I don’t know." Be naked, be vulnerable, be cool with it.
4. Re-learning how to follow the instincts
5. Practicing the sixth sense: the sense that rules all other senses.
6. Opening the third ear: the one that hears abolished or forgotten sounds
7. Not being in control of the so-called “music” that’s created.
8. Asking, where is faith playing a part in this process?
9. Ending with the following questions: When music ends, what happens? Can we play anti-music? Can we play sounds without listening for “music” in the traditional sense? And with this, can we play selfless music?

With the above, Genovese and his co-creators invite the ISSUE audience to join them in what one might call “the art of not playing”.

Leo Genovese was born in Argentina in 1979. He moved to the United States in 2001.
He has been traveling the world playing music for the last twenty years.
He has eight albums as a leader and dozens as a sideman.
He believes in music as a force of change.
He practices the saxophone in hotel rooms.
He doesn't support MP3 culture.
He cooks pretty spicy food, like his music.

Acoustic and electric bassist John Lockwood has toured the U.S. and Europe with Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Gary Burton, the Mel Lewis Big Band, and The Fringe. He has also performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, MIT Symphony, Pat Metheny, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, Toots Thielemans, Stan Getz, and Art Farmer.

Nat Mugavero was born on May 5 1936. He has been playing Drums since 1955. He had many opportunities to play with some of the great names in jazz. He knows now when he is playing the music and not feeling it, which helps him to keep on learning how not to play and wait for what can happen...? It's been a long and beautiful journey and he’s not there yet! But with the help of the meaning of God, who knows???

Sami Hopkins is an artist, musician, and writer based in Queens, NY. She was a Recess Critical Writing fellow (Fall 2020), and she is an alumna of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Museum Education Practicum (Fall 2019 cohort). Her most recent writing can be found in Studio Magazine.