Interference Arts, led by its Artistic Director, Craig Harris, collaborates with artists and arts organizations on a variety of projects.
Read about projects by Interference Arts, which include music composition and multimedia stage collaborations in Minneapolis, MN, below.
Creative Collaborations
Much of what we do at Interference Arts involves artists working together on creative projects and shows. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in our music and multimedia productions and inter-research. They combine music with dancing, design, art, acting, singing, writing, costuming, and more to tell beautiful stories and explore universal themes. From traditional to experimental genres, our projects feature an impressive diversity of music and multimedia works created and performed by talented artists with something important to say. Every show is unique and unforgettable from start to finish.
Music and stage works reflect our culture and serve as agents of change for the future, giving it a vital role both in the arts and in the world. Our team is determined to keep the art of performance alive and invite you to experience this transformative medium for yourself. The project descriptions below offer an idea of the shows we collaborate to produce on a regular basis, as well as how they blend the best of many art forms. We believe collaboration between artists is a powerful force, and this is demonstrated in all of our events. Contact our artistic director for more information.
SHAPE Ensemble
Shape is an experimental improvisation ensemble comprised of Viv Corringham (vocalist), Stephen Goldstein (laptops and various electronics and controllers) and Craig Harris (real-time sampling and processing). Viv extemporizes with a broad vocal palette, with and without words; Stephen draws upon his vast toolbox of sounds, controllers and live performance techniques; and Craig records and processes them both, feeding the material back into the mix to create a sound fabric that the three “shape” together.
Learn more about Shape Ensemble.
Off-Leash Area
Dancing on the Belly of the Beast
Off-Leash Area’s latest main stage show appeared at the Ritz Theater in Minneapolis in June 2017, and I’m honored to have collaborated on this production. I wrote the music, and performed live at the show. Inspired by Co-Artistic Director Jennifer Ilse’s own personal experiences as an adult orphan, the show explores the universality of grief and death, and specifically the intense transition into this life stage which we all expect to reach when all of our parents have gone. Beast is a beautiful, ritualistic memorial, speaking to the intricacies of our family relationships, the complexities of grief, the voyage from guilt to gratitude, and finally to a freedom of the spirit.
The sound composition, played live by Craig Harris, enhances the dreamlike solemnity.
June 25, 2017 by Caroline Palmer in the Star Tribune
Learn more about Dancing on the Belly of the Beast here.
AfterWind
In 2016 Craig Harris was commissioned by the dance theater company Off-Leash Area to create a music soundscape for their main stage show AfterWind, produced in July 2016. AfterWind explores the emotional and psychic repercussions of a terrorist bombing. In the fraught moments after a terrorist attack, death will randomly choose some, while the rest are left to witness unfolding events and wrestle with the most intimate and powerful of fears: our mortality. Immersing the audience in a 360-degree art and dance installation, AfterWind is simultaneously a sensitive meditation on the universal experience of facing our mortality and an examination of the personal, public, and political anxiety that arises from large-scale violence.
“The performers are largely silent, with the soundtrack provided by a Craig Harris soundscape that may be the real star of the show. Reminiscent of avant-garde tape experiments from the mid-20th century, Harris’s score of rumblings and distant moans is strange and fascinating. Conventional music would also have worked for this piece, but Harris’s sound
creates a distinctive experience.”
Monday, July 25, 2016 by Jay Gabler in Arts & Leisure
Learn more about AfterWind here.
Stripe & Spot (Learn to) Get Along
Craig Harris composed and produced the music for Off-Leash Area’s new touring production “Stripe & Spot (Learn to) Get Along.” The initial production launched on June 6-8, 2014, and the tour took place in September and October 2014.
Pamela Espaland calls it “wildly imaginative, sophisticated and very funny” on Minnpost. Sophie Kerman calls it “fun and refreshing” on Aisle Say Twin Cities, and highlights Paul Herwig and Taous Khazem as “engaging performers.”
Learn more about Stripe and Spot (Learn to) Get Along here.
Katha Dance Theatre
Rubaiyat – a Life in a Day
Craig Harris created the projection design and served as design dramaturg for Katha Dance Theatre’s show “Rubaiyat,” which was produced at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts November 7-9, 2014. As a member of the artistic development team Harris collaborated to create the scenario. Artist Candy Kuehn created digital illustrations for the show.
Learn more about KDT’s Rubaiyat – a Life in a Day here.
Red Eye Theater
The Secret Lives of Coats
Craig Harris was the Music Director and Pianist for The Secret Lives of Coats, a play by Stephanie Fleischmann, with music by Christina Campanella, directed by Hayley Finn.
Red Eye Theater kicked off their 31st season with the world premiere of a quirky musical in which three coatcheck girls confide their hopes and dreams via a network of tin can telephones, and our most precious treasures disappear into the holes in the pockets of our coats. The show is a charming riff on class and aspirations that taps into the post-crash, recession-era mentality.
Learn more about The Secret Lives of Coats here.
Step in Time Theater
Why We Laugh
In 2011 we worked on the artistic team to create Why We Laugh, a play written by playwright Kira Obolensky about a cabaret that was written in the Terezin ghetto/transport camp during World War II. Craig Harris adapted music from fragments that were discovered with the cabaret script, created new music for the play, and served as the Music Director for a production that toured in the Czech Republic. Find out more about this project here.
Learn more about Why We Laugh here.
Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre
ConVivir – 7 Dances to a More Compassionate World
In 2014 we collaborated with Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre to create ConVivir – 7 Dances to a More Compassionate World – creating the visual design, serving as design dramaturg, and integrating costumes created by designer Candy Kuehn. The show was produced in April 2014 at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts.
Artistic Director Susana di Palma’s latest work, ConVivir – 7 Dances to a More Compassionate World, was one of Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre’s most ambitious projects to date, transporting audiences to the passionate world of the Convivencia (“coexistence”) period in Spanish history when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in an atmosphere that was remarkable for its cultural vitality and lack of religious strife.
Directed and choreographed by Susana di Palma, audiences were mesmerized by such acclaimed modern world masters of flamenco, hip hop, and Sephardic music and movement as Amir-John Haddad, José Salinas, Arcadio Marin, David Jordan Harris, Antonio Arrebola, Judith Brin Ingber, La Conja and Zorongo dancers.
Learn more about ConVivir here.
Contact us to find out more about creative collaborations and performances.