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No Exit concludes Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World”

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by Mike Telin

For the past eight months No Exit has been celebrating their 15th anniversary with their most ambitious project to date: Surreality. “We hope people will enjoy exploring the irrational, illogical, inexplicable, strange, and utterly fantastical world that is Surrealism,” artistic director Timothy Beyer told us in October.

On Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 pm at Heights Arts, No Exit will conclude their Year of Surreality with “Breaking the World.” The free program will feature new works by Jerome Begin, Lauren Pearl, Stephen Haluska, and James Praznik, as well as Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical, and a simultaneous poem recited by Gunnar-Owen Hirthe, James Praznik, and Timothy Beyer. The program will be repeated at 7:00 pm on both Friday (at Praxis Fiber Arts) and Saturday (at SPACES Gallery).

In a recent telephone conversation Beyer said that this week’s program is a culmination of the ensemble’s season-long exploration of Surrealist techniques and topics, including games and thought exercises, state of consciousness, and dada, which is not technically Surrealism, but is related.

[Read more…]

No Exit: wonderfully head-scratching “Piano Dada”
at Heights Arts (Mar. 16)

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by Mike Telin

For the recent set of concerts in their season-long celebration of the surreal, No Exit turned to two pivotal events in the history of dadaism for inspiration — the 1920 Festival Dada and the 1923 Soirée du Coeur à Barbe. This program, “Piano Dada,” included works of poetry, theater, and music that were performed at those historic Paris festivals. I attended the performance on March 16 at Heights Arts.

As the title suggests, the program featured a healthy dose of music for the piano. And Shuai Wang proved to be a worthy interpreter with her impressive and committed performances throughout the evening.

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No Exit’s surrealist journey continues: “Piano Dada with Shuai Wang”

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by Max Newman

“One of the things about surrealism: it’s not a style, it’s a set of ideas. You have ideas and concepts that have never gone out of style,” No Exit artistic director Tim Beyer said during a recent telephone conversation.

This week the ensemble continues their season-long, multifaceted exploration and celebration of surrealism. “Piano Dada with Shuai Wang” features music originally presented at the Festival Dada in 1920 and Soirée du Coeur à Barbe in 1923, including Marcel Duchamp’s Erratum Musical, Francis Picabia’s La Nourrice Americaine (fast and slow versions), and Elt Mesens’ Drie Composities Voor Klavier as well as an ensemble rendition of Erratum Musical and a new piece by Luke Rinderknecht. [Read more…]

No Exit to host Aether Eos

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by Mike Telin

This weekend No Exit will take a short break from performing and put on their presenter hat when they host Aether Eos — the duo of violinist/composer/visual artist Leah Asher and pianist/composer Christopher Goddard — on Sunday, March 3 at 3:00 pm at Heights Arts and Monday the 4th at 7:30 pm at Kent State University’s Ludwig Recital Hall. Both performances are free.

Their varied program will explore a kaleidoscope of expressive states in Tonia Ko’s plush earth in four pieces, Carrie Frey’s Seagrass/Reed, Giacinto Scelsi’s Chemin du Coeur, Linda Caitlin Smith’s Unbroken, and Michael Hersch’s the wreckage of flowers.

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No Exit: Piano Dada at Cleveland Museum of Art

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by Mike Telin 

This week No Exit will continue their season-long multifaceted exploration and celebration of Surrealism on February 9 at 7:30 pm in Gartner Auditorium with “Piano Dada.” The free concert takes an entertaining dive into the realm of dreams, the irrational, the unconscious and the inexplicable.

“We’re very excited about this concert because it is our Cleveland Museum of Art debut,” No Exit’s artistic director Timothy Beyer said during a telephone conversation.

The program will include five works for solo piano performed by Shuai Wang — Francis Picabia’s La Nourrice Américaine (fast) and La Nourrice Américaine (slow), Darius Milhaud’s Caramel Mou, Georges Auric’s Adieu, New York!, and E.L.T. Mesens’ Drie Composities Voor Klavier — as well as a video of Tristan Tzara’s Dadaist Anthem.

Beyer noted that with the exception of Milhaud, Picabia, Auric, Mesens and Tzara were not composers per se. “They were artists. But these are great pieces that represent the beginning of avant-garde conceptualized music, which is prevalent today — John Cage took his cues from the Dadist’s playbook.” [Read more…]

No Exit with Zeitgeist: Surreality — the Unconscious at SPACES (Dec. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

It’s got to be a daunting task to create something even more surreal than what we wake up to every morning in our 21st-century world, but Timothy Beyer and his No Exit new music ensemble are pulling that trick off with élan in their Surreality project during this, their 15th season.

The second chapter — a collaboration with No Exit’s St. Paul, Minnesota counterparts, Zeitgeist, which I caught at SPACES on December 2 — began with a trilogy of movies by Beyer, James Praznik, and Luke Haaksma, and progressed to Zeitgeist & Philip Blackburn’s Between Here and There. That virtuosic concerto for unlikely “instruments” was performed in front of Revelations of the Unconscious Mind (A Surrealist Dreamscape), a center-of-the-gallery, beach-like installation devised by Leila Khoury and Kristen Newell, and studded with objects that shouldn’t be there.

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No Exit & Zeitgeist delve into “The Unconscious”

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by Mike Telin

No Exit continues their Year of Surreality this week with “The Unconscious.” The ensemble will be joined by longtime collaborators Zeitgeist for a program featuring four world premiere films — The Birdhouse, conceived and written by Timothy Beyer and filmed by James Praznik, breathing room by Luke Haaksmsa, In Fourteen Steps by James Praznik, and Between Here and There, a collaboration between Zeitgeist and composer and multimedia artist Philip Blackburn. The free, 7:00 pm performances will be held on Thursday, November 30 at Cleveland State University’s Drinko Recital Hall, Friday, December 1 at Waterloo Arts, and Saturday, December 2 at SPACES.

As part of “The Unconscious,” Cleveland-based artists Leila Khoury and Kristen Newell have created Revelations of the Unconscious Mind (a surrealist dreamscape), which will serve as an exhibit unto itself as well as a performance space. The exhibit is on display at SPACES through December 15.

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No Exit: “Surreal Games” (Oct. 14)

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by Mike Telin

To celebrate their 15th anniversary No Exit has created their most ambitious project to date. Their season-long series Surreality encompasses a range of artistic media to present an immersive, multidisciplinary exploration of surrealism as expressed in music, art, film, poetry, literature, and performance art.

The series kicked off with “Surreal Games,” which took its inspiration from the parlor games and thought exercises employed by the Surrealists. The program featured world premieres of musical works interspersed with poetry, as well as a corresponding art installation titled Collaborage, which was on view at Heights Arts. I attended the performance at SPACES on October 14.

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Surreality: No Exit explores the irrational, illogical, and inexplicable

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by Mike Telin

What does someone mean when they say, “Now that was surreal.” Well, that depends. “One of the things about surrealism is that it’s really an ideology,” No Exit artistic director Timothy Beyer said during an interview. “It’s not a style that is attached to a methodology, therefore you can apply it to almost anything.

To celebrate their 15th anniversary No Exit has created their most ambitious project to date. Enter Surreality, a season-long series that encompasses a range of artistic media to present an immersive, multidisciplinary exploration of surrealism as expressed in music, art, film, poetry, literature and performance art. “We hope people will enjoy exploring the irrational, illogical, inexplicable, strange, and utterly fantastical world that is surrealism.”

If you think this may be too academic, not to worry, “It’s an experiential thing,” Beyer said. “Whether you know a lot or nothing, you should be able to enjoy it. We even say in our program note: ‘this will tell you everything or nothing that you need to know to comprehend the following events.’ Surrealism does cover the gamut of the arts and more, and I think that has been a big part of its lasting relevance.” [Read more…]

No Exit: season highlights at Heights Arts (May 13)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

No Exit gave another of their enticing concerts on Saturday in one of Cleveland’s friendliest of venues, the Heights Arts Gallery on Lee Road. Highlighting selections from the ensemble’s 2022-2023 season, the May 13 program featured music for solo clarinet, string duo, and percussion, all written during the last two decades or so.

If there was anything to complain about, it was the loud air fan in the gallery ceiling that just…never…stopped. The lasting impression of this No Exit concert, however, was of interesting new works played by musicians who really knew what they were doing.

[Read more…]

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