Tack Center to host multimedia ‘Condition Blue’
On Thursday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m, Spencer’s LuCille Tack Center for the Arts will present “CORDIS Condition Blue: The Acoustics of Aquatics.”
The event may best be described by explaining what it isn’t. It isn’t solely a music performance. It isn’t solely a multi-media light show, and it isn’t solely a showcase of some of the most creative and mind-bending water, and non-water-based, instruments on the planet.
Condition Blue offers its audience an opportunity to experience the collective and collaborative efforts and effects of all these unique elements coming together in a way they never have before. According to Richard Grimes, the mind and artistic director of CORDIS, “The content is new; the ideas are fresh.”
This spectacular multi-media event features CORDIS’ expressive and edgy signature rock sound – that of cimbalom (a Hungarian hammered dulcimer), percussion, guitar, cello and keyboard – carefully woven together with the unlikely tone colors of vintage Underwood typewriters, pitched wind tubes and the world’s longest-playing cylinder-driven music box.
These non-traditional rock instruments are played by five professional musicians whose regular gigs range from drumming in Broadway’s “The Lion King” to composing movie soundtracks.
Admirers of bands such as Minnesota’s Cloud Cult and Iceland’s Sigur Ros, will find much in common with CORDIS.
During Condition Blue, video footage intermingles with dramatic lighting/ production, tastefully threading throughout the performance to support the themes being explored: ice, then water, and finally steam.
Visuals of icebergs fracking, icicles melting, dramatic waves crashing, along with clouds and atmospheric rivers, all artfully curated by The National Geographic Society, are layered behind the music created by CORDIS.
Members of CORDIS have toured the U.S. every autumn for 18 years, bringing their unique event to appreciative audiences in big-city and rural community venues, and everywhere in between.
“This is an opportunity to participate in a live music performance that’s totally outside the norm,” Grimes adds. “If you think you can imagine what this show will be like, believe me, you have no idea. It must be experienced!”
Tickets for “CORDIS Condition Blue: The Acoustics of Aquatics” may be purchased online at lucilletackcenter. com or by calling 715-659-4499.
The show is sponsored in part by the generosity of Ruby Thomas, Randy and Diane Veale, Dr Bruce and Cathy Wineman, the Wisconsin Arts Board and a Community Enhancement Grant from the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin.
