back
In Praise of Disorder
Performance
In Praise of Disorder, 2013
Music, concept & performance, joana sá
Visual concept, daniel costa neves
Videos, daniel costa neves & pedro diniz reis
Light design, daniel costa neves & tela negra
Sound operation, hélder nelson
Light operation, tela negra
Premiered at Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, Lisboa (2013)
There is something of a skeptical respect between the arts; a respect for the work of another over matter one does not master. Composers tend to see and read the world as if they were listening. In Through This Looking Glass (2010), Joana Sá had us reading some of the texts that belong to her world of sounds and to a performance Daniel Costa Neves translated into images - texts and images that baptize the exploration of an enormous musical freedom. Always in search of the liberation, the energy and the surprise of a gesture in sound, In Praise of Disorder is more rigid in form, doing away with image and giving voice to texts by Gonçalo M. Tavares. The speech organizes the thoughts that filter the multiple, disorderly, eccentric, voluble mind. The music is the Praise of Disorder that goes on in our heads, fit to give us back (awkwardly, at times painfully) not only the multiplicity of ideas, images, sounds and even voids, but mostly their simultaneity. That is why Joana Sá, through techniques that once belonged solely to studio settings in concert, uses the recording to put the listener in the place of the pianist, of the composer and of Rosinda Costa, watching, reading and speaking.
Guilherme Proença
Record
In Praise of Disorder, Shhpuma 2013
Photos © Nuno Carvalho
Music & performance, Joana Sá
Voice, Rosinda Costa
Texts, Gonçalo M. Tavares (fragments taken from 'animalescos', 'O Senhor Swedenborg e as Investigações geométricas' e 'Uma viagem à Índia')
Recorded at Universidade de Aveiro by Hélder Nelson
Mixed and mastered by Eduardo Raon
Bells and sirens installation conceived by Joana Sá & Luís J Martins and made by Luís J Martins
Noise boxes made by André Castro
Executive production by Trem Azul & Shhpuma
Design: Luís Henriques (O Homem do Saco)
Booklet made at O Homem do Saco by Luís Henriques and Mariana Pinto dos Santos
There is something of a skeptical respect between the arts; a respect for the work of another over matter one does not master. Composers tend to see and read the world as if they were listening. In Through This Looking Glass (2010), Joana Sá had us reading some of the texts that belong to her world of sounds and to a performance Daniel Costa Neves translated into images - texts and images that baptize the exploration of an enormous musical freedom. Always in search of the liberation, the energy and the surprise of a gesture in sound, In Praise of Disorder is more rigid in form, doing away with image and giving voice to texts by Gonçalo M. Tavares. The speech organizes the thoughts that filter the multiple, disorderly, eccentric, voluble mind. The music is the Praise of Disorder that goes on in our heads, fit to give us back (awkwardly, at times painfully) not only the multiplicity of ideas, images, sounds and even voids, but mostly their simultaneity. That is why Joana Sá, through techniques that once belonged solely to studio settings in concert, uses the recording to put the listener in the place of the pianist, of the composer and of Rosinda Costa, watching, reading and speaking.
Guilherme Proença
Press
Downtown Music Gallery, NY (USA) “In my opinion Joana Sa is the most remarkable artist of any kind to come out of Portugal in recent years. Meticulous, creative, open, she build her own language as composer and pianist. This is not just a solo piano album, here she's going through her normal process of exploring the limits of the instrument and her imagination either using the instrument as a drum, electronic device or just the melodic part of it. Uncategorized as all of her work, "In Praise of Desorder" is something not to be missed at all”, Bruce Lee Gallanter (November 2013).
Link: www.downtownmusicgallery.com/main/news/newsletter-2013-11-01.html
All About Jazz (USA) “One of best new discoveries of this year. A highly original Portuguese composer- pianist who weave abstract musical textures, poetic texts and images into a mesmerizing work. Check also on this label another exceptional album of Sá with guitarist Luís José Martins, Almost a Song, a collection of loose recipes that may be, and most likely may not, songs”, Eyal Hareuveni (December 2013). .
Link: www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=46099#.UvF2afYsK-L
Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review (USA) “Joana's music has a flow to it that after hearing a few times seems unique but somehow appropriate. The music has a natural quality that is ultramodernistic nonetheless. What strikes me in her music, especially here, is the mastery of avant techniques harnessed to a sureness of purpose that brings together aspects of the classical avant and the free-improvisatory schools. All clearly and movingly holds together as compositional.” “I am especially impressed with how this music after several hearings continually stimulates the hearer's imagination with a master sound-painter's expert touch and larger vision. Nothing sounds random and yet there is continuous sound-invention without much at all in the way of repetition.” “In Praise of Disorder has a monumental elocutionary eloquence to it that puts it on rarified turf. Anyone with an interest in the avant garde today should listen closely”, Grego Applegate Edward (March 2014).
Link: classicalmodernmusic.blogspot.pt/2014/03/joana-sa-elogio-da-desordem-in- praise.html
Le son du grisly (FR) “A celles et ceux qui furent hypnotisé(e)s par l’entêtante musique du Tabou de Miguel Gomes, on conseillera vivement cet Elogio da desordem. Parce que multi-facettes (musique de films, improvisation, concertos pour piano de Cage...), Joana Sá captive. Après l’écoute de cet enregistrement solo, nous pouvons rajouter : envoûte” “L’univers de la pianiste portugaise est ample, infini. C’est un royaume de mélanges et de fusions. Les voix s’imbriquent. Elles chuchotent, murmurent. Le piano est anxiogène ici, éclaté ailleurs. Il sillonne la rafale, s’interrompt brusquement. Il est violence et ne s’approche que de très loin de la douceur. On pourra refuser cette tentation du brouillage. Ou s’abandonner à sa perte. Comme un cauchemar, les tensions s’amplifient, gomment le jeu de la pianiste. Ici, l’on grésille, l’on grignote et l’on abîme l’évidence. Ici, sonnettes et sirènes aiment à faire sursauter l’auditeur. Ici, le désordre se consomme large et sans prudence. Et l’on aime cela. Passionnément, intensément.” Luc Bouquet (January 2014).
Link: grisli.canalblog.com/archives/2014/01/30/29076124.html
ÍPSILON, PÚBLICO (PT) “ 4*” “Joana Sá is never one to chose the past of least resistance in her work, constantly placing herself in the line of fire. But it is in that singular breath, in which disorder can turn into a despairing breathlessness (as is the case in the superb title track), that she tests the limits of her instrument and conceives music that takes chances and is unafraid of plunging into the unknown. Listening to Joana Sá is still the privilege of accessing an autonomous musical language, one that is bold and stubbornly intent on calling itself into question. An almost continual cause for wonder and amazement, In Praise of Disorder is the second piece in a solo trilogy which, it is plain to see, asserts her as one of the most original ‘voices’ of our time.” Gonçalo Frota (October 2013).
Link: http://ipsilon.publico.pt/musica/critica.aspx?id=325836
JAZZ.PT (PT) “This music stirs, grows, disturbs, moves. It summons different emotional states, and does so with unwavering elegance. For this disorder all there shall be nothing but praise.“ Nuno Catarino
Link: http://www.jazz.pt/ponto-escuta/2013/10/31/joana-sa-elogio-da-desordem-shhpuma/
