Approaching
2023

 		Ališka (see sample video) use headphones
Video and Sound by Dan Senn
duration 6:52

Approaching Ališka (2023) was filmed at Karlovo  náměstí in Prague on April 7, 2017 and completed on July 28, 2023 at Studio FMEra in Watertown, Wisconsin. The video in self-explanatory. The sound track was improvised in about 1996 at Shy Anne Studios in Tacoma, WA, by Senn performing his Shmoos Harp and released under the title of "Es Ist So Einfach Zusterben", the last words spoken by Carl Schurz as he passed. Eliška Krásnohorská (1847-1926) and Carl Schurz (1829-1906) were social progressives. Ironically, Schurz lived in Watertown, WI where is wife Margarethe Meyer, an innovator in education, initiated America's first kindergarten where Senn lives now. Senn likewise resides in Prague. The sound track is unedited. DS 072823

Eliška Krásnohorská, to whom this work is dedicated, was a Czech feminist author who wrote works of lyric poetry and literary criticism. She is usually associated with children's literature and translations, including works by Pushkin, Mickiewicz and Byron but wrote the libretti for several operas by Bedřich Smetana including The Kiss, The Secret, The Devil's Wall and Viola. Her poetry was also used in Anton Dvořák songs. In 1890 she founded the Minerva School in Prague, the first gymnasium for girls in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The language of instruction was Czech.
Dan Senn (Prague-Watertown) is an intermedia artist working in music composition and production, kinetic sound sculpture, experimental and documentary film. He has been a professor of music and art in the United States and Australia and travels internationally as a lecturer, performer and installation artist. He lives in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx festivals, and Watertown, Wisconsin, the USA. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and languages depending upon the aesthetic joust at hand. Dan is cofounder of Roulette Intermedium in New York City, Cascadia Composers of Portland Oregon, and the Echofluxx media festivals in Prague. (read more).