The Exquisite Risk of Civil War Brass
The 1st Brigade Band - Winner at the da Vinci Film and Video Festival
A documentary by Dan Senn | Motivations: Artist Statement
"In
1999, I took a day off a lecture tour to visit my folks in Watertown,
Wisconsin, and while driving around and reminiscing I noticed
that a new organization had moved into the nearby Congregational
Church. Disappointed, because this church had played an important
role in developing a social conscience in me during the 1960s,
I recovered to learn that it was now the home of a Civil War reenactment
band called the 1st Brigade Band, a volunteer organization known
for its performances on vintage Civil War instruments. As a lapsed
brass player and inventor of sculptural instruments, the focus
of my lectures, I was curious and then fortunate to attend a rehearsal
that very evening where I observed an ensemble of about 40 men
and woman playing an odd collection of brass instruments, with
bells pointing in every direction, producing a wonderfully resonant
and mellow sound unlike anything I had heard before. After some
discreet questioning, I learned that these instruments had been
experimental in the 1860's and exhibited many of the same peculiar
traits of my sculptural instruments, that is, an innate awkwardness
which rendered them difficult to play by the standards of modern
instruments. With my instruments, I had come to think of this
built-in resistance as a kind of opaqueness which contrasted the
transparency of more efficient and easy-to-play instruments, an
awareness that originated in my experiences with raku pottery
in the 1970's. Yet, in my current work this opaqueness had evolved
consciously, as a by-product of balancing visual and aural criteria,
and after many years of performing and exhibiting my instruments,
as I "negotiated" with them in an odd anthropomorphic
dance, I had been fundamentally changed. Therefore, as I experienced
the beautiful music of this community band I was curious to learn
the nature of the imperfection in their instruments and how ongoing
exposure was affecting band members as individuals and as an ensemble.
At what level were they being drawn to these instruments and the
organization? What was the nature of this interaction? Was it
an unconscious integration with a conscience-raising result? Perhaps
the impact, as I had experienced it in my own work, was being
masked by organizational and social concerns? Maybe it was all
so much of nothing? I had to find out and The Exquisite Risk of
Civil War Brass: The 1st Brigade Band is the result of these inquiries,
through interviews and recording the band in action, an effort
which was greeted with extraordinary helpfulness and kindness
by the band for which I am very thankful." Dan Senn, director.
| synopsis
| director bio | press
| video stills | extended
bio | Dan Senn | The 1st Brigade Band
|
"In
1999, I took a day off a lecture tour to visit my folks in Watertown,
Wisconsin, and while driving around and reminiscing I noticed
that a new organization had moved into the nearby Congregational
Church. Disappointed, because this church had played an important
role in developing a social conscience in me during the 1960s,
I recovered to learn that it was now the home of a Civil War reenactment
band called the 1st Brigade Band, a volunteer organization known
for its performances on vintage Civil War instruments. As a lapsed
brass player and inventor of sculptural instruments, the focus
of my lectures, I was curious and then fortunate to attend a rehearsal
that very evening where I observed an ensemble of about 40 men
and woman playing an odd collection of brass instruments, with
bells pointing in every direction, producing a wonderfully resonant
and mellow sound unlike anything I had heard before. After some
discreet questioning, I learned that these instruments had been
experimental in the 1860's and exhibited many of the same peculiar
traits of my sculptural instruments, that is, an innate awkwardness
which rendered them difficult to play by the standards of modern
instruments. With my instruments, I had come to think of this
built-in resistance as a kind of opaqueness which contrasted the
transparency of more efficient and easy-to-play instruments, an
awareness that originated in my experiences with raku pottery
in the 1970's. Yet, in my current work this opaqueness had evolved
consciously, as a by-product of balancing visual and aural criteria,
and after many years of performing and exhibiting my instruments,
as I "negotiated" with them in an odd anthropomorphic
dance, I had been fundamentally changed. Therefore, as I experienced
the beautiful music of this community band I was curious to learn
the nature of the imperfection in their instruments and how ongoing
exposure was affecting band members as individuals and as an ensemble.
At what level were they being drawn to these instruments and the
organization? What was the nature of this interaction? Was it
an unconscious integration with a conscience-raising result? Perhaps
the impact, as I had experienced it in my own work, was being
masked by organizational and social concerns? Maybe it was all
so much of nothing? I had to find out and The Exquisite Risk of
Civil War Brass: The 1st Brigade Band is the result of these inquiries,
through interviews and recording the band in action, an effort
which was greeted with extraordinary helpfulness and kindness
by the band for which I am very thankful." Dan Senn, director.